‘He’s fine. Bet he won’t be going on any more benders any time soon,’ I said with a smile.
‘Yeah, he’s not very good at it,’ Ronnie said seriously.
‘Come on in here to our interview room so you and I can have a chat, OK with you, Ronnie?’ I said, my hand on his back as I ushered him in.
‘Yeah, sure, Sheriff. I don’t know whether I got any info for you, but I’ll do what I can.’
‘And I appreciate that,’ I said, indicating he sit while I took my own chair. ‘The thing is we do have someone in custody, but not necessarily for Darrell’s murder. It could be related, though.’
‘No shit?’ he said, his eyes big as saucers. ‘Who is it?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say at the moment, Ronnie, but I would like to ask you some questions about that night, things you might have seen without realizing it, you know, stuff like that.’
‘Sure. I don’t think I saw anything but ask away.’
‘Let’s start at the beginning. When did you get the call from Darrell about his pizza order?’
He shrugged. ‘I dunno. The dispatcher takes those calls. I got the order, I guess, at around five-thirty or six, or thereabouts. Sometimes Bubba’s stays open all night. Specially on the weekends. So delivering a pizza that early in the morning was no biggie. It was one extra-large pizza with Italian sausage and extra cheese. I brought it right on over here.’
‘While you were in the cells with Darrell, did y’all talk about anything?’
‘Naw, not really. I mean, I said, “Here’s your pizza,” and he said, “Here’s your money,” and that was about it, until the kid puked and then we said how gross it was and I think we both kinda laughed at him. You know, ’cause the kid couldn’t hold his liquor.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So when he started convulsing – the kid – what did you do?’
‘I yelled for that girl who brought me back there – Holly?’ I nodded my agreement that Holly surely was her name. ‘And she came running back, then back out. And then you came in, and then those ambulance guys came in, and then you threw me out.’
‘Right,’ I said. I stood up and held out my hand. ‘Thanks for your time, Ronnie. You did a great job. OK if I check back with you if we have any more questions?’
‘Sure, Sheriff,’ he said, again pumping away on my outstretched hand. ‘Just call me and I’ll drive on over here. No reason to have your deputy come and get me. He is gonna take me back, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, rescuing my hand, which I used to slap the boy on the back. We walked out the door. ‘Anthony, can you see that Ronnie here gets wherever he wants to go?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Anthony said and ushered the boy out.
Two interviews in maybe thirty minutes and I still didn’t have much to make my case against Drew Gleeson. I was just gonna hafta get busy.
Jean followed Dru out of the breakfast room to the solarium on the east side of the house. It was a long walk and Dru was doing a good job of out-distancing Jean, but Jean thought the solarium was the most likely place Dru would be headed. The other rooms in that direction were Constance’s office, a lady’s sitting room – very feminine and not a place Jean figured Dru would find comfortable – and the smoking room, which was a large room with leather sofas, pool tables and a bar, left over from the days when the men would leave the dinner party and adjourn to the smoking room, while the ladies would adjourn to the grand salon. Jean did glance in there, but, not seeing Dru, she continued on to the solarium.
Jean saw through the windows that the sky had darkened and she saw lightning strike, heard the boom of the thunder. This only increased her urge to get to the solarium. This room ran almost the full length of the mansion on the east side and was lush with hot house flowers, exotic plants and large cages housing parrots, flamingos, peacocks and other large birds. There were several sitting areas of white wicker scattered about the room’s length. Dru was in one of those, a yellow-and-blue plumed parrot on her shoulder, her nose burrowed in her iPad.
‘Oh, hi, Dru, I didn’t know you were here,’ Jean said, trying to put on an innocent smile.
Dru snorted, not taking her eyes off her iPad. ‘Following me didn’t give you a clue?’
Jean sat down on the white wicker love seat across from the sofa-sized piece Dru was sprawled on. ‘We need to talk,’ she said.
Dru finally looked up. ‘I doubt it,’ she said, and went back to her iPad.
‘I heard you at the party after the funeral. You and Constance, on the second floor by the elevator. I was in the elevator. I heard every word.’
Dru looked up again. ‘And just what do you think you heard, Doctor McDonnell?’
Jean didn’t miss the emphasis on the word ‘doctor.’ ‘I heard you say you were through with that shit. That Constance could do what she wanted with her money. And you said rather emphatically that you didn’t want it. And then Constance responded with, and I quote, “We’ve got a good thing going here! Don’t fuck it up!” Does any of this sound familiar?’
‘Not in the least,’ Dru said, but she was staring at Jean, not back down at her iPad. Jean thought that was progress.
‘Oh, maybe you were sleep-walking,’ Jean suggested, letting sarcasm color her statement.
‘Wasn’t me,’ Dru said.
‘Then maybe it was your sister. Does she screech like you?’
Dru jumped up from her sofa, dislodging the parrot on her shoulder. ‘You wanna hear screeching, lady? I’ll give you screeching!’ And she ran around the sofa to the cage of flamingos and began banging on the bars, then ran on to the next one full of parrots and banged on those bars. The yellow-and-blue plumed parrot that had appeared to be Dru’s pet was flying in little short bursts all around the room, though with its clipped wings it couldn’t get very far off the ground. But he – and the rest of the avian inhabitants – could certainly be heard. With Dru’s behavior and the storm now raging outside the windows of the solarium, the birds were hysterical.
Jean jumped up from the wicker love seat and made a fast swinging flight of her own to where Dru now stood in front of the peacock cage. Jean grabbed the girl’s arm away from the cage and pulled her around to face her.
‘Stop it, you spoiled little brat!’ Jean hissed. ‘Why terrify these animals? What is the matter with you?’
Dru tried to grab her arm back, but Jean’s hold was tight. ‘I’m not letting go of you,’ Jean said, her voice soft but menacing. ‘You’re to calm down this minute or I’ll take you to Vivian and tell her what you did. Or would you rather I discuss it with Constance?’
Dru’s entire body slumped. ‘No,’ she said. Jean let go of her arm. ‘I don’t know what you want from me.’
‘The truth,’ Jean said. ‘That’s all. Let’s sit down. I’ll tell you my truth, and then you’ll tell me yours.’
‘I don’t know anything about truth,’ Dru said, ‘but I sure can tell you a story that will curl your hair.’
It was a typical Monday. There was a three-car collision on Highway Five, not far from Mountain Falls Road – the road I live on. It took two deputies to handle that one as two of the cars were filled with older teenage boys who’d been racing, and the skinny from the occupant of the third car was that the guys appeared to be squaring off. So Dalton and Anthony took that. Nita got busy on a possible sexual assault out in the country on the way to Bishop. Emmett was at the VFW Hall giving a talk to the fellas there. And I was holed up in my office, busy trying to come up with ways to prove Drew Gleeson killed Darrell Blanton. Just before I was getting ready to stand up and go to lunch, I got a call from Holly at the front desk.
‘Sheriff, Mr Joyner, Mr Gleeson’s attorney, is here to see you.’
‘Oh, joy,’ I said, sarcastically. ‘Send him on back.’
I sat back down, trying to ignore the rumble in my belly. I stood back up when Harry Joyner knocked on my door jamb and came in. We shook hands and I said, ‘Please, have a seat.’
‘Thanks,
Sheriff. Have you set up a hearing time with the judge to release my client on bail?’
‘And how was your weekend?’ I countered.
He smirked at me. ‘Not good. My wife spent the entire time yelling at me for not getting her brother out of jail. So when is the hearing?’
‘I haven’t called about that yet – it’s been a busy day. But I’ll put in a call to the county clerk’s office and we should have a hearing set up in, I don’t know, a couple of days?’ I said, all innocent-like.
Joyner’s smirk was back. ‘I thought that might be the case, so I took the liberty of calling the clerk’s office myself. The judge will see us at two o’clock this afternoon.’ He stood up. ‘I’d like to see my client now. And I’d rather see him in his cell as I’m not one hundred percent certain that you don’t break the law by taping our interviews!’
‘Sir, I never break the law,’ I said, although I might bend it occasionally – I didn’t tell him that, though. ‘But it seems to me that if your client is so all-fired innocent, there’d be no reason for us not to hear your conversations. Just saying.’ I shrugged and smiled.
He smiled back. ‘Oh, my client is innocent all right – and I have no problem with you hearing him say so. It’s the other stuff, you know, personal stuff – family stuff.’
‘You’re charging him by the hour and talking about family business?’
His smile disappeared and he glared at me. ‘I don’t charge family,’ he said emphatically.
‘Wow, no shit? You are a credit to your profession,’ I said as he turned and walked out of the office. I picked up my phone and buzzed through to Holly. ‘Let Mr Joyner meet with his client in the cell, OK?’
‘Sure, Milt. Whatever you say,’ she answered. That’s the thing about Holly – why she’s so much better than our former civilian clerk who was with us for almost twenty years. Gladys, the former, would have been all, ‘Why in the cell and not in the interrogation room? Do you really think that’s a good idea? Sheriff Blankenship never would have let a lawyer meet with his client in his cell. This is highly inappropriate, Milton,’ and on and on and on. I was never so happy to see someone retire as I was to see Gladys do so. Holly, on the other hand, for all her oddity in attire, hair and makeup is a real professional at her job, and the only untoward thing I’ve ever caught her doing is sneaking a smooch with Dalton now and then. Personally, I can handle that.
I got up and headed out the side door, with a whole new scenario on how to talk Loretta at the Longbranch Inn into serving me a chicken fried steak. None of my carefully thought-out scenarios had worked as of yet, but I had high hopes.
‘You tell yours first,’ Dru said.
Jean nodded. ‘OK. I’m pretty sure Paula was sexually abused as a child. And I want to find out who did it and if they are still doing it.’
‘Sexually abused,’ Dru said, as if rolling the words around on her tongue. ‘You mean raped or, you know, just doing it?’
‘If it was a child with an adult, it doesn’t matter. It’s all rape,’ Jean said.
‘No shit? Even if the kid is sorta OK with it?’
‘How can a child be “sorta OK” with something like that? They don’t have the ability to make a decision like that, and even if they did, any adult who has sex with a child is a degenerate and needs to go to jail.’
Dru laughed. ‘Wow, and you’re a shrink? Where’s your compassion for these poor people who are just mentally unbalanced?’
‘It’s more than that. Pedophilia is a disease, of course, but it has no cure. The recidivism rate for pedophiles is the highest of any crime. Even castration doesn’t work. It’s the power, not so much the actual sexual experience.’
Dru was nodding her head. ‘That way even a woman can do it.’
‘Do what?’ Jean said, holding her breath.
‘Have sex with a kid. Or, like you said, rape a kid.’
‘Why would a woman want to do that?’ Jean asked.
Dru shrugged. ‘Mainly ’cause some man wants to watch.’
‘Did a woman do that with you?’ Jean asked, her fists clenched by her side.
Dru shrugged again. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said.
‘I told you my story, about Paula,’ Jean said. ‘It’s your turn to tell me yours.’
‘Huh. Well, this is a story, right, so maybe it’s not true? Maybe I’m just making it up.’ She smiled at Jean. ‘Like, what’s that word, hypothetically?’
‘Yes,’ Jean said. ‘So tell me your hypothetical story.’
‘So maybe there was this woman who married this man whose wife had just died, and this man had two daughters. And this man and this woman had been knocking boots since the woman was real young, like maybe a child herself, and so she thought it was OK to do what she wanted to do. And maybe the man liked to watch this stuff.’ She stopped talking.
A sick feeling washed over Jean. ‘Are you implying that Con— this woman used … something to …’
Dru cocked her head. ‘Maybe. Could be. And then the man dies and doesn’t leave anything to his wife or his daughters, and the woman knows that the dead man had friends who liked this stuff, too, so she contacts them and gets this whole thing started. And when the girls are old enough to realize she’s getting paid, maybe they demand that she pay them too.’
‘Is this still going on?’ Jean asked, damping down her need to jump up and confront Constance.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘Maybe one of the girls wants out,’ Jean suggested.
‘Maybe,’ Dru said.
‘Maybe the woman is giving one of the girls a hard time about it,’ Jean suggested.
‘Maybe,’ Dru said.
‘Maybe if this girl had someone to stand beside her, someone she could trust, she could expose the woman for what she is,’ Jean said.
‘And that would be you, right?’ Dru said with a sneer. ‘No thanks, Doc. This was all just hypothetical. None of it really happened. It was just a joke.’
She got up and left the solarium, leaving Jean sitting there alone, too shook up to even move.
My new thought-out scenario didn’t work. I ended up with a spinach salad and one small piece of garlic bread. And iced tea with sweetener, not the good sweet tea they serve at the Longbranch Inn. None of it was particularly satisfying.
I got back to the shop and heard voices and laughter coming from the bullpen area, so I walked that way. Holly was holding a baby and I saw the two – and I use this term loosely – adults watching her were Chandra Blanton and Mike Reynolds.
‘Well, hey there, you two! Is this your baby?’ I said, which was a stupid question, but no one gave me a look so I figured no one noticed.
‘Michael Nelson Reynolds, Jr,’ Chandra said, smiling at me. As young as the girl was, she seemed to have gotten her figure back real quick, although her breasts were probably bigger than they would be when she stopped nursing.
I moved closer to Holly and looked down at the baby. Thank God he looked like his daddy and not a male Blanton. Although the women tended to be pretty – or maybe it’s just me – the men tended toward butt ugly. I coogie-cooed a bit then asked them why we were so honored by their presence.
‘My mee-maw’s lawyer said I should pick up Uncle Darrell’s person effects,’ Chandra said. ‘Is that OK?’
‘Sure!’ I said. ‘Can Holly care for Junior while the three of us go back and see what we’ve got?’
‘Please!’ Holly said.
Chandra smiled. ‘OK. But holler if you need me.’
Leaving her extra-large diaper bag with Holly, Chandra and Mike followed me down the hall toward my office. We have a room across the hall from Emmett’s office that we used for all kinds of storage, including evidence. This is where Darrell Blanton’s personal effects would be.
I went to the right shelf, found the right box and opened it. The first thing I noticed was Darrell Blanton’s cell phone. And I just stared at it. It took maybe a full minute for my brain to unfreeze and the ramifi
cation of what I was seeing to register. If Darrell’s cell phone had been confiscated when he came in, how in the hell had he called for a pizza?
SEVENTEEN
Jean heard voices in the hall outside the solarium. They were quiet at first, then raised in anger. She got up and moved to the half-open door to the hallway. Peering around, she saw the twins, their faces scrunched in anger and their fists clenched, spewing harsh words at each other.
‘I told her I was out!’ Dru said.
‘You’re going to screw up the whole thing!’ Megan said.
‘Like I give a flying fuck!’ Dru shot back.
‘Well, you’d better!’ Megan almost screamed. Then she turned her head slightly and saw Jean. She stopped and stared at her, then turned and stared at her sister. ‘Did you tell?’ she hissed. ‘Did you?’
Dru shrugged. ‘Not exactly,’ she said.
Megan flew at Dru, hands grabbing Dru’s hair. Dru fought back, kicking and screaming.
Jean moved in and with one crutch managed to persuade the girls to stop what they were doing.
‘She told you!’ Megan managed to get out between clenched teeth.
‘I think the three of us should have a chat,’ Jean said.
‘Fuck you, you interfering gimp!’ Megan shouted and ran away from them.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the house, Jewel was in quiet conversation with Constance as they lounged in the library, an attractive two-story affair with generations of books and furniture adorning it.
‘So the whole thing was just about her not wanting to stay here over the winter holiday?’ Jewel said.
‘I know it sounds trivial, but it’s important. I’m trying to get my mother to see that the girls are part of the family. That they deserve a share of the Carmichael fortune. And the best way to do that is to have them near her, for her to get to know them.’ Constance laughed. ‘I understand that getting to know Dru might not be the best strategy, but the girl has a good heart, she really does.’
‘You seem very close to your stepdaughters,’ Jewel said.
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