A little less, actually. We hadn’t quite made it to two years before the divorce.
“You still on good terms?” Sandy wanted to know.
Not at all. Bradley was in prison. And I couldn’t be happier about that. I wouldn’t have shed a tear if I’d been told he’d died, come to that. Although I hope my manners are good enough that I wouldn’t giggle when they told me.
“No,” I said. Rafe, who knew the situation, suppressed a smile.
“Well, I ain’t gonna lie about it. I’m glad he’s dead. I didn’t kill him, but I’m glad he’s dead.”
Sandy took a defiant sip of her diet soda.
“When’s the last time you saw Robbie?” Rafe wanted to know. We watched as Sandy thought back.
“Musta been more than a month ago now. He stopped by with the check for Kayla.”
“He’s paying child support?”
Sandy tossed her head. The frizzy ponytail bounced. “He’s supposed to. He don’t usually. And when he does, it’s late.”
“Must be hard,” I commented.
She glanced at me. “We do all right. I make money. And Kayla, she don’t ask for much. She knows we don’t have a lot, so she don’t ask.”
Good for Kayla. And for Sandy, I suppose.
“Were the two of you home together last night?”
Sandy looked at Rafe. “You thinking I killed him?”
“I gotta ask.”
She nodded. “Yeah. We were home together. But Kayla, she’s eleven. She goes to bed early and sleeps hard. I coulda left for a couple hours and she wouldn’t know about it.”
“Did you?”
“No,” Sandy said, “but I can’t prove it.”
“You own a gun?”
“Don’t everybody?”
I don’t. Unless you count Rafe’s. And Sandy must have realized that now wasn’t the time to be flippant. She made a face. “Yeah. Robbie used to tune me up when he got drunk. After we left, I didn’t want him coming down here to do the same thing. So I bought the gun. The first time he showed up drunk, I told him to stay the hell away from us until he was sober, or I’d shoot his pecker off. He stayed away after that.”
I would have, too, if I’d had a pecker to lose. “I’m sorry.”
Sandy shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad in the beginning. Then it got worse, but by then we had Kayla, and Robbie said he’d kill me if I tried to leave. So I stayed.”
A common story, from what I know about it, which isn’t much. “What made you change your mind?”
“He hit Kayla,” Sandy said. “He was drunk, she got in his way, and he knocked her across the room. I waited for him to pass out, and then I packed up our clothes and Kayla’s book bag and put her in the car and left.”
“Good for you.”
There was a pause.
“How long ago?” Rafe asked. Sandy told him it had been more than a year, but not quite two.
“If I was gonna kill him, I woulda done it then.”
“Can you think of anyone else who mighta wanted him dead?”
Sandy laughed. It wasn’t a particularly nice laugh. “Most everyone who knew him woulda wanted him dead, I figure. He wasn’t no prince.”
No, he certainly didn’t sound like he had been. “What about the others?” I asked. And closed my mouth with a snap when Rafe rolled his eyes. But of course it was too late.
“What others?” Sandy looked from me to him and back.
Rafe sighed. “They’re all dead. Art and Linda, Cilla and A.J. Darrell. Cilla’s boyfriend. And Robbie.”
Sandy stared at him, her eyes widening. “All of’em? They’re all dead?”
He nodded.
Sandy shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that. I mighta killed Robbie, if he tried to hit me again. I woulda killed him if he laid a hand on Kayla. But not nobody else. I liked Linda. I liked Cilla.”
And then her eyes widened. “Oh, God. Cilla. She was having a baby. She was pregnant. She...”
“The baby’s fine,” Rafe told her. “It’s with DCS until we figure out what happened. Any idea who mighta wanted everyone dead?”
But Sandy looked overwhelmed to the point of not being able to think anymore. “Kayla,” she said. “I have to get Kayla. I have to tell her that her daddy’s gone. And her aunt. And her uncles. And cousins...”
I glanced at Rafe. He got to his feet and dug a card out of his pocket. “Gimme a call if you think of anything we haven’t talked about, OK? We’ll let you go pick up your daughter.”
Sandy nodded, but I’m not sure she even really heard what he said. She did grab the card, though. “I gotta leave. I gotta get Kayla. Before somebody else tells her. I gotta get Kayla.”
She ran out, without even saying goodbye. Rafe pulled out my chair, and we followed, more slowly. By the time we got to the front of the store, Sandy was already gone. We could see her through the door, hoofing it across the street to a beat-up old Chevy parked at the curb. She was still wearing her Dollar Store apron over her jeans, and she must have forgotten to pick up her coat. Her shoulders were hunched against the drizzle as she put the key in the door and wrenched it open.
The young woman behind the register was staring, too, her mouth open. “What happened?”
“What did she say?” Rafe countered.
She looked at him, and this time, managed to string a couple words together. “Just that she had to go. To pick up her daughter at school. Is something wrong with Kayla?”
“As far as we know, not a thing,” Rafe said, and brandished his badge. “It’s about Robbie Skinner. Sandy’s ex-husband.”
The girl’s eyes widened. Not at the mention of Robbie, but at the sight of the badge. And it wasn’t an “Uh-oh, I’m in trouble,” sort of look. No, this was “He’s good-looking AND he has a badge.”
I rolled my eyes. Rafe waited patiently, but eventually had to prompt her to answer the question. The answer was no. She’d never seen Robbie, or so she said. She must not have cared what happened to him, either, because she didn’t ask. She did, however, suggest that she could give him a call if she remembered anything. A roundabout way of asking for his phone number, I guess.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, with all the dignity I could muster. “Thank you for your time.”
I took Rafe’s arm and practically pushed him out the door. It was a good thing he wanted to go, or I wouldn’t have stood a chance of moving him.
Outside in the spitting rain, he grinned at me. “I wasn’t gonna call her back.”
“I wasn’t worried about that,” I said, hustling across the blacktop to the Volvo. “I was worried about her calling you. And calling you. And calling you.”
I glanced over my shoulder, to where the woman in question practically had her nose pushed up against the window, fogging the glass. “I’m not even sure she’s old enough to drink!”
“Non-issue,” Rafe told me, as he closed me into the car. I waited until he’d walked around the hood of the car and had gotten behind the wheel before I answered.
“She’s too young to look at you like that.”
He shrugged and glanced around. “Guess we’re done here.”
“I guess so. There’s no point in following Sandy, I guess.”
“If you wanna see where the youth of Pulaski goes to middle school. But otherwise, I don’t think so. I’m sure she’s just gonna pick up her kid, like she said.”
He turned the key in the ignition and started the car.
“Did you believe her?” I asked.
He glanced at me as he pulled away from the curb. “About what part of it?”
“Any of it. The last time she saw Robbie. The reason she left him.”
“Don’t have no reason to doubt her. Robbie was always quick with his fists. Ain’t no surprise to hear he used’em on his wife.”
“A real peach.” And yet another reason why someone might have killed him. His ex-wife just being one possibility. “She said they’d been divorced a while. Do you think Robbie
had a new girlfriend?”
“I imagine he mighta had a few,” Rafe said.
“Do you think he was hitting her, too? Or them?” Maybe one of his new girlfriends had killed him.
Hell—heck—maybe all his old girlfriends, including his ex-wife, had gotten together to kill him. And the rest of the family, too. Hard to imagine why anyone would take Robbie’s transgressions out on the rest of them—especially Linda and Cilla—but I’m sure stranger things have happened.
“I imagine he mighta been,” Rafe said. “Guess I’ll have to find out.”
He pointed the car northeast out of Pulaski, on the road to Sweetwater this time, instead of toward Damascus and Columbia.
“How are you going to do that?” I wanted to know. Sandy might have known, but if so, she hadn’t said anything about it. Maybe Kayla knew, and maybe Rafe would have to talk to her. Although chances were neither of them had had anything to do with the murders.
He grimaced. “I might have to go out and do some drinking tonight.”
“You mean, go to seedy bars and see who knew the Skinners?” Like that place Yvonne had mentioned, in Thompson Station. The Pour House?
He nodded. “Easier for me to do it than any of the sheriff’s deputies. Most everyone’s gonna know them.”
And he’d been gone from Maury County, mostly, for thirteen years. Chances were he could slide right in and nobody would recognize him.
“Not alone,” I said.
He arched a brow. “I ain’t taking you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
It wasn’t what I’d been thinking, actually. Under normal circumstances—say, a year ago—I would have been gung-ho to go with him, and would have accepted no reason why I couldn’t. But things were different now. I was pregnant. I wasn’t about to take any chances with the baby. And besides, I rarely stay awake past nine-thirty.
“How about Dix?”
His lips quirked. “Not sure your brother’s the right man for this job, darlin’.”
Well... maybe not. My brother is on the clean-cut side, not the type who spends a lot of time in dive bars. And he’s a single father with two little girls at home. Dragging him out at night to go bar hopping might not be the best idea. “Who is?”
“I was thinking of Yvonne,” Rafe said.
I stared at him. He drove on, placidly, as if he didn’t notice my attention at all.
“Have you lost your mind?” I asked.
He shot me a look. “She knows the people I wanna talk to. And they know her.”
“She’s not going to be able to help you if something goes wrong!”
His lips curved. “She’d be more help than your brother, I figure.”
Upon consideration, he might actually be right about that. She’d be more familiar with the ambience, at any rate. Although Dix could probably hit harder.
Then again, who knew? Yvonne had honed her muscles carrying trays at Beulah’s. She could hold her own, no doubt.
“If you’re taking Yvonne, maybe I should come, too.”
“Maybe not,” Rafe said. “You’re pregnant. You need your sleep. The baby needs his sleep. And I don’t wanna have to worry about you.”
“But it’s OK to worry about Yvonne?”
“She ain’t carrying my baby. And I prob’ly won’t worry much. Yvonne can take care of herself.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that I could take care of myself too, and he shook his head. “I ain’t taking you. That’s final.”
“That’s not fair.” Between you and me, I’m not even sure why I was arguing. It wasn’t like I wanted to come. I wanted to go home and sleep. I’d been OK with not coming when I thought he was bringing another man. But Yvonne...
He sighed. “I’d take you if I could, darlin’. But the sheriff would skin me alive if I let something happen to you. Can’t you just stay home with your mama and let me do my job?”
I could. I wanted to. However— “I’d feel better if you’d take someone along who’d have your back in a fight.”
His lips twitched. “It ain’t like on TV, darlin’. Most nights out drinking don’t turn into bar fights.”
“Some of them do.” One such had landed him in prison more than a dozen years ago. He had more reason than anyone to know that.
However, I wasn’t about to remind him of that. I had something else I wanted to mention. “You remember what happened the day before we got married?”
His face darkened. “Not like I’d forget.”
Not likely that I would, either. He’d gone out with the boys from the TBI for a last night of debauchery—drinks and pool—before donning the old ball and chain, and had gotten a lot more than he’d bargained for when he was hit over the head and loaded into a van, before being taken off by a serial killer and tortured for hours. He was damned lucky to have gotten out of it alive, and I wasn’t about to let him forget it.
“I know I can’t come with you. But I want you to be safe out there.”
“I’ll be safe,” Rafe said. “Nobody in these part’s got a reason to wanna hurt me. Nobody in these parts even remember who I am.”
I hoped he was right about that.
“But if it makes you feel better,” he added, “I can ask your brother to come along. Take both him and Yvonne.”
“That’s all right.” Dix had a thing going with Tamara Grimaldi, my friend in Nashville. I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of thing, but they’d gotten close since Sheila died. And Yvonne has always had a crush on Dix. I didn’t want to be responsible for putting them together. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Always,” Rafe said. I rolled my eyes, but didn’t comment.
“So what happens now?” It was getting toward the end of the day. Or the end of the workday, at any rate. Rafe’s day obviously wouldn’t end for a long time yet. But it was after four o’clock, and the rest of the world was winding down.
“I take you to your mama’s house and make nice for a while. And then I go back to work.”
“And I stay with my mother.” Great. “Just out of curiosity, what’s the sheriff doing while you and I are driving all over Giles County talking to people?”
“Notifications,” Rafe said.
“Who’s left to notify? All the Skinners are dead.” And we’d notified Robbie’s ex-wife.
He glanced at me. “Cilla had a boyfriend, remember?”
How could I have forgotten? Cilla had had a boyfriend, and the boyfriend, presumably, had had parents. Maybe siblings. Like Cilla, he’d barely been more than a child.
No parent should have to be told that his or her child has been murdered.
“I’m glad he didn’t leave that to us,” I said.
Rafe nodded. “I think he was hoping they’d have some idea what mighta been going on with the Skinners.”
“And he didn’t think Sandy did, so he left her to us?”
Rafe shrugged, as if it didn’t bother him. Maybe it didn’t. When it came down to it, I guess getting out of doing the notification beat any feelings of being foisted off with second best.
“Ain’t no second best in a murder investigation,” Rafe said when I’d said so. “We all want the same thing. I don’t get extra points for bringing in a juicy piece of evidence.”
“You should.”
He shook his head. “It ain’t a competition, darlin’. We all just wanna figure out who did this and get’em behind bars before they can do it again.”
I peered at him. “Do you think they would?”
I mean, it would seem to me that with all the Skinners dead, it was mission accomplished. Who was left to kill? “You don’t think Sandy’s in danger, do you?”
Rafe shook his head. “If somebody wanted to kill Sandy, she’d be dead. The locks on her door ain’t worth spit.”
He didn’t say spit. I made a substitution.
“She has a neighbor, though.”
“These ain’t people who’d balk at killing innocent bystanders,” Rafe said. “Seven dead.
Two of’em teenagers. If they wanted Sandy and her daughter dead, they’d both be dead. And the neighbor too, if he got in the way.”
I guess he had a point. “This is scary.”
Rafe shrugged.
“Don’t you think it’s scary? Going after people who’d do something like this?” If they wouldn’t balk at shooting Sandy’s neighbor, they surely wouldn’t balk at shooting law enforcement that came too close to them.
“I spent twelve years with people who’d do this,” Rafe said. “Two years in prison and ten years undercover. Won’t be the first time I’ve rubbed elbows with scum.”
Maybe not. It didn’t make me feel any better. And because it didn’t, I changed the subject. “So what did you mean, ‘before they can do it again?’ If all the Skinners are dead, and you don’t think Sandy and Kayla are in danger, who’s left?”
“The rest of the county,” Rafe said grimly. “We’re investigating like the Skinners were specific targets. And maybe they were. God knows there were plenty of reasons somebody might wanna get rid of the Skinners.”
“But?”
“But it might just be that somebody wanted to kill. Somebody wanted to kill a lot of people. And for some reason they chose to kill the Skinners. Maybe cause they were easy targets. They lived alone up there in the hills. No neighbors within a mile or two. Nobody to see or hear anything.”
I nodded. I could certainly see why killing the Skinners, at least in the geographical sense, had been easy and safe for the murderer.
“If that’s all it was,” Rafe said, “somebody musta had a hell of good time last night. And that somebody’s gonna wanna have a good time again. Before too long.”
Eight
My ancestral home, the Martin Mansion, sits on a little knoll north of Sweetwater proper, on the road to Columbia. We got there just as the clock struck five, and pulled up to the grand entrance in what was still pouring rain.
“Go on up,” Rafe told me. “I’ll get the bags.”
I thought about arguing, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel like getting any wetter than I had to be, and besides, the steps can be slippery when wet. So I left it to him to gather the two overnight bags from the trunk while I made my careful way up the steps to the double front doors.
Bad Debt (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 14) Page 8