“That’s when I started to hate him. Or maybe I’d hated him for a long time and that’s when I just began to admit it to myself. But right at that moment I hated him worse than I ever thought I could hate anybody. And I hated myself too, and I hated the world where this thing sitting there smirking at me had come out of my body. So I decided to kill him. I told myself that he was only twenty-two years old, and he’d already murdered four people. What would the count be in a few more years? How many lives would I save? But I think that may have just been an excuse. I may have killed him because he was a monster who’d ruined my life.”
“How did you wind up at the cemetery?” I asked.
She sipped a little more whiskey and dabbed her handkerchief at the corners of her eyes. “The one decent thing he would always do was go with me to put flowers on his grandfather’s grave. Why, I don’t know. I think maybe he came as close to loving Dad as he ever did to loving anybody. About sunup I showed him two bunches of fall-colored silk flowers I’d bought, one for Bob’s grave and one for Dad’s. I asked him if he wanted to go to the cemetery. He said sure, why not.
“When I went upstairs to change clothes I slipped his father’s pistol into my purse. He rode on the back floorboard, just like he’d said, and he had me pull way up to one end of the cemetery where the car was out of sight from the road. When we got to the grave I smiled at him and handed him the flowers and asked him to put them in the vase. He did, and when he bent over I pulled the gun out of my purse. As soon as he stood up, I shot him twice right through the center of the chest. It wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be. Bob had taught me how to shoot years ago, and I knew what to do. After he stopped breathing, I stood there looking at him, and for a few seconds I could see him the way he was when he was a little boy about five.”
She looked across the table at me with eyes that were full of tears. I glanced at Sheila, who was crying silently.
Willa sighed a deep, heaving sigh. “I brought him into the world and I took him out of it.”
“How did Jesse come to have the pistol?” I asked.
“When I got back to the car, I had the gun I shot him with in my left hand, and I had his gun in my right hand. I must have taken it from his body, but I don’t remember that. I don’t even remember walking to the car. I just laid them both on the seat beside me and drove home. For some reason, when I got home and got out of the car, I picked up his daddy’s gun and left the other one where it was. Jesse was waiting for me there in the yard. He took the pistol out of my hand and said for me to go inside. I told him what I’d done, and he said that he’d been watching when we left the house and he heard the shots.
“First I just sat down in the den and stared at the wall for a long time. Then I went up to my room and lay down and dozed a little until you knocked on the door to tell me the body had been found.”
I got up and took the coffeepot and poured Sheila a refill, then topped off my own cup. I asked Willa if she wanted more whiskey, but she shook her head. “Are you going to turn Jesse loose, Bo?” she asked.
“Of course. I hated to have to arrest him in the first place.”
She nodded and then lay her head down on the table, cradling it in her arms like a little girl taking a nap on her school desk. “I’m so tired,” she said. “I’m just so tired of everything.”
* * *
Sheila and I drove her home. I knew she wasn’t going to run, and I wasn’t sure what she was guilty of, if anything, since Scott, who was himself a confessed killer, had forced his way into her home.
“I’ll talk to the DA and see what he says,” I said. “After all, Scott broke in and was going to rob you. Even if Tom decides to charge you with something, I’ll take you in Monday morning and run you through the process. You know as well as I do that Judge MacGregor is going to release you on your own recognizance, so there’s no need for you to spend two days in jail when I know you’re not going anywhere.”
“Can you get in any trouble doing this?” she asked.
“It’s my call. If the voters don’t like it, they can always elect somebody else. We’ll just leave your car here and I’ll drive it out this afternoon and have someone follow me in my pickup.”
When we got to her place, Sheila got out with her. Willa reached out and took her in her arms and hugged her. They spoke quietly for a moment, and then she turned and went up the steps and vanished in the sprawling old house that had sheltered her family for generations.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It proved to be a long and dreadful day. First I went by the Pak-a-Sak only to find it closed. I tried Zorn’s house but there was no answer to my knock and his car was gone. I told the dispatcher to alert all the deputies, the city police, and the highway patrol to stop him and bring him in. Then I headed home. An hour after I got back to the house my cell phone rang, summoning me to an attempted robbery and shooting at a country store on Route 9 South just at the county line. Fortunately the victim was the robber and not the proprietor, and he was only wounded, but it was midafternoon before I was able to go out to Willa’s place. I knocked and knocked and got no response. I reached down and turned the knob to find the door unlocked. I stepped cautiously into a house that was silent except for the slow ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hallway. I called her name loudly a half dozen times and got no answer. With a deep sigh, I started up the stairway.…
* * *
When I pulled into my driveway just after sunset, Sheila’s little Datsun was parked in front of my house and she was sitting in the porch swing. Instead of going around back to the carriage house, I pulled in beside her car and came up the steps and sat down beside her.
“What did the DA say?” she asked. “Is Willa going to be charged? Like you said, Scott was a killer and he was—”
“I never talked to the DA, Sheila. You and I are the only ones who know she came here this morning, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“But Bo, you can’t cover up a boy’s death. You just can’t.”
“None of it matters anymore. Willa’s dead.”
“Oh my God, Bo! What happened?”
“I went out there like I promised her I would, and found her upstairs in her bed. From the looks of things, she took a bath and fixed her hair and put on a nice nightgown. There was an empty bottle of Seconal on the bedside table. I don’t know how many had been in it, but it was enough. More than enough, probably. A handwritten will was lying on her chest. She named me executor, of all things. The house and the forty remaining acres are to be sold to pay her debts, which will include two funerals and not much else. The rest goes to the town library.”
“But if she made you executor she must have trusted you more than anybody.”
“I guess so.”
“And you let her go home this morning without … Oh, Bo! You knew what she was going to do. And she knew you knew.”
“I didn’t actually know because I didn’t let myself think about it.”
“You let her…”
“I certainly didn’t do much to stop her, did I?”
“But why did she do it?”
“I think it was because there just wasn’t anything left for her. I think she must have had it on her mind from the time she got back home that morning and realized what she’d done. When Jesse was arrested it gave her an extra day. She had to see to it that he was cleared.”
She began to cry. “There must have been some other way.…”
“I don’t see what it could have been. At best, if the DA didn’t prosecute, what on earth was she going to do? Go back to work at the Caravan and see the reflection of what she’d done in every face that came in the door? And if the DA had charged her, she would have taken those pills as soon as Judge MacGregor released her on her own recognizance, which you and I both know he would have done. Then everybody in the county would have known she killed her own son. She deserved better than that.”
“Oh, Bo, it’s all so awful.…” She was crying
freely now.
I handed her my handkerchief and put my arm around her and drew her close. “I’m sorry you were here this morning,” I said. “I was thinking about that on the way home. You’re awful young to have to digest something like this.”
“I’m glad I was, Bo. You needed somebody here with you, and we both know it.”
“You’re right,” I admitted.
She dabbed at her eyes and we sat in silence for a long time. “What now?” she finally asked.
I sighed a tired sigh. I felt weary deep in my bones. “I’m going to release Jesse in the morning and take him home just like I promised her I would. I’ll tell him what happened, but he’ll never say a word. Keeping secrets is just in his nature. And I’m going to write in the case file that a confidential informant plus new evidence turned up by further investigation cleared him. That old Smith and Wesson forty-four is going to be gone where nobody will ever find it. Pappy Clyde will keep his mouth shut when he’s sober, and nobody will pay any attention to anything he says when he’s drunk. I plan to put together a press release for you, and I’m going to lay the murders of Amanda Twiller and Doyle Raynes on Scott Kimball where they belong. My conclusion is going to be backed up by the ballistics report on the pistol Willa gave me.”
“It was positive then, I guess?” she asked.
“It will be. It’s the same make of gun, and he bragged about using it to kill them both to his own mother. His own death is going down as an unsolved crime, but the press release will mention that according to confidential informants he had owed some heavy gambling debts to some bad people down in Houston. Where Willa is concerned, I think that unless somebody tells them otherwise, most people will assume that she’d gotten to the point where she just couldn’t cope with all the tragedy in her life. There are still a few loose ends and unanswered questions. For one thing, I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure how Scott got in contact with Paul Arno. I don’t know how Scott found out Zorn had the coke, either. Probably because Zorn bragged about it, but…” I shook my head. “None of that really matters.”
“What about Zorn?” she asked. “After all, he started the whole thing. Does he just get away scot-free on this?”
I patted her knee and smiled tiredly in the darkness. “Sheila, let’s not talk about him right now. Let’s go inside and have some supper.”
“I’ve already eaten. Why don’t you make yourself a drink and lie down on the sofa and let me fix you something?”
“That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Early the next morning before church, I went to the jail and released Jesse Kemp and took him home. Near the edge of town he asked, “Why you turnin’ me loose, Sheriff Bo?”
“Willa confessed,” I said as gently as I could. “I know you didn’t kill Scott. She came to my house yesterday morning and told me the whole story about how you were waiting in the yard and took the pistol away from her.”
“I wish she hadn’t done that.”
“I know you do, but it’s over and done with now.”
“Did you take her to the jailhouse?”
I shook my head. “No, I took her home and told her to try to get some sleep. I was going to talk to the district attorney and to see what he said. Scott had killed at least four people, and he was going to make her take the last of her savings out of the bank. He’d broken into her house and he was going to rob her, so I don’t know that she was really guilty of anything.”
“Where’s she at?”
“She’s dead, Jesse. She took her own life.”
He blinked a couple of times and then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. “What happened?”
“She took sleeping pills. I found her yesterday afternoon.”
I was surprised by what he said then, but shouldn’t have been. I think that with his strange notions and visions, what he called the “other side” was as real to him as the everyday world. “That’s good. That’s an easy passing.”
We rode along without either of us saying anything for at least five minutes. Then he broke the silence. “My momma was a spirit lady. She could read the signs. Pappy Clyde says she had the gift stronger than anybody he ever seen.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“That child, Scott, he was born when the stars was bad. My momma saw it, and she told me about it years ago, before she passed. They was ructions in the Pleiades the night he come in the world.”
I sighed. “Well, Jesse, I guess that’s about as good an explanation for a boy like him as anything the doctors can come up with.”
“What started all this killin’, Sheriff Bo?”
“Cocaine.”
“Say which?”
“You know Emmet Zorn, don’t you? The fellow who runs the Pak-a-Sak?”
“I don’t trade with him, but I know who he is.”
“Well, he stole a bunch of dope from a hoodlum in Houston, and then Scott stole it from him. Now nobody knows where it is.”
He tilted his head to one side and sat silently in thought for what must have been half a minute. Then he asked, “How big is this dope?”
“Twenty pounds or better.”
He nodded. “I wish you’d said something about it the other day when you were out at my place.”
“How come, Jesse?”
“I’ll show you when we get there.”
* * *
That afternoon I talked to Leonard Ott at the funeral home and made arrangements for both funerals. As Willa’s executor, it was my obligation. Monday morning I filed her will for probate, and in the late afternoon Sheila and I attended the short graveside service for her and Scott at Sycamore Ridge Cemetery. It seemed like half the town turned out. I’d never seen so many people in the old graveyard. I’d offered to come by and pick Jesse up, but he said he wanted to walk. Much to my surprise he appeared at the cemetery wearing a suit and tie. Both were thirty years out of date and smelled of mothballs, but he looked presentable. Nobel Dennard stood near him, his face ashen.
When the short service was over, most of the people headed back to their cars while Sheila and I drifted slowly toward our family plot in the oldest part of the cemetery near the edge of the bluff where the tall, serene monuments of our forbearers overlooked the town in quiet and timeless contemplation. She knelt for a moment and brushed some sand from the base of her father’s tombstone, then placed the small bouquet of silk flowers she’d brought with her in the marble vase at the head of the grave.
Twilight was near. I stood with my back to the west and watched the shadow of the ridge as it moved eastward with the setting sun. Then I looked back over my shoulder toward the fresh grave just as the men from the funeral home began to work the cranks on the catafalques. With hardly a sound, both caskets sank gently out of sight. Jesse stood nearby, his head bowed, looking old and frail.
I reached down and helped Sheila to her feet. “Are you ready to go?” I asked.
She nodded, and we walked silently back toward the car as the last thin crescent of the sun vanished in the west.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
As soon as I got up the next morning, I checked in with the office to learn that Zorn’s store was still closed and his car was still missing from his garage. I hesitated to put out a statewide alert on the man. Since Willa’s death, I had nothing to tie him to the Twiller killing.
With the case at a standstill, I decided to take the day off. I’d seen too much in too short a time, and I needed a break. I went by the office to pick up my shotgun, and left instructions that I was not to be called for anything less than a full-scale riot. Out at the gun club I found a half dozen members I knew, including Charlie Morton. I shot three rounds of sporting clays with plenty of time in between for bragging and horseplay. Any other day it would have been good fun, and I tried to enjoy myself. But my heart wasn’t in it.
Charlie and I wound up having a leisurely lunch together at the Caravan. When we finished, he departed for his o
ffice. As I drove past the courthouse on my way home Judge MacGregor hailed me. His docket was empty that afternoon, and he invited me up to his office, where the two of us spent a pleasant hour on his tree-shaded balcony. I left him wreathed in a billowing cloud of pipe smoke and drove down to the library intending to check out the recent fiction arrivals. Instead I allowed myself to be seduced by the local history section and was deep into an article in East Texas Historical Journal when they ran me out at closing time.
On the way home I stopped by the Dairy Queen and got a milkshake and had only been back at the house about an hour when the phone rang. I put the receiver to my ear and heard Emmet Zorn’s voice say, “You’ve got to help me.”
“What?”
“They’re outside. I can tell. Just please come over here.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m at home. They cancelled my cell phone. I’m on my—” Then the connection went dead.
I called the office to find that Toby was still on duty. After telling him that I would pick him up in five minutes, I climbed in my truck and headed for the courthouse. He was waiting out front. “What’s up?” he asked as soon as he was in the cab.
“Emmet Zorn called me. He’s back in town and claims they’re after him.”
“Who’s after him?”
“He didn’t say, but I don’t see how it could be anybody but Sipes. Maybe we can make him come clean on his part in the Twiller killing.”
When we got to Zorn’s street I circled the block and we saw nothing out of the ordinary. I drove past his house and parked a few feet down from his driveway on the opposite side of the street. We approached with our guns drawn, but the neighborhood was quiet except for the faint hum of an air-conditioning unit somewhere down the street. I knocked on the door and a few seconds later it opened a couple of inches to reveal one of Zorn’s bright little eyes. “Are you alone?” he whispered.
Nights of the Red Moon Page 25