The light in the restaurant seemed to grow dimmer to Royce, even as bars of sunlight lay across the floor for a few minutes as the clouds parted briefly. About to pick up her glass of water, her hand jerked, almost tipping the glass over. She caught it just in time and only a few drops spilled. She shook her head, and the room brightened somewhat. She looked at Chrys, whose face had gone still and her eyes wide.
Eddy. And glamorous, beautiful, red-haired Lucianne. Not just Lily. That can’t have been what he meant in the letter. But he’d said women affected him like a fever. Did she know her husband so little? Fail him so much? No. Thelma was lying. Wouldn’t think about that now.
“The hell you say. You’re lying.” Hal echoed the thought Royce was hanging onto.
Sounds of movement came from the booth on the other side of the wall. Thelma’s voice was clearer as she apparently stood up. Royce motioned for Chrys to turn away from the wall. With a puzzled look, she obeyed.
“You have a lot more to worry about than my past. Remember that. Here.”
“I can pay for my own coffee, damn you.”
After a couple of minutes, Royce risked a peek toward the door. She saw no sign of Woodstone or Thelma.
Chrys sat back and crossed her arms. “What was that about? Did those two have something to do with my mother’s death?” Her voice broke a little on the last two words, but she swallowed and kept her eyes on Royce.
“It sounded like it. And other things that have been going on.”
“Are we just going to sit here and let them get away with it?” When Royce didn’t answer, she repeated her question. “Well, are we?”
Royce blinked and looked at Chrys. “Sorry, something they said…what did you say?”
“She could be lying,” Chrys said softly. “And I said, are we just going to sit here and let them get away with it?”
“No. We’re not.” Royce threw a twenty on the table, stood up, and headed for the door.
The blonde server, balancing a coffee pot and two ham and cheese sandwiches, did a nimble side step to avoid a collision. “Here’s your food.”
“We have to leave. Thank you.” Royce heard the flurry of movement and glanced back in time to see Chrys cast a wistful glance at the sandwiches.
The server caught it, too, quickly wrapped a napkin around one sandwich and handed it to her. “Here.”
Chrys grabbed the paper square. “Thanks.”
The girl shrugged, nodding toward the twenty on the table. “It’s paid for.”
Royce was getting into her car when Chrys caught up with her. Before turning the key, Royce dragged the scarf from her hair and dug her cell phone from her purse. She dialed a number and put the phone to her ear. After several rings, a familiar voice answered and she spoke. “Chuck, it’s Royce. Has a search been made of the Woodstone house?”
She listened. “Jared’s there now? Thanks. Goodbye.” She punched a button and replaced the phone in her purse.
“Ready?” She glanced over at Chrys as she buckled up. Chrys nodded, and Royce started the engine.
Chrys opened the wrapped sandwich and took a bite. She chewed and swallowed, then looked at the sandwich. She folded the napkin back around it and shoved it in her tote bag. “How can I eat when my mother has been kicked to death? What kind of daughter am I?”
Royce had no answer. But she understood, remembering her own ten-year-old self. She could hardly believe the abundance of food at each meal in her first foster home. She felt guilty each time she ate her fill, remembering the scarcity of food in the dismal, housing-project apartment she and her mother had shared after her father’s death. The guilt and grief for her mother caused her to vomit often the first few months. She doubted Chrys would care to hear about that period in her life, nor was she keen to recount it.
After several blocks of silence, Chrys turned to her. “Whoever you talked to said Chief Granite was at the Woodstone house. Why?”
“They’re searching it. I think they’ll find evidence that will clear Palm of the murder charge in his—and your—mother’s death.”
“Palm. My half—no, my brother. I feel like I should wake up from this nightmare.” Chrys clasped her head with both hands and shook it. “It can’t be real.”
Again, no comment seemed adequate, so Royce kept silent. She knew, from her own hard-learned lessons, and was still learning, the unreality Chrys spoke of was a blessing. It allowed a person to get through the hours and days following such a trauma of loss, until a sort of psychologically tougher membrane gently covered the grief. Then it could be endured and somehow dealt with. As she would deal with whatever truth there might be in Thelma Morrell’s assertions to Hal about Eddy.
First, she would find a way to reach Chrys. So she could offer the touch of human compassion, which was a poor substitute for that which was lost, but all she had. The girl had no one else except the brother she never knew about. Or did she? Lily must have had relatives in California. She made a mental note to ask Jared Granite if the investigation had turned up any family.
Hedge Street seemed to be hosting a police convention. A dark unmarked van bristling with antennas, two Fall Creek police cruisers, the chief’s car, and three unmarked cars were pulled up in the driveway and parked at all angles in the street before the Woodstone house. Neighbors gathered in small clusters up and down the sidewalk. Royce recognized the news reporter who worked for the Fall Creek Tribune talking to one cluster. Debra McGrath, the local TV news anchor, stood as close as she could get to the action, a cameraman pointing his minicam toward her as she spoke into a microphone.
As soon as she pulled into her own driveway, Royce and Chrys got out and walked over to the edge of her front yard. Hal Woodstone came out of the house, hands behind him and arms grasped by two uniformed officers, followed closely by Detective Wade. They all headed for the van.
A hard-faced man came through the front door. FBI, in large white letters, marked the back of his dark windbreaker.
“Is he under arrest?” Chrys whispered to Royce.
Woodstone twisted his head to look back over his shoulder. “You won’t get away with this,” he shouted. “I’ll have your badges.” Royce could see that he had been handcuffed. Last to emerge from the house was Chief Granite on the heels of the FBI agent and his officers.
McGrath called to the chief. “Chief Granite. Do you have any leads on the shooting of your ex-wife?”
“No comment.”
“Why was Hal Woodstone arrested? Is he connected with her attack? Or the two murders? Why is the FBI here?”
“No comment,” Chief Granite repeated, reaching for his car door.
Royce started toward the chief. She hadn’t noticed a uniformed officer approach them until he said, “Please step back, ma’am. This is a police matter.”
“Jared.” Royce raised her voice. “Chief Granite.”
“What now, Royce? We’re a little busy here.” The chief looked toward them, scowling. He turned back toward the cruiser.
“Chief. We need to talk.”
“Then come back down to the station,” he called over his shoulder and opened the door of his car.
Royce and Chrys exchanged dismayed looks. “You don’t need to come, honey. Stay here with Devon. He’ll keep you company. And you can call the Sages.” Royce dug in her handbag for her house key.
“No. I’m coming, too.” Chrys started back toward Royce’s car. “I have a right to know what’s happening.”
Royce heard the determination in the girl’s voice and decided not to push the issue. The young woman was obviously made of stronger stuff than a casual observer might think.
They rode in silence until the car had covered half the distance to police headquarters. Chrys was first to speak. “Was the FBI at Woodstone’s because she lived there—as a-a fugitive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you know that the FBI was there?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Are you going to te
ll him what we heard at the cafe? And what did Debra McGrath mean when she asked about the chief’s ex-wife?”
“Maybe Lucianne told McGrath something.” When pigs flew, considering Lucianne Sibley’s ambition. “And yes. I’m going to tell him what we heard.”
The questions brought back parts of the conversation between Hal and Thelma that Royce still didn’t understand.
What sideline or sidelines were they each involved in? What had Thelma Morrell meant about Tim Conroy? What kind of deal could Eddy’s killer make that had something to do with Hal Woodstone, as Thelma had threatened him with? Was there more to Eddy’s death, as well as his life, than any of them knew? At least than I knew.
“Royce? Do you think Thelma Morrell had something to do with my mother’s murder?”
“I think it’s possible. If she thought Lily had come back to Fall Creek to make trouble for her.”
“Mom wasn’t like that! I know she wouldn’t have done that,” Chrys cried, tears thickening her voice.
“It doesn’t sound like—” Royce stopped speaking suddenly.
“What? What are you thinking?” Chrys demanded.
Royce hesitated. She didn’t know how much Chief Granite had told Chrys about her mother’s illness. Did she need to know? “Did the chief give you much detail about your mother’s condition?”
“Condition? She was beaten and kicked to death. What else?”
“No. Prior to the attack.”
“Royce. Tell me what you mean. What condition?”
Royce pulled the car into the parking area of a convenience market and drove to an empty corner. “Honey, you read the letter she wrote to me. You know she was seeing a doctor in Atlanta. It was serious. Cancer.”
Chrys shook her head. “Cancer? I don’t remember that. Why are you saying this?”
“I’m sorry, Chrys. Her letter did say it, and the autopsy showed advanced and metastasized breast cancer.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Blonde hair fell forward as Chrys buried her face in her hands again, and her shoulders shook with sobs. “Why didn’t she tell me? I would have gone home. Taken care of her.”
Royce’s hand hovered over the trembling young woman. She finally dared stroke her shoulder. At least there was no sense of withdrawal from her touch this time. “I’m sure she knew you would do that. And she didn’t want to disrupt your life.”
After several minutes, Chrys fumbled in her bag for a tissue and blew her nose. “But what does Mom’s having cancer have to do with the possibility of Thelma Morrell being involved in her death?”
Royce didn’t really want to pursue it with Chrys until she knew more. But now she’d brought it up, she knew Chrys wouldn’t drop the subject. What had Lily meant? She was going to “get a substantial sum for her children, a legacy, from someone she used to know.” Did she mean Thelma Morrell? Writing of when she left Fall Creek, she’d said the FBI was still looking for “us.” The FBI agent, Howard, had asked about Thelma on Sunday. Why were they interested in Thelma’s whereabouts?
At the studio, Thelma had asked her sister, Suze Mackie, why she didn’t stay in California. At the café, Hal threatened Thelma with the FBI, something about being dragged back to California as a fugitive. Even Lucianne Sibley had asked about Thelma’s past. And just now Debra McGrath asked Jared if there was a connection between the shooting of Lucianne and Hal’s arrest.
Had Lily come back to Fall Creek to extort money from Thelma in exchange for silence about their past? Could Thelma have killed Lily? Thelma was not a small woman. But could a woman have inflicted all the damage to Lily’s cancer-ravaged body? Had Lucianne discovered Thelma’s secret and threatened to reveal it, so Thelma had shot her, meaning to kill her?
“Royce?” Chrys asked.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, Chrys.” She pulled back into the street. “We’ll go to the police station and see what Chief Granite has to say.”
When they were a couple of blocks from police headquarters, Royce spoke again. “I have to tell Chief Granite about another conversation I overheard on Sunday.”
God, was it just day before yesterday?
“Sunday. When you were at the festival and came back wearing that awful scarf?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
Royce hesitated. “One of the people that day was also Thelma Morrell.”
“Who was the other one? What did they talk about?”
“They argued about the robbery, mostly. And the man accused her of being involved in Bert’s murder. They mentioned Palm, and I was so afraid something terrible had happened to him.”
“That they’d killed him, too? Why?”
“It sounded like they had set him up to be accused of the robbery, but they talked about a woman at a motel, too. I had no idea what they were talking about.”
“But now you think it might have been my mother they were talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the man talking to Mrs. Morrell?”
“I thought he was an FBI agent. He was with the other one, Agent Howard, when they came to my house Sunday morning after you stopped by.”
“Did they come together?”
Chrys had learned a few questioning techniques from her attorney employers, Royce thought. It seemed to be helping to temporarily calm her emotional distress.
“No. Now that I think about it. Howard came around my house, from the front, and Clupper crossed over my violet bed from the Woodstone backyard.”
“Who was in charge? Who did the talking?”
“Howard, at first. And he seemed to warn Clupper back. But then Clupper came nearer, and Howard let him talk, accuse, actually.”
“Accuse?” Chrys frowned, as though trying, like Royce, to make some sense out of the encounter.
“Accused me of knowing where Palm was. That I could get in trouble if I was concealing him. Howard just stood there and didn’t stop him. So I suggested they both leave. They went.”
“Together?”
“Well, that’s another thing. They left in different cars. I thought it a little odd at the time.”
“Who or what do you suppose this Clupper is?”
“Maybe we’ll find out soon.”
Royce pulled into the official parking lot beside the headquarters building. The chief’s car was in his assigned spot already. She and Chrys hurried through the front door of the station.
Chuck Brand waved them on to the hall leading to the chief’s office. “Chief said send you on in when you arrived, Royce.”
“Thanks, Chuck.” Leading the way, Royce set her shoulders and took a deep breath. She did not relish this conversation.
When they entered the chief’s office, Royce paused for a second in surprise. The office seemed crowded with men, though in fact, in addition to the chief there were only two. They stood against the wall on the left side.
Lucianne, seated in one of the two wooden straight chairs which had been pulled away from the wall where they usually sat, looked up as they entered. “Hello, Royce. Chrys.”
Chief Granite frowned at her and spoke. “Mrs. Thorne, Ms. Wynter. I believe you know Special Agent Howard.” Howard’s head dipped a bare fraction in a nod. “This is Special Agent Price.”
The hard-faced man they had seen enter the FBI van at the Woodstone house gave Royce a long look and then Chrys.
Granite added, “Ms. Wynter is the victim’s daughter.”
“Where is your other partner, Agent Howard?” Royce asked, as she took the vinyl chair farthest from Lucianne. “Clupper, was it?”
“Mr. Clupper is not with the Bureau,” Howard said.
“May I ask why you allowed me to believe that he was ‘with the Bureau’?” Royce asked, the anger in her voice not quite controlled.
Howard crossed his arms over his chest. “Since you didn’t ask him for ID, I assumed you could tell he was not.”
Royce considered disputing that the agent held that assumption. Sh
e decided she wanted information more than an argument with little chance she could win. “Who, then, is Mr. Clupper?”
“Mr. Clupper is a private agent in the employ of Mrs. Thelma Morrell. Why?”
Royce looked at Chief Granite. “On Sunday, after Agent Howard and Mr. Clupper visited and threatened me in my own backyard, I saw him again.”
“Where?” Howard asked.
Still speaking to the chief, Royce continued. “I saw him here in this building, as I left your office. Sergeant Brand sent him on in here. In a few minutes, he left and I followed him downtown, where he met Thelma Morrell.”
“Since he is, was, in her employ, what do you think is the significance of this meeting, Mrs. Thorne?” Howard demanded.
“The significance, Agent Howard, is their conversation, which I overheard.”
“Please tell us the substance of that conversation.” Royce thought she detected a sharpened interest in the FBI agent’s attention.
“Among other accusations, each accused the other of taking the money from the dealership office. It sounded as though they had set Palm Woodstone up for the robbery, but something didn’t go according to plan.” Royce hesitated. She wished mightily that Chrys was not seated in the chair next to her.
“Go on, Mrs. Thorne,” the chief directed.
“Clupper accused Mrs. Morrell of killing her husband. They each also accused the other of killing some woman.” She heard a sharp intake of breath from Chrys.
“What woman?”
“They didn’t say. And each accused the other of being in possession of a sum of money, presumably proceeds of the robbery. Thelma, Mrs. Morrell, started to say a name, and apparently, he grabbed her. She told him to let go of her arm and left. After a moment, the man left, and then I did and went home.”
“Is that all?” Howard asked, skepticism in his voice.
Royce looked at him. Then she turned to the chief. “All of that specific conversation. But Chrys and I overheard another conversation a little while ago.”
“Between Mrs. Morrell and Clupper again?” Howard still sounded doubtful.
“No. Mrs. Morrell and Hal Woodstone.”
Disguise for Death Page 20