Husband and Wives (23 page)

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘I called in an emergency removal. We need to meet CPS over at the trailer,’ she said.

The part of the job I truly hated.

TEN

Jean Mcdonnell – Saturday

B
y the time we got back to the trailer, CPS was already there. When Milt stopped the Jeep behind the CPS sedan, Charlotta, the mother, came running at us, flailing her arms and ramming the driver’s side window with her fists.

‘Why you doing this to me?’ she shouted through the closed window. ‘I din’ do nothin’ to you! You can’t take away my babies! You can’t!’

A woman with CPS had already picked up the filthy toddler and had him wrapped in a light blanket; another employee, also a woman, had the little girl, Destiny, by the hand.

‘Mama, ’bye,’ Destiny called out. ‘See ya later!’

Charlotta whirled around. ‘You ain’t taking them!’ she screamed, running at the woman holding the toddler, and pulling at her son’s arm. The baby began to cry and the woman holding him grabbed Charlotta’s arm, trying to release her grip on the baby.

‘Mama, don’t!’ Destiny cried. ‘You gonna hurt Dustin!’

Milt jumped out of the car and managed to get Charlotta’s hands behind her back.

‘Are you gonna act right or am I gonna have to arrest you?’ Milt asked her.

‘They’re taking my babies!’ she screamed, tears and mucus covering her face.

I managed to get out of the car and get my crutches under my arms. I made my way to where Milt was holding Charlotta.

‘Charlotta, listen to me,’ I said, getting in her face to try to find eye contact. ‘Your children are not being taken care of. They’re undernourished, they’re dirty, and you left them outside by themselves—’

‘No I didn’t! No I didn’t!’ Charlotta screamed. ‘I was coming right out! You seen me! I came right out, didn’t I? I didn’t leave ’em for no time! You gotta believe me! Honest I didn’t leave ’em for no time!’

‘Charlotta, you’re stoned. You need to get cleaned up and stay that way before you can get your children ba––’

‘How long I gotta stay clean?’ Charlotta asked as she pulled away from Milt. ‘I can do it! I stayed clean for a month when I was knocked up with Dustin! Din’ I, Destiny? Din’ I stay clean for almost a month that time?’

‘Yes, Mama,’ Destiny sang out from inside the CPS sedan.

‘No, Charlotta,’ I said, taking her arm, turning her to look at me. ‘You have to stay clean forever. You can’t go back. Are you doing crystal or crack or—’

‘Crystal, but just a smidge,’ she said, indicating a tiny amount with her thumb and index finger.

‘You can’t do any, Charlotta,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to get clean and stay that way.’

Charlotta stood staring at me, her hands on her hips. A mean look appeared on her face. ‘You got kids, crip?’ she asked.

‘We’re not talking about me, Charlotta—’

‘Oh, hell, no you don’t, bitch! I asked you a civil question, gimp! You got kids?’

‘That’s enough . . .’ Milt started, grabbing for Charlotta’s arm.

She pulled away and I looked at Milt, shaking my head. Finally, I looked at Charlotta and said, ‘Yes, I have a son.’

‘And they let you keep him?’ she yelled. ‘Hell, you can barely walk! They let you keep your kid! Why can’t I keep mine? At least I got my own two feet and they work!’

I looked at Milt. ‘She’s stoned. I can’t talk to her this way. It’s your call whether you take her in or not. As long as we get the kids out of here, I’m OK,’ I told him.

‘Oh no you ain’t!’ Charlotta yelled, and came at me, arms out, hands curled like talons. I raised one crutch and tripped her. She fell flat on her face in the dry Oklahoma dirt as the CPS sedan pulled out of the dusty driveway.

Milt reached down to help her up. Charlotta was crying, sobbing like her heart was breaking, and part of me felt for her. Unfortunately for her, the larger part of me felt only for her children. As bad as the system can be, foster care, in this case, had to be preferable to the birth mother.

I dug in my pocket and found one of my business cards. I handed it to Charlotta. ‘Call me when you’re sober,’ I told her. ‘You need to go to rehab before you can get your children back.’

She took the card, spat on it, and tossed it in the dirt. ‘Fuck you, bitch!’ she yelled, pulling away from Milt.

Milt and I got back in his Jeep and drove away in a cloud of Oklahoma dust.

Milt Kovak – Saturday

I dropped Jean off at the hospital and headed over to Tejas County to the sheriff’s office and an interview with Earl Mayhew Jr, aka Buddy.

‘You gonna take him back to Prophesy with you?’ Bill asked me.

‘We’ll see,’ I answered.

‘Well, don’t expect me to keep him here overnight. I ain’t got the budget for it anymore. They cut my night guy out entirely and there’s no overtime, so I can’t keep him.’

‘If he looks good for it, I’ll take him with me. If not, he can go home.’

‘You’ll have to give him a ride,’ Bill said. ‘Nothin’ in the budget for taxi service.’

‘All right, all right,’ I said, heading back to his cells. One of the deputies gave me the keys, as they no longer have a jailer due to budget cuts. As we never did have a jailer, I didn’t really feel all that sorry for Bill.

Buddy was sitting in a cell, on a mattress covered in dried blood and urine, his hands in his lap and his head down.

‘Hey, Buddy,’ I said.

He looked up. ‘Oh. Hey, Sheriff,’ he said.

‘Sorry about the lock-up,’ I said. ‘I thought they were just gonna hold you in an interrogation room or something. Didn’t know they were gonna lock you up.’ Sometimes, to get on the good side of a perp, a police officer has to fudge the truth. But a cop’s gotta do what a cop’s gotta do.

Buddy shrugged.

I unlocked the cell door and went inside, closing the door behind me. I took a seat across from him, on another blood-and-urine-stained mattress.

‘Buddy, look at me,’ I said.

His head came up.

‘We need to talk,’ I said.

‘Where’s David?’ he asked.

My turn to shrug. It’s not like he actually
asked
for an attorney.

‘Buddy,’ I said, ‘I need to ask you about Sister Mary Hudson. I know you liked her.’

Buddy shrugged again.

‘You didn’t like her?’

Again, the shrug.

I sighed. ‘Buddy, you gotta say something. If you don’t, then I gotta leave and go back to my county, and I guess just leave you here. Is that what you want?’

He shook his head.

‘Buddy!’

‘No, that ain’t what I want,’ he said, his voice low.

‘Then talk to me. Did you or didn’t you like Sister Mary Hudson?’

‘I liked her, all right,’ he said.

‘Is that why you spied on her through the window of the kindergarten room?’

He shrugged again, thought better of it, and said, ‘I wasn’t spying.’

‘Buddy, don’t fib,’ I said.

Again, he sighed. ‘I was just looking,’ he said, a whine to his voice. ‘She was real pretty, and real nice. And real good with the little kids.’

‘I hear she was a real nice lady. You talk to her much?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘Sometimes she’d say hello to me and I’d say hello back, and once she said ain’t it a pretty morning, and I said I reckon so.’

I smiled. ‘Sounds like y’all were friends,’ I said.

He smiled back. ‘Yeah, reckon so.’ And he laughed.

‘Y’all ever talk off the church grounds?’ I asked him.

He shook his head. Then he looked up at me and said, ‘Is the parking lot offa church grounds?’

‘You talked to her in the parking lot?’ I asked.

‘Yeah.’ He beamed at me. ‘One Sunday I helped her bring in some stuff from her car. Her husband wasn’t there that morning and she needed help and I helped her.’

‘That’s great, Buddy,’ I said, beginning to realize that ol’ Buddy was maybe a taco short of an enchilada special. ‘You ever go over to Sister Mary’s house?’ I asked.

He thought about it for a moment and said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘What do you mean you don’t think so, Buddy? Either you went over there or you didn’t.’

‘My daddy goes to visit lots of his parishioners and I go with him sometimes, but mostly I stay in the car.’

‘So maybe you went with your daddy to visit Brother Jerry Hudson and his family, and maybe you saw Sister Mary while your daddy was in visiting with Brother Jerry?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘And you remembered where Sister Mary lived, and you decided to go back and visit—’

‘I don’t think so, Sheriff. I’m like real sure I didn’t do that, Sheriff,’ he said.

‘Buddy, did you hear that someone hurt Sister Mary?’ I asked.

He nodded his head, looking down again at his hands. ‘They was going to bury her today, but my daddy wouldn’t let me come. He said you’d be looking for me.’

‘It’s too bad you didn’t get to say goodbye,’ I said.

‘Oh, I did. I said goodbye to Sister Mary,’ Buddy said.

I frowned. ‘When was that, Buddy?’

‘When was what?’ he asked, frowning back.

Trying hard to keep my patience, I said, ‘When you said goodbye to Sister Mary. When did you do that?’

‘Last Sunday when she was leaving the nursery with her little boy,’ Buddy said.

‘Baby Mark?’ I said.

‘Um hum,’ Buddy said, beaming. ‘He likes me. He smiles at me.’

‘That’s good, Buddy.’

So much for my interview with Earl Mayhew Jr, aka Buddy.

It was getting dark when I dropped Buddy Mayhew off at the New Saints Tabernacle. Since the tabernacle was at the northeast end of Tejas County and the township of Bishop, wherein lay the overly fancy subdivision of The Branches, was at the north-west end of Prophesy County, it was but a hop, skip and jump from one to the other. I called Jean and told her I’d pick up Johnny Mac at my sister’s house while I was there, and found out Jean had already done it. So I told her I’d probably miss dinner as I needed to talk to the security guard at The Branches and, while I was there, maybe check in on the Hudsons.

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ my wife said. ‘It’s been a rough day for them. Knowing you’re still trying to find out who killed Mary might lessen the burden.’

Thinking my wife had higher hopes of me solving this mess than I did, I said ’bye and hung up.

Being a Saturday night and all, I had a feeling I was going to have a hard time finding Maynard Ritchie, head of security at The Branches, but I was in luck. Turns out his weekend guy didn’t show up, and Maynard was manning the front entrance himself. I pulled up, saw it was him, told him we needed to talk, and he pointed beyond the guard shack to where another car was parked. I recognized it as the car Ritchie drove onto the cul-de-sac the day Mary Hudson was killed. I parked next to it, got out and headed to the guard shack.

‘Hey, Sheriff,’ Ritchie said. ‘Have a seat,’ he said, pointing to the only stool in the small space.

As I’d been driving around a bunch that day, I said, ‘I’m fine standing, Mr Ritchie, but thank you.’

‘Actually, Sheriff, it’s Captain,’ he said, turning a little red. ‘Just one of them honorariums places like this like to give out instead of a decent salary. I’d rather you just called me Maynard.’

I held out my hand. ‘Fine with me, Maynard. I go mostly by Milt.’

So we shook on it, and I got down to business.

‘Here’s the thing, Maynard,’ I said. ‘It’s been like five days since Mrs Hudson was killed, and you know what it’s like. You don’t solve a whodunnit in twenty-four to forty-eight hours, you might as well give it up. But I don’t wanna do that. I think the Hudson family deserves some closure, so I’m still working it.’

‘Glad to hear that, Milt. Thing is, we want this solved too. Looks bad for my security team, and it looks bad for The Branches. We’ve had two buyers back out after the news came out, and I’ve been on the carpet twice with the bigwigs. Not to mention we got people threatening to quit the country club ’cause of this. So anything I can do to help, I’ll do.’

‘You heard anything this week that sounds interesting? Gossip, innuendo – hell, I’ll take whatever I can get.’

‘Well, people are talking about them being bigamists and all. Not that many people knew until Mrs Hudson got herself killed. Been talk at the schools – elementary anyway – about making the kids leave because these dumbass parents don’t want to have to explain anything to their kids. Hell, they don’t have a problem with “Jimmy’s got two daddies” and “Mary only has a mother and a test tube,” so what’s the problem with “Jacob has one daddy and fourteen mamas?” Huh?’

‘See your point,’ I said.

‘But, hell, I can’t say anything to these people. Ain’t my job. I just say “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir,” and shut the fuck up. Excuse my French.’

‘So there’s some resistance to the plural family, huh?’

‘Yeah. A few people don’t mind, the liberals anyway. You know how they are, live and let live. Hell, they’d let a two-headed commie lesbo live here if it was up to them.’

‘Don’t see many of them,’ I said.

‘Liberals?’

‘No, two-headed commie lesbos,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘I’m just saying,’ he said.

‘I hear ya,’ I said. ‘The day it happened, anybody come in The Branches that didn’t belong?’

‘Yeah, I got that sheet here. I pulled it, was gonna bring it over to you, but you know how it goes.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, taking the sheet he handed me.

‘As you can see, nothing but workmen mostly.’ He pointed to each name. ‘This guy went to the Murrays on Chase Point to fix the trash compactor. This one went to Mrs Greene’s house, over on Stanton Circle, says plumbing. I know she’s been having a lot of problems. Looks like a new plumber. Here’s a flower delivery over at the Macabees on Delta Gardens for their daughter home from college, and this last one was the usual UPS guy. He had four deliveries: the Davises, the Washingtons, the Millers, and the Renterias. Need their street names?’

‘Naw,’ I said, already bored and hardly listening. ‘Anything else you can think of?’ I asked.

‘Uh uh,’ he said. ‘You want a copy of this?’

I nodded and he uncovered a small copy machine and ran the sign-in sheet through, giving me the copy.

‘Country club keeps its own sign-in. It’s got members from all over the county, not just The Branches. Got its own entrance too.’