“Is that conversation the reason you wanted to know if a search had been made of the Woodstone house?” Chief Granite asked.
“Yes. I thought your department was conducting the search. When we arrived, it was the FBI. Why? I still don’t understand how the FBI is involved here. And what did they find?”
“As to what we found, Mrs. Thorne, that’s official information.” Howard’s eyes bored into Royce. “Why were you interested in whether there had been a search?”
She took a deep breath and reached for Chrys’s hand. “By then, I was pretty sure that Hal Woodstone might have killed his ex-wife, Lily.”
A small moan escaped from Chrys as her nails dug into Royce’s palm.
Lucianne had been examining Royce from under long eyelashes. They flew up at Royce’s accusation. “Nice guy,” she muttered.
Royce stared into Lucianne’s green eyes until a silent communication seemed to pass between them. The redhead shrugged and broke eye contact.
There was silence for a moment. The two FBI agents exchanged looks. “What evidence led you to that conclusion?”
“None. Conjecture. I was hoping something to support it would be found in his house.”
“Such as?” Chief Granite demanded.
Royce put her other hand over the girl’s tightly clenched fingers. “Boots. Hal and Palm always wore similar boots when they were working in the greenhouse and nursery stock. I wondered if a comparison had been made of Palm’s boots and the injuries inflicted on Lily.” She glanced at Chief Granite. “And Hal’s.”
The chief hesitated, sighing. “Such a comparison was made. Why do you think his bond was set so high?”
Chrys jumped up. “Are you saying Palm Woodstone did kill my—his own mother by kicking her to death?”
Chief Granite waited for a beat. He looked as though he would like to be anywhere else but his office at that moment. “That’s for a jury to decide, Ms. Wynter. I’m sorry you have to hear this.”
Royce wondered about the chief’s hesitation. “Was there something else, Chief? Something found in the boots, maybe?”
The two FBI agents looked at her with a hint of respect. Chief Granite looked thoughtful for a second, then answered, “Yes. Thick wads of cotton and two pairs of socks were inside Palm’s boots. What made you think there might be something?”
“Palm’s feet are several sizes larger than Hal’s. His mother’s feet were unusually large for such a petite woman.”
“Yes,” Chrys choked.
“Palm inherited his large feet from Lily. Such a minor thing, but it was a sore point with Hal. He must have deliberately…” Royce didn’t want to finish the thought.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Granite picked up his phone and instructed that Palm be brought from his cell to the chief’s office. The six people sat in silence until a knock sounded on the door.
“Come,” the chief barked.
The door opened, and Palm entered, followed by the same female jail officer who’d brought him to the visitor’s room when Royce saw him. “Take the cuffs off, please,” Chief Granite ordered.
The officer looked surprised. “It’s against policy, sir.”
“I’ll take responsibility. You can wait with Sergeant Brand.” He glanced at Palm and pointed to a chair in front of the two federal agents.
“Have a seat, Palm. I think it’s time you told us what you know about the death of your mother.” Granite’s voice was not without feeling.
A startled look flashed across Palm’s face, and when he didn’t reply at once, the chief spoke again.
“Maybe I better tell you what else we know about her, besides the fact that she was your mother.” Agent Howard grunted, but the chief waved him to silence.
“She was a fugitive who fled to Tennessee from California after a protest demonstration went sour and a man was killed. She married the man you thought was your father, Hal Woodstone, then cut out when you were one year old. No one in Fall Creek heard from her again until she turned up here last Friday. And called you, right?”
“Why are they here?” Palm indicated Royce, Chrys, and Lucianne.
“Mrs. Thorne believes you’re innocent. We’ll see.”
“If you know she was my mother, then you know I couldn’t have killed her. I only ever wanted her to come back.”
“Just tell us about the phone call,” the chief repeated.
Royce tensed. It was all finally going to come out.
“She called me at work, at Morrell’s, on Friday afternoon. When I picked up the phone, a woman said, ‘Palm, honey, it’s your mom.’ I nearly lost it, right there. People were looking at me. I’d been thinking about her the last few days. Dad told me he was going to marry Royce. I didn’t know whether to believe it or not.” He kept his eyes on the window, not looking at anyone. “Royce hadn’t said anything to me about it.”
“Your mother told you where she was?” Agent Howard asked.
He nodded. “She wanted to see me. Not nearly as much as I wanted to see her. I used to dream it would happen just like that. But I was angry, too. I couldn’t help it. I guess she heard it. She choked up and was quiet for a minute. I heard a sob. She said she would try to explain if I’d come see her.” He swallowed hard. “Could I have a drink of water?”
Chief Granite poured from the pitcher on his desk and handed it across to him. Palm gulped it down and handed the glass back.
“I just got up and left, didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I went to the inn, but I could only bear to talk to her a few minutes. I left her crying and drove around for hours.” He sat for a minute, head down, hands gripping each other so hard the knuckles whitened.
“So that’s the time you were seen entering her room. Late Friday afternoon.” Granite urged him to continue.
“When Sloan got off duty, I met her and told her my mom was here. About eleven o’clock next morning, I went back to see her—my mother. She gave me some money, a lot of money. I didn’t want to take it. But she insisted, told me to consider it twenty-two years’ worth of birthday and Christmas presents. She told me about the control, the beatings. And who my real father was.”
With the last sentence, he turned to look at Royce, anger firing in his eyes. “I think if I wanted to hurt anyone at that moment besides my father—besides Hal Woodstone—it would have been Royce. All these years, and I never knew.”
Royce bit her lip to keep from crying out that she hadn’t known. Had never even suspected until Eddy died and she read his letter.
“I told her I’d be back, then left to go home and confront my father—Woodstone. She was alive then.”
“You took the money with you?”
“I hid it in a pair of Mom’s old leather sandals, Birkenstocks, that I found in the attic when I was a kid.” He appeared not to notice the quick hard breath Royce tried to stifle.
“Woodstone was home?”
“He was in the back of the greenhouse, with some plants I’d never seen, but I didn’t pay any attention to them. I rushed at him and shouted that I knew why my mother left, that I knew he beat her. He hit me with his fist, and I went down. The next thing I knew he had a cloth over my face. It had a sweetish smell. I guess I blacked out.” Elbows on knees, he hung his head and put his hands over his face, sagging in his chair. “So much for defending my mother.”
A touch of gentleness in his voice, the chief asked, “What do you remember after that?”
“I don’t know how much later, I sort of came to. I could feel I was moving, like being dragged. Something coarse was wrapped around me. It smelled like landscape fabric. I tried to move my hands and feet, but they were tied, and I could feel something around my head, covering my eyes. A ball of something was in my mouth, and a gag held it in. I could barely breathe. I struggled anyway, trying to get free. I was dropped, and the stuff wrapped around me came loose a little, then the sweetish-smelling rag was jammed against my nose again, and I was out again.”
“What’s th
e next thing you remember?”
“Loud banging, police busting in, jerking me up, telling me I was under arrest. They kept asking me something about the rest of the money. I didn’t know what it was about, and I was so groggy, head pounding, I couldn’t even ask about my mother.”
The room was silent for a moment after Palm finished. Royce only wanted to go and put her arms around him. To have found his mother, only to lose her again. She could imagine the pain if her own mother, lost when she was ten, had been restored to her so briefly.
Suddenly, Palm raised his head and glared at the people around him. “At the arraignment, I was charged with robbery and murder of a woman in a motel. They kept asking me why and who was she? I tried to call my mother. When a man answered, I panicked.” His voice had risen with each sentence. “I guessed then it might be her who was dead. Who killed her?”
Lucianne fixed her eyes on Palm, but her right hand withdrew a pen and notebook from her bag.
“No notes, Lucianne,” Chief Granite snapped.
The reporter’s mouth opened, but she must have thought better of protesting and closed it.
“Did you tell your father where your mother was staying?” Agent Howard asked, ignoring Palm’s anger.
“Of course not. There was no time, even if I’d been stupid enough to tell him.”
“Did she call him?”
“No. She was still afraid of him. That’s why she used the fake name, Fern Rock.”
“Who else was at your office when she called you on Friday?”
“Cathy, the receptionist, put the call through. Bert was talking to his wife in his office.”
The two FBI agents turned to Chief Granite, faces impassive, and he nodded. Royce and Chrys exchanged glances.
Palm caught the looks. “What? What do Bert or Thelma Morrell have to do with anything.”
Without answering, Chief Granite rose from his chair and started toward the door. He left the room for several minutes, and no one spoke while he was gone.
When the chief returned to the room, he resumed his chair and looked at Palm. “When you saw your mother at the motel, did she mention why she originally left California and came to Tennessee?”
“No, I—she wanted to know about my life, how I’d been, how Dad—he’d treated me.”
“Or that someone else came to the state, and Fall Creek, about the same time?”
“No. I told you what we talked about. Who?”
“A local woman who might have feared that your mother would reveal her past. We’ll have to wait for confirmation before I can say more.” As the chief finished speaking, the corporal came through the door, handcuffs in her hand.
“Palm, you’ll have to go back to your cell for now. If we’re lucky, we may get your bail lowered and release you later today, at least by tomorrow.”
The jail officer reached to pull Palm’s hands behind him, but he shook her off. “I want to know one thing. Is it possible Hal Woodstone killed my mother?”
When no one spoke, he apparently took the silence for an affirmative. He lunged for the door, but the hard-faced FBI agent was there before him. He easily brought the younger man down by kicking his legs from under him. The two agents held him, and the corporal slapped handcuffs on his wrists.
“That was not smart, Palmer.” The chief nodded, and he was led away.
When the door closed, Royce jumped to Palm’s defense. “You can’t blame him. To find out that the man who raised him killed his mother and tried to frame him for it.”
“We’ll handle it. This young woman”—he nodded toward Chrys—“is about out on her feet. You’d better get her home.”
Royce looked at Chrys, seeing now how pale she was, trembling hands clasped in her lap. “I’ll do that.” She helped the girl up and out the door, arm around her shoulder.
Twenty minutes later, as Royce turned onto her street, she felt as though they had experienced a time warp. Police cars and unmarked vehicles, again or still—she didn’t know which—were parked around the Woodstone house. The FBI van they’d seen earlier was gone, but she recognized two of the unmarked vehicles as Fall Creek detectives’ cars.
Royce led Chrys up the brick walkway to her front steps. Inserting her key, she glanced toward the house next door. Detective Sergeant Ken Overstreet and Detective Driver came from the rear of the Woodstone house. They carried on their shoulders something long and dark wrapped in clear plastic. It looked like a roll of landscape fabric. Could Woodstone have been so arrogant he brought back to his house the material he’d used to wrap around Palm and haul him to the Fall Creek Inn?
A man came through the front door carrying a clear plastic bag which contained a pair of shoes or boots. Another came around the house following the first two. In his hand was a smaller plastic bag, but Royce could not see at that distance what it contained. She would have given a lot to learn the contents of the bags but was also totally drained of energy. She knew Chrys must be even more exhausted.
They went inside, and Royce closed the door. Chrys looked around the living room as though she had never seen it before. “My father’s house,” she whispered, so low Royce wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Better to postpone any further discussion until Chrys got some rest. She looked dead on her feet, a comparison Royce hastened to banish from her thoughts. It was now late afternoon, and Chrys had caught the early flight from Atlanta, after probably no sleep last night.
“I’ll turn down the bed in the guest room. You need some rest.”
“God. I haven’t called Marc and Amanda.” Chrys sat on the couch and dug her cell phone out. But after only a moment, she followed Royce down the hall. “No answer. I’ll try again later.”
Royce led the way to the guest room. She pulled out the top dresser drawer. “There are a couple of nightgowns here. One’s a small. It should fit pretty well.”
“I have PJs in my tote. I can’t sleep anyway.” Chrys dropped her bag on the floor. She sat, then lay back on the bed.
“Just rest a while then.” Royce slipped Chrys’s shoes off and lifted her legs onto the bed. She pulled the comforter around the girl’s slim form, resisting the urge to smooth the blonde hair off her forehead.
When she turned to leave the room, Devon stood in the doorway but made no sound.
“Oh, Devon, I’ve done it again. Come on, baby, I’ll let you go outside.” She hurried to the back door, and the dog streaked across the backyard. There was no telltale odor, so the dog had managed to wait for her return. Thank goodness she’d let him out briefly before leaving for the airport. Was it only this morning?
Returning to the living room, she decided to rest for a while in the recliner. Her own lack of sleep caught up with her, and she dozed. The sound of the doorbell brought her so suddenly upright that the footrest banged down. Her head was foggy, and for a moment she felt disoriented.
Chrys entered from the hallway, rubbing her eyes. “Oh. Royce? I was going to answer the door.”
“It’s the back doorbell. I’ll get it.” Royce shook her head, still trying to dispel the fog. She opened the door but didn’t take in at first who stood there. Then she recognized Palm and cried out, “Oh, Palm. You’ve been released.”
“Just ecstatic, aren’t we?”
Royce realized a second person stood on the deck.
“Get inside, Woodstone.” A woman, long black hair hanging below her shoulders, stood to the side and slightly behind Palm. It was she who had spoken the mocking words.
“Can we come in, Royce?” Palm said then, his voice subdued.
At last, Royce recognized the woman, Thelma Morrell, whose hair she had only ever seen done up in a smooth chignon or braids. And then she realized Thelma was holding a gun jammed into Palm’s side.
“What is this, Thelma? What are you doing?” Royce backed up, and Thelma pushed Palm ahead of her into the house. She kicked the door closed. She glanced at Chrys, standing shocked and still in the kitchen.
“Into the living room
. All of you.”
Chrys backed around the fireplace, followed by Royce and Thelma urging Palm ahead of her with the gun. “Well, isn’t this cozy? Both the little bitch’s bastards. Guess they’ll have to share the money your cheating husband left Palm, won’t they?”
“So it was you who made those calls?”
“Guess again. You think I care what happens to that money?”
“But you know who did,” Royce said. “You asked Hal about her in the café.”
“Oh, yes. And I have a score to settle with her, too.”
“She made another call, didn’t she? About you?”
“Stupid chippie was jealous over that wifebeater. She tried to kill your dog, but she wanted to send me to prison.”
“You tried to kill Lucianne Sibley. She was getting too close to finding out the truth, wasn’t she?”
“Thought the chippie had handed her a career-maker. If she hadn’t been such a good citizen in the woods and bent over to pick up the cigarette she dropped, it would have been a career-ender. The feds made her work with them, even gave her a gun. Bert’s niece lifted it when the bitch came to the dealership.”
“Did you or Hal pay Tim Conroy to kill my husband?”
Thelma sneered. “Should have taken care of him before the cops picked him up. He’s a loose cannon. Woodstone schemed to get the money your philandering cop husband left his bastard son after the chippie told him about the letter he wrote. Conroy’ll try to bargain for a lesser charge just like Clupper was going to by giving me to the feds. Okay, Royce, get your car keys and some duct tape.”
“What? Tape and keys?” Royce stalled.
“Keys. Tape. Now.” Thelma moved the gun to Palm’s temple. “I don’t have anything to lose, so don’t push me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Royce got her keys from her purse and handed them to the woman. “The tape’s in a kitchen drawer.”
“Get it. Just remember dear little Palm here has a gun to his head.”
Royce walked through to the kitchen. Devon stood outside, whining softly. Did she dare let him in? She eased the door open a crack. To her dismay, she saw Sloan crossing into her backyard from the Woodstone property.
Disguise for Death Page 21