by Jeff Abbott
“Don’t make me shoot your mother in front of you, Jordy.” The gun stayed on me, but Tamma’s eyes flicked to Mama. I didn’t see much Christian mercy in them.
“Okay, okay,” I yelled. “I’ll give you the tape. It’s upstairs. I’ll get it.” I turned and took one step up before she shouted at me.
“No! You do what I say. You step on a crack, Jordy, and I’ll break your mother’s back. That’s how this works. You understand me?”
“Yes.”
She went over and pulled Mama to her feet. Mama went unprotestingly. Tamma took Mama’s arm and pressed the gun to Mama’s head. The barrel made a neat circle in her temple.
“You see where this is, Jordy?” Tamma demanded. “We understand each other?”
“We understand each other perfectly,” I answered calmly, and I thought: But just wait till I get that gun away from you, you bitch.
I stayed put, and she and Mama came up the stairs behind me, the gun still pressed into Mama’s head.
“Okay, Jordy. March. You don’t turn a corner till I say so. You make any sudden moves and she’s dead.”
“Yes, I understand. Can I start up the stairs now?”
“Yes.” It was like a game of Simon Says, I thought.
“Talk, Jordy. What do you know?” Tamma demanded.
“I don’t know anything,” I answered, starting to walk slowly up the stairs. I could hear Mama whimpering a little bit as Tamma hauled her up after me. “I’m going to guess that Adam wasn’t at home the night Beta died. Maybe he was over at his buddy Matt’s, toking up some gange. I’m sure the ladies’ church auxiliary just wouldn’t understand that. You were with Beta. You went with her to the library; she never had to steal a key. You were there because she was blackmailing you. Now since you don’t have much money, I’m going to guess that you were going to help her to burn down the library as your payment. She’d made a tape of you and Hally making love on that youth-group trip. She’d taken Hally’s camcorder and caught y’all red-handed.”
“Not quite it, Jordy. Hally made the tape for fun. Beta found the tape during the trip, so she stole it and the camcorder.”
I’d reached the top of the stairs and didn’t move till they were on the second floor with me. I walked slowly down the hall toward my room, with a killer and my mother in tow.
“Look, Tamma,” I said, “this just isn’t necessary. If she was blackmailing you, maybe you could get off with a lesser charge—”
She didn’t appreciate negotiation. Mama squealed and I guess Tamma jabbed her hard with the gun. I shut my mouth. We were at my room. Tamma and Mama stopped in the doorway. The tape was still playing on the VCR; Hally was lying back on the bed and Tamma lay between his legs. Tamma saw the screen and her face turned a sullen, angry red. Her eyes smouldered, looking at mine.
“You son of a bitch. You watched it.” Her voice was killing cold.
“I thought it was … of someone else. I thought Beta had taped—”
“Never mind!” she screamed. “Turn the TV off and give me that tape!” I obeyed, sliding the tape out of the machine and gingerly handing it to her. She’d gotten upset and she’d taken the gun away from Mama’s head. I tensed.
She took the tape and stepped back. Watching her, I said, “Well, Beta’s quotes about y’all were right. She said Hally and other fools ‘make a mock of sin’ and she said ‘your sin will find you out.’ Ol’ Beta was pretty perceptive.”
“Shut up. Infatuated boys do incredibly stupid things.” She’d had to let go of Mama’s arm to take the tape. Tamma stuck the tape in a jacket pocket. The gun swung back to Mama’s temple.
“I see you’ve involved my cousin in all kinds of depravity,” I murmured, watching the gun at Mama’s head. Mama’s eyes watered in her confusion and a big tear ran down her cheek.
“Hally had nothing to do with all this.”
“Really? Then why’d he go through with a last-minute convenience date with Chelsea Hart? So he could have an alibi, that’s why. Did he hold Beta while you hit her with the bat?”
Tamma snarled at me. “Forget about baiting me, you moron. He didn’t have anything to do with Beta’s murder. I just told him he couldn’t be with me and to be sure he was with someone that night. He didn’t know what I was planning.”
“But he could guess,” I said quietly. “That’s why he’s so nervous, why he tried to put blame on Eula Mae. He knows you did it.” I jerked my head at the silent TV. “You think he’s still going to be infatuated with you, knowing that you’re a killer?”
“He doesn’t know that,” she responded, then screamed, “Stay still!” at Mama, who had dared to move slightly. Mama closed her eyes. My hands curled into fists.
“Don’t even think of trying something, Jordy,” Tamma snapped. “Get downstairs. Now!” She jerked the gun away from Mama and pointed it at my heart.
“Are you going to kill us all, Tamma?” I asked quietly. “That’s three more deaths on your conscience. Then what? Kill Shannon so she doesn’t wake up someday and identify you? Is that tape worth five lives?”
“That tape was worth one life. Beta’s. Avoiding prison for her murder is worth as many lives as I decide. Downstairs.” Her calm was eerie. She put the gun back on Mama’s head and stepped away from the door. “Just like before, Jordy. You go down the stairs first, and your mother and I follow.”
We walked slowly down the stairs, and I started counting the number of steps I had left in my life. There seemed to be one for each heartbeat.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I managed to croak out. Mama didn’t answer me. I’d reached the living room. Mark stirred, very slowly.
“Look.” I turned to Tamma as she pushed Mama toward me. Catching Mama, I set her on the couch. “Let them go. Mama can’t possibly testify against you or identify you. She just isn’t aware of what’s going on. And Mark, he’s just a little boy. I can’t believe you want to kill a little boy.”
Her eyes said, no, she didn’t want to kill a little boy but what she wanted wasn’t relevant. “I’m really sorry, Jordy, but this is all your fault. If you hadn’t interfered, if you’d left things alone, Mark and your mama wouldn’t be in this mess. I’m sorry, but—”
She didn’t get a chance to finish, either her sentence or us. A pounding swelled on the front door, accompanied by a nonstop ringing doorbell.
“Jordy! Anne!” Bob Don’s voice bellowed. “Goddamn it, open up!”
Tamma’s head jerked toward the door. Bob Don sounded like a one-man SWAT team.
“They know you’re here, Tamma,” I said, trying to sound mild. “You better surrender.” I bit my lip.
“Jordy! Jordy! Goddamn it! Open up!” Bob Don bellowed. The door vibrated in its frame.
“He’s not going to go away, trust me,” I said. “Give it up, Tamma.”
She licked her lips, tongue darting like a rattler. “On the floor, both of you.” She pushed Mama down from the couch. “You too, Jordy. Or I shoot her.”
“Jordy! Jordy! Anne, darlin’!” Bob Don’s words slurred together.
I watched the gun pointed down at my mother’s head. I got on the floor, pressing my palms to the carpet. Mama took that moment to let everyone know she was damned tired of having a gun pointed at her, rude visitors, pounding on her door, and lying on the floor. She screamed, and she screamed loud.
Tamma shrieked, “Shut up!” and I jumped on top of Mama, pressing my body over hers. I was sure Tamma would shoot her.
The scream pierced my ears for about three seconds when the front door caved in. Bob Don swayed in the doorway and staggered in, taking in the scene.
“Goddamn!” he exclaimed. “What the hell—”
“Get back, Bob Don,” Tamma demanded.
From my position on the floor, with Mama still yelling underneath me, I couldn’t see Bob Don’s face. I looked up and saw Tamma still had the gun leveled at us.
“What the hell you doin’, little girl? Give me that,” I heard Bob Don roar and Tamma wh
irled the gun up, in the direction of his voice, and she fired. Bob Don cried out and I heard a heavy fall.
I kicked out Tamma’s legs, and she hollered and fell on her back, near my feet. The gun was still in her hand and she struggled to get it pointed in my direction. Her chest was the closest part of her to my feet and I kicked out hard, catching her in the right breast and the arm. She screamed and let go of the gun. It landed a few feet away.
I scrambled across the floor for it and she did too. I nearly closed my fingers around it, but she fell on me, biting and kicking. I squirmed and booted the gun out of her reach as we fought. It slid across the room and under Mama’s easy chair.
I tried to get a grip on her shoulders, but as I did she kneed me in the groin. Yelping, I let go. She broke free from me and scrabbled like a crab toward the chair, panting. I chased her, stumbling to my feet in pain, trying to run without using my molten legs. Seeing me coming after her, she grabbed one of Mama’s heavy antique candlesticks and swung it at my head. I was a harder target than Beta Harcher. I ducked but felt the whoosh of air as the heavy brass passed near my hair. The second swing around, I grabbed the candlestick and wrestled it out of her hands, tossing it aside. I completely forgot all the gentlemanly manners that Mama and Daddy ever taught me, and I punched Tamma Hufnagel in the jaw. Hard. I got a grip on her shoulder and she was still conscious, adrenaline fueling her, spitting at me. I belted her again and her eyes rolled white. I let go of her and she crumpled to the floor.
I staggered around for a second, breathing, glad to be alive.
“Jordy!” It was Junebug and another officer, coming in with service revolvers drawn.
“She did it. She killed Beta. She tried to kill us,” I managed to gasp, standing over Tamma and pointing at her. “Would you please arrest her?”
Junebug rushed over to Tamma, keeping the gun aimed at her, pulling out handcuffs. Mama lay sobbing on the floor, while Mark murmured in a broken voice for his mother. I stood. Oh, God, oh my God!
I stumbled past the couch and the coffee table, toward the busted door. Bob Don lay behind the couch, still, a red stain spreading across his shirt.
“Oh, God!” I screamed, kneeling beside him. “Somebody call an ambulance!”
THE NEXT MORNING, CANDACE FOUND ME IN the waiting room outside of the intensive care unit. I had abandoned conversation with a prim, elderly lady whose husband was undergoing arterial surgery. She’d asked who I was there for and I didn’t know what to say. A near stranger? My friend? My father? I fumbled on my own words so badly I’m sure she thought I had a speech impediment. I finally had mumbled something about a friend getting shot and she turned up her nose to me, probably thinking I frequented cheap honky-tonks with a dangerous crowd. I wasn’t drunk with liquor, but with exhaustion. I’d stayed up all night, pacing the waiting room, then talking on the phone with Junebug after Tamma’s confession, and then wearing out a new track of carpet while I waited for a doctor to tell me whether or not Bob Don would live or die.
Candace sat by me on the couch, handing me a cup of coffee, winking and trying gentle teasing to raise my spirits. “You better look out, Jordy. You know us and couches. I may have to take you right here.”
The prim lady gathered up her knitting and fled to a remote corner of the room, not wanting to hear about us and acrobatics on furniture.
Candace gave me a timid kiss and I kissed back. “Hell of a night,” she said, rubbing my neck.
“One way of putting it,” I agreed wearily. “I feel like I could sleep for a week. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I was just down seeing Mark. Arlene’s with him still. She said Dr. Meyers said y’all can take him home today.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m sure he can’t wait to tell all his friends how his Uncle Jordy nearly got him killed.”
Candace ignored that jab of self-recrimination. “And they released Eula Mae last night, of course. She volunteered to stay with Anne this morning while we’re all down here. She said she can’t wait to talk to you.”
“So she can pirate all this for her next novel,” I guessed.
Candace looked hard into my eyes. “You can quit with the jokes. You don’t fool me a bit. You going to stay here awhile?”
“I can’t leave him, Candace. Not till I know he’s going to be okay. I mean, I don’t think of him as my father, but he got shot trying to help me.”
“I know, babe,” she said, patting my hand. “You know, Bob Don’s pretty special. I know you already got a man in your heart that you think of as your daddy, but you got a big heart, Jordy. Could be room in there for two, y’know.”
“Junebug told me they arrested Ruth and Matt,” I offered, changing the subject and getting myself in trouble. Candace’s eyes hardened.
“They did. They found another videotape in Beta’s house, this one with footage of the pot crop. She must’ve taken that camcorder she stole from Hally and taped the field for evidence. I guess she planned on hitting them up for money, too.” She coughed. “You know, I did not appreciate you running out on me like that.”
“I didn’t want to involve you any more.”
“Doofus. Could have gotten yourself killed.” She sniffed, and that was the extent of the fight. At least for the moment. She cleared her throat and continued: “I talked with Arlene. She said the police are talking to Hally, but they don’t think he had anything to do with killing Beta. And I heard Billy Ray offered Adam Hufnagel a plea bargain to testify against Ruth and Matt. I imagine he’ll take it. He seems to be in deep shock that Tamma did all this.”
“He should be. She very nearly got away with it.”
“How, for God’s sake? And why resort to murder?” Candace asked.
I leaned back on the couch. “She was a lot smarter than anyone gave her credit for. When Beta found out that Tamma and Hally were lovers—and how she did, who knows, but she did and she found that tape of them—Beta made Tamma start giving her more control over church functions. And therefore church money. Tamma couldn’t do a thing out of fear that Beta would show the tape. So she had to agree to whatever Beta suggested.”
“So,” Candace pursed her lips, “the afternoon that Bob Don saw Tamma leaving Beta’s looking so scared and upset—”
“Beta had given her the penance to get the tape back. Burning down the library that night. And that’s when Tamma decided to put a stop to the threats. She realized that if it looked as though Beta planned to burn down the library but was killed before she could light the matches, so to speak, I’d be a real big suspect. She decided to frame me for Beta’s murder.”
“Bitch,” Candace said tonelessly. She hugged me hard.
“She put out the bat on the path to the library, already wiped clean of prints. She watched and made sure that I’d picked up the bat and then took it inside with me. Perhaps Beta had told her already about threatening me with closing the library, and Tamma made sure she was there to see Beta assault me. She was the one who told Junebug and Billy Ray that I’d said, in anger, that I could’ve killed Beta.”
“You do have a mouth on you,” Candace agreed. “So Tamma met Beta at the library and killed her.”
“Yeah. According to Tamma’s confession, Beta wanted to pray before they torched it, like the library was going to be some burnt offering before God. Tamma said she put on her gloves and hit Beta halfway through the Lord’s Prayer.” I shivered.
“Then she planted the key on Beta’s body. That I don’t get,” Candace said.
“She wanted it to look like Beta had managed to get her own key somehow. If she had a key, she didn’t need anyone on the library board to let her in. The story about Beta swiping Adam’s key was pure fluff.”
“Beta’s little list, though, put attention on other people besides you.”
“That’s right, sugar. Tamma didn’t know about that list. She did tell Junebug though, that Beta had bragged to her that when her church was built, she was going to have pews in it with contributors’ names plaque
d on them, along with an appropriate Bible verse. Sick, isn’t it?”
“But how did Tamma know you’d be at the library around the time of the murder?” Candace asked.
“She didn’t. That was bad luck on my part. Tamma told Junebug that I’d scared the hell out of her; she had just killed Beta not a minute before I walked in. After I left, Tamma went home and got there before Adam got back from having his therapeutic joint with Matt Blalock. When the police started asking for alibis, Adam made up the story that they’d both been home watching an old John Wayne movie. He never dreamed his wife needed an alibi worse than he did. He was only worried about someone finding out about his smoking dope.”
“Tamma must’ve been searching for that videotape when Shannon surprised her,” Candace said.
“Tamma claims they fought for the gun and it went off by accident. Of course, it went off in a closed room and nearly deafened Tamma. When I called the Hufnagels to tell them about Shannon being shot, I thought Tamma sounded funny, like she had a cold, and I had to repeat myself for her to hear me. It was from the shock of the gunshot.”
“How’s Shannon doing?” Candace asked.
She’d gotten out of surgery an hour or so before Bob Don was rushed in. “They’re very hopeful. God, that poor girl.”
Candace snuggled next to me. It felt great. “Lord, all this suffering that Beta and Tamma caused.”
I grunted in agreement and hugged her close.
Candace murmured, “One of Junebug’s deputies went by the Goertzes’, to see about getting Gretchen to come to the hospital. They found her passed out in bed. She won’t be coming down today, at least.”
“I’m not sure Gretchen would come anyway, Candace. I think she hates him now. Maybe it’s for the best, ’cause I don’t think he ever loved her.”
A runty figure lounged in the doorway, watching me. I let Candace go. “Sugar, would you excuse me? I’d like to talk to Uncle Bid in private, please.”
Candace rose and left, murmuring a hello to Bid. He didn’t answer, he just kept staring those glassy dark eyes at me. He lit up a cigarillo. The knitting lady, fuming worse than the smoke, gathered up her yarn and fled.