“Okay, Mr. Grisham,” Lucinda said, “who is she?”
Sandy sighed and shrugged without answering her question.
“Grisham, we can go back and have another look if you need to refresh your memory.”
“Dammit,” he spit out. “It’s my daughter-in-law.”
“Her name?”
“Darlene Grisham.”
“How did she end up in Gary Blankenship’s backyard?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m waiting, Grisham.”
“Well, it started about twenty years ago or so. Me and Gary were drinking and watching a game on the tee-vee. Sadie was ragging on him about something he was supposed to do. Gary got really pissed after a while. He got up and backhanded her, knocking her into a wall. Then instead of crying and saying she was sorry like she usually did, she sassed him.”
Lucinda bit her tongue. Sassed him? Sassed him? She wanted to beat the crap out of him for even using that word.
“Gary grabbed up a poker from by the wood stove and raised it up. Sadie ran for the stairs. Gary dropped the poker and chased after her. I just sat there until I heard the gun shot. Then I went upstairs. Gary had the gun in his hand. Sadie lay flat on the floor. ‘Did you kill her?’ I asked. Gary just nodded.
“I don’t remember how it all went after that but I know we buried her under the steps in the backyard and cleaned up the blood in the bedroom. Before I drove off, I said, ‘Gary, you owe me big time.’ He said, ‘Yep. Call on me anytime. And Sandy,’ he says, ‘did you know my tramp of a wife ran off with her boyfriend and abandoned her own kids. Can you imagine a woman who would walk out on her kids?’ And that was that.”
“Not quite, Grisham. We did find Sadie’s body right where you’re saying. But we still have the other body – a far fresher corpse. How does that tie in?”
Sandy ran his fingers through his hair. “I never called in that favor – never needed to. Not till a few months ago. My son came to me, real upset. He didn’t mean to kill her. He was just tryin’ to teach her a lesson, that’s all. He just held on a little too long. It was an accident.
“That’s when I thought of Gary and the favor he owed me. But I couldn’t find him anywheres. That got me thinkin’ about Sadie. All these years and nobody ever found her body. Seemed Gary’s backyard was a mighty good place to hide Darlene’s body, too. Gary was nowhere to be found and nobody else’d moved into the place. So me and Steve, that’s my son, loaded her up and buried her in the corner by the fence. And thought that was the end of it.”
“Still, Grisham,” Lucinda pressed. “You haven’t explained why you tried to run us over.”
“That was pretty stupid. I shouldn’t have listened to my boy. But he came to me all desperate. He showed me a picture of you he’d cut from the newspaper after you found the bodies. He said you’d figure it out. He said you had to be stopped.”
“Whose idea was it to use a vehicle to kill me?”
“It was mine,” Sandy said with a shrug. “He wanted me to choke you to death or stab you or cut your throat. I couldn’t do that kind of stuff. I never killed nobody. So I told him, maybe I could hit you with my car – it’s old but it’s a Mercedes, built solid, sure to do the trick.
“He said, ‘Perfect. It’ll look like an accident.’ And here I am. And I’m sorry. On the long list of stupid things I’ve done, that one’s right at the top.”
Lucinda sighed and rose to her feet. “Sergeant Colter, take him over to the jail and book him. I’ll go have a word with the DA”
Lucinda went up to the fifth floor, briefed the DA and then walked down the stairs to her third floor office. She picked up her phone and called the office of Dr. Rambo Burns to schedule her next surgery.
Epilogue
Lucinda wore a broad white bandage from cheek to cheek across her nose when she picked up Charley Spencer. It fascinated the young girl no end. “Can I look under it?”
“No. Dr. Burns told me not to mess with it,” Lucinda said.
“But Rambo likes me. It’ll be okay.”
“No it won’t Charley. Dr. Burns particularly warned me about you. He told me to be on my guard and not let you talk me into taking it off.”
“He did not!”
“Yes he did, Charley.”
“Well, just wait till I see him again. What are we doing today, Lucy?”
“I thought it was about time my two best friends met each other.”
“You can’t have two best friends, Lucy.”
“Oh yes you can if one of them is a girl and the other is a boy,” Lucinda said, making that rule up on the spot.
“You can do that?”
“You sure can,” Lucinda assured her.
“So you got a boyfriend?”
“Let’s just say I have a friend who is a boy.”
“Do you kiss and stuff?”
Lucinda certainly didn’t want to get anywhere near a discussion about sex with someone else’s prepubescent child. She changed the subject. “Jake is an FBI agent.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His official title is Special Agent in Charge.”
“Wow! That’s a long title. I’ll call him Jake.”
“I’m sure he’d like that.”
Lucinda pulled into a space at Riverside Park. “I told Jake we’d meet him by the ice-cream stand.”
“Can we get ice cream?”
“Of course.”
Charley raced out of the car, straight to the stand and stopped in front of the only man there. “Are you Jake?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I like your shoes,” she said noticing his turquoise Chucks.
“Thanks.”
“Is it part of your Special Agent uniform?”
“Not hardly.”
“Are they Special Agent in Charge shoes?”
“Nah, I just like them.”
Lucinda said, “Charley, do you know what flavor you want?”
“I haven’t looked yet.”
“Go pick one out. As soon as you decide, I’ll place the order.”
Charley raced over to the display cases and peered down at the tubs, moving sideways across as she studied the contents.
“I’m not sure I know what to talk about with a young girl,” Jake said.
“Ask her about the news – what she likes to watch, what she reads,” Lucinda suggested.
“The news? She’s just a little kid.”
“Trust me.”
After they sat at a picnic bench to eat their ice-cream cones, Jake said, “Charley, Lucinda tells me you like to follow the news.”
“Of course I do. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. Of course. Do you get your news on TV, in the newspaper . . .?”
“I like to get it from a bunch of places. Daddy says that way I can get the full picture. So I read the newspaper everyday and I read Newsweek each Tuesday. Daddy said I could get a subscription to Time, too, for my birthday. I only read that once in a while now when I can talk somebody into buying me a copy. Would you buy me a copy, today?”
“Sure,” Jake chuckled. “How about TV news? What do you like to watch?”
“I watch the local news and the network news every night unless I have too much homework. But my favorite is Rick Sanchez on CNN. He’s really cute and funny. I like Las Fotos,” she said deepening her voice and mimicking Sanchez’s accent. “And Rick does good with the regular news and he tweets, too. I want an iPhone but Daddy says I’m not old enough. But I can only watch Rick’s whole show during the summer break. And sometimes, he’s on vacation then. I wrote to him and gave him my schedule so that he’ll work then when I can watch.”
“You sound like a very-well rounded and very busy person, Charley.”
“I have to be, Jake. I want to be a police when I grow up. I want to help some little girl someday just like Lucy helped me.”
Lucinda blinked and swallowed hard. She didn’t want to cry in front of both of them.
“
Jake, I need to talk to you about something serious,” Charley said. “I mean, I know the news is serious. But this is personal serious.”
“What’s that?”
“Lucy says that you are her best friend that’s a boy.”
“I try to be, Charley.”
“Well, I’m her best friend that’s a girl. And I think I’ve been her best friend longer than you have.”
“I think that’s right.”
“Okay. That makes me the boss friend. And I expect you to be good to her – all the time, even when you’re in a bad mood. Promise?”
He looked over Charley’s head and straight at Lucinda. “I promise,” he said, using his index finger to make an X over his heart.
“Hope to die?” Charley asked.
Lucinda watched his eyes soften and grow moist as he scanned her face. “I promise. And if I ever break that promise, I hope to die.”
Twisted Reason (A Lucinda Pierce Mystery) Page 25