My Sister's Keeper (22 page)

Scott snatched them out of his hand. “You’re mishandling my client and I’m going to see to it that it comes back and bites you squarely in that fat ass of yours, Detective.”

Jones drew his thick eyebrows together and sighed. “If you’re through insulting me, Mr. McGillikin, I’m just
dying
to hear your explanation for
this
.” He waved a third set of papers in the air.

“
What is it?”

“
We found your client’s blood type and tire tracks at yet
another
murder scene.” Jones jammed a third set of copies against Scott’s chest. “Like I said, your boy certainly does get around. Don’t he?”

WHEN SCOTT RETURNED, he sat across the table from me, loosened his tie, and began scanning what looked to be official documents.

I slid the notepad toward him. “I wrote it all down. Everything.”

“
Good,” Scott mumbled, clearly distracted by the papers he held.

“
So, what’s Jones so worked up about?”

“
The semen found in Ashleigh’s bed belongs to you.”

“
No way!” I exclaimed jumping to my feet. “That’s impossible! He’s lying. I did
not
have sex with that woman!”

Scott shushed me without looking up. “Careful. These walls have ears. I reminded Jones that you were passed out and that extracting semen from an unconscious man is not a complicated procedure.”

“
What did he say?”

Scott looked up from the papers. “He said they found your tire tracks and blood at another murder scene.”

“
What murder scene?”

Scott looked back at the papers in his hand. “Does Lake Waccamaw ring a bell?”

30

F
ROM THE MOMENT Ashleigh stepped out of that storm into my home, anything having to do with her seemed to happen in a
Twilight Zone
atmosphere. Things around her just did not look, act, or add up the same way they did in the normal world. It was as if some kind of spell had been cast on me.

“
Who? The old man?” I asked.

“
Both. Jackson and his wife.”

I wanted to get the hell out of there. To go out and look for “Rachel’s Diamond.” To work on characters, blocking, and set designs. I wanted to run to my sister and scream.

“
Jesus!” I said, still trying to comprehend what he’d said. “I can’t believe it.” He didn’t answer, or even look up. I drew a slow breath to calm myself as he reached for my notes. “We need to tell them all that stuff I found out today. They need to know it.”

“
Quiet, Richard. Please.”

I touched his arm. “All we did was go out there to talk to Ashleigh’s brother.”

Scott looked up. “We who?”

“
Sydney Deagan was with me.”

Scott’s eyes narrowed. “Is…that your girlfriend?”

“
No. She owns the dance school where Ashleigh used to study dance. Deagan Dance and something,” I said.

“
Deagan Dance Center.”

“
She knew David from the past and thought he might talk to her quicker than me.”

He sighed. “So, was it just you and Miss Deagan?”

“
Yes.”

“
Where did you go after you left Jackson’s place?”

“
We came back to my house so I could clean up and change clothes. Then I took her back to her car.”

“
Then what did you do?”

“
I went back home and went to bed.”

“
Alone?”

“
Yes. Do I need an alibi for that, too?”

Scott dropped the notepad in his briefcase, snapped it shut, and stood. “Sure. The D.A.’s going to say that you went back out there after you dropped her off and killed them.”

“
But I didn’t.”

“
Come on. They’re not going to hold you. Let’s get out of here.”

Scott gave me a ride home but didn’t say much until he turned onto my street. “How do you know Sydney Deagan?”

“
I dated her sister, Jewell, a few times back in high school and I’m shooting her students’ recital photos this year. Why?”

He pulled in the drive, moved the gearshift to neutral, and turned to face me. “She’s a potential witness and I don’t want any surprises coming up. Are you two romantically involved?”

I exhaled. “No. Not really.”

His eyes hardened. “And what exactly does
not really
mean?”

“
It means we’re not involved. I kissed her once, that’s all.”

“
When?”

I looked at Scott. His jaw pulsed and the color had faded from his face. “Is this important?”

He spoke without emotion, but his hand gripped the gearshift so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. “When?” he asked again.

I unclipped my seatbelt and opened the door, pushing it out with my foot. “I’m sorry. I think I’ve misled you. It was a peck on the cheek

a thank you. Nothing more.”

Stepping out of the car, I leaned down into the opening. He faced forward, looking out. “Women like Sydney Deagan don’t find me very attractive, Mr. McGillikin. I can only dream about women like her.”

He jammed the gearshift into reverse and I scarcely had time to shut the door before the car shot backward into the street and burned rubber as it sped away.

What the hell was that about?

It was nearly 6 p.m. when I lifted the bottle of scotch from the wet cardboard box and breezed out the back door. The cool, evening air penetrated the damp clothes I still wore. My eyelids weighed heavily and my limbs ached. I dropped onto a lounge chair, threw my legs up, and closed my eyes allowing the bottle to rest against the deck floor. No matter what I did, no matter how much new evidence I turned up, things just kept getting worse. The whole world seemed to have turned on me.
Even my lawyer had gone weird.
I raised the bottle to my lips and as I tilted it to drink, the phone rang in the house.
Damn! Didn’t I turn that thing off?

I jumped up, burst into the house, and snapped the phone off its cradle. “Hello?”

“
I need a ride to the hospital.” It was Martha. She sounded anxious.

“
What’s wrong?”

“
Daddy’s had another heart attack.”

THE RECEPTIONIST IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM at New Hanover Regional Medical Center was an older woman with an exaggerated limp. Lifting her hip, she swung her right leg forward then leaned on it hard when she shifted her weight to that leg. She told us the doctors were working on Dad and that Mom was with him. She said we’d have to wait until she came out or until he was moved to a room.

The place was crowded. Elderly people bent forward at the waist waiting in wheelchairs. Children on the floor fighting over colored blocks. A woman in the corner with her hand wrapped in a bloody towel, and a nervous teenage girl who kept hopping up and running to the restroom.

“
I’m going outside,” Martha said spinning her chair around.

The last colors of sunset were fading to purple and a light breeze was blowing in from the south. I parked her next to a bench where I could sit with her. She pulled a pack of Virginia Slim Lights from her handbag, flipped a cigarette into her mouth, cupped a hand around a Bic lighter, and studied me as she curled smoke out the corner of her mouth. “You don’t look so good.”

I hadn’t shaved since the morning of the previous day, nor had I changed clothes since getting off the river hours ago. “Thanks. When did you start that?”

Two columns of smoke streamed from her nostrils. “I needed something wicked in my life—something dangerous.”

“
You don’t need cigarettes for that. You just need to tag along with me for a while.”

“
How’d it go today? On the river?”

I recapped the day and told her about Darla and “Rachel’s Diamond” while an ambulance backed up to a loading dock and two EMTs frantically pulled an elderly man with blue lips out and rushed him in a side entrance to the emergency room.

“
Richie, that’s wonderful! You should be excited!”

“
I was until I got home. Jones pulled me back downtown and I got more bad news.”

“
What bad news?”

I exhaled. “They found my semen in Ashleigh’s bed.” I could see the questions forming in her head as she took another drag and exhaled the smoke.

“
I thought you said…”

“
We didn’t. I have no idea how it got there.”

She watched me for a second. “That’s not good, Richie.”

An icy wave rolled through me as the magnitude of the situation suddenly hit me. I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “There’s more.”

“
More?”

I swallowed hard. “You remember that man that shot me yesterday? Mr. Jackson?” She grunted as she drew on her cigarette. “After Sydney and I left there, he and his wife were murdered.”

She coughed a cloud of smoke that hovered briefly before fading away. “You are lying.”

“
I wish to hell I was. And, of course, they found my blood out there so they think I had something to do with that, too.”

“
This is
not
good, Richie.”

My stomach felt as if I’d just dropped thirteen stories in the
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
at Disney World. I leaned back and gripped the edges of the bench. “I could spend the rest of my fucking life in prison. What the hell am I going to do?”

“
Could anyone have followed you out there?”

I dropped my head back and drew a deep breath. “I guess so. I wasn’t exactly trying to
sneak
out there.”

Martha thumped the ashes off her cigarette. “You know what doesn’t make sense to me?”

My limbs tingled and my heart raced. “What?”

“
Why would Ashleigh steal money from people she knew were dangerous and leave her aunt and uncle behind in such a vulnerable position? I mean, if she cared for them, wouldn’t she have tried to protect them?”

My mouth felt dry. I lowered myself onto the bench and laid on my back with one hand on my forehead and the other on my stomach. “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t think they’d find out about them.”

“
Hey, isn’t that Mom?”

I sat up and followed her gaze. From where we were we could see the silhouette of a man and a woman talking in the far corner of the rear parking lot. The woman looked very much like Mom and the man had a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his face. “Jesus. You know who that is?”

“
Winston? I didn’t think he ever left that farm.”

“
That’s who it looks like to me. The guy has no nose.”

Martha took a drag on her cigarette. “You think she’s having an affair with him?”

I laid back down and closed my eyes. “I wouldn’t blame her if she did. At least he treats her well.”

“
I think she’s in love with him. I saw them kissing once at the farm.”

“
That doesn’t bother me any. She deserves a little happiness, even if it is Winston. Hell, they could probably both use it.”

Martha took one last drag from her cigarette and sent the butt sailing over my head into the street. She fumbled through her handbag for a pad and pencil, flipped to a clean page, and began writing. “What was that woman’s name? The woman that saw Ashleigh?”

“
Darla Pridgeon.”

“
Where did you find her?”

“
Why? What are you going to do?”

“
The boat was called ‘Rachel’s Diamond’ wasn’t it?”

I sat up. “Yes.” She was scribbling on her notepad and I saw that twinkle that she gets in her eyes when she’s onto something. “What are you going to do?”

“
I’m going to do a little investigating myself, brother dear.”

LATER THAT NIGHT they moved Dad to the Cardiac Care Unit. Although we could see him through a glass window, Martha and I were not yet allowed in the room with him. He lay so still I had to look carefully for signs of life. The doctor told us he needed triple bypass surgery and they would try to arrange it for tomorrow. Mom told the doctor Dad didn’t want the operation. He told us Dad wouldn’t live long without it. It was difficult for her, but she still refused to sign the papers.

I tried to get Mom to go home for the night, but she wouldn’t leave. Around midnight, I got Martha back home with everything she’d need for the night then dragged myself back to my house and turned the phone on next to the bed in case Mom tried to get hold of me. At 1:45 a.m., it abruptly awakened me and I fumbled to get it. “Hello?” I mumbled.

“
Did I wake you?” a female voice whispered.

I sat up in bed. “Sydney?”

“
Yes.”

“
You did, but it’s okay.”