by Terry Shames
I’m only half-listening, aware that she is babbling on. And I suspect that she’s trying to lead me away from some point that she wants me to miss. But what?
“One more question. You’ve been investing for quite a long time with Les Moffitt. Where did the original money come from for that?”
She sits up taller, looking outraged. “I don’t think I have to tell you that, do I?”
“No, you don’t have to. Is there some particular reason you don’t want to?”
“It’s private. It’s none of your business.”
“It is if it has something to do with why Susan Shelby was killed.”
“That’s ridiculous. We invested that money a long time ago. I told you it was money my mamma squirreled away for me. She was very frugal and was a good money manager. I was always grateful that she left me a little nest egg.”
“Yes, that is what you told me. But I think you’re not telling the truth. I had a talk with Charlotte this afternoon and she told me that when Nonie was persuading her to put that noose around her neck, she said she had to do it to keep Charlotte from blabbing something she knew. And I think you know what it was Nonie was talking about.”
“I don’t believe Charlotte remembers that at all. It’s nonsense. She was eight years old. What could she have known that would make any difference to anybody?”
I get up from the table, tired of going around and around with Adelaide. “Adelaide, I’d like to go back and take another look at the room Susan Shelby stayed in while she was here.”
“What for?”
“I’m looking for something. You mind if look? I can get a warrant if you’d prefer.”
She snorts. “Go ahead. Won’t do you any good. Billy has been sleeping there. He took everything out that belonged to that woman.”
“What did he do with it?”
“Threw everything into a box out in the barn.”
“Then I’ll start there. Is Billy around?”
“No, he went off to buy groceries. Then he was going to pick up Trey after school.”
When I walk into the barn, Skeeter is watching John walk around with a saw in his hand.
“What do you need?” Skeeter says to me.
“I want to take a look at Susan Shelby’s belongings,” I say. “Your mamma said Billy brought them out here.”
Skeeter shrugs. “I don’t know where they are. Daddy, put that saw down.” John wanders back into the room where the tools are kept, and Skeeter follows him.
Over in the corner I find a large cardboard box that wasn’t here the first time I was in the barn. I open it and find all the belongings that I saw in Susan Shelby’s room. There’s a purse that I don’t remember seeing the first time. There’s hardly anything in it—a wallet with eight dollars, a lipstick and comb, a bus ticket receipt, and a package of chewing gum. But no identification at all. Susan thought ahead. If anybody went through her things they wouldn’t have found anything that gave away that she was an imposter. And that’s why she told Charlotte she didn’t drive, because she couldn’t produce a driver’s license without giving away the truth. I carefully go through the pockets of the clothing.
Finally satisfied that what I’m looking for isn’t here, I straighten up. John is back in the room with the saw, and Skeeter is starting to lose patience with him. “Daddy, let’s go back in the house now. There’s nothing here for you.”
“There is. I know I saw a drill. And I need it.”
Skeeter rolls his eyes at me.
“What do you need with a drill, John?” I ask.
He breaks into a grin. “What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.”
“We’ll have to sit down and talk,” I say. “But right this minute I need to ask Skeeter something. Do you mind if we go back to the house?”
“Sure, I need to get something to eat anyway.”
Once John is inside, I stop Skeeter and say, “Skeeter, I need to ask you about something you told me.”
“Okay, what’s that?”
“Remember you said you overheard Susan Shelby talking to herself?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember exactly what she said?”
“Sure. She sounded like she was having an argument with herself out loud. It creeped me out hearing her talk to herself that way.”
“She was calling herself Nonie?”
“Yeah, she . . .” He stops as he realizes the same thing that I figured out. “Oh man, if she’d been talking to herself she would have said, ‘Susan.’”
“She was talking on the phone to Nonie.”
“I guess she wasn’t as crazy as I thought she was.”
“The question is, where’s the phone she was using?”
He stares at me blankly. “I never saw her with one. Is that what you were looking for in her stuff?”
“Yep. It’s got to be in that room somewhere. Billy never said anything about finding it?”
“No, but he wouldn’t tell me anyway.”
He trails me back upstairs, intrigued at the mystery of where the phone is. It’s possible that Susan had it with her the night she was killed and that her killer took it away with the murder weapon. But the clothes she was wearing had no pockets, and it seems likely that she didn’t have it with her.
I’ll say this for Billy Blake. He keeps a tidy room. The bed is a little rumpled, but at least he’s made the effort to straighten up. His suitcase is set in a corner, and there are no clothes strewn around. The only thing out of place is a pair of boots thrown into the corner. Hands on my hips, I survey the room. Where could Susan Shelby have hidden a cell phone?
Even though I’ve already looked once, I look through every drawer in the chest and the bedside stand and find nothing.
I’m ready to give up, when Skeeter says, “Did you look under the bed? Maybe it fell under there.” He crouches down, picks up the skirt of the bedspread, and looks on the floor under the bed. I can tell him there’s nothing there, since I already looked once.
“Or the mattress,” he says. He jumps to his feet, dusting off his hands. Again, I already looked, but he says, “Here, I’ll hoist it up and you look.”
As soon as he lifts the mattress I see a clear plastic bag lying on the box springs near the head of the bed. Inside is a cell phone and charger. I couldn’t have missed the cell phone the first time I looked. So how did it get here?
“Whoa!” Skeeter says. He reaches for it.
“No. Leave it alone,” I say. I look around and see a box of tissues. I pull one out and use it to pluck the plastic bag from its hiding place. “You can put the mattress down now.”
He lowers it. “Why did she hide the phone?” he says.
“She didn’t.”
He sits down heavily on the bed. “I don’t understand what’s going on here.”
“Skeeter, do you know why your family keeps so much to themselves?”
He looks at his thumb and brings it to his mouth to chew at the corner of a nail. “Because of what Nonie did.”
He’s wrong, but his answer is so plaintive that I believe that’s what he thinks, and it lets him off the hook.
“What the hell is going on here? Why are you in my bedroom?”
Billy is standing at the door, an angry expression on his face. When he sees the cell phone, he blanches. “I was going to give you that,” he says.
“Skeeter, I’d like for you to leave us alone,” I say.
Skeeter looks at his brother uncertainly.
“Go on,” Billy says, his voice not unkind.
“When were you going to give the cell phone to me?” I ask when we’re alone.
“I hadn’t decided.”
“How did you get a hold of it?”
“It was in that woman’s purse.”
I didn’t find a purse when I looked through her belongings the first time. “Where was the purse?”
Billy walks to the window and looks out. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“Your daddy had it?”
He nods his head, his back still to me. “I can’t imagine that he killed her. Mamma keeps an eye on him all the time. How would he have slipped outside and followed her and done anything like that?”
“You’re sure it was him and not your mamma who had it?”
He wheels around. “Yes.” He looks immeasurably sad. “I was with him one day and he showed it to me like it was a treasure.” His voice wobbles and he swallows. “I asked him where he got it and he said he found it. I asked him where and he said it was downstairs in the kitchen. When I looked inside the purse and saw that cell phone, I knew it was Nonie’s. I asked Daddy if he took it from her—this was when we still thought she was Nonie—and he said he had found it. But I knew he took it.”
“You didn’t give it to me right away because you figured it implicated your dad.”
He nods.
“I admit it doesn’t look good. Your daddy could have been awake and heard Susan leave and slipped out and followed her. We can’t know what happened, but he could have gotten mad and hit her—he might not have even known that he killed her.”
“But listen,” he says. “If he did that, what did he do with whatever he killed her with? He doesn’t have the mental capacity to have known to hide it.”
“I know, son. But somebody might have seen what he did and they got rid of the weapon.”
I know that whoever might have done that is not going to simply confess. I’m going to have to come at the answer in a different way.
Back at headquarters, I plug Susan Shelby’s phone in and wait until it has enough juice so I can get the list of recent calls from it. I’m hoping that Susan called someone, pretending to be Nonie, telling him she had something on him that he’ll most likely want to pay to have suppressed. I know there will be a phone call to Nonie herself. It’s pretty clear from what Skeeter overheard that the two women were in on the scheme together.
I’m antsy with waiting, but eventually the phone gives a soft burr and indicates that there’s enough charge in it to use it. I smile to myself as I turn it on, thinking that only a few months ago I didn’t know anything about cell phones, and now this one might be the key to finding out who killed Susan Shelby.
I scroll down to find the last few calls Susan made and find that there are no local calls. So much for Susan calling someone outside the family to blackmail them. The last three calls are to the same number—a number in the Tyler/Jacksonville area. It’s got to be Nonie’s number. I dial it and wait. I’m almost ready to hang up when a message comes on. It’s one of those electronic voices that says the caller is unavailable and repeats the number but doesn’t give the name of the cell phone owner.
I go to the law enforcement reverse directory and there find that the phone Susan Shelby called belongs to Nonie Blake.
CHAPTER 28
Pine trees that east Texas is famous for surround the retirement community with the unimaginative name of North Tyler Retirement Community. The trees are droopy with the drought and heat, and they give off a strong scent of pine. I drive up the long driveway to the front entrance. The complex is made up of a couple of big structures that look like apartments, each with a small balcony, and several duplexes arranged in a half-circle facing a central park.
I meet Lilah Cousins’s brother, Ken Gitlen, for lunch at the golf clubhouse café. Gitlen is a tall, dapper man with a full head of gray-white hair and a mustache to match. He tells me he’s retired from the oil business. I spent a number of years as a land man, so we have a subject to kick around before we get down to business. He’s vigorous and expansive—obviously popular, as people keep stopping by our table to say a few words to him.
When I tentatively bring up Lilah, though, he clams up. “I’m afraid that’s a very sad part of my life, and I don’t like to dwell on it.”
Keeping the matter as vague as I can, I tell him I’m investigating a family tragedy, and it led me to Adelaide’s family tree. “It would be helpful to me if you would put your feelings aside and tell me what you remember about Lilah.”
“I’m surprised that Lilah’s daughter knows anything about the family. Lilah cut us off without a word.”
“The daughter didn’t tell me anything. I dug up the information myself. Do you know why her mother cut off the family that way?”
“I was a teenager when this happened, but it made an impression on me. Here’s the way it went.” He looks around the room furtively, as if what happened all that time ago could reflect back on him if his friends found out. “My mamma and daddy never liked Lilah’s husband, Aaron, and she resented it. I was a kid, and Aaron was nice to me, so I didn’t understand why my folks were against him. He made me feel included, made me feel like I was important. When I was older I realized that he wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.”
“What do you mean?”
He shifts in his chair and hunches forward, voice lowered. “He was charming, but he was a criminal, pure and simple. He got into some trouble before the war and was forced to enlist. Later my daddy told me that he thought being in the service would be good for Aaron. But when Aaron returned home from the war, he went right back to his old ways.”
“And what was that, exactly?”
“Trying to get something for nothing. First off, he tried to get some Ponzi scheme going—finagling money from widows and old couples. You know how those scams work. He gave the first few people a good return so they’d tell their friends, and they would send him more so-called investors.”
“How did he get caught?”
“I don’t know that, but my daddy was friends with the sheriff, and he came to my daddy and told him what was going on. Next thing I know, Daddy and Aaron were having it out. Lilah took Aaron’s side and said she was never going to talk to my folks again.”
“And after that Aaron took to robbing banks.”
He shakes his head with a grim set to his mouth. “I don’t know why he couldn’t settle into making a living by working the way the rest of us did. My daddy said Aaron grew up poor and it did something to him. Made him want to get money any way he could—and the faster, the better.”
“I know he was killed in a bank robbery. Do you know if he had a partner?”
“Partner? I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that he was killed and Lilah moved away after that. She had a little girl. I guess that would be Adelaide. It about killed Mamma not to get to know her granddaughter, but she was real religious and she said it was easier for her to pretend Lilah was dead.”
His coffee has got to be cold by now, but he stirs it, and I can see he’s struggling with a thought. “This Adelaide. How’s she doing? You said there was a tragedy? What happened?”
I explain the situation to him.
“You suppose one of Adelaide’s family killed the woman?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.”
“You know, Aaron was a criminal, and my brother always said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
There are deep shadows under Nonie’s eyes. Her expression hardens when she sees me on her doorstep. “Have you found out who killed Susan?”
“I think I’m getting closer. I need to ask you to fill in a couple of details for me.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Not quite everything. You mind if I come in?”
She hesitates but then opens the door wider, and I step inside. She stands her ground inside the door. “What is it you want to know?”
“I want to be sure I’ve got things straight. Susan gave you no indication that she was planning to go to Jarrett Creek?”
“I told you she didn’t.” She reminds me of Adelaide when she says that—a little defensive.
“Did you and Susan ever discuss where your family’s money came from?”
“What money? You’ve lost me.” The answer is quick in coming, and vehement. Every time I circle around the question of money, I hit a nerve with somebody.
“Were yo
u afraid of Susan?”
She jerks her head back. “Afraid? No, why would I be afraid of her?”
“I talked to Susan’s family. Sounds like she had something of a temper.”
“Oh, what did they know? They wrote her off because they didn’t like that she was independent and did things her own way.” She’s revved up now, and her face is flaming. “They thought because we’re two women living together we must have a sex thing going. You probably think the same thing.”
“Your intimate life with Susan isn’t in question. What I want to know is if Susan ever lost her temper with you.”
She shrugs. “Once or twice. But I don’t take anything off of anybody, so we got that straight pretty fast.”
“Nonie, I know that you were aware that Susan was at your folks’ house because someone overheard the two of you having a conversation when she was there. What was the conversation about?”
“I didn’t know she was at their house. She just called me to make sure everything was okay here. She didn’t tell me where she was.”
“Someone overheard her arguing with you. What was the argument about?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. What difference does it make? I can’t remember having an argument with her. It couldn’t have been anything important, or I would remember.”
“One more question. It concerns the incident with Charlotte that landed you in the hospital.”
Her eyes go cold. “I told you I’m not going to talk about that.”
“Charlotte said when you were trying to get her to put the noose around her neck you said you had to make sure she wouldn’t tattle. What were you afraid she was going to tell?”
She claps her hands over her ears. “I can’t hear this. I’m not going to think about it.” She shuts her eyes tight. “And you can’t make me talk about it. The doctor said I didn’t have to answer to anyone, that it was the past and I should move on.” She opens the door and makes a shooing gesture toward me. “I want you to get out of here. Now!”