by Linda Ladd
Frightened by his miscalculation, Tee jumped up but kept himself hidden in the shadows. Now Jeff was just standing at the top of the steps, staring down at the screaming woman, as if he couldn’t quite figure out what had just happened. And Tee hoped to hell he couldn’t. Maggie couldn’t seem to get up and lay upside down on the concrete steps, but there wasn’t anything wrong with her lungs and she shrieked for help over and over to come quick because Jeff was trying to kill her.
It didn’t take long for every freaking person at the clinic to rush to her rescue. A couple of orderlies rushed out the door and grabbed Jeff, but he didn’t struggle or try to get away. Tee could hear Jeff’s voice now, and he was saying over and over, “I didn’t do nothin’, I didn’t do nothin’.”
Maggie the Witch was saying different and loud and clear, too. “Jeff tried to kill me! He pushed me off the steps, he tried to kill me, I’m telling you! And if I hadn’t been able to hold on to that rail, I’d be dead right now!”
Tee breathed a lot easier then, because Jeff wasn’t saying a single word about Tee being in the bushes or that Tee was in on the plot. He didn’t remember any of that, just like Tee had instructed while he had him in the trance, and he wouldn’t, if Tee were lucky. But anything could go wrong, so Tee needed to hurry up and climb back in his room’s window and come out in the hall all sleepy-eyed and confused like all the other kids, just to have a convenient alibi, if he should need one.
Encouraged by his almost success, however, even if it didn’t turn out exactly the way Tee wanted, he was glad to see Maggie loaded onto a gurney and an ambulance called out from Jeff City. At least, they’d be rid of her and her constant suspicion and persecution for a while, and that made the whole thing worthwhile. Maybe she’d even end up with spinal damage, or something, and have to give up her job. That would be great. Tee could only hope.
As it turned out, Maggie only broke her hip, something about osteoporosis and brittle bones. She was pressing charges on Jeff, though, and Jeff was denying everything, and so credibly that the doctors weren’t sure if it had been an accident or not. So things were turning out okay. There was talk of Jeff having to go to a secured ward at a mental hospital for a while, but that was okay, too. Jeff had served his purpose. Let him serve his time somewhere else. If he ever did come up with the memory of his hypnotism at Tee’s hands, all Tee had to do was deny, deny, deny. And he was very good at that. Had lots of practice.
The most important thing was that he was on the right track with his experiments, one that would lead him successfully to his own ends. Mind control. He even loved the words, loved the way they rolled off his tongue. All he could think about was what he could do if he could perfect that art of manipulating others. And there were still plenty of kids around that he could use as his guinea pigs. Someday maybe he could even sell his techniques to other shrinks, make a name for himself. Maybe he could even join the CIA and use his skills in espionage, like in all those conspiracy flicks he’d been watching on cable. Maybe he could work for them, break into the minds of mortal enemies of the good old U.S. of A. Yeah, that’s what he’d do. He’d be a huge covert hero of his country. Even the president would admire him and give him medals on the sly.
NINETEEN
The only thing I had to look forward to the next day was Mikey’s funeral, and guess what? I wasn’t exactly in the mood to attend the services of somebody else’s dead son. And there was another funeral coming up, too. Poor little Cleo. Somehow she had gotten to me, even more than the others. She had been so young, so sweet and innocent. Her death had been declared a suicide, but I didn’t buy that, not for a single second. Someone had been on that yellow phone of hers, talking to her, egging her on, just like someone had egged on Mikey and Li He, and I was going to find the bastard and put him away if it took me till doomsday.
On top of that, I was emotionally unnerved by this sudden, inexplicable onslaught of grief over Zachary, and the way my mind couldn’t handle it anymore. Even with Black gently showering me and my psyche with all kinds of tender shrink love and care, my head was like a black hole, bombarded with morbid thoughts and awful memories all swirled up together and sucked down into my sliced-up bleeding heart. But something about my so-called breakthrough last night must have had an effect; I was functioning again at least and could put my case on the front burner better than I had the last couple of days.
The funeral was held at one o’clock in an old, quaint, but exclusive Presbyterian church in Jefferson City. The building was made of gray granite, two bell towers rising on both sides of the front door and lots of carved stone crosses. The bronze plaque beside the front door said 1914. It was mere blocks from the capitol building and the Missouri River. Black and I stood outside in the fresh air—I was not thrilled with the idea of smelling the inevitable carnation and rose sprays that always permeated such places of death—so we just loitered outside like a couple of well-dressed street people, or at least Black was. He had on a crisp charcoal suit, gray shirt, and darker gray tie, suitably somber and unflashy.
I had on a new, equally staid black pantsuit that I’d broken down and bought at JCPenney since it appeared funerals were going to stay on my future list of stuff I hated to do but had to so buck up and get it done. Mourners arrived by the carload, most wearing black, most with dour, pitying facial expressions, and hurried past us and into the long rows of bleached oak pews. I realized the two of us had begun attending a lot of funerals together since we hooked up, actually one of the few formal occasions we deigned to attend, but duty did have a tendency to call.
After a while, and at the very last minute, just after the depressing music faded, we walked inside the church and stood at the open doors that led into the cavernous sanctuary. When the family finally filed in from some kind of side holding room, however, I couldn’t help but notice that Mikey’s mom wore all white. Looked like some kind of tacky statement to me, oh yeah. Or she thought she lived in China, where white was the in color for funerals. Black knew a lot of the people in attendance, most notably the governor himself, and when Edward Stanton arrived, Black walked over to the side door to greet the great man where he was waiting to make his grand, gubernatorial entrance. I watched the two men shake hands and smile as if they were buddies, then converse in low tones, surrounded all the while by a whole bevy of Missouri Highway Patrol officers and other security-conscious guys in dark suits, much like my own, dutifully pledged to protect The Most Powerful One in the State of Missouri.
When the organ music aka sorrowful dirge dwindled off into hushed reverence, Black skedaddled back over to me, after which we slipped as inconspicuously as possible into the back row, my favorite place at nearly any event. You know, for surveillance, my back to the door for bad guys with knives or blow darts, that sort of thing. The governor was not one for shy, private kind of entrances, however. He strode down the wide center aisle with his security entourage, like he was the real star of the show. I was pleased to find a big white pillar blocked my view of the casket. Trust me, it’s better that way. I’d seen too many, and I knew it was open, and that’s the worst kind, at least in my book.
The church was dead silent now, forgive the unfortunate pun, everybody somber, still, sick with grief, and a bunch of other S words. A man got up to speak, the first in a long line of friends and family who wanted to say a good word about Mikey Murphy. Fun memories, what a cute little boy he was, how he learned to walk at eight months, how he became a successful businessman, made the best pizza this side of Naples, you get the drift.
After a while, I quit listening and began to observe the people sitting around us, many dabbing at tears with tissues. It was quite a gathering, I decided. Leaning out a bit into the aisle, I located the governor sitting near the family. Now I could see his pretty and well-known, well-groomed, ash-blond first lady, who had preceded him inside earlier, alongside a nice showing of their governmental assistants/secretaries/ lackeys/office workers, the number of which verged on Madonna-or Elvis-size
d entourages. Governor Stanton’s wife’s name was Violet, but everybody called her Vi, and she wore a large black hat, the biggest one in the sanctuary. I noticed that Debbie Winters was there, too, sitting three rows back, looking cute in black, of course. Bud should’ve come instead of weaseling out on me. He was supposed to be looking into Khur-Vay’s background, but he was probably still asleep in bed, with a pillow over his head, thereby missing out on the beauteous Deb, so there you go with the early bird gets the worm stuff, not that Ms. Winters is a worm.
Time passed in dragging-an-elephant fashion. Finally, Black leaned very close to my ear. He whispered, “There’s a funeral buffet at the governor’s mansion after the burial at the cemetery. He asked us to come, and I said we would. Any problem there?”
“No, that’s someplace I definitely want to be.” Mainly because it would give me an opportunity to go gleaning for information I did not have. I wished again Bud was here because his charm worked really well at these sort of things; he was quite the Lothario at wedding receptions, too. But maybe he was up already and finished with Khur-Vay and off to St. Louis as planned to find the elusive roommate, Melanie Baxter of Fenton, who had not shown up back at MSU or answered any of the voice mails we’d left for her.
Also, Buckeye Boyd was supposed to get hold of me today and tell me if he’d come up with a DNA match from that hair on Li He’s hair brush and the one from the deceased girl from the oven, which was taking way too long. The lab also had the melted cell phone from the Cleo crime scene, which I didn’t expect they could get anything off, but there was always that outside chance. Then, if Buck came out with some awful, unwelcome news on the hair match, either Bud or I would have to take the trip over to the poor kid’s parents’ show in Branson and break their hearts, so I heartily hoped Bud got back from St. Louis first and got that gig.
Glad I was seated in the back, I craned my neck until I could see Mikey’s younger siblings and found out quick enough they were collectively taking things pretty hard. Very Mom-unlike. This woman, this mother, was an enigma to me, and an annoying one, for sure, but what did she know about Mikey that no one else seemed to? What was it about the kid that froze her heart into a lump of dirty ice? Maybe that alone could be my afternoon quest? Get Momma Bear alone and manipulate her into spilling her guts. Sounded like something I could get my teeth into. And I mean that both literally and figuratively.
The service ended at long last, and I decided to forgo the full-fledged joy of trudging in a line to the front of the church so I could view the poor boy’s remains and stare pityingly at the poor grieving relatives. I’d gone through that horrible ordeal, sat in a similar front-row pew, and looked dead, too, as my fellow LAPD officers and a couple of friends filed past one tiny little white casket with a kneeling gold angel on top. I shut my eyes and fought the agony unlike any other. How could Mary Fern Murphy not feel some kind of grief for that poor boy lying in that satin-lined coffin?
“You okay?”
Black was right there. Oh, yeah, he was watching me like the proverbial hawk. He knew how close I was to the edge, leaning over, even. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just hate funerals. I’m going outside. I need some fresh air.”
Black followed me outside, and we stood together in the deep shade of a big elm tree that grew near and cooled the portico of the church. We could smell the cool, earthy dampness of ground moss and the ivy covering the tree trunk. I could hear the distant blare of a boat horn somewhere on the Missouri River, and the noisy chatter of a flock of birds feasting in a wild cherry tree across the street. Mourners began to file out around us, talking together in normal tones now. They headed for their cars to join the funeral procession to the nearby cemetery.
Black and I had driven up in my Explorer; his giant Humvee just didn’t fit the bill for a funeral service, being bigger than the hearse, and all. I beeped open the locks, sat down in the driver seat, then flipped open my phone to see if Bud had called. He hadn’t. No one had, in fact, which was a bit unusual. Maybe things were running smoothly in Canton County. That would be a nice change.
The drive to the cemetery was not long, and we got out and stood beside my SUV parked on the blacktopped road, rather than walking down the grassy hill to Mikey’s final resting place. We didn’t say anything or discuss the reasons why, though both of us knew them. We just watched in silence. The governor was standing beside our snowy-adorned momma, his arm around her waist. I thought that was a little suspect, since Mikey’s dad was weeping openly and Momma was more than holding her own. Then the governor placed his hand on Joseph’s shoulder, too, and all was well.
Finally, about twenty minutes later, we were in the Explorer again and on our way to the governor’s mansion for the luncheon. I parked the car about a block down at the curb in front of an old two-story clapboard house painted lemon yellow with an upstairs balcony decorated with white gingerbread trim. Walking back up the hill, we paused briefly to admire the big bronze fountain dedicated to children in front of the mansion, then followed a knot of chitchatting women up the steps onto the front porch of the official residence of the governor of the State of Missouri. It was located next to the capitol building, which was more than handy, I suspect. Red-bricked, Victorian, with a square turret atop the roof, which probably gave a helluva view of the wide and rolling Missouri. It was truly a beautiful old house.
There was security manning the front door. Missouri Highway Patrol officers aplenty, but I didn’t recognize any of them. The women in front of us showed their funeral card with Mikey’s picture on it, but I just flashed my badge. Just so they’d know. Nope, I wasn’t checking my guns, not even for the guv. A big bald guy with muscles good and plenty leaned down and looked my badge over, and then examined my face like I was Lizzie Borden in search of an ax. Then he perused Black’s driver’s license like he was Jack the Ripper in custom-tailored attire. Black assumed this little peeved look on his face but said nothing belligerent. He didn’t get carded often, if he ever had. Most people recognized him, anyway.
Waved inside, we entered what I’d heard was denoted as the Great Hall. It was a hall, all right, and pretty great, too, as far as I could tell. Pale yellow walls, beautifully carved dark woodwork, and shiny parquet floors. The ceilings looked what? About twenty, thirty feet tall, and there was a plethora of antique furniture, including this rather large table surrounded by red tufted chairs in front of a fireplace affixed with a gigantic mirror atop its mantel. You know the kind of chairs I’m talking about, the ones that everybody’s scared to sit on. Thus explained the groups of guests standing as they admired the place. Double chandeliers hung from the ceiling and were turned on because the room was pretty dim, and they both had lots of large round glass globes with crystal dewdrops under each one. Yes, ma’am, this was quite the State Palace, all right.
Adopting our awestruck faces, we wended our way through milling people, most of whom had regressed to semilow tones but occasionally burst into laughter that rang in the big room with echoes and made everybody jump. That was something I had trouble understanding, but I guess people think being jovial and laughing uproariously now and then helps the bereaved get their minds off their dead loved one, now lying cold in the ground. Don’t think so.
Off to our left we found what seemed to be a library, done in a silky green and gold color scheme. Very Victorian. Another marble fireplace with its own big mirror reflecting an equally large chandelier. There were several antique cabinets full of books, first editions written by erudite Missourians, no doubt. Mark Twain came to mind. There was a couple or two in there, husbands and wives, just looking at everything. The room on the right side of the great hall was a double parlor, of sorts, done with pale rose walls and more red Victorian furniture. Maybe Victorians didn’t like any other color on their furniture.
I did like one piece of furniture in there; it was pretty cool, actually, like a round couch divided off into seating areas on four sides. Another chandelier hung over it. I’d seen some of those divided
chair things in old Alan Ladd cowboy movies, you know, Shane, maybe, in 1800s hotel lobbies, but can’t tell you what they are called. Several big gold and white marble columns divided the rooms, and people were actually sitting around in small groups in front of windows sporting elaborately fringed draperies. I still hadn’t seen Joseph Murphy or any of the Murphy family. Maybe they went home and said to hell with it.
We headed for the dining room, which Black knew was at the back of the Great Hall, and there we hit pay dirt. The room was big and blue and chandeliered like crazy and mirrored and set with a heavily laden buffet table with every imaginable type of food. Black said, “I’m hungry. Let’s get in the line.”
Geez, Black was getting as bad as Bud about foodstuffs. Maybe I brought that out in men who hung around me. Actually, I was hungry, too. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, or lunch, or dinner the night before, so I grabbed a fancy red and white plate and followed a group of four legislative assistants around the buffet table. They were whispering, and I tried to eavesdrop, knowing that secretary types usually knew all the dirt on everybody in the office, be it governmental or private or sheriff’s department. And they knew it first, of course.
“Poor Joseph,” said one of them. “He’s just not handling this well at all.”
“Yes,” her friend’s voice lowered, which really perked up my ears, “but did you notice Mary Fern? She hasn’t shed a single tear, not that I’ve seen.”