“Even if I wanted to, there’s no way I’d make it. His truck is huge and much faster than my car. He’ll run me down on the long straightaway just outside town. I have to stay on the winding roads around here.” Lindsay considered a moment. Keith’s truck was now within yards of her car; the glare of his headlights filled her rearview mirror. “Listen. I am going to lead him out to the Richard’s Homestead. There won’t be anyone there, and you’ll be able to trap him. How quickly can you get a whole mess of cops out there?”
“Miss Harding. I am going to tell you again. You get yourself into town. Drive there now. I will not have you endangering your life.”
Lindsay knew that she was taking a risk by leading Keith away from town. But she felt that she had no choice. She replied in a voice like steel. “You have fifteen minutes. I need you to be there. Like I said, there’s only one road in and out. I am fully aware that if you don’t get there in time, it won’t be him who is going to be trapped. It will be me.”
Chapter 51
Lindsay zipped down the deserted country roads. The rain-washed landscape blurred past as she and Keith sped along. Keith’s truck indeed proved capable of much higher speeds than her little Tercel. Only the circuitousness of the road layout, and Lindsay’s familiarity with it, kept her slightly ahead of him. Several times, he got close enough to nudge her rear bumper. Once, he even started to pull alongside of her as they traversed a straight section of road. Lindsay had barely been able to pull ahead before he tried to run her off the road. She buckled her seatbelt. Her thoughts fragmented into tiny, disconnected pieces. With each curve in the road, a hundred scenarios played out in her head. Would Keith try to take a shot at her as they drove? Did that happen in real life, or only in gangster movies? That particular possibility played out again and again, keeping her grip on the wheel firm and steady.
After what seemed like an eternity, Lindsay saw the faded sign denoting the entrance to the Richards Homestead. She yanked the wheel hard to the right. Her car fishtailed as it moved off the main road and onto the muddy track that formed the main path in and out of the Richards property. Some naïve part of her had been hoping that as soon as she reached this point, it would be like the finish line of a race—a battalion of heavily-armed officers would magically parachute down from the heavens. Instead, she saw only windswept pine trees, low hills, and orangey-red scars in the earth, where Silas Richards’s recent excavations had taken place.
Deep, water-filled ruts in the dirt road forced Lindsay to slow her pace to a crawl. Keith, however, maneuvered his big truck with ease over the difficult terrain. The folly of her plan bore down on Lindsay even faster than Keith’s approaching truck. Off the paved road, her little sedan was no match for his massive truck. This section of the Homestead was relatively open, affording her a clear view in all directions. Along one side of the dirt road was a field of tangled bushes and saplings. On the other was a six-foot deep drainage ditch that was filling rapidly with storm runoff. Lindsay scanned the horizon in every direction for signs of the police, but no help was to be found. She didn’t even have time to process the realization that she was all alone before she felt a violent jolt. Keith’s truck had drawn parallel to her. Even through the rain, Lindsay could make out every detail of his plump, red face, as he positioned his truck to batter her again. She tried to swerve to avoid the onslaught, but it was useless. He made contact with the back half of her car, causing her to spin wildly like a whirligig.
The centripetal force of the spin soon gave way to a feeling of disturbing lightness as the car careened off the edge of the road, hanging in the air for a moment before it splashed into the rushing waters of the drainage ditch. Thick clouds of steam rose from the engine. Water sloshed up over the windshield. For a moment, Keith Bullard was forgotten. Getting out of the car was all that mattered. Lindsay unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled frantically at the door handle. No movement. Bracing her legs sideways against the console, she threw her body against the door. Again, the force of the fast-rushing floodwaters held it tightly closed. Dread crept over her as water surged up menacingly from the floor. Within seconds, the frightful chill of the water reached her shins. She could feel the car coming unmoored from the bottom of the drainage ditch. Soon it would be swept along in the flood. Her left hand rested on a familiar piece of elongated plastic and the violent storm of terror in her mind was, for a moment, quelled. This ancient car—hallelujah!—had manual windows. She cranked the window furiously, but she had only managed to unroll it a few inches when she heard the heavy tread of boots on the top of her car. He was standing on the roof. The car listed to one side under the assailant’s weight, bringing the water level in the car’s cabin even higher. His steps faltered for a moment as he struggled to regain his footing. The thin metal roof of the vehicle groaned as his steps advanced, slowly, deliberately.
He was standing just above her. She could see the slight bubble-shaped depressions of his feet in the roof just over her head. Some strange instinct drew her to place the palms of her hands against one of the depressions. The intimacy of the touch made her shudder. All that separated her from this murderer was a thin skin of metal. This little depression must be his right foot. The right foot of the man who was going to kill her. She braced her feet against the floor of the car and made her body rigid. She set her mouth in a hard line. No, she thought, this was the foot of the man who was going to have tried to kill her. With a sudden surge of force, she pushed both her hands upwards with all her might. He took a few stumbling sideways steps, and the car tipped even further to the left. The jolt catapulted him head over heels onto the hood of Lindsay’s car. He landed with a thud and lay there, momentarily stunned. The front of the car dipped lower and water surged over the hood. The deluge roused him and he flailed around, looking for something solid to hold on to. Lindsay screamed. The face that peered at her through the windshield was not the ruddy round visage of Keith Bullard. Instead, she found herself staring into the burning amber eyes of Valentine Fleet.
Chapter 52
When she awoke, Lindsay’s first sensation was surprise. She had somehow expected to wake up in her own bed, having spent the last days in a fevered nightmare. A rough, damp wool blanket scratched her skin. Her head pounded. She opened her eyes and sat up. She was in the back of an empty police car, a metal cage separating her from the front seats. The radio crackled with faraway voices. She peered out the windows. She seemed to be at the Richards’ Homestead, in the midst of a raging storm. But she saw no one around, no signs of human life. Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, she tried the door handle. It was locked from the outside. She slumped back into the seat and lost consciousness.
A short while late, Lindsay awoke to the sound of voices. She saw figures approaching through the rain. The front door of the police cruiser opened and Valentine Fleet climbed into the driver’s seat. He looked calm. With no preamble, he spoke. He didn’t turn to face her, but instead spoke to his own reflected image in the windshield. “There is Keith Bullard, on his way to Mount Moriah Hospital.” Fleet gestured toward an ambulance that was carefully negotiating the muddy road. “I’ll follow Mr. Bullard to the hospital and question him there.” Fleet glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Are you injured?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Lindsay replied.
“In that case, go with Vickers.” Fleet barked an order into his walkie-talkie, and another patrol car appeared alongside them a moment later. Freeland Vickers, whose squat form and twinkly eyes Lindsay recognized from the county library, popped out of his car. He opened the door for Lindsay and gently escorted her to the passenger’s seat of his cruiser. Fleet pulled behind the ambulance, heading back onto the main road. Vickers pulled into the convoy behind him. In the rearview mirror, Lindsay could see a line of half a dozen police cars following in a grim procession.
Lindsay said nothing. She pulled the rough blanket more tightly around her shoulders. She felt nauseous and forlorn. She was consumed by the thought—not o
f her own narrow escape from death—but of the Young Family, still at Mount Moriah, celebrating Buford’s improvement and the announcement of Kimberlee’s pregnancy. She felt sure that none of them had any idea what Keith had done. They were a remarkably resilient family, but the coming weeks and months would test them beyond anything they had yet endured. Lindsay felt like the Grim Reaper, hovering with a sharp scythe over the sleeping form of some unsuspecting victim.
Freeland Vickers drove skillfully through the raging storm and deepening night, all the while chatting as casually and inanely as an old lady at a beauty salon. He seemed untouched by the storm, Keith’s arrest, or Lindsay’s shocked silence. He yammered on, blithely swerving around upended garbage cans and downed light poles. When they arrived at last inside the 70s-era, two-story yellow brick building that housed the New Albany police station, Vickers settled Lindsay unto one of the shabby sofas in the officer’s break room. “Sorry, sweetheart, but Fleet wants you to stay put until he comes back from the hospital,” he said, fluffing up a tattered, embroidered pillow and placing it gently behind Lindsay’s head. Then he added, “Hey, where’s your boyfriend? He was supposed to come back this afternoon. He had to take a suspect over to the lock-up in Mount Moriah and then he was gonna stop home before coming back here. Haven’t heard from him since. This isn’t the time to be going AWOL, what with all the hurricanes and murderers.”
“I’ve been trying to reach him all day. I kind of thought he might be here.” A hint of anxiety crept into Lindsay’s voice.
“Well, I’m sure he’s all right. Satterwhite’s not gonna let a little drizzle hurt him,” Vickers said cheerfully. “He probably just got roped into helping out over in Mount Moriah.”
Lindsay hoped he was right. Now that the immediate danger to her own life had passed, she was consumed by worry—not just about Warren, but also about her father. She had learned from Vickers that most of the telephone and electric lines in the county were down. There was no way to reach him by phone. She could only hope that the storm had kept Sarabelle and Swoopes from paying their promised visit.
Lindsay passed the better part of two hours sipping milky coffee. She tried to distract herself by flipping through the muscle car magazines that were scattered around the break room. She was mentally exhausted, but her body kept twitching and moving, preventing her from relaxing. When this nightmare was all over Lindsay decided that she would take Anna up on her threat to put a cast on her leg. In fact, she might even request that Anna give her a whole body cast and put her in traction. She could use the rest.
The wind howled outside and pitch darkness set in, broken only by occasional jagged streaks of lightning. Lindsay watched helplessly as officers hurried in and out of the station, soaked in their neon yellow rain ponchos, responding to storm-related emergencies. News of the storm flashed repeatedly across the screen of a small TV in the corner of the room. Amanda had come ashore as a Category 2 Hurricane. It was losing strength as the eye moved toward them, and would probably be downgraded to a tropical storm by the morning. Not the worst-case scenario by any means, but it still packed enough of a wallop to rattle the windows of the sturdy brick police station and knock them onto power from a diesel-fuelled back-up generator.
At long last, Vickers came in. “We just had a call through from the hospital. Keith Bullard might not pull though. Fleet shot him twice, and one of the bullets hit him in the stomach. He wants to talk. But he won’t talk until you’re there.”
“He wants to talk to me?!”
“Well, not exactly. He wants to confess with his family present. Fleet wouldn’t hear of it at first. Said it wouldn’t be proper procedure. But I guess Keith’s lawyer was down at the hospital. You know Marshall Pickett, who does them commercials where he’s the Malpractice Kid? Turns out he’s married to one of Keith’s sisters. He’s gonna defend Keith. He’s gonna defend his one brother-in-law for killin’ his other brother-in-law. And apparently it was the widow’s idea. Go figure. Anyhow, Fleet reckons it’ll be all right to have the family present if Keith’s lawyer has okayed it. Keith says if he can’t talk now, his own way, they can forget about him ever talkin’.”
“Okay, but how do I fit into this?”
“Apparently, Versa Bullard won’t see Keith unless you’re there. She says you’ve been a rock of spiritual strength for her. That’s a direct quote.”
“You could’ve fooled me. Just last night she threatened me and told me to get lost.”
“Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways, I reckon.”
Just then, a fresh gust of wind roared around the station. The dim lights flickered and died.
##
Lindsay and Vickers left the station while the officers were still scrambling to restore generator power. As Vickers drove Lindsay to the hospital, the storm increased in intensity. It became like a living thing—a raving maniac tossing around aluminum siding and battering the car with enormous bucketfuls of rain. When they finally arrived, another officer showed them into a room where the Bullards, minus Keith, were gathered. Buford was sitting in a wheelchair. His skin was so pale and brittle it seemed like you could see through it—all the way to the cracks in his spirit. Kimberlee, with tears streaming down her face, rushed over to Lindsay. She clung to her pathetically, her body wracked with sobs. Lindsay could find no words of solace. She could only hold Kimberlee until the crying lessened.
Versa approached them. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. I’ve made so many mistakes.”
Lindsay took her by the hand. “Versa, we all make mistakes. This isn’t your fault. You did your best.”
“I should have gone to church. I should have made the kids go.”
“Oh, honey, church can’t save us from bad things. But God can be there when bad things do happen. God can be here for you right now.”
They marched together down the corridor, guided by a policewoman. Fleet was waiting for them outside the room. “I want to be clear,” he said, addressing Marshall, “that everything that is said in here is on the record.”
Marshall looked around. The Bullards nodded gravely. “We understand.”
The group entered Keith’s room in the ICU. By a horrible twist of fate, it was the same room that Vernon had occupied only a week earlier. Keith lay on the bed with his eyes closed. Marshall approached him and whispered something into his ear. His eyelids fluttered briefly, but he kept his eyes closed as he began to speak.
“I’m so sorry, Kimmie. I shouldn’t have done what I done to Vernon. I didn’t think on how hard it would make things for you. And now for your babies. I’m real, real sorry.”
Kimberlee took a step toward him, but stopped. She said in a low voice, “I just need to know why you did it, Keith. Why did you kill my Vernon?”
“The restaurant was supposed to be mine, Kimmie! You all knew that. Momma and Daddy treated him more like a son than they ever treated me. He was just so damned perfect at everything.”
“He didn’t want to take over the restaurant. He thought he was helping. We all understood that. I thought you understood it, too.”
“Nobody ever thought to ask me about nothing. It’s probably because Daddy isn’t my real father.”
“What on earth are you talking about?! Of course Daddy is your father,” Versa said.
“Everyone knows it’s Silas Richards,” Keith said.
“Huh, I thought it was Joe Tatum,” Marshall said.
“Shut up, Marshall,” Kennadine said, slapping her husband on the side of his head.
“All of you can shut your mouths. I am your father, boy,” Buford said.
“Then why did I always hear rumors? My whole life. On the playground, in the grocery store. Whenever I asked Mamma about it, she just told me to hush up.”
Versa began to cry. Buford took hold of her hand. “I’m so sorry, baby. I should’ve shoved those people’s tongues down their throats.”
“But you never even denied it.”
“Why should your Momma care wh
at those fork-tongued bastards say?” Buford said. “What business is it of theirs?”
“Oh, Buford. Keith is right. I should have stopped that talk. Marshall, honey, Joe Tatum never had anything to do with any of this. That was just puppy love. We barely even went past the first base.” She turned to Lindsay. “When I went to him last night, I just wanted to tell him I was sorry. I’d heard that he got shot and I didn’t want him to die still holding any bitterness toward me.”
“What about Silas?” Keith asked.
“I guess… I guess that part of me wanted people to think Silas could be your daddy. I wanted him to be shamed for what he did to me. For throwing me out like trash. But honey, he’s not your daddy. I should’ve protected you from that talk, honey. I didn’t know that you had those doubts.”
##
Keith’s confession continued. Under questioning from the police, he admitted that had been siphoning off money from the restaurant for years—the entire time he had worked as the manager, he had treated it as his personal piggy bank. When Vernon had begun to look more closely at the restaurant’s finances, Keith’s embezzlement was on the verge of being discovered. This, combined with his jealousy over Vernon’s increasingly central place in the family, pushed him to violence. As he planned the murder, he hit upon the idea of sending Vernon the racially-incendiary letter. If he could point suspicion toward white supremacy as the motive, no one would suspect him. He had used Vernon and Kimberlee’s printer to produce the letter out of simple convenience—he was afraid of being observed if he used the one at work, and he didn’t have a printer at home. He didn’t know the source of the letter would be traceable, and he never intended to frame his sister.
Keith also admitted to shooting Joe; he thought that Vernon’s dying words to Joe might have revealed him as the killer. He also talked about his reason for having the gun in the truck with him. After he shot Vernon, he had wrapped the gun in a piece of canvas and buried it in a shallow trench at the State Park. He had anticipated the police confiscating the reenacting guns, so he made sure to have a decoy hidden out in the woods. He surrendered the decoy to the police, and went back later to retrieve the murder weapon. After shooting Joe, he buried the gun in the same spot where he intended to leave it forever. The specter of the approaching hurricane, however, made him nervous. He worried that floodwater might erode the loose clay and expose the gun’s resting place. He had gone out in the storm that day after leaving the hospital, to the deserted State Park and retrieved the weapon. He was on his way to throw the gun into the storm-swollen Haw River when Lindsay flagged him down.
A Murder in Mount Moriah Page 25