Murder by Serpents (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

by Graham, Barbara

  Tony almost refused, but the expression on Red's face stopped him. Red wanted this. Tony carefully explained Red's rights as he closed his handcuffs around the man's thin wrists.

  Red looked at Wade. “Would you please bring the box?”

  Seated across the steel table from them, Red looked so frail that Tony almost called to have Doc Nash standing by. It looked like a mere breath of air would flatten him.

  “If you don't mind, Sheriff, I'd just like to tell you my story and then you can ask me all the questions you want.” With trembling hands he adjusted his jacket, pulling it closer to the loose skin of his throat.

  “That would be fine.” Tony felt sorry for the man but couldn't let sympathy stop him. “I am going to ask Carl Lee to sit in. You might find a lawyer is a handy thing in a situation like this.”

  “You might as well get Archie down here.” Red shifted restlessly on his chair. “The prosecutor ought to hear this, and I only want to tell it once, Sheriff. If you hadn't come for me, I planned to come in on my own.”

  Luckily, Carl Lee was not busy. Only minutes later he loped down the hall to meet with his newest client and the sheriff. “Give us a few, okay?”

  “No problem.” Leaning heavily on his crutches, Tony eased out the door and closed it behind him. Most days, he received great satisfaction in sniffing out the bad guys. This was not one of them. Even without knowing the details of Red's motivation, he guessed that Harold Brown had deserved what had happened to him.

  Archie arrived from the prosecutor's office and sat in the chair by Ruth Ann's desk. No one spoke. Only a few minutes passed before Carl Lee opened the door and waved Tony, Archie and Wade inside. “He'd like to make his statement now.”

  “We read him his rights when we picked him up,” said Wade. “I always like to read them again.” Setting a small bottle of water in front of Red, he said, “I thought you might need this.”

  Nodding his thanks, Red sat quietly and listened politely as the young deputy spelled out everything he was entitled to under the law. He reached for the bottle of water and took a sip. “That was fine, Wade. Your voice gives those words a noble sound.

  “I'm not sure where to start, so forgive me if I tell you more than you need to hear.” He laced his fingers and rested his hands on the surface of the table. “Raeleene and I got married right out of college and settled in Atlanta. We wanted lots of children but it didn't happen. We'd been married for almost twenty years and had long since given up being parents when Raeleene became pregnant and Louise was born.”

  Tears filled his eyes, but his smile was luminous. “It was a miracle. She was the sweetest, most beautiful baby you ever saw. I guess everyone thinks that, but our Louise, she was just like Shirley Temple, you know, pretty and smart and sassy.”

  Unlacing his fingers, he spread his hands before him, holding them up as if to stop anyone else from speaking. “After high school, she still lived with us while she went to college. Raeleene said Louise was a slow bloomer and that's why she was content to stay with us. I didn't care. I loved having her there.” He stopped and gazed unseeing into the distance.

  “But that changed, didn't it?” said Tony.

  Red nodded. “She got herself a beau. Oh, don't get me wrong. She had always been popular and there were young men calling for her all the time, but this was different. This was not a young man. He was a middle-aged man with cruel eyes and tattoos on his hands. Frankly, he scared me.” Shivering in his chair, Red gripped the water bottle with both hands. “Soon she took to staying out to all hours every night, and the college sent a letter saying she'd failed her classes. Until he came along, she had been on the Dean's list.” He shook his head. “When I tried to talk to her about it, she sneered and said that she didn't need to take classes any more because she'd found something better. Her eyes looked funny and her personality changed. She was my baby and I guess I didn't want to see the truth, but Raeleene found pills in her room.”

  Lifting the bottle of water to his lips, Red gulped down half of it. “We tried to talk to her about it, but she wouldn't hear. She was always out with that boyfriend of hers. He came into the house only once, but I saw him lots of times. Her skirts got shorter and she started dressing like trash because he liked her to. She moved out of the house. It wasn't long after that that she was arrested for prostitution and drug possession.” Wiping tears from his face with the backs of his hands, he kept talking.

  “He turned my beautiful baby girl into a drug addict and a hooker. One night, the man he sent her to, her client . . .” Red's lips twisted as he forced the words out. “He killed her. That man beat her and strangled her and left her to die in a filthy little room. The cops didn't know if he was on drugs like her or if he was just some sicko. They never did find him. Her so-called boyfriend didn't even come to her funeral.” Suddenly he dropped his face into his hands and began to sob. “I couldn't help her.”

  Carl Lee squeezed his shoulder and looked into Tony's eyes. “Do you think that my client can have a moment to compose himself?”

  Unable to sit so close to the agonized man,Tony nodded and stood. Wade and Archie sat motionless, like statues on chairs. Tony believed in divine retribution and sincerely hoped that the late Harold Brown had begun his stay in hell. Moving to the door, he stood with one arm propped up on the wall and stared through the tiny window into the hallway. At her desk, Ruth Ann's fingers flew across the keyboard even as she talked into the telephone.

  Behind him, Red's tear-clogged voice began again.

  “A few months after the funeral, we moved up here.” Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he polished the tears from his glasses. “We had vacationed up here many times in the past and liked it a lot. Raeleene couldn't stand being in Atlanta anymore. I retired. I was willing to do anything she wanted.” His expression grew haunted. “I couldn't stand our house there anymore either. I even thought about burning it to the ground, just to get rid of it, but luckily it sold fast.”

  He gazed at the beige walls and smiled. “After a while, we found some peace here. We hadn't realized that Raelene had the cancer when we moved. It was still a good move though. Even late into her illness, Raeleene loved to watch the birds and she spent hours staring at the feeders. Her favorites were the cardinals.” He fell silent, his tears flowing.

  No one spoke.

  After a few minutes, Red shook his head and regained enough composure to continue. “Do you believe in fate?”

  Tony shrugged, waiting to hear what Red believed.

  “Only a week after Raeleene died, I went to a liquor store in Knoxville. I tried to drown my sorrow, but I can't drink enough beer because it's too filling. I was standing in the store trying to decide on my poison when Hub came into the same store and bought a case of vodka and left. I bought a case of it too, thinking that if I drank it all that maybe I'd finally get up the nerve to join Raeleene and Louise. I had an old pistol that would do the trick. I just needed a little more courage, even if it was from a bottle.”

  His faded eyes burned with grief and anger. “As soon as I saw him, though, I changed my mind about dying right away. Oh, I bought the booze all right, and took it out to the car and climbed in. He was parked next to me. When he pulled out, I followed him.” He made a sound that might have been a sob or a laugh. “I couldn't believe it when he turned onto the Silersville Pike. It was a sign. I laughed as I followed him all the way back to town. I lost him out near the crossroad, but somehow I knew I'd find him again so I started making my plans.”

  The water bottle was empty. Red didn't seem to notice until he had lifted it to his lips several times. “Could I please have another?” His fingers picked at the label.

  When Tony nodded his approval, Wade stood up and asked, “Anyone else?”

  Carl Lee refused and Archie accepted.

  While they waited for Wade to return, Tony tried to ease his sore leg. There seemed to be no position that felt good and several that felt a good deal worse than others. As h
e watched Red peeling the label from the bottle, Tony didn't want to consider what he might have done to Harold Brown if it had been his own family the man destroyed.

  Wade seemed subdued as he handed out the bottles.

  Red began to talk again as soon as he twisted the cap free. “The handcuffs were my Christmas present to myself.” He looked amused. “I guess you must wonder what I had planned.”

  The three men nodded.

  “I thought that if I handcuffed him to something, he would have to talk to me. I wanted him to tell me why he turned my beautiful baby into a hooker. I wanted him to tell me he was sorry.” He stared into Tony's eyes. “And then I was going call your office and have you arrest him for pushing drugs. That cardboard box contains evidence I collected on my own. You'll find photographs of some of his drug deals and dates and times of others. I don't know if you can use it, but it made me feel better to do it.”

  “So what happened?” said Tony.

  “How did you find him?” said Wade.

  “I knew what his car looked like and this being such a small town, there weren't very many roads he could take. One day in January, I saw it zip past Ruby's and then only a few minutes later it went back the other way. Bingo! After a while I noticed that it often passed by about the same time, so I prepared to follow it. I wore a disguise.” He lifted the bottle to his lips. “Eventually, he led me right to his church and from there to his home.”

  “Did you go all the way up Quentin's road?”Tony could only imagine the drive that would have been in Red's Buick. His thoughts must have shown on his face.

  Red grinned at him. “I'm not crazy, just angry and vengeful. After all, I've lived here long enough to know Quentin and the kind of road he lives on.” Suddenly the little man had a fit of the giggles.

  It was so unexpected that soon everyone joined in, laughing or grinning. It eased some of the tension in the room.

  “So you followed him,” said Tony. “Why did you wait so long to approach him? Weren't you afraid that he would leave town before you could talk to him?”

  “I wanted him to be alone. I was willing to be patient, and after all, what else did I have to keep me going? Seems like whenever I was about to go up to him, he had someone with him or he left before I got there.” He peeled away a long strip of label and rolled it into a ball. “It almost made me quit, but that night, I followed him and saw him park up in the back lot of Ruby's. It looked like he planned to wait for someone, but I never saw anyone else. It was perfect. I walked right up to the car window and tapped on it with my old revolver. He lowered it right away. You should have seen the surprised look on his face when I pointed that gun at him and dropped the handcuffs in his lap. I told him to put them on. He did.”

  “Why did you cuff him to the steering wheel?” said Tony.

  “I didn't. He did that to himself by accident. I just wanted his hands tied together so he couldn't drive away.”

  “Was the car running? Were the lights on?” Although a video camera taped the interview, Wade continued making copious notes.

  Red looked thoughtful. “Yeah, it was running. When he rolled down that window, hot air came out. It was like a sauna in there. I don't remember whether the headlights were on or not. The dome light was definitely on. I'm sure about that because I could see those ugly tattoos on his hands.”

  “Did he recognize you?” said Archie.

  “Not at first, but I told him who I was. I told him that he had to pay for killing my little girl, that he'd killed her as surely as if he'd shot her.” Red's eyes widened as he looked around the room. “Can you believe that he denied it? I went wild. Anyone watching me would have known that. I was flapping around and waving that gun in his face the whole time I was reminding him about the filthy drugs he had given her and the filthy things that he made her do. When I told him that she thought he was going to marry her, he laughed right in my face and said that even if he wasn't already married, he'd never marry a slut.” Burying his face in his hands, he sobbed. “I wanted to shoot him, I really did, but I just couldn't.”

  Tears streamed down his face. “I hated him, and I hated myself for not having the balls to shoot him. I was just turning to leave when I saw those cages in the back seat. I knew that he kept snakes in them, but I figured that they were his pets. I was so frantic to do something, anything, that would upset him that I jerked open the back door and grabbed a box and shook it up good and dumped the snake into his lap and then I did another.”

  “Did he say anything that made you think that the snakes were a danger to him?” said Archie.

  “No.” Red paused and gave the question more thought. “Not really. He started shrieking at me, but I just figured he was mad at me for messing with his pets.”

  “And then?” Tony shivered as he recalled the horrendous sight in the car. “Did you just leave?”

  Red nodded. “When I shut the door, he was screaming and squirming in that seat. He called me every name in the book and used language that was so vile I didn't even recognize all the words. I was just happy that I'd made him miserable for a little while.” The shadow of a smile crossed his plain face. “He begged me to let him out just like I begged him to leave my daughter alone. A night sitting in his own car didn't seem like much of a punishment for what he did to my family.”

  Twirling the water bottle, he seemed fascinated by the movement of the water. Eventually he looked up and met Tony's steady gaze. “I almost fainted when I heard he was dead, but I swear I thought one of his drug connections was responsible. It wasn't until word circulated that he died of snakebite that I realized I did manage to kill him. I guess his pets didn't like him any better than I did.”

  Archie sat staring at the floor. Although he appeared to be giving it his full attention, Tony guessed there was nothing special about the linoleum at his feet. He was glad the sheriff's office only had to do the investigation. Now that they'd found the killer, it was up to Archie's office to decide what kinds of charges might come from this. They couldn't release him and yet, hadn't the man suffered enough?

  “Sheriff?” Red's voice finally penetrated Tony's circulating thoughts.

  Tony lifted an eyebrow.

  “I need you to explain this to your mother. I need you to tell her that I really enjoyed the time we spent together and all.” His eyes seemed to be filling with tears again. “She's a real special lady.”

  If Tony's thoughts weren't already scrambled, thinking about his mom dating this man sent them spinning. “Tell Mom? You want me to tell Mom?” Even to his own ears, it sounded as if his voice was cracking. Panic was too strong a word to describe his feelings, but it came close. Tony would prefer to suffer another snakebite than have that conversation. “Wouldn't you like to do that yourself?”

  Red glanced at Carl Lee as if his attorney would save him. The man seemed quite involved in a serious and complicated discussion with Archie. Crestfallen, he returned his focus to Tony and made a slight upward motion of his shoulders before letting them fall. “I guess. I owe it to her to tell her myself.”

  Tony thought that Red looked about as eager to tell his mother as he felt himself, but his agreement was all Tony needed to hear. “I'll get you a phone in a bit and you can talk as long as you like.”

  Looking as if he'd just been reprieved from climbing the steps to the guillotine only to face the electric chair, Red hastened to make assurances that there was no need to hurry.

  A tidal wave of fatigue hit Tony as the adrenaline rush of the arrest wore off. It made him feel so odd, almost dizzy, that he slumped on his spine and rested his head on the wall behind him just to keep it from crashing onto the table. All he wanted to do was to stretch out on that institutional gray floor and sleep for a month.

  “Sheriff,” said Wade. “You pass out on this floor and your wife is likely to rip my arm off and beat me with it.” There was no smile on his handsome face, but definitely something that looked like fear shining in his dark blue eyes. “Someone needs to t
ake you home. From here on, we are nothing but bystanders. Archie and Carl Lee have the ball now.”

  Tony nodded. A part of his brain wondered why his little old mother and his sweet wife were so terrifying to everyone. “Is Sheila still out there doing paperwork?” Tony used the edge of the table for support as he struggled to his feet. Once he was upright, he grasped the crutches. “If so, tell her that she gets to drive me home. If not, tell Ruth Ann to get her keys. You stay here.”

  A last glance around the room before he made his cautious exit showed him that Archie and Carl Lee looked as if they were settling in for a marathon negotiation. Red, the object of their conversation looked like he didn't care much about the outcome of it.

  “I don't believe it.” Jane stomped around Theo's workroom, slamming cabinet doors, dropping books onto the plank wood floor and generally making more noise than a den of cub scouts. “He couldn't have done such a thing.”

  Every book that fell was an insult to Theo's building headache. She felt sorry for Jane. Her mother-in-law was always prepared to see the good in people, and now she was being hurt.