by Dale Mayer
Doreen opened her car door. “Thaddeus, get off of there.” She was petrified his talons would scratch the paint job, and she’d be sued for damages.
But Thaddeus just walked around in a circle on top of the trunk. And then he chanted, “Body in the trunk. Body in the trunk.”
Mack groaned.
Doreen gasped. Several people in route to their vehicles stopped and stared. She held her hands, palms up. “He’s just a crazy bird.”
But a crowd had collected.
“Mack, I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you started this,” he groaned. He reached over toward the bird. “Come on, Thaddeus. Let’s get back in the car, buddy. Let’s get you home.”
But Thaddeus evaded his grasp. “Open trunk. Open trunk. Open trunk,” he cried out.
And, when she wasn’t looking, Goliath jumped out of the window and landed on the roof of the red car, right beside Thaddeus. Now two of her animals were loose that she had to contend with. But Goliath stood on the trunk, his tail twitching hard. Mugs, not to be left out, pushed open the door she hadn’t quite clicked shut and raced around the vehicle, barking like crazy.
Suddenly two more cop cars pulled up beside them.
Doreen covered her face with her hands.
One of the officers got out and said, “Ma’am, are these your animals?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m so sorry. They’re very much out of control right now.”
And then Mack stepped up. “Hey, Stanley.”
“Mack?”
With a long sigh, Mack said, “Yep, that’s me.”
They looked at the animals, looked over at her, and a big grin cracked Stanley’s face as he asked Doreen, “So what did you do? Catch another dead body?”
Again Thaddeus chanted, “Body in the trunk. Body in the trunk. Body in the trunk.”
Silence settled over the crowd.
Stanley said, “Is that what we’re thinking is going on here?”
Mack shook his head. “Honestly, I have no clue. There’s just something about this bird. Actually, the cat and the dog too. Obviously something’s attracting them. Maybe a scent.”
“Well now, do we know who owns the vehicle?”
“Cecily does,” somebody in the crowd said. “She runs the Family Planning Center.”
From the background were all kinds of suggestions on what could be in the trunk.
“Maybe she’s in there dead.”
“Maybe there’s a dead child in there.”
Somebody else said, “Hey, maybe it’s a cat. Maybe it’s just something else that’s been left close to the vehicle, and that’s what they’re smelling. Just because the bird talks doesn’t mean he makes sense.”
She snorted at that. “You’ve got that right,” she said.
Chapter 23
Monday early afternoon…
The cops helped Mack disperse the crowd. One of the guys headed into the mall to join the search for Cecily. They announced her name over the PA system, asking her to return to her vehicle, but, after an hour, there was still no sign of her.
Mack looked at Doreen. Doreen looked at Mack, and they both shrugged.
“What’s really going on here?” Stanley asked Mack.
In a low voice Mack told them as much as he could.
The two officers looked at Doreen.
She shrugged. “I called Mack when I found it,” she said.
“You should have called him while you were there,” Stanley admonished. “Now evidence has likely been lost.”
“Which is why I followed the car,” she said. “To see if she tried to dispose of the rest of the garbage.”
Stanley’s partner, Roberts, said, “I’ll phone the chief. See if we can get some idea what to do about this.”
“You do that,” Mack said with a heavy sigh. “Nothing is ever easy about Doreen. The case was already closed as a murder-suicide, until she got involved.”
Stanley nodded with a half grin. “And what’s this I hear?” he said, turning to look at Doreen. “You’ve got some scuba-diving enthusiasts going out on Tuesday?”
Her gaze went to Mack, then down at her feet and the aging sandals she wore.
Mack turned slowly to face her. “Doreen?” His voice turned ominous.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “They just wanted to go scuba diving.”
“I don’t know about that,” Stanley said, a grin widening on his face. “They were pretty fired up about it. Looking for something in particular, from what I heard.”
With a groan, she let her shoulders slump. Somehow she figured she’d get to Tuesday without having to explain it all to Mack. She should have known better. “You know Mack will never let me leave the house again, don’t you?” she told Stanley.
“From what I hear,” Stanley said, “you can get into a heck of a lot of trouble without ever leaving that house of yours.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” she said, but she then confessed to Mack. He hadn’t been pleased, but, when she had explained her theory, he had been quietly stunned.
“That’s very good thinking,” he said. “I doubt they’ll find anything, but I appreciate what you’ve done for the family’s sake. Nobody even considered that all the times we discussed the cold case.”
“There was absolutely no reason for Henry Huberts, a man with no criminal past, to take the little boy for nefarious purposes. I know there are secret pedophiles, but something about this didn’t feel right. When I realized his grandson, Josh Huberts, had been accused of Celeste’s murder, then believed to have committed suicide, I felt like that was another whammy for the family. If I could help solve one of those problems, then maybe it would be easier on them.”
Mack nodded.
Roberts turned to look at her. “By the way, aren’t you the one we put in the security for?”
She smiled. “Yes, and thank you for that because honestly I can at least sleep at night now.”
“Nothing has triggered it?”
“No, although I don’t hold any hopes that’ll continue after seeing the intruder at the grocery store earlier today. I can’t believe he’s free to run around and break into my house again,” she snapped.
“I’m surprised you left the place long enough to follow this woman.”
“But if she had anything to do with those two deaths …”
“So are you working for the police now?” Stanley said with a big grin. “You know, like part of the new volunteer amateur sleuths society?”
“Oh, God. Don’t even get her started on something like that,” Mack said instantly. “Roberts, did you get a hold of the chief?”
“He’s talking to the prosecutor to see what we can get.”
“Great,” Mack said, turning to glare at Doreen. “You know that I’ll never live this down.”
“You know what else? I’ll never live this down either,” she mimicked, shooting him a matching glare. “You didn’t have to follow me, you know?”
“That’s about the only right thing I did do,” he cried out.
At that, Stanley howled with laughter. “You two are great together,” he said with amusement. “You sound like an old married couple.”
Both Doreen and Mack turned to glare at him. Stanley raised both hands in mock surrender and, still chuckling, moved to where Roberts was once again on the phone.
She turned to Mack. “I don’t know what marriages he’s familiar with, but this is nothing like what my marriage was like.”
“You weren’t married,” Mack snapped back. “You were in bondage.”
She looked at him and, after a long moment, said, “I really was, wasn’t I?” Her tone was very low and sad.
All his aggression fell away. “Hey, I didn’t mean that.”
“No,” she said. “But you should have meant it because it is the truth. Sad but true.”
“Don’t take it too bad,” he said. “You’re free now.”
She nodded and turned, leaning against the car. Thaddeus,
realizing she wouldn’t take him away, hopped onto her shoulder and gently brushed his beak against hers.
“Bondage,” he said just once and in a low tone.
She stroked his head. “That’s why you don’t live in a cage. That’s why, like Nan, I can’t have you confined in any way. I spent fourteen years in a gilded cage—but a cage nonetheless.” She gently brushed and hugged the bird.
Goliath was on her other side. He rubbed his head against that side of her face too. She stroked both of them, loving that, at this moment, when she was feeling the pain of all she’d gone through, they were here for her.
She looked up at the sound of a camera snap, expecting to see paparazzi; instead it was Mack. She looked at him in surprise. He turned the camera around so she could see the picture, and she stared in delight as both Thaddeus and Goliath had their heads turned against her. She had closed her eyes, and a gentle smile was on her face.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s a very special picture.”
“I’ll send it to you.” He nodded and paused. “So you might have been in a gilded cage,” he said, “but you’ve given special lives to these two.” Then he looked down at Mugs who, in his typical fashion, was lying on her feet. He smiled. “You may have turned this town upside down, but the animals sure appreciate their new lives.”
Roberts came back over and said, “We’re to try one more time to find her. If there’s no sign of her in an hour, we’re to open the trunk.”
Mack nodded. “You guys head in and help find her.”
“She’s already gone,” somebody said from among the officers a couple rows over. “I saw her running out the back of the mall. She didn’t look to be coming back anytime soon.”
On that note, Roberts nodded. Mack walked to his car, picked up a pry bar, and came back over.
Before he opened the trunk, Doreen looked at him and said, “You don’t want to just unlock it from the inside?”
The three closest cops looked at her, looked at each other, walked over to the front door, and sure enough the damn driver’s door was unlocked. Swearing, Roberts hit the Trunk button, and the trunk popped open.
“We’d really appreciate it,” Stanley said, “if you don’t mention that to anybody.”
She gave him a breezy smile and a wave of her hand. “I won’t mention it. Believe me. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about a few things either.”
He chuckled, and then his gaze fell to what was inside the trunk. He stopped laughing. “That is a hell of a lot of blood.”
Not only were the bloody cloths here that Doreen had seen in the garbage can but the carpet inside the trunk was completely soaked with blood too. She sighed. “That’s why I was following her.”
Mack nodded. “And that’s why I was following her too. The difference between us is, I’m the cop, and you’re not.”
She stuck out her tongue at him. “In that case, I get to go home now, don’t I? And you get to stay and work.” She gave them all a big wave, bundled up her animals, and headed home.
Later that evening Doreen got through another ten hangers full of Nan’s clothes, but her heart wasn’t in it. She still burned with a sense of satisfaction from her day’s adventures. But she hadn’t had any follow-up from Mack. Now she half-expected to never hear from him again.
But, with any luck, they would trace that blood back to Celeste. And then they would take a serious look at the case again. Doreen grabbed a book, sat on her bed, then felt just too tired for that. She went back downstairs—did another walk through the rooms, checking that everything was still fine, made sure the alarms were set—then went back upstairs, and crashed.
Chapter 24
Tuesday morning…
She awoke the next morning—Tuesday, her day to make an omelet. If Mack was coming over, she better shower and get dressed. It was already eight o’clock. He might be here very soon.
But then again, if he’d been working on that case yesterday into all hours of the night, he might have gone to bed very, very late. Still, she wouldn’t take a chance, and, after a quick shower, she dressed and walked downstairs.
Once in the kitchen she frowned, wondering whether she was supposed to call him about getting breakfast started or not. She really didn’t want to.
She brought out the video she’d made of Mack making the omelet and watched it again. Carefully. It hadn’t taken him long, and he’d certainly done it nice and smoothly. She wondered if she could get on the prep work. She needed to learn to do this. Did that include having him here while she did it? There really wasn’t a right or wrong decision here, but it felt like she was cheating without having him here for her to show off. Besides, she wasn’t in too much of a hurry. She just didn’t want to mess it up.
She didn’t understand her relationship with Mack, but, considering the comments from the other cops, she figured there was already a lot of talk about them. It was hard not to wonder if that bothered Mack.
For herself, she didn’t care. He was a friend, and one she was proud to call a friend. Especially considering the craziness in her life.
She disarmed the security on the front and back doors, snagged a cup of coffee, and called to the animals. “Come on. Let’s go outside for a little bit, you guys. Get some fresh air and all that.”
With the back door propped open this beautiful morning, all the animals barreled out of the house with her. She chuckled at their antics because it was just too sweet. It was also chaotic, but, hey, she’d take that.
She walked down the steps to the backyard and wandered through the garden, looking to see what would come up. This was a mystery garden. Nan remembered a lot of the plants and where she had planted them. Doreen herself recognized a lot of the plants already coming up. But a lot of the annuals themselves were still just flowering and leafing out. The black-eyed Susans had yet to come up. There was echinacea, as far as she could tell from the foliage, but, until the purple flowers bloomed, she wasn’t too sure. She hadn’t seen very much of it before, but it looked to be something she would thoroughly enjoy.
She walked back into the house almost an hour later. She checked her watch again as she walked over to the coffeepot and poured herself a second cup. “I can finish this pot myself,” she said, “then put on another one when he comes, or I can leave him something from this pot. But, if he doesn’t come until ten o’clock, then it’ll be pretty nasty.”
“Do you always talk to yourself?” came a strange voice from behind her.
A strange voice, and yet … a not-too-strange voice. She turned ever-so-slowly to see Cecily, holding a snub-nosed revolver in her hand. Doreen took a deep breath. “Is that the gun you used to kill your sister and her boyfriend?”
“You mean, my boyfriend,” she said. “At least some of the time.”
Doreen sagged against the counter. “Oh, crap.” So she had been right. Wow. Poor Celeste.
“Ha, see you don’t know jack shit,” Cecily said.
“And I don’t understand that phrase. Why does anybody care about Jack’s shit? That makes no sense. Is he some kind of monster pooper or something?” she asked in a droll tone. Her gaze was on the gun as her mind tried to spin a way out of this nightmare.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cecily asked. “Are you seriously mental?”
“What does that mean? Seriously mental versus not being seriously mental?” she asked. “I’m confused. I really don’t understand the question.”
The woman’s face turned from being congenial to confused to pissed. “That’s enough messing around. I don’t need that kind of crap from you.”
“What do you need?” Doreen asked. “You break into my house, point a weapon at me. I don’t have anything to do with you or your life. Why are you after me?”
“Because you’re the idiot screwing up my life. You and those animals of yours,” she said. “You ruined me.”
“Why is it, whenever somebody is in the wrong, and they get found out, they turn around and
blame everybody else? I didn’t do anything to you,” she said. “None of this is my fault, and you’re not dumping the blame on me.”
“It is your fault,” she said, “and I will dump it on you because you had no business at the center. So it is your fault. If you weren’t sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong …”
“Considering I found your sister’s body there, I would say I did have some business there,” Doreen snapped. “At least someone cared about what happened to your poor sister. What were you going to do? Just let her rot out there?”
“I planned to call it in. But I didn’t get a chance. I cared about her. But you didn’t. You never even met her.”
“Do I have to meet every woman who’s been murdered to feel like she mattered?” Doreen asked in astonishment. “That makes no sense to me. But I guess for somebody who murdered her own sister, maybe that makes a twisted kind of sense to you?”
“She wasn’t your problem, and you didn’t need to get involved.”
“She wasn’t a problem,” Doreen snapped. “She was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. And she was obviously very vibrant, very passionate. You took all that away from her.”
“Oh, she was passionate all right. Always about the goddamn wrong things. Somebody had to have a calm, collected, organized head,” she snarled.
“I’m confused,” Doreen said. “What could you possibly have against your sister that was worth killing her for?”
“How about the fact she was helping her boyfriend shut down my center?”
“So Josh was her boyfriend after all, not your boyfriend?” Doreen asked in confusion. She needed to keep Cecily talking, but it was kind of hard because Doreen was still figuring out how to get this woman to put down the gun.
“He was playing both of us,” Cecily said with a sneer. “I figured, if my sister could see him for what he really was, she’d ditch him.”
“So you seduced him to ruin their relationship? What kind of woman, much less a sister, are you?” She couldn’t imagine such a thing.
Cecily said, “What kind of woman are you? You don’t even have to work. You just laze around, get in everybody’s face, cause trouble and chaos everywhere you go. And this? This is what happens. You get into other people’s business because you’re bored. You need a man of your own,” she sneered. “If you would know what to do with one.”