by Debra Webb
“It’s true.” Mary Jo sighed, turned away to stare at the wall on the other side of the room as if someone else had spoken to her. “I’m sorry I caused you all this trouble, sweetheart. You should be back in Washington. I’ve messed up everything.”
Audrey put her arms around her mother’s shoulders. “You didn’t mess up a thing. Remember? I moved back to Winchester six months ago to buy the paper.” The surprise in her mother’s eyes warned that she’d forgotten. “I took over the Gazette for Uncle Phil. He wanted to retire.”
She looked away, a classic indication she did not recall. The lines on her face appeared deeper than ever. Worry. Even with her memories fading, she still worried. Was that the curse of being a woman? A mother?
Or was it the secret they had been keeping for so long?
Audrey pushed away the thought. That was taken care of for now. No need for either of them to worry.
“We can’t hide our secret forever,” her mother whispered.
Mary Jo’s words brought Audrey’s attention back to her. She glanced at the door—couldn’t help herself. No one needed to hear this. No doubt anyone who did overhear would think it was just the disease talking. Still, Audrey would feel better if her mother didn’t mention that part of their past. “Mom, you don’t need to worry about the secret. No one will ever know. I promise.”
Her gaze latched onto Audrey’s once more, the urgency there painful to look at. “You can’t stop it. Fate or whatever they call it...the Lord. The Bible says so.” She heaved a big breath. “They will find us out and it’s my fault. All my fault.”
She muttered those last three words over and over.
Audrey would need to check with Roberta to see if Mary Jo had any visitors today. Usually something set off this kind of episode. Maybe she’d somehow heard the news about the shooting on Buncombe Road. Audrey didn’t see how that was possible. Could have been some other shooting or death. Sometimes startling events sent her mother off on a tangent. On those occasions, Audrey did all she could to soothe her frayed nerves and to guide her toward more comforting memories.
“Mom, do you remember my junior play? You had to make my costume. I was the nurse and you were so upset that I wasn’t cast as Juliet.”
“The costume was hideous.” She shook her head. “You should have been Juliet.”
Audrey laughed. “Well, Mrs. Bishop was the director and I guess she wanted her daughter to play the lead role.”
Mary Jo chuckled. “I think the only thing worse than that costume was your dress for the senior prom.”
“Oh.” Audrey shuddered at the thought. The dress was one memory she had worked hard to exile. “It was absolutely awful.”
Her mother rambled on about the dress order and the numerous fittings and how the garment still would not fit properly. Audrey had been reduced to tears at least twice until she’d decided enough was enough and had worn her favorite jeans and tee to the damned prom. Half the senior class as well as the school staff had been mortified; the other half couldn’t have cared less. Audrey would wager that she was the only girl who had ever dared wear jeans to a prom in Franklin County, maybe in the whole state of Tennessee.
Colt had grinned and told her she was the most beautiful girl in the gymnasium—and maybe the world. The old ache that accompanied memories of her senior year squeezed deep inside Audrey’s chest. She had been madly in love with Colt Tanner. They had been planning their future together since eighth grade when he sneaked a kiss on the school bus. That kiss had startled them both. The perfect balance of sweetness and innocence.
She had known the boy and then the man inside out. At least, she’d thought she had. But you never really know a person. Not really. When he’d married someone else—a pregnant-with-his-child someone else—Audrey had realized she could never trust anyone with her heart ever again. If Colt would break it, there was no hope with anyone else.
True to her decision, she never had. In December she would turn thirty-seven. Forty was right down the road. In all probability she would never know how it felt to hold her own child in her arms or to share her life with a man she loved the way her mother had loved her father. Of course her career had been immensely fulfilling—until things had gone so very wrong.
The newspaper would just have to be her baby, she supposed. Certainly the staff was like family. And she still had her mother. Well, most of the time, anyway.
Rather than wallowing in self-pity, Audrey listened as her mother talked on and on about the distant past—the good days, she called them. The ones before that awful year of darkness that came after her father’s heart attack...and the secret that she and her mother would take to their graves.
Some things had to stay buried. There was no other option—not then and not now.
“Then you went off to become the celebrated investigative journalist,” Mary Jo said after a long pause, her eyes gleaming with pride. “Your father would have been so proud. He never wanted you stuck here running that damned newspaper. He wanted you to explore the world, to conquer all the glass ceilings.”
Except there really was no choice now. Six months ago her mother had called with the news that Phillip was retiring and a developer wanted to buy the paper. Said developer planned to demolish the old building and start fresh—his words. That could not happen. Not in this lifetime. The building had to stay exactly where it was for the foreseeable future.
“To tell you the truth, Mom, I was tired of all the travel and the limelight.” Audrey waved off the career that had once been her singular focus. “Let someone else have a turn at being the best.” She winked at her mother. “I couldn’t hog all the glamour forever.”
Mary Jo smiled and patted Audrey on the leg. “You were always such a thoughtful girl. I’ll never forget the time you came home and bagged up all your clothes to take to that little girl whose house had burned down. I finally convinced you that we could take her shopping for new clothes. You really made your father and I proud. I know he has watched your career from heaven.”
There was another secret Audrey planned to keep. Her mother would never know—nor would anyone else for that matter—that her career had gone to hell in a handbasket. She’d made a mistake. Ten years at the top of her game and she’d made a totally dumb, foolish mistake. She’d wanted the story so badly, she’d trusted a source without going through all the usual steps to verify that source. She had allowed her friendship with that source to guide her, and she’d rushed to beat everyone else. She’d screwed up.
Big-time.
Bottom line, she had no one to blame but herself. While she had been licking her wounds, her mother had called with news about Phil’s retirement. Audrey had done what she had to do. She’d zoomed home and bought out her uncle’s portion of the family business. With her savings basically depleted after that, she’d decided to stay on and try turning the paper around. No one knew how to lay out a titillating story better than Audrey. She could have the paper thriving again within a year. No problem. An entire human could be made in less time. Of course she could do it. It was the perfect distraction. If she was busy saving the family legacy, she didn’t have to think about the rubble that was once her career.
Or the secret that no one else could ever know.
Her mother laid her head on Audrey’s shoulder, exhaustion overtaking her now that the manic episode had passed.
But it was coming home to do what must be done that served up another cold hard reality to Audrey. Her mother was not well. The forgetfulness and absentmindedness were not merely age or the overabundance of civic commitments to which she had obligated herself for the past thirty-five years.
Mary Jo Anderson had dementia. If Audrey had come home more often, she would have realized the lost keys and missed appointments her mother had laughed about on the phone were more than forgetfulness. Far more. But she had been too busy with her illustrious career. She had
called her mother every week, sometimes twice, but she hadn’t gotten home nearly as often as she should have.
But she was here now. And as her father always said, “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.”
Tonight’s shooting was a perfect example. Nothing promised a bump in circulation like a potential homicide.
Chapter Three
Colt leaned against the cab of his truck and blew out a weary breath. Burt had taken the body. Rather than deliver the outsider to a local funeral home, he was headed to the state medical examiner’s office to turn over the body for an autopsy. The department’s two-man crime scene unit had gone over the Sauder home with a fine-tooth comb.
The biggest thing missing at the moment was Sarah Sauder’s husband. He was supposed to be headed home from a funeral he’d attended up in Hendersonville, but he still hadn’t made it back. Seemed to Colt that the man would have moved heaven and earth to get to his wife and children after hearing about the shooting. Sarah and the kids had apparently given up hope of his arrival, since they’d left and gone to her father’s house. The lights in the Sauder home were out now and the doors were locked up tight. Colt had suggested Sarah and her kids stay with family until they released the scene. There would need to be another look tomorrow for potential evidence. Not that Colt really expected to find any.
The evening had been a tough one for Sarah. To have strangers walking through her home and touching her belongings was not something to which folks in the Mennonite community were accustomed. They were private people. Kept to themselves and stayed out of trouble. This was not the norm by any means.
US Marshal Branch Holloway paced the road just far enough from Colt’s truck to ensure he didn’t overhear his cell phone conversation. Branch had an outstanding reputation with the Marshals Service as far as Colt knew, but something had landed him in Franklin County assigned to the federal courthouse last year. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. Winchester wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, and there damned sure wasn’t much of anything that rose to the federal level in Franklin County.
Tonight, apparently, was an exception.
Branch had said the victim was some button man for the Chicago mob. Beyond that he’d been pretty tight-lipped. Didn’t sit well with Colt. This was his county and by God he needed to know the full details of what had transpired in the Sauder home tonight. He had no intention of relinquishing control over this investigation until he had no other choice. The safety of the residents in this county was his responsibility, not Branch Holloway’s.
Branch tucked his phone away and headed toward Colt. Colt pushed away from the truck and set his hands on his hips. “So what did your former boss have to say?”
“I was right. The victim is Tony Marcello.” Branch glanced toward the darkened house. “This was no random break-in, Colt. Marcello is the kind of guy who does the dirty work. Collects on loans. Acts as an enforcer or bodyguard. Bottom line, he does whatever he’s ordered to do. I can’t see a guy like that making this kind of mistake.”
Oh hell. “So you’re saying the Sauders are involved in some sort of mob business.” Colt couldn’t see it. Not in a million years.
“Sure looks that way.” Branch matched Colt’s stance, hands on hips, boots wide apart, as if they were about to see who was the fastest draw. “I’ve only been back a year so I’m not up to speed on everyone in the area. How well do you know Wesley Sauder?”
“How well do you know any of the Mennonite folks?” Colt tossed back at him. Branch grew up in Winchester. He knew the deal. “They keep to themselves. Yet they’re good neighbors, good citizens. Never any trouble—at least if there is any, they take care of it amid their own ranks.” He shook his head. “I can’t see what you’re suggesting by any stretch of the imagination.”
“But,” Branch said, shrugging, “Wesley was an outsider until what? Ten years ago?”
That much was true. “He moved here about ten years ago, yeah.” Colt considered the answers the man’s wife had given to the interview questions. “Sarah said he came from Markham, Illinois.”
“Markham’s not so far from Chicago.”
Colt heaved another sigh. “We’ll know more when we’ve run Sauder’s prints.”
Colt had instructed one of his forensic techs to lift prints from the wooden arms of the rocking chair next to the fireplace. Sarah had glanced at the empty chair when she spoke of her husband. Colt figured the rocker was the chair her husband used.
“There’s no Wesley Sauder from Illinois or Tennessee in the database,” Branch said. “So if the husband is who he says he is, you won’t find anything there.”
“Then again, if we get a hit from a database then we’ll know he isn’t who he says he is.” Damn. Branch’s contact was able to access the needed information in an instant. Colt didn’t have those kinds of resources. As much as he wanted to be grateful for the potential assist in this case, he was mostly ticked off. “Otherwise, the only thing we’ll know for sure is that Sauder doesn’t have a criminal record and he hasn’t needed a background check that required his prints.”
“Guess so.” Branch was already marking his territory. He wanted this case.
“We could debate what this shooting boils down to all night and we still won’t be any closer to the truth than we are right now.” Colt wasn’t relinquishing a damned thing until he understood exactly what they were dealing with. “We need to do this right, Branch. By the book. No getting ahead of ourselves.”
Colt didn’t know all the details of why Branch had left Chicago and ended up back in his hometown on a babysitting assignment, but there would be plenty to the story and little if any of it résumé-worthy.
“We’ll play it your way for now.” Branch glanced once more at the Sauder home. “I’ll touch base with you tomorrow.”
Colt gave him a nod of agreement and watched him get into his truck and drive away. He sure as hell wished Melvin Yoder wasn’t on his deathbed. Tomorrow Colt would check in with the family to see if a short visit with the patriarch of the Mennonite community in Franklin County might be possible. Yoder would know his son-in-law better than anyone. Sauder would never have been able to marry Yoder’s daughter if he hadn’t approved of the man.
Colt’s father and Yoder had been good friends. At least as close as an outsider could be with a member of the closed community. Hopefully that friendship would help now. If the older man’s health would tolerate a visit, Colt needed some insight into Wesley Sauder. What the hell kind of man would be a no-show when his family needed him?
There was only one plausible answer: a man who had something to hide.
Colt loaded into his truck, took one last look at the farmhouse. Whatever Sarah Sauder and her husband were hiding, he would find it.
* * *
COLT HADN’T MUCH more than pulled into the driveway at his house when another problem cropped up. His son, Key, pulled in right behind him, and it was well beyond his curfew on a school night.
Colt sat stone-still behind the wheel of his truck. He’d already shut off the engine, and the headlights had faded to darkness. His son had no idea he was out here. Probably thought his overbearing, out-of-touch-with-reality daddy was in bed asleep by now. As Colt watched, the eighteen-year-old climbed out of his truck and closed the door quietly. He glanced around the yard and started toward the house.
Staggered toward the house.
Colt swore under his breath. He watched his only child beat a crooked path to his bedroom window, which he subsequently opened and struggled clumsily through, ultimately falling into the house. If Colt was lucky, right on his head. Maybe it would knock some sense into him. The boy was hell-bent on trouble. He’d had everything he ever wanted handed to him on a silver platter—including that brand-new pickup his Granddaddy Wilhelm gave him. The real problem was that between his momma and his granddaddy, the kid was spoiled rott
en. Colt was the only one who issued any sort of rules, and shared custody ensured that at least half the time his son had no rules whatsoever.
He was headed down a bad path.
But this was the first time Colt had known him to come home drunk. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the shiny red truck parked behind him. The boy had been driving while intoxicated. Colt had witnessed it with his own eyes. All the other dumb stuff he overlooked was nothing to compare with this. Driving under the influence was not something he could pretend not to notice in order to keep the peace.
“Damn it all to hell.”
Colt emerged from his truck, slammed the door and headed for the house he’d inherited from his daddy—the one thing Colt hadn’t lost in the divorce. By the time he reached Key’s bedroom, his son was lying on the floor where he’d fallen and was snoring up a storm. Shaking his head, Colt closed and locked the window. He picked up the fob to the boy’s truck and tucked it into his pocket. No more driving for at least a month. Waking up his son and giving him what for at the moment would be a pointless waste of energy. Arguing with a drunk got both parties nowhere fast.
Morning would be soon enough to tackle this unpleasant task. He considered helping his son into the bed but decided he should sleep it off right where he’d fallen. His cell phone had tumbled from his pocket and lay next to him. Colt made another decision. The kid didn’t need his phone for a while, either. A set of wheels and a cell phone were luxuries that not all kids his son’s age enjoyed. Why should Key have access to those and more when he couldn’t obey the rules?
Disgusted and exhausted, Colt wandered to his bedroom. He placed his hat on the bureau. He needed a shower and a beer. He thought of his son passed out on the floor in the other bedroom. Maybe he’d forgo the beer. He dropped onto the side of the bed and pulled off first one boot and then the other, tossing the well-worn footwear to the floor. Socks went next. He’d worn cowboy boots his whole life. His daddy bought him his first pair as soon as he could walk. If his dad were still here he would know what to do to steer Key in the right direction.