by Mary Daheim
“Where are they?” I asked, wiping rain out of my eyes. “I haven’t been here in ages.”
“Space Fourteen’s on the right, third down from the middle,” Jack replied. “You can only see the front end from here.”
“What about Vida? And Holly’s kids?”
“They’re all crammed in there like sardines as far as we can tell. Bert, too.” He apparently caught my agitated expression. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a mess. Oh, hell!” He looked beyond me to the street. I turned to see what had caught his attention. The headlights of at least two other vehicles shone through the rain. “Is that Fleetwood with his remote gear?”
“Yes,” I said, though I couldn’t resent Mr. Radio rushing to the scene. “The fire engine, too, but no sirens.”
“And the state patrol,” Doe announced. “It’s the snoopy citizens we don’t need. I’ll tell the troopers to get them out of here.”
Looking around, I realized that a handful of people were braving the rain to satisfy their curiosity. “Jeez,” Jack muttered, “why don’t those morons stay home and watch cop shows on TV? They’ll get more action and stay dry. This is …” His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what the hell it is. A farce? Or … what?”
“You tell me,” Spencer Fleetwood said, somehow managing to look suave and sound mellow even with rain dancing off his expensive parka. “Hello, Emma. Mind if I talk to Jack?”
“Go ahead. I’m just here for the excitement.” I turned away. To my surprise, a state trooper was escorting someone who seemed to be in handcuffs. As the pair approached, I didn’t recognize the officer, but to my horror I realized that the other person was Vida’s grandson, Roger.
I hurried to reach them. “What’s going on?” I demanded.
The tall, craggy-faced trooper, whose name tag IDed him as Morrison, frowned at me. “Sorry, ma’am. You have to move along.”
I didn’t budge. “I know this young man,” I said. “I’m Emma Lord, from the Advocate.” I paused to study Roger. He had his head down and seemed to be crying. “His grandmother works for me and she’s—”
“We know,” Morrison broke in. “Please step aside.”
I obeyed. Jack was being interviewed by Fleetwood, Doe and the other state patrolman were trying to disperse the growing numbers of spectators, and Julie had gotten out of my car to talk to the medics. No one was watching me. I crept along a good ten feet behind Morrison and Roger. The big beefy pain-in-the-butt was definitely handcuffed. I should’ve felt pity for Roger, but I didn’t. I was too worried about Vida.
“That’s it!” Milo shouted through the bullhorn. “Send the kids out. Now!”
“Damn,” I said under my breath. How could Holly allow her children to be part of such a volatile situation? I stopped as Morrison and Roger turned into what I assumed was Space Fourteen. I skulked on, keeping to the shadows. I could see the sheriff, Dwight Gould, Sam Heppner, Dustin Fong, and Bill Blatt. Only Milo turned to look at the newcomers.
“What’s this?” He paused. “Roger. I think I get it.”
The trailer door opened. Two small figures—one of them holding the toddler—scurried out. Bill and Dustin rushed to snatch up the trio. When Bill spotted his cousin, he stopped in his tracks. “You asshole!” he yelled at Roger. “I knew you were mixed up in this!”
Roger gave a muffled response but didn’t lift his head. I leaned back against the nearest trailer, hoping to stay undetected. As Bill and Dustin hurried away with Holly’s kids, I noticed that a few of the trailer residents were watching the drama from their doorways.
Milo was back on the bullhorn. “One of your customers is here.” He glanced at Roger. “Let Mrs. Runkel out.”
The door remained closed. The only sound I could hear was the rain, slapping away at the trailers and pummeling the ground. I shivered, not from cold so much as from nerves. Milo moved restlessly, but never seemed to take his eyes off the trailer door. I saw him tense, then raise the bullhorn again. “Stop fooling around! Come on. Do it!”
Nothing, just the rain and the dark and the tawdriness of it all. I wondered if Julie had taken charge of the children. I wondered what Vida was doing inside the trailer. I wondered when this nightmare would end and we could all go home and someday laugh about what had happened on this miserable October night.
A shot made me jump. A second shot sent me reeling against the trailer’s cold, wet side. I think I prayed. I know I felt sick. But I had to get closer. Throwing aside caution, I slogged my way to Space Fourteen.
I stopped just short of the trailer, propping myself up next to an old rusting barbecue. Milo hadn’t seen me. He was yanking at the trailer’s door while the other deputies pulled out their weapons. Del Amundson and Tony were hurrying toward us.
“Get away, Emma,” Del called to me. “Go!”
I refused, my gaze fixed on Milo. The door suddenly opened, almost knocking him over. I gaped in astonishment as Vida emerged. She isn’t wearing her hat. It was the only thing I could think of before I started to laugh hysterically.
Nobody noticed me. That was good. I heard Vida say there was probably a dead body inside. As I got myself under control, I saw her look at Roger, shake her head, and walk away in the opposite direction.
Milo, Dwight, and the medics went inside. Morrison hauled Roger off, probably to the patrol car. Sam Heppner stared at me. “Where did you come from?” he asked in his typically sour tone.
“Hell and back,” I said weakly. “Who’s dead?”
“I don’t know,” he answered.
From inside the trailer I could hear hysterics not unlike my own. Milo stood in the doorway. “Bert Anderson’s a goner. Holly shot him. Cuff her and get her out of here. It’s a crime scene.”
“No kidding,” Sam muttered. “Beat it, Emma. You could’ve gotten killed.” He looked beyond me. “Oh, shit, here comes Fleetwood. Why don’t you people stop getting in the way?”
I didn’t bother to answer him and he didn’t bother to wait. For once, Spencer Fleetwood looked unsure of himself. “Where’s Vida?” he asked. “She isn’t the one who …” He couldn’t finish the question. It suddenly occurred to me that he, too, was worried about her safety, if only because of her ratings for KSKY.
“She’s fine,” I said. “I think. The victim is Bert Anderson.”
Spence looked puzzled. “Body shop Bert? How does he fit in this?”
Moving away from the barbecue, I was finally able to stand on my own two feet. “I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. The barbecue, I thought suddenly. Del had mentioned Norene jabbering about barbecues. It dawned on me that she wasn’t incoherent, she was trying to say something important. “Um …,” I said, hoping I didn’t look sly, “I’ll get back to you on that, Spence.”
“Where are you going?” he called after me.
I kept moving. “I’ve got a deadline, remember?”
TWENTY-THREE
VIDA WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN WHEN I GOT BACK TO THE street. “Bill Blatt took her to her car,” Dustin explained. “She was parked just around the corner. I think she was going home.”
I felt a hand on my arm. “I’m going in the medic van with the kids,” Julie said. “They seem fine, but I don’t know who can care for them. They can stay with Spike and me, at least for a while.”
“You’re very kind,” I said, patting her hand. “Thanks.”
“Thank you.” Her smile was bittersweet. “My own kids by my first marriage are grown, so I have to wait for grandchildren. I haven’t felt this needed in a long time. Making onion rings isn’t very fulfilling.”
As soon as I got back in the car, I called Kip. “Turn on the radio,” I said. “Vida’s safe, but we’ve got huge breaking news from the trailer park. Holly shot Bert Anderson and Roger’s under arrest.”
“Oh, God! I don’t know whether to cheer or boo.”
“I’ll tell you all as soon as I see Vida. Hang in there.”
Vida’s Buick was in her driveway. As I pulled up,
the living room lights went on. Suddenly I had qualms about facing her. But it was necessary. I girded myself for what could be an awkward confrontation.
“Don’t say a word,” she said as she opened the front door. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
I was sure she did. “Can I say I’m sorry for you?”
“No.” Her gray curls were a mess and her face was drawn. “Come to the kitchen. I’ll make tea and put Cupcake to bed. It’s very late for him.” She led the way, as purposeful as ever despite her ordeal.
I didn’t speak until after the canary was covered for the night and the teakettle was on the stove. “Look,” I said as she sat down opposite me at the kitchen table, “I don’t want to talk about Roger as much as I want to tell you who actually killed Alvin De Muth.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Vida said. “I know.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, I imagine you do. Did you know it before you ended up in Holly’s trailer?”
She shook her head. “Not for certain. But I began to realize the truth when I saw Roger at Bert’s body shop. Drugs!” She threw her hands up in the air. “How foolish of people. We turn a blind eye on what we don’t want to know. Poor Amy and Ted—they suspected, of course, but they simply wouldn’t deal with the problem. In denial, as I was. They’re with Roger now at the sheriff’s office. I couldn’t go with them. This is something the three of them must sort out together.”
I was surprised. “You’re right. Still, I thought you might …”
“No.” She removed her glasses and started rubbing her eyes. “Ooooh! I did the right thing—and don’t remind me I’ve been blind.”
In less tragic circumstances, I’d have mentioned she would be blind if she kept grinding her eyes. But this was no time for flippancy. “Does Milo know Bert was dealing?”
“If he doesn’t, Roger will tell him.” She dabbed at her eyes with a paper napkin before putting her glasses back on. “Bert got his start with gypsy truckers. So many of them are on some kind of drugs to stay awake at the wheel. Cooperating should gain Roger some mercy.”
“People do such self-destructive things,” I said. “Mike O’Toole might be alive today if he hadn’t been on drugs.”
Vida gave me a sharp glance as the teakettle sang. “I suspected as much. How did you know?”
“Betsy.” I grimaced. “I wasn’t supposed to let on. The rest of the family won’t find out until the funeral’s over.”
“They know,” Vida said, standing up and going to the stove. “They just won’t say it out loud. Bert’s drugs, I assume.”
“I’m sure of it. I’m also sure that Norene guessed what her husband was up to, and that’s why they had such a row earlier this evening. She finally pieced it together—the sudden flurries of money, the young people who came to the shop, and of course the night Al De Muth died. Del mentioned that Norene kept jabbering about ‘barbecues.’ That made no sense to him, but it finally dawned on me what she meant.”
“Oh, indeed.” Vida nodded emphatically before taking two tea bags out of a canister. “The bar, the bees, and the pool cue. Men often have no imagination.”
“Del had other priorities,” I said, cutting the medic some slack. “I assume Norene left the pool cue by the back door after whacking the bees’ nest. I’ll bet it was gone when she looked again. A few minutes earlier, De Muth went outside to relieve himself. Bert arrived about then and before the two men went inside, there must’ve been a confrontation. From what I’ve heard about De Muth, he not only had great integrity but took a paternal interest in the young men he’d trained as mechanics. If he’d discovered that Bert was dealing drugs, he probably intended to turn him in. Maybe he’d already told Bert what he planned to do.”
Vida grimaced. “That wasn’t very prudent of De Muth.”
“No, but he was a moody guy with a hair-trigger temper. They started to fight. I figure Bert grabbed the cue and struck the fatal blow. Maybe Al went down. Or maybe Bert thought he’d intimidated Al.”
“That,” Vida declared, “would’ve been foolish on Bert’s part. Then again, Bert was a foolish sort of person.”
I agreed. “But what is more convincing when it comes to Bert being the one who delivered the fatal blow is what happened when Al and Clive went after each other. The severity of head or brain damage doesn’t always show up immediately. Al had mentioned having a headache, but the others took it as a joke. No one saw Clive actually hit Al with a cue. Clive didn’t think he made contact, and the onlookers didn’t react at once when Al went down. Consciously or subconsciously, they may have realized that Clive’s pool cue didn’t make contact. Only Julie, who hadn’t witnessed the fight but is a trained nurse, realized that Al was dead.”
Vida was still at the stove, waiting for the tea to steep. “It makes sense. Bert must’ve tossed the cue into the river before he came back to the tavern. I wonder if Norene went back outside at some point to retrieve the pool cue and couldn’t find it. She may have suspected what had happened between her husband and De Muth. Holly might have had some inkling about what had really happened, too. It seems she was the—what do you call it? The ‘mule’? She’d go up to Canada and bring back the drugs.” Vida sighed. “It’s all so very sordid.”
I nodded. “Bert’s rich Canadian aunt, or so Julie said he’d tell people when he had a windfall. I assume Bert fathered one of Holly’s kids and Mickey Borg was another of the dads. I don’t know who or if there was another man involved. Maybe one of them did double duty.”
Vida had her back turned as she poured our tea into English bone china cups. “I know who the third father was.”
“You do?”
“Yes.” She moved slowly to the table, balancing a cup and saucer in each hand. “It was Roger.”
“Oh, no!” I was aghast. “Is that how you ended up in the trailer?”
“It was.” She showed no expression as she sat down and passed me the sugar bowl. “Billy told me about Roger’s driving violation. Naturally, I was upset. I called Roger on his cell. He asked… begged me to meet him at Bert’s to give him some money. For the ticket, I assumed, though I found it odd that he wanted me to come to the body shop. I couldn’t refuse, but when I arrived, he said he needed four hundred dollars. That sounded too high for a DUI. He also seemed very unlike himself—nervous, jumpy, incoherent. I looked at his eyes. He wasn’t drunk—he was on drugs.” She heaved a big sigh and sat back in her chair. “I realized Roger wanted the money for more drugs. I told him no. It was hard to say that. But I did. I should have done it long ago.” Vida began to weep.
I reached out to touch her arm. “Oh, please don’t beat yourself up over this. It’s called ‘tough love’ and it’s supposed to …” I withdrew my hand. “Oh, Vida, I don’t know what it does. But you did the right thing.”
She sniffed a couple of times. “Yes, yes, so I did,” she murmured, sitting up straight. “Roger became angry, got in his car, and drove off. I felt terrible so I followed him to the trailer park.” She sniffed again but was regaining control. “I’ve had suspicions for some time. Amy and Ted have had money woes, but never explained why. Last summer I ran into Amy at kId’s-cOrNEr. She was buying baby clothes. I asked who they were for, and she seemed evasive, but finally said a niece of Ted’s had recently given birth. Both of Ted’s nieces are single, though that doesn’t mean much nowadays. But I do know when my daughter is lying. Something was amiss.”
“Holly was the miss,” I remarked.
Vida took a sip of tea. “The mistake is more apt. Twice in the past few months I’ve seen his car going into the trailer park. To my knowledge, no one from his peer group lives there. I put two and two together—and they added up to Holly. I parked a half block away and walked to her trailer. It was easy to find because there were some battered toys and a deflated plastic kiddy pool near the door. Roger was already there, trying to get money or drugs from Holly. I started to rebuke them, and they both became angry. I was about to leave, bu
t Bert showed up. He saw me with Roger and assumed I knew about the drug connection with Holly. Bert became very menacing. Then Roger took my billfold and ran off. I figured he intended to use my ATM card to get money. I suspect that after Roger went to a cash machine, he realized he didn’t know my PIN number, so he lost his nerve and fled.”
“That,” I said, “must be when the state patrol picked him up.” I considered the article we’d have to run in the Advocate and how mortified Vida would be. “I don’t know what to say.”
Vida looked resigned. “Nor do I.”
“Why did Holly shoot Bert?”
“After Holly had sense enough to let her children leave the trailer, she and Bert argued. I think,” she went on with an appalled expression, “Bert wanted to use me as a hostage to get away, but he wasn’t willing to take Holly with him. Really, it was all such a mess, and with the police outside, they were both panicking. Bert got out his gun, and then there was a tussle and Holly ended up with it and …” Vida looked up at the ceiling. “She shot him. Twice. And then she sort of collapsed.”
I was in awe of Vida’s courage and stamina. “Unbelievable.”
“No. Very believable. Unfortunately.” Vida stood up. “More tea?”
“No thanks.” I glanced at the coffeepot-shaped clock. It was after eight. Somehow it seemed as if it should be much later. “I have to help Kip with the paper.” I also stood up, trying to ignore the lingering pain in my back. “In fact, I’d better go.” On impulse, I put my arms around Vida. “I’d never, ever want to upset you. How am I going to handle this?”
Vida felt rigid in my embrace, so I let go of her. “Well now,” she said, “you can’t do it by yourself.”
“Mitch may be able to help.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” I was starting to feel as if I were in a heavy fog.
“That Mitch and Brenda went to see their son tonight.”