Mad Max: Unintended Consequences (15 page)

When I thought about the last days of Merry's life, I wondered if I hadn't set a chain of events in motion that led to her murder. Did I somehow cause it? Was this an example of unintended consequences? I did what I thought best at the time to protect our family. Merry never mentioned the attack on Hunter's car, never suspected I was two degrees removed from it. I was pretty certain she didn't know I found out about the safe-deposit box or that it was empty.

I visited each of the three banks downtown near the corner Emilie remembered until I found the one where Merry rented the box. I was sure she hadn't emptied it yet because Hunter was still texting her about the money. I figured out how to talk my way into the vault to empty the contents of the box. Johnny and I discussed it over dinner, and he agreed with my scheme. We were the witch and the warlock, hovering over a bubbling cauldron, stirring and sniffing and muttering incantations.

I decided to use a little social engineering and all of my acting skills. I'd forged Merry's signature all year on school forms for Alex and Emilie, so I knew I could sign the card without hesitation. I was worried, though. What if I met a bank attendant who knew Merry? I sure didn't look like her any longer.

On the morning Merry was murdered, I wore a large floppy hat and huge sunglasses. Oh, and gloves. I made up a terrific story about a recent surgery, but the clerk didn't so much as look at me or say boo diddly. Had she looked closely, she would have been more than likely to remember the bold disguise rather than the face of the woman under the screaming pink polka dot hat.

The box was in both Merry's and Hunter's names. No surprise there. She was so obsessed with the bastard she couldn't see how she was being manipulated. Hunter opened the box three times, leading me to think he'd siphoned off some of the money. I signed the card and followed the clerk into the vault. We inserted our keys, and she left. When I lifted the box, I damned near dropped the thing on my foot. Heavy son of a gun. I opened it and found bricks of money. Lots of bricks. A pile of unwrapped money too. I emptied everything into my oversized bag, replaced the box, and shrugged the bag onto my shoulder, all but falling sideways under the unaccustomed weight.

When I returned home, I locked myself in my bedroom, dumped the contents of the bag on my bed and counted. And counted. Three hundred thousand. One hundred thousand plus short of the total I knew Merry took. A lot of the missing cash went into the new Hummer, but not all of it. I stuffed the money back into my tote and hid it in the back of my closet. Dumb maybe, but I couldn't think of a better place at the time. I would have to have it out with Merry when she discovered the empty box. We both ran out of time.

Lucky for me, when the police searched the house, they didn't go into my bedroom. Finding the money would have been awkward. They searched Merry and Whip's bedroom and Whip's office but left the rest of the house alone. If I'd have been a cop investigating a murder, I'd have turned the entire house inside out.

I couldn't help but wonder if Hunter had gone to the bank after I did. I imagined Hunter wild with rage if he looked at the signature card, which showed Merry visiting the box the day she died. Could finding the box empty have sent him over the edge?

At the time, I never thought taking the money would cause Merry harm. I thought I was being extremely clever. In the back of my mind, I half-hoped it would provoke a final argument between my daughter and Hunter. Maybe it'd lead to the creep walking out. Maybe it would jolt Merry back to her senses. I'd have given the entire wad of cash to charity to see their confrontation. I never thought he'd kill her.

I didn't have to think about who killed Merry and why she died. I knew it wasn't Whip. He'd have killed Hunter before Merry, yet he had already taken out his revenge on the bastard. Unless this was a random push-in robbery gone wrong, the killer had to be Hunter.

I needed to talk with Whip. He didn't know I had the money. After Merry was murdered, the police arrested him before I had time to tell him anything.

I woke up around four in the morning. I'd dreamed Whip was locked in a six-by-eight cage. It was no dream. I changed sopping wet pajamas and returned to bed, not to sleep but to plot.

At first, I wasn't allowed to visit Whip. The police told him he could see no one except his attorney, but they relented and let him see me at least once a day. Then they let me come in whenever I needed to. Wonder if my call to the chief of police had anything to do with relaxing the rules.

The police, all but his friend Jerry and maybe the chief, were certain he killed Merry. Case closed quickly and efficiently. Jerry knew he was innocent, but he was off the case because of a potential conflict of interest. They went to the target range together, and Jerry arrested Merry the night she stabbed Whip. Nothing, however, was going to get Whip out of jail.

Neither Whip nor I knew squat about what evidence the police thought they had. We needed a criminal lawyer. I wasn't about to let the court assign a public defender, so I did some asking around. I called Whip's divorce counsel the day he was arrested. Mama Cass didn't practice criminal law, but she gave me the name of the best criminal lawyer in Richmond. Next, I called an old friend, the president of my bank, for a recommendation. Both the banker and Mama Cass recommended Vincent Bodine.

“Don't let his mild looks fool you, Mrs. Davies,” the bank president said. “Vince is a wizard in the courtroom. Give him the right circumstances, and he's a piranha.”

“I found a good attorney. Vincent Bodine is supposed to be the best in the town.” I blurted out the news as soon as Whip entered the interview room.

“Wish his name ended with a pronounced vowel. Wish they called him Vinnie.”

“Do you think you need a ‘connected’ lawyer? Vincent Bodine isn't Italian.”

“Nah. Feeble joke. No mob lawyer needed.”

“He's coming in to meet you this afternoon. I'll be back, if you like.”

“I like.”

I ran my usual errands before presenting myself to the desk sergeant again. Vince was already in the interview room when Pete, Whip's jailer, opened the door to let me in. I'd talked with him by phone, so we shook hands.

I wasn't impressed with Vince's looks: middle height, mousy-brown, thinning hair, nondescript tan eyes, untanned skin. He was pale. No distinguishing features. Just pale.

Whip came in five minutes after I did.

“My sole responsibility is to prove the prosecution's case is wrong or expose enough holes in it to throw doubt on the jury.” Vince laid some colored file folders on the table. Each had Whip's name on the left side of the tab.

“I didn't kill my wife,” Whip said.

“Of course. I don't have to prove your innocence. I have to beat the DA.”

“What about the possibility someone else killed Merry?” Whip's lowered brow warned me he didn't like what Vince said.

“Not my job, Mr. Pugh.”

“Whip.”

“Okay, Whip. I don't solve crimes. That's what the police do.”

“How do we expose the real killer?” I, too, didn't like where this was going.

“You don't, Mrs. Davies. Leave Whip's representation to me. You could get hurt if you go chasing everyone you think may have killed your daughter.”

Not everyone. Just Hunter.

“I don't want to sit in jail waiting for my trial. I want out now.”

“Not much chance of that until I find out what you're charged with. No court will grant bail if the district attorney goes for murder or even manslaughter. I'll press for a date to hear the indictment within a few days. Afterward, the district attorney will have to turn over their evidence. Then we'll see what they have.”

Life didn't come with a user manual. When you faced something you'd never faced before, you made up the rules as you went along, but my family's future was too important to wing it.

From what Whip told me, the police weren't looking for anyone else for Merry's murder. Jailhouse scuttlebutt and local reporters said the police had the right guy. Maybe I could get Jerry to help. Off the record, of course.

I knew they were wrong. So did the kids. If the police thought they'd wrapped up the case with Whip's arrest, then we had to prove Hunter was guilty. We needed to find something incriminating in Hunter's background, but I had no idea what it would be, how to get it, or even where it might lead. Or what to do with it when, not if, we found the evidence we needed.

Darla called to offer support. She was torn up over Merry's murder, but I was clueless about how to use her. After Merry moved out, she called Darla several times, but caller ID helped Darla duck the calls. Listening to the voice messages she said was harder to avoid, though; the last one came in two days before Merry's murder.

“How could I turn my back on my chosen sister?” She sobbed.

I understood how she felt. “Who rejected whom? Merry dumped all of us after she fell under Dracula's spell.”

“If only I'd talked to her. Maybe she was afraid. Maybe she was having second thoughts.” Darla snuffled.

“Do you think she wanted to get away from Hunter?”

“I don't know,” Darla wailed. “Likely not, but maybe I could have beaten some sense into her. It's probably wishful thinking. I always thought she'd realize what a mess she'd made leaving with that creep. What a horrible man.”

Another stifled sob. Hunter killed my daughter, but outside of the immediate family, I thought I was a minority of one. I was relieved to find I had company.

“I saw them together in the hospital before one of her early surgeries,” Darla explained, “when he put the move on her at her most vulnerable moment. I told Merry he was bad news, but she raged at me and told me I was jealous. She was going to be perfect, and I wasn't.”

“I saw the same thing before the first surgery. She looked at him with big puppy eyes.”

“Merry told me he kept correcting her manners, changing the way she dressed, telling her to go blond. He wanted her to change almost everything on the outside while he changed her face.”

“He's a total control freak.”

“It's more than that. He had an agenda and forced Merry to go along with it.” Darla stopped snuffling. “Everything he told her to do, she did.”

“I got that too. When I called her on it, she told me to get out of her fucking face. Her words, not mine.”

Hunter's motives were his alone. Merry was nothing but a blank canvas on which to create his version of the ideal woman.

“Yes, she was totally under his spell.”

“I've got to prove Hunter killed her.” My hands were clenched. I wanted to put them around his neck and squeeze the life out of him.

“Whip had nothing to do with Merry's death.”

“No, he didn't.”

Whip took his revenge on Hunter, but I couldn't tell Darla about the fight in the alley.

“Thanks for saying it, though.”

I promised to call her soon. For the moment, I wanted to put dinner on the table. I hung up and called the kids. As usual, it took several hollers up the stairs to pry Alex from his computer.

“We need to help get Dad out of jail.” Emilie piled salad in her bowl and selected a small piece of roasted chicken.

Alex loaded chicken on his plate, along with a couple of pieces of lettuce. He started to say something when he caught my frown. He put some of the chicken back and added a scoop of salad. No matter how inadequate I felt as a detective, I wasn't inadequate in raising children. They needed consistency in my behavior, not a wishy-washy approach to house rules. I saved my uncertainty for the privacy of my bedroom. Echoes of Raney's earlier warning about not blowing this, my second chance at getting child rearing right, sounded in my head.

“Yeah. They've gotta arrest Dracula. He killed Mom.” Alex's intense look scared me. I couldn't find the little boy in it. “Will Dad's new lawyer help?”

“No. His job is to defend Dad. We have to find the murderer.”

“Wow! That's going to be, like, so cool.”

“What can we do? We're just two kids and a grandmother.” Emilie nibbled a piece of cucumber.

“I beg your pardon. Since when did I become just a grandmother?” I flopped back in my chair, placed my hand on my forehead, acting highly insulted. “You guys named me Mad Max. Well, I'm mad as hell. Your dad's not going to get railroaded.”

“So, what're we gonna do?” Alex mumbled around a huge bite of chicken.

I wanted to remind him about not talking with his mouth full, but I decided to let it go. This time.

“Beats the heck out of me. We need a plan. I'm going to talk to Dad's cop friend. We have to start somewhere.”

“We'll help.”

“How?” I didn't want them involved any more than Whip wanted Johnny and me involved the night we set up Hunter.

“Well, we don't know much about Hunter. Alex, can you find out where he came from?” Emilie glanced at her brother, who smiled.

“I Googled him once but didn't find much. I'll ask Freddie how to find him.”

“Freddie?” I cut a bite of chicken.

“He's my college mentor in my computer club. He was also at camp this summer.”

“I see.”

“We need to watch Dracula too. We don't want him to leave town or do anything stupid.” Emilie picked up a cherry tomato between finger and thumb and popped it into her mouth. “We need to find out who Kiki is too. Remember the napkins?”

“I sure do.”

“Let me work on that. It's important, but I'm not sure how.” Emilie selected a piece of carrot and scrutinized it for imperfections.

I could do leg work; Alex could use his computer skills. Kids today were so much more resourceful than in my generation. They had to be, since they were bombarded with everything the electronic age could offer from the day they were born. Emilie could…do what? I decided to let her figure it out for herself. She'd come up with something. Maybe she could watch Hunter by what she was feeling. I was curious to see where it would lead us.

We toasted with milk glasses. With my tiny army, I was more optimistic than I was a few days earlier.

You'd think the police in this little upscale suburb in the middle of Virginia had a serial killer or a cold-blooded murderer in jail the way the media carried on.

“Wife Murdered!”

“Killed in Cold Blood!”

“Shot at Point Blank Range!”

I bounced between the jail and Whip and home and the kids. Emilie and Alex hid in their rooms, serious about their roles in our army, but they each spent way too much time on the computer. I listened when they wanted to talk, which turned out to be every night over dinner. On rare occasions, they actually found something to lead them in a new direction. I wished they'd spend more time with their friends outdoors, though. What an old fogey, thinking children play outside.

I was going nuts being trapped inside the house or car or interview room at the jail. One Saturday morning, I rousted the kids out of bed before ten, told them to put on shorts, packed up our three bikes, and drove to the public park. We rode miles on the bike path, swung on the swings, burned thighs on what might have been the last metal slide still in use, and tossed a Frisbee back and forth. I treated us to ice cream afterward. Later, Emilie confessed she felt loads better having spent half the day outdoors. This from the child who used to spend every summer day in or by the pool.

“We have to enjoy ourselves.” I wiped my sticky fingers with a too-thin paper napkin.

“It's so hard,” Emilie said. “I feel guilty having fun when Mom's dead.”

“I know, but not having fun just because we've all suffered a huge loss isn't healthy. Besides, it won't bring Mom back.”

“Hey, there's always room for ice cream.” Alex polished off his double chocolate fudge cone.

Emilie and I laughed in agreement.

I had many loose ends to tie up, one of which was to clean out Merry's apartment. After Hunter told Merry she couldn't live with him, my daughter told the kids she had her own place. From the way she described it, it was a fabulous apartment. Emilie could visit “when it was convenient.”

When the man from the rental office called, Emilie overheard the conversation and demanded she be allowed to go with me. I wanted to shelter her from the murder scene, but she gave me a look that was pure Merry and pure Emilie too. It was also pure me when she thrust her chin outward. I gave in. The force of her will made me welcome her company.

When I picked up the key, the agent told me to take Merry's junk away immediately, or he'd throw everything out. He had a crew coming in two days to scrub the place from top to bottom. He had a tenant ready to move in and every day was costing him money. Forget the fact Merry's rent was paid through the end of the month and it was only the twentieth. Forget the fact he had no right to tell me to clear the apartment out early. I'd be relieved to have this behind me, though, so I didn't argue.

“Oh, and don't expect to get the security deposit back either.”

I didn't care.

We stood before the locked door, not knowing what to expect. The police seals were broken, so I didn't have to do that. I'd watched enough crime shows to expect blood stains, a room torn up, and fingerprint powder on every hard surface. I gritted my teeth and turned the key. The door stuck. I hugged Emilie for support before putting my shoulder against it. It swung open. Another deep breath, I clasped her hand, and we went inside.

The apartment, shabby in that rent-a-room-fully-furnished sort of way, was neat and clean. No blood splatter on the walls, thank God. No big blood patch on the floor.

“Not exactly the way your mom described it, is it?”

My granddaughter was pale and trembling, her eyes half-closed, a bead of sweat on her upper lip.

A chair rested on its side. Had it tipped over when Merry was murdered or when the police searched the room?

“At first, she was surprised and happy to see Dracula, because she didn't expect him. She'd just finished a bath. She didn't stay happy long, though. They argued,” Emilie whispered. “Later they fought.”

“What do you mean?”

A chill went through me. I shouldn't have brought her. If this haunted her, it'd be my fault.

“Dracula shoved her against the wall over there. He yelled at her.”

“Do you know what he said?”

“He yelled about the money. I think he went to the bank and found the box empty. He said, ‘Where's the fuckin’ money?’”

I'd caused Merry's death.

“Mom tried to walk away, but he grabbed her from behind. He had something hard on his hand, the one he put under Mom's chin.”

The cast. I was mesmerized by the faraway look on Emilie's face.

“Dracula demanded the money again. Then he put a gun behind her right ear and pulled the trigger.” Emilie's chest heaved in a loud sob.

I pulled my granddaughter to me. She wept against my shoulder.

“That's when it all stopped. All my feelings. That's when Mom died.”

No one had told the children any details of Merry's murder, other than she'd been shot. No one mentioned the shot behind one ear, so Emilie couldn't have learned it from overheard conversations. The papers hadn't reported that detail, either.

I held Emilie until she stepped back, wiped her eyes, and pointed to a spot on the rug.

“That's where the police found her. She wore that old pink bathrobe I gave her for Christmas years ago.” Emilie's voice broke, but she steadied herself.

Another unreported fact. I freaked out. I suggested we look around, gather Merry's clothes, and leave this dreadful place. Something was wrong. If this was a crime scene, something was missing. At last, I got it: no trace of fingerprint powder.

I set the chair upright and stepped around a spot on the carpet. It wasn't blood, but spilled liquid dried near the sofa. I didn't want to think about what it was.

Emilie called back that the kitchen was early Goodwill, all mismatched dishes and cheap pots and pans. The fridge held some takeout containers, the food inside long taken over by gray-green fuzz. I tossed her a garbage bag. She emptied all of the food out of the fridge and cupboards and marched the trash out to the dumpster.

I took the bedroom and bath. I didn't expect any surprises. Someone had pulled out every drawer in the chest and thrown the contents across the floor. The police hadn't reported finding the place torn apart. Instinct took over, and I reached down to fold the clothes before Emilie stopped me.

“Wait a minute. The police didn't do this. Dracula did.”

“Are you sure?”

“I feel him searching this room. He didn't find what he wanted. It was later, though. Not the night he killed her. He came back for the money. Why's the money so important?”

I reminded her about Merry putting money in the safe-deposit box. After all, she found the key. I also told her Dracula couldn't get his hands on it, because I had it.

“He was after it all along.”

Emilie took several pictures of the ransacked bedroom with her cell phone. She returned to the living room and took a picture of the end table before sending the photos to Alex.

I looked at the blouse clutched in my hand and at the rest of the clothes scattered about. Most were new and too young looking for Merry's age. They were hers, though, and I didn't want to leave them to be thrown away by uncaring strangers. I folded underclothes, blouses, dresses, skirts, and pants. Some of the blouses were soiled. I rooted around in the closet until I found Merry's suitcases stacked in the rear behind a pile of dirty laundry.

I looked for her jewelry box, the one I delivered to her lawyer so many weeks ago, but it wasn't there. What happened to the four-carat diamond ring Whip gave Merry for their tenth anniversary? Where were the diamond heart-shaped earrings? What about my mother's gold watch?

“Do you see her jewelry case?”

Emilie shook her head.

I started a list of questions for Vince. The first was why the police hadn't dusted the living room for fingerprints. They said the crime scene didn't look like a robbery, yet the bedroom was a shambles. If they'd let me in at the time, I'd have missed the ivory-inlaid ebony jewelry box Whip brought back from Africa.

Emilie walked over to the bathroom door and looked inside. I followed. The bath was shabby, and at the same time it was quintessential Merry—full of potions and salts, lotions, and cleansers. Even before Hunter, she was manic about the latest skin products, wrinkle-prevention creams, exfoliants—whatever was new and expensive. Merry single-handedly helped beauty products become a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. In that way, she was just like her mother.

Something was wrong, but for the life of me I couldn't see it. Emilie stared too. I packed cosmetics in the suitcases with the clothes and took one last look. Then it hit me. “If she'd just emerged from the bath, as the police think, where's the bath sheet?”

“Maybe Dracula wrapped what he took in it.”

Another question for Vince.

I sat on the couch for a moment and waited for Emilie to rejoin me. I thought about other things that should have been there. Her cell. Where the heck was it? Her handbag. Did the police take it as evidence? Or for safeguarding? More questions.

I could get nothing more from the room that had never seen a professional cleaning crew, no matter what the rental agent said. There was nothing of the fabulous apartment Merry told Emilie she'd rented. I put my hand down to brush some crumbs from the brown-striped couch. Merry loved to snack in front of the TV. My face grew tight and my eyes leaked in sorrow, anger, and frustration. Emilie held me this time as we cried for a life cut short. We'd never stop missing a daughter and a mother. Sometime later, I wiped my eyes and opened the door.

An elderly white-haired woman waited in the hallway. She about spooked me.

“Are you related to the poor woman who was killed?”

“My daughter.”

“My mother.”

“I live next door.”

Just what we need—a snoopy neighbor.

“These walls are so thin. I've been waiting since I heard you come in. Would you like a cup of tea?” She smiled at Emilie, who nodded. We introduced ourselves. I pulled the door closed behind me and followed the woman into an overly furnished apartment. A sunnier mirror image of Merry's, it was stuffed with early-American maple, chintz, and ruffles. She poured from a kettle already boiling. She carried a tray with cups, a teapot, and a plate of cookies into the living room.

“I'm Mrs. Curry. I've lived here for thirty years. I've seen residents come and go, but I've never had a murder happen next door.”

Emilie gave the woman her full attention.

Mrs. Curry might be a lonely shut-in excited by the murder, but a cup of tea would soothe our tired souls.

“You don't look like your mother.”

“I used to.”

I noted the bitterness and felt sorrow for my grandchild. My mind drifted while our hostess nattered on, until she said something that swept the cobwebs away.

“Mrs. Curry, you just said you were home the night Merry was shot.”

“Of course. I never go out after dark alone. It's not safe, and I don't drive at night.”

My friend Eleanor was the same. Closing in on seventy-five, she went out after dark if she took a taxi or one of us drove.

“As I said, these walls are so thin. I tried not to listen, but his voice was so loud. Your daughter sounded like she knew him, but she sounded scared. At first I couldn't hear most of what they said, but I heard the anger. Later, I heard more of the conversation, such as it was.”

I had a brief image of Mrs. Curry holding a water glass against the drywall to listen more clearly. I stifled a smile. “Why do you say she was scared?”

“Because she kept begging him to calm down and not hurt her.”

“Did you hear anything else?” With a trembling hand, I put the delicate porcelain cup back on its saucer. I was afraid I'd snap the handle.

“He cursed a lot, like so many of the young do today.”

“He was young?”

“After you reach eighty, almost everyone's young. I could tell from his voice he wasn't my age, so by the process of elimination, he had to be young.” Mrs. Curry patted her white hair. For a second, I saw Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple of PBS's
Masterpiece Theater.
I smiled.

“As I was saying, he cursed. He kept asking where the money was.”

I jumped.
Is this the proof we need that Hunter killed Merry?
I knew where the money was. Whip didn't, not until after Merry's murder. Emilie froze.

“You know what that means?” Mrs. Curry refilled our cups.

“I do. Can you remember his exact words?”

Mrs. Curry closed her eyes for a moment and then leaned forward. “He said, ‘where's the fuckin’ money?’ Then I heard a noise. I thought he slammed a door, but I now think it might have been a gunshot.”

“Do you remember what time it was?”

“Oh, yes. It was a little after nine. Maybe nine-fifteen. A repeat episode of
CSI
had just started.”

“Mrs. Curry, have the police talked to you?” Emilie asked.

“The police? Why, no, they haven't. I assumed they arrested the killer. The papers said he's in jail.” She shook her head. “Such a tragedy.”

“Mrs. Curry, you've been so kind to offer us tea and tell us what you heard. Would you be willing to talk to my son-in-law's lawyer?”

“Of course.”

I took one of her hands in both of mine and stroked the tissue-thin skin of advanced age. “You've given us hope. Please don't believe everything you read. The man in jail, Merry's husband, Emilie's father, my son-in-law, did not kill my daughter.”

I carried the tea tray into the tidy kitchen and rinsed the pot. I set the cups on an embroidered tea towel, and we took our leave.

When we stopped at Merry's apartment to pick up the suitcases and a couple of bags of clothing, a small, darkish object at the edge of the couch glinted in the harsh overhead light. A key. I wrapped it in a tissue and tucked it into my handbag. I knew where its brother was.