Chapter Forty-Nine
If you videoed someone crumbling a jigsaw puzzle to put it back in its box, then reversed it so pieces flowed perfectly into place in the design, that’s what I saw inside my head, accompanied by a chorus of Of course Of course Of course.
“It’s solid. No doubt,” Jennifer said, “She definitely hid it, but once I cracked through that last layer, there it all was. The names, the ages, the addresses, all fit. Her parents, Leah’s parents — same people. Leaving that spelling of Asheleigh’s name was Odessa’s big mistake. Should have changed that, too.”
“Hard to let a name go when you’ve found one that feels right,” Diana said.
“It’s gotta go if you don’t want to leave a trail.” Even though she’d followed that trail, Jennifer disapproved of slipshod methods. “Glad I did that background work on Leah, too, because the first thing I spotted on this last leg was their mother’s maiden name being the same. I should have had all this earlier. You know what Asheleigh’s middle name is? Teresa. And Leah’s middle name? Teresa. I had them both a day ago. And it never occurred to me.”
“Lots of people have Teresa as a middle name,” Diana said mildly.
“I should’ve spotted it,” Jennifer insisted.
“You did amazing, Jennifer,” I said. “Amazing. It answers so many questions.”
Then Diana immediately asked one it didn’t answer. “Do you think Asheleigh knows?”
I shrugged a Don’t-Know.
Jennifer grinned. “Bet it answers the question of who to talk to next.”
It sure did.
“I want to come with. I don’t have that York stuff yet, but the guys are working on it and… I want to come,” Jennifer said.
“Then you’re coming,” I said. “Someone else should come, too.”
Her face fell. “The guys? But who knows when they’ll be back. If we wait for them—”
“No, we’re not waiting for them. We’ll call them, but the person I was thinking of is Aunt Gee.”
“Of course,” Diana said. “You call her and I’ll try the guys.”
* * * *
Diana’s calls to Mike and Tom were still not answered. She left a message saying we had news, but no more, so Jennifer could explain her coup herself.
The attempted calls happened while Diana and Jennifer drove to the apartment Odessa — we were sticking with that name — and Asheleigh rented, checking if they were there. We’d decided against calling ahead, believing Odessa in particular would try to avoid us.
Both cars were there.
Asheleigh might be off somewhere with Gable, but it was the best we could hope for.
Gee arrived at my house faster than I’d have thought possible. She must have taken driving lessons from Diana.
I filled her in more during the short trip to the apartment.
The four of us exited the two vehicles in what felt like a not-quite-coordinated choreography for superheroes forming a posse.
The big old house had two apartments downstairs and two up what must have been the original central staircase. This being Sherman, we walked up the stairs to their door.
Before I rang the small bell with Vincennes over it, I took in a deep, slow breath. We were all winded, and it wasn’t from the stair climb.
I glanced around at the others, then pressed the bell.
Asheleigh answered.
Her pretty, pleasant face, stiffened.
“Hello, Asheleigh, we’d like to talk to your mother—”
“No.”
“—and you. If—”
“No.”
“—she’s not here—”
We both stopped because of the sound behind me.
It was a low, sharp keening.
Gee, dry-eyed, stared at Asheleigh. She gave no sign of being aware of the sound coming from her.
I took advantage of Asheleigh’s distraction, to slip around her and inside. Jennifer followed me.
Diana put one hand on Asheleigh’s arm and the other on Gee’s back. “She’s had a shock. Let’s all get in, and…”
She maneuvered her two charges inside, seating them on a loveseat. With two chairs, it formed a U facing a large front window. Diana took the chair closer to Gee, I took the one closer to Asheleigh. Jennifer closed the door, then folded herself onto the floor across a glass-topped wicker basket.
I had an impression of a neat, bright space that matched the daughter, not the mother. But most of my attention was on Asheleigh and her reaction to Gee, who stared at her still, though the sound had dwindled.
Asheleigh touched the older woman’s hand. “Are you… Are you okay?”
In her concern for this stranger’s distress, she abandoned her defenses.
“You.” Gee swallowed. “You are so like her. So very like her.”
Asheleigh’s eyes gleamed with tears. “I know.”
“I knew her. Leah. She lived with me.”
Silence seemed to repeat her I know.
“Your mother—”
“I’m not talking to you about her. I won’t tell you anything.”
“Then let me tell you,” I said.
“Asheleigh. Go to your room.” Odessa’s voice came from the kitchen. It was hoarse, raw.
“Mom—”
“Go to your room now.” Odessa came into view, her expression blank, her movements slow.
Asheleigh rose slowly, went around the loveseat, and faced her mother.
I couldn’t see the daughter’s face, but if she was looking at her mother’s for a crack, a sliver of uncertainty, she wasn’t getting it.
“You’re not feeling well, Mom. I—”
“Your room.”
Asheleigh turned and went down the short hall behind me. A door closed.
Only when that sound reached us did Odessa come around the loveseat and sit, her hands on her thighs, staring straight ahead.
With no indication that she might ever speak, I said, “We know you’re Leah Pedroke’s sister. We have proof.”
Lifting only the three middle fingers of her right hand she made a lethargic flicking-away motion.
“I was always coming here. I just didn’t know it.” The words sounded almost drugged. “It ruined my parents. Took the life out of them, though they still breathed. Their hearts beat while they had no heart left.”
I heard a door stealthily opening. Quickly, I said, “Your sister’s death?”
“No. That they survived. It was here they met ruin. That travesty of a trial. That was their end. The end of my parents. The end of my family.”
“You have a daughter.”
“Yes.”
The single, flat word left me both chilled and uncertain. Every indication to this point had been that she doted on Asheleigh. How did that reconcile with that dispassionate word?
And how would the young woman listening react?
Odessa went on. “My parents still had a daughter. Me. After Leah’s murderer went free, I wasn’t enough for them to keep living. They were empty. Gone. Even as they breathed and moved.
“My brother went to college far away and never came back. Not for holidays, not for their funerals. He forgot Leah and the rest of us. I tracked him down and contacted him about coming here to deal with the murderers—”
Murderers, plural.
“—he never responded. I don’t care. I can handle it. I made my parents live until I couldn’t any longer. I had to get out, too. I just didn’t know it as soon as my brother. When I married — the first guy who asked — and they no longer had my lifeblood pumping through them, they wouldn’t even hold off dying for me to give birth.
“It was only after they died that I knew I needed to be here. To see where she’d been those last months so I’d understand. I’d have peace. But I couldn’t come here. I had Asheleigh.
“Then I had my idea. To start, she had to go to college.
“I saved and saved. Years and years. Putting everything I could aside to get Asheleigh through college
. A good school. A school that would open the right door for her. And I did it. She got into Penn State, got scholarships. Not enough, but I worked, I squeezed every dime — I knew how to do that — and I got her through. A semester early to save costs. A college graduate.
“And then it was my turn. Finally, my turn. When I saw that job posting, I knew. I knew it would all turn out. I told her. You can go wherever you want later, but first you’re going to Wyoming. We’re going to Wyoming.
“I tried to find work in O’Hara Hill, but there was nothing. I ate at Ernie’s every chance I got. Leah wrote about that place.”
Gee frowned. “Your parents never mentioned that. We went there several times and they never said a word.”
I’d tensed at the interruption, but Odessa’s mouth formed a tight, secretive smile. “It wasn’t in letters to them. She wrote to me about it. Only to me. She wrote long, wonderful letters to me. Said I didn’t have to share them with Mom and Dad if I didn’t want to. They were just ours. Reading those letters, it was like I experienced each day with her. I knew this place, the wildness, the beauty. I loved it as much as she did. I was part of it.
“So, I knew I had to come here, too. And then it turned out I had it all wrong. I thought the place would soothe me.”
As she spoke, she rubbed her thumb against her curved forefinger in that now familiar gesture.
A flash of Tamantha’s hand in mine at Tom’s came to me — a memory that included every nerve’s sensation — when she rubbed my hand with her thumb, reinforcing the contact.
Perhaps what a little sister would do when her idolized older sister held her hand, reinforcing their connection, assuring herself of the older sister’s presence.
And then, there was only this rub against her own flesh to fill the void.
“But it was the opposite. This place, where she lived, where she died tore at me, splintered…
“And then it was pieces. Little pieces. I didn’t even realize I’d heard them until they came together and I realized he was here. Here. It was… It was horrible and wonderful at the same time, because it meant I could kill him. No, no, not him—” She scrubbed the words out, jerking her hand back and forth. “Both of them.”
Chapter Fifty
“The whispers, the whispers that I finally realized meant that lawyer who defended him bribed the jury. So, of course, he has to die, too. But then — then — even better, to make him suffer first. To have his son fall in love and have his heart broken. For the father to watch that — that was what he deserved. So, I started that right away. Found Gable and got him to love her.
“It gave me time to plan how to kill them.
“The lawyer would be harder, because he wasn’t here a lot. But I could take time for that, because he would be in pain from his son’s pain, once I had my plan. I could focus first on the murderer. I trailed him. That wasn’t always easy. I had to be careful not to get too close, because other workers from the ranch would follow him places for their boring, boring jobs. At least those started in the morning. That was better than when he went places at night and I’d get so tired. But I stayed awake enough to see him go to that bar and sometimes into town to buy liquor.
“That’s when I knew it would be simple. Just set up a road block one night and when he stopped, shoot him. Right away. I didn’t need to talk to him. I just needed him dead.
“But a week before I had it planned someone else killed the murderer. Someone else…
“I went out there to see his dead body. But I couldn’t. They had it covered. Which was more than they did for Leah. I’ve seen the crime scene photos and they didn’t even cover her. And him — the lawyer — he was there crying about how that murderer was treated like an animal.
“And I realized I’d been wrong. I didn’t just need them dead. I’d needed to kill them. I lost York, but I won’t make that mistake again.”
Them.
Sharply, I asked, “What have you planned for Nelson Clay Lukasik?”
Her eyes widened unnaturally. “Who?”
I wasn’t playing that game. “The rumors say he bribed jurors to get Furman York off. Wouldn’t you like to know if that was true?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t you?”
“I would. I intend to find out. But what about your daughter?”
She turned those unplugged Lady of Shalott eyes on me. “What about her?”
“She loves Gable Lukasik.”
She shook her head. Three, four, five times before she said, “No. She doesn’t. She’s part of the plan.”
* * * *
The guys had landed in Sherman and were driving to my house. “Taking off” had meant the plane.
Waiting messages for Diana and me announced that when we left the apartment.
We would have stayed there if I’d feared anything physical between mother and daughter. On the other hand…
I called Shelton.
Diana nodded approval. Then we got into our separate vehicles.
She wouldn’t have been so happy if she’d known the call rolled over to the front desk and Ferrante — gleefully — said he wasn’t available.
Gee seemed inclined to take the phone from me and give Ferrante an alternative answer.
It was possible Shelton wasn’t available, considering he had a murder investigation going. Didn’t matter. There wasn’t time to thrash that out or to thrash Ferrante.
I called Richard Alvaro’s personal cell phone and barely let him get the H of hello out.
“You need to get to—” I gave the apartment address. “—and question the mother and daughter there—”
“Elizabeth—”
“—about Furman York’s shooting. Immediately. The mother is the younger sister of Leah Pedroke — the woman York was accused of murdering. Not only are they integral to a murder investigation, they’re dangers to themselves, each other, and others.”
“Elizabeth—”
“I am deadly serious. And I do mean deadly, Deputy Alvaro. If you don’t do this and something happens to either of these women or someone else, you won’t be able to live with it. You hear my voice. Do I mean this?”
The slightest hesitation, then a firm, “Yes.”
The call clicked off.
I met Gee’s gaze and breathed.
* * * *
Still, I found a spot to park behind a hedge that allowed a view of the apartment without giving an arriving deputy’s vehicle a view of my SUV.
Alvaro made it in three and a half minutes — good, even for Sherman.
When he went in the building, we pulled away.
Silence continued until we reached my house.
In addition to Gee’s vehicle, Tom’s truck was there, Mike’s SUV — they must have picked it up on the way from the airport — along with Diana’s, then the cars of my parents and Jennifer’s mother.
“Gee, if you’d like to come in, talk…”
“No. Thank you. I need to return to O’Hara Hill. I work tonight. I… I will take time to consider what we learned — what you discovered. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you, very much.”
Chapter Fifty-One
I expected the house to be crammed. It was empty.
A plastic-wrap-covered spread on the counter featured more healthy options than our usual fare, yet made my mouth water.
The sound of laughter drew me through the house and out the back door. Mike, Tom, Diana, and Jennifer sat at an outdoor table, while my parents occupied lounge chairs, and Tamantha lolled in a hammock, with Shadow nearby. None of which had been here this morning.
“Ah, Elizabeth,” my mother called. “You’re finally here.”
“What is all this?”
“We went shopping,” Tamantha said from the hammock. “I said you need roses here. Like the grazing association has. But they said they’re too hard to return if you don’t like them.”
Mom smiled at her while waving off my question. “We’ll talk about that later. Your friends have been waiting for you
. You all go in now and do your work. We won’t bother you. Oh, help yourself to the snacks there for you.”
* * * *
The guys had hit paydirt at the third place they’d checked.
Furman York had brought cattle there three times. Twice with Lukasik brands, most recently not. The owner showed them paperwork where York said he was authorized to sell the cattle.
No proof, just York’s say-so.
“Still not a sure thing Lukasik caught him,” Tom said. “Might not have room in the truck because of cows he took from the rest of us.”
“Now tell us about Odessa,” Mike said. “And Elvis records.”
We did.
“She was disappointed at not killing York,” Diana emphasized.
“Are we positive she didn’t?” Mike asked.
“Acting?” Diana asked. “Sure was convincing. It’s what Jennifer said. She was unplugged. What had been driving her all these years was over.”
“If she killed him, it could have been a delayed reaction. Like it didn’t become real until she heard someone else say it.”
“Possible. I find it hard to read her,” Diana said. “Her plan for hurting Lukasik through his son — and her daughter — is surreal. Does she change it if Lukasik is dying? Plus, Lukasik’s given no indication his son’s heartbreak would touch him at all.”
“Yeah, and what about her daughter? She doesn’t care if It breaks Asheleigh’s heart and—?” Jennifer broke off, directing her attention to her phone.
“Revenge or daughter,” I murmured.
“Unless Asheleigh doesn’t love Gable Lukasik and she is in on it,” Mike said.
Jennifer switched from phone to device.
I shook my head. “We could be in trouble if we have to prove who’s in love and who’s not.”
“Not to mention investigating Hiram’s love life,” Mike said. “But what else do we have?”
Diana’s gaze met mine as both of us rebounded from looking toward Jennifer.
“Funny you should mention that,” I started. “We do have another angle to consider if—”
But Jennifer raised one hand, capturing our attention instantly. “My guys found interesting things in Lukasik’s financials.”
Reaction Shot (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 9) Page 28