by Bulock, Lynn
“Hi, Gracie Lee. Come over here and meet Matt,” Dot called when she saw me standing in the doorway with my bag of supplies. She did the introductions and I got a shy “hello” from Matt. He didn’t meet my gaze for very long and it made me worry about how things might have gone at the sheriff’s department. If he’d acted that way with Fernandez, the detective may have labeled him “shifty.”
“Matt was just telling us about his experience yesterday at the sheriff’s department,” Lexy said while she dropped bars of soap into a row of shoeboxes. “He hasn’t been charged with anything yet, although he was fingerprinted and questioned for a while.”
“Yeah. They weren’t real rough or anything. I was scared they were going to be,” he said, still looking other places besides my face or anyone else’s. Lucy hovered next to him, with the pair of them taking turns putting small bottles of shampoo into the boxes. They made quite a contrast, the tall young man with relatively plain features and the beautiful woman, even younger, much shorter and more rounded in her velour jogging suit.
“I invited Estella to come work with us this afternoon, but she had to be at the hospital,” Dot said.
“That’s okay with me.” Matt gave a weak smile. “I don’t think she likes me much.”
Lucy patted his hand. “Sure she does. Estella is just cranky. She’s that way with everybody.”
“Everybody but you, Lucy.” He leaned his head down to touch hers in a gesture of affection that was so sweet it made my throat tighten up. If this young man was a murderer, he was also an incredible actor, and I couldn’t see that being the case.
An hour passed quickly as we made circuits of the table with different items for each shoebox. Working together we could do sixteen boxes at a time, all put next to each other on each side of the table. After a while you tended to get a little dizzy or stir-crazy or something, going around the circuit. Dot started singing a silly version of the hokey-pokey that had everybody giggling, even Matt. “I should have talked Buck into coming and doing this with us,” she said, looking at Matt. “That way you wouldn’t have been the only male member of this party.”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t mind. I work with guys all day, and this way I get to spend time with Lucy. This is cool.”
“Yeah. We don’t get to spend that much time together.” Lucy moved even closer to him. “This is real nice.”
“Do you two ever get to go out on dates?” Lexy asked.
Matt shook his head. “Not very often. I don’t have a car or a license, so I have to count on somebody else for a ride. If I can get a ride to Lucy’s place, we can walk someplace together, like the movie theater where she works.”
“Yeah. I can get free tickets any night but Friday if I’m not working. I still have to pay for popcorn, but we don’t eat much,” Lucy added.
“So that’s your social life?” Lexy’s voice held a little sadness.
“Pretty much. Otherwise there’s some kind of social event that ARC puts on once a month and that’s about it.”
I didn’t have to ask Matt what ARC was. Hanging around Dot, I knew the letters stood for Association for Retarded Citizens, a term that wasn’t used much anymore. Still, the agency kept its acronym just because the people who used their services were familiar with the term. Everything else they put out in the community talked about serving the developmentally disabled, which is the current “correct” term. Personally after meeting Candace, Lucy and Matt and a few of their friends, I had decided that “child of God” just like the rest of us was as appropriate as anything.
“How has your employer been about all of this?” Lexy was full of questions for Matt. I wondered if it was because of concern for him, or if these were things her friend Brian, the criminal lawyer, needed to know for something.
“Okay so far. If they arrest me I’m going to be in trouble with Leopold Plumbing. They don’t like to have people with police records working for them.”
Lexy frowned. “They can’t fire you for that, Matt. Not unless they want a lawsuit on their hands.”
He shrugged, looking down at the table. “They’re smart. They’d find some other reason. I really hope it doesn’t come up, because if I stay on there, I’ve got a chance at making journeyman soon. That would mean enough money that…well, it would mean good things.”
Lucy smiled softly, looking at him. “Estella isn’t here, Matt. And nobody will tell her. You can say it.”
“Right,” Candace piped up. “If you make more money, maybe you and Lucy could get married. She’s doing real good in her independent living class.”
Matt gave Candace a worried glance, then looked away. “Maybe you shouldn’t say that, Candace. Maybe somebody would tell Estella anyway.”
“I wouldn’t,” Lexy said firmly. “And I think everybody would agree that you can certainly talk about anything you want to. Now when it gets past the stage of talking and you start making plans, then it would be a good thing to talk to Estella, I think.”
Lucy’s sweet face clouded. “Estella will get mad. She always does. Then she’ll say no. She doesn’t think I should ever get married. Estella says I’ll never be old enough to get married, old enough in my brain, anyway.”
I didn’t have any answer for that, so I stayed silent. Nobody else piped up right away either. For a few minutes we all just loaded different items into the shoeboxes instead.
After about twenty minutes more of making the rounds of the table, Linnette came into the room with a tray. “Okay, I think it’s time for a break in here. The other group from one of the women’s’ prayer circles had refreshments set out. When they found out how large a group we had working in here, they insisted I take a tray. Who wants cookies and hot cider?”
She didn’t get many arguments. All work stopped and we sat at a table away from the shoeboxes, having a little social time together. It was only a little social time because before anyone had finished more than two cookies or half a cup of cider, someone else came into the room, putting a damper on our party.
“Matthew Seavers?” My heart sank as I heard Ray Fernandez use Matt’s formal name that way. I knew what was likely to follow such formality.
Matt must have guessed, too, because he set down his cup, hugged Lucy while whispering something in her ear, and stood up. “Yes, sir?”
“You are under arrest for suspicion of murder in the death of Frank Collins.” Fernandez continued on with the full words of a Miranda warning while putting a set of handcuffs on Matt. Lexy was alternately spluttering and dialing something into her cell phone before Ray got half of the words out.
“I don’t think it’s right to do that in a church, Mom,” Candace said, her lower lip trembling.
“I’m not sure it’s right to do anywhere, but that remains to be seen,” her mother answered.
“Brian Naylor will be at the sheriff’s station before you even finish booking his client.” Lexy’s face was flushed and her hands shook as she closed up her cell phone.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Ms. Adams.” The detective looked saddened and grim as he glanced my way, leading the now-handcuffed Matt toward the door. Ray’s golden brown eyes seemed to be asking for forgiveness. If I had felt like speaking to him, which I didn’t, I would have told him that I wasn’t in the mood for forgiveness right now.
Instead of saying anything to him while he and Matt left, I concentrated on Lucy instead. She stood near where Matt had left her, tears running down her smooth cheeks. “I knew it. I got him in trouble. They’re taking Matt to jail.” The last word stretched out to several syllables as she sobbed while trying to speak.
“Lexy’s friend will make sure he doesn’t stay in jail any longer than he has to.” It was small comfort but the best I could give from a human perspective. “Why don’t we all pray for Matt again like we did the other day?”
“Okay. Can we go to the big room, the house room?”
“Okay, if you want to,” I told her. “Let’s tell Candace’s mom where you
want to go.”
I repeated Lucy’s words, hoping that Dot would enlighten me as to exactly where we were going. Dot looked puzzled for a minute, then her face cleared. “You mean the sanctuary, Lucy? Where they had Frank’s funeral, right?”
Lucy nodded. “Somebody said that’s God’s house. I thought maybe He’d hear us better this time if we went to His house.”
Dot put an arm around Lucy and handed her a tissue to wipe her face. “Lucy, God hears us wherever we pray, because God is with us wherever we are. But if you feel better talking to Him in the sanctuary, then that’s where we’ll go.”
We sat in the front row of the upholstered chairs that the Chapel uses instead of pews, all of us linked and holding hands in a line. It was far more difficult for me to add Ray to my prayers this time. I knew he was only doing his job, but it still bothered me that he’d take Matt away like that in front of Lucy and the rest of us in a church building.
“Will you help me take the girls back to Rose House? I think they need to be in familiar surroundings,” Dot said as we left the sanctuary.
“Sure. Let me grab my purse from the classroom and I’ll be ready to go.” We could always swing by later and get my car.
Kirsten looked troubled when we told her why Candace and Lucy were back earlier than planned, and why Lucy especially seemed so upset. “I ought to call her sister right away and let her know about this. But that will cause as many problems as it solves.” She sighed, watching the roommates head toward their bedroom. “I think Estella’s ready to pull Lucy out of Rose House because of all the commotion. Although what she’d do with her while she works all those shifts at the hospital is beyond me.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that. Maybe this will all settle down soon and the police will figure out they’ve made a mistake in arresting Matt.” Dot sounded hopeful while she said that, but I could see that the hope in her voice didn’t carry over to her eyes.
Sunday after church I think we all felt pretty glum. Dot caught up with me after the service while I waited for Ben. My suspicions of the week before had proved correct; there was a cute girl in the praise band that he just had to talk with after the service. I tried to contain my curiosity and not speculate which of the three young ladies close to his age was the one. While he chatted, I stood out in the narthex where I wouldn’t embarrass him.
“Lexy’s friend wasn’t able to get Matt out of jail right away. But Lexy says we can plan strategy over dinner tonight.” I’d almost forgotten that we had the Christian Friends potluck.
“See you at six,” I told her and Dot hurried on. I looked at my watch, wondering how much longer Ben would spend in the sanctuary. Just about then he appeared with a funny grin on his face.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you stranded out here, Mom. If Kylie had a car, I’d just tell you to go on without me, but she caught a ride with one of her friends, so I can’t very well tag along. Could you take me home so I could drive back up here and offer her a ride after the next service?”
“Would Kylie be the mystery woman you went to the movies with?” Things were beginning to add up. Ben nodded, but didn’t say much more, leaving me to do the talking. “Sure, I can take you home. Do you want to grab a quick bite of early lunch someplace while we’re out?”
“Yeah. Not much, because I want to offer to take her out for a late lunch or coffee at least if she can go, but I’m starving. How about In-N-Out?”
It sounded good to me, so we headed to the hamburger stand that is the epitome of Southern California for me. How anybody can eat a normal fast-food hamburger after going to In-N-Out is beyond me. Everything’s fresh, the staff is made up of unfailingly cheerful teens and they have John 3:16 printed on their drink cups. What could possibly be better?
Even on Sunday it didn’t take us that long to make a quick burger and fries run and get Ben back home to pick up his car. While he dashed back to church, I stayed at the apartment for a little while, putting together my dish for the potluck. I wondered if it really mattered what anybody fixed, or if we’d all be so busy talking about Matt that the food would go by the wayside. Thinking about other Christian Friends gatherings, I decided to still put just as much effort into my chicken casserole. This bunch always needed sustenance while we thought and planned. We seemed to do our best work over coffee and dessert.
Chapter Fifteen
The Christian Friends meeting that night was supposed to be our Christmas potluck. We all still brought food, but the meeting was much more somber than any Christmas party I’d ever been to before. Mostly the meeting turned into a working dinner and planning session on how to get Matt out of jail as quickly as possible. It took a while to come up with any concrete, realistic ideas.
First Lexy had to explain to the rest of us why Matt got charged with suspicion of murder in the first place. According to her, the fact that it was second-degree murder should make us all relieved. I wasn’t so sure. “It really all boils down to one handprint,” she said over Dot’s tempting broccoli salad. “Before they found that, nothing else added up to enough to charge him.”
“So why does one print make the difference?” Dot, of course, was enjoying my chicken casserole—Mom’s recipe—and Heather’s chili-cheese dip far more than her own salad. Nobody ever seems to like their own stuff best at a potluck dinner, no matter how tasty it is.
“Before the hand print, the three key steps for charging somebody with murder were there, but they were pretty weak.” We must have all looked confused then, because Lexy went on. “Police look for means, motive and opportunity. The means were there, but due to the lack of prints where it matters, anybody could have shot Frank Collins with his own gun. Matt had motive, but it was not the world’s strongest. Granted, men have murdered each other before for hitting on a girlfriend, but Matt doesn’t seem like that type of guy.”
“Opportunity was there,” Dot supplied, as realization dawned on her. “Buck and I proved Matt had the opportunity when we told the detective we’d seen Matt talking to Frank in the driveway.”
“Right.” Lexy waved a fork to make her point. Fortunately it was a clean fork. “But you saw Matt talking to Frank when both were upright and in seemingly good shape. And you didn’t see a real fight, correct?”
“No pushing, shoving or hitting,” Dot agreed. “And since the windows were rolled up in the van, we couldn’t tell whether they yelled at each other or not.”
“So at that point the police had a lot of things that could tie Matt to the murder, but probably none any stronger than they might have on Darnell or any of several other guys working on the remodeling project. Then they found the handprint inside the portable toilet.”
“But that could have been there for weeks. You can’t date a fingerprint or handprint, can you?” That bothered me the most. Probably a dozen of the guys’ prints could show up inside that facility. As far as that went, they most likely found my prints in there, too. But most of the prints including mine had been made while using the facility for the intended use, not stowing a murder victim.
“No, you can’t date prints, not the way you’re talking about. It would have been a lot stronger evidence if the handprint had smeared blood in or under it, of course. Even without that kind of evidence, though, a good prosecutor will use that print to argue that Matt could have put it there while disposing of the body.”
“But it’s not like they have a witness to anything like that, right?” Heather hadn’t added much to the conversation so far, using most of her time instead to feed Corinna lovely stuff out of jars and eat a few bites from the buffet herself once the baby slept. Since I remembered having a little one on the verge of walking and talking, with all that boundless energy, I couldn’t fault her a bit for taking care of herself. Ten-month-old babies weren’t known for their patience, so their parents had to be resourceful.
When you added to that the fact that Heather was doing all the parenting alone, it was a double burden. Right now Corinna looked like a doll, s
leeping in her stroller while wearing an adorable red velvet Christmas dress. Half an hour from now the baby would probably look more like a hurricane, awake and shrieking for attention.
For the present, she slept on, letting her mother and the rest of us talk about Matt’s problems. “You’re right, Heather, there are no witnesses to the murder. If somebody had seen anything while it went on, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation. We’d know for certain whether Matt had been involved in this whole mess.” Lexy drew a design in the ranch dip on her plate with a carrot stick. It was easy to see how she stayed so skinny. Anyone who would rather play with their food than eat it could fit in size four jeans like she undoubtedly did.
“Witnesses or not, I still don’t think Matt’s capable of killing anybody, even Frank Collins.” Dot looked like the protective mother hen she usually was, only now she had more than one chick to look after.
“I agree with Dot. I’ve only met the young man once, but he just doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who could kill someone, even in anger.” Of course I could be wrong. But I really hoped I wasn’t because Matt Seavers seemed like a pleasant person. Of course that’s what the neighbors always tell the newspaper reporters when they’re talking about serial killers, isn’t it?
“Fortunately the presiding judge agrees with you.” Lexy went on to actually eat her carrot stick. When she finished with it, she went on. “He’s apparently open to Brian making a motion to get Matt released on his own recognizance, or maybe into Brian’s custody. Without a car or a license, and having a steady job he’s likely to keep, the young man isn’t a flight risk. Coupled with the fact that he has no criminal record, it should be relatively easy to get him out of jail.”
“Couldn’t we just bail him out?” Heather rocked the stroller while she talked. Lexy shook her head.