One Deadly Sin

by Annie Solomon

  Miranda tugged at his shirt. “Can I get a real one?”

  “A real one what?”

  “A fattoo!” The tone implying her father was not all there.

  “Oh, sure.”

  Her face lit up, and he hated to spoil that excitement, but hey, he was the dad. It was his job. “Some day,” he added.

  She pouted. “When?”

  “When you’re older.”

  “How old?”

  “Thank God you came home,” Mimsy said. “I’ve been running around those questions all day.”

  “How old?” Miranda repeated.

  “When you’re old enough, I’ll let you know.” Holt swept her up. “Come on, you.” He took her upstairs and put her to bed.

  Covered in a comforter with pink doodads over it, she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Maybe I can get a flower,” she said.

  He grinned. She was nothing if not persistent. “We’ll see.”

  He closed her door and went across the hall. When he moved back to Redbud, he’d been a mess. No job, no desire to get one. His parents had taken him in and he was too tired to protest or do anything else. In fact, their kindness had been a welcome relief.

  But he couldn’t bear going back to his old room, so he gave that to Miranda, and Mimsy had transformed it, burying his boyhood under a weight of pink ruffles and lace. Now, he bunked in what used to be the spare room, a narrow compartment that Great-aunt Ida used to sleep in when she came to visit. Far from lavish, it was clean and utilitarian, and suited him fine. He hadn’t added much to it in the five years since he’d been back. In the beginning that had been a hedge against making the room and the move permanent. But it had become permanent. He’d planted his feet and they’d stuck.

  He opened his laptop. Spent a couple of hours searching for places to purchase black angels. Found a gothic clothing store, a 1946 movie, a rock group, but no retailers. Which meant he wouldn’t be able to trace the things through the net. That only left the rest of the wide-open universe.

  At a momentary dead end, he tramped downstairs to the den, where his father was ensconced on the couch across from the TV. Holt paused in the doorway, taking in the room.

  Like the kitchen, the den was worn and lived in. Old basketball trophies and plaques still decorated the bookshelves along with pictures that swept the realm of his life. His own high school yearbook picture where he looked impossibly young and goofy. Prom night with Cindy. Their wedding, her smile sweet and gentle and happy. And Miranda. A red-faced infant. A toddler with him and Cindy. And then… with just him. There were pictures of his parents’ life, too. James and Mimsy on a cruise. At the foot of the Eiffel Tower. In front of a tent in the Smokies. It was all a jumble, one on top of the other. But the pictures never changed. Just like home was always home.

  It was precious. Even more so after today. Holt had seen his share of violent death, but it never went down easy. The images of the day circulated inside his head—the blue sheen of Dennis Runkle’s vanity car crunched and scraped raw. His body, crushed and bloody. In case Holt ever forgot how fragile we all were. How fast everything could be taken away. How vital it was to hold on to what was important.

  He wondered what his dad would have done if Mimsy had died before she turned thirty, leaving him with a year-old baby. Would he have slunk back to his parents’ home?

  Wouldn’t have been an option. His father’s parents were long gone by the time James Drennen had married and fathered a son. He’d started with nothing and made a good life for his family. Holt was proud of that.

  Now James sat on the sofa staring at what should have been the Braves game. Instead, a diamond ring circled in close-up on the muted screen.

  “Thinking of adding to your jewelry collection?” Holt strolled in and sat beside his father. “Dad?”

  “Oh, hey, Holt,” James said.

  “Hey yourself. What’re you watching?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The TV. What are you watching?”

  James looked at the screen. He didn’t even remember turning it on. “Damned if I know.”

  They sat in silence for a while, watching the ring sparkle and circulate. James tried to pull himself together, but his heart had been pumping like a gusher ever since he’d heard from Mimsy, who heard it from Patsy Clark, who was at Claire’s when Runkle plowed into that tree.

  What did Holt know? That was the thing that kept James’s mouth dry and his palms clammy.

  James clutched his hands together and leaned over his knees. He didn’t want to look at Holt while he fished for information. “Heard you had a rough day.”

  “Not the best, no.” There was weariness in Holt’s voice, and James felt sorry for it. But not sorry enough to change the subject.

  “Get everything cleaned up?”

  Holt didn’t even ask how his dad knew what happened. He just nodded, accepting the fact that the town’s informal telegraph system was swift and efficient. “Car’s at Myer’s. Body’s at Ferguson’s.”

  Myer’s meant a search for mechanical problems. Doc Ferguson was the county coroner. So that meant an autopsy. “How fast until you hear the results?”

  “I told both to put a rush on, but you know how things get done around here. When they get done.”

  That meant—what? Days until James could relax. He nodded, stared out at the room again. Didn’t see anything.

  “You okay?” Holt asked. “First I find you at the crack of dawn wandering on other side of town, now you’re watching QVC.”

  Christ, he had to do better than this. He sighed. “Guess it’s unsettling, all this bad news coming one on the heels of the other.”

  “Tell me about it,” Holt murmured. “Look, Dad, how well did you know Dennis Runkle?”

  James froze. “Me?”

  “Whoa, slow down,” his son laughed. “This isn’t an interrogation. Just thought you could, you know, throw some insight my way.”

  James tried to loosen up. “I didn’t know him much at all. Just to say hello to. Or, you know, city business.”

  “Much of a drinker?”

  He told the truth. “Never got a call on him. Never heard he had a problem. Why? Think he was drunk?” Wouldn’t that be helpful.

  “Don’t know. Maybe he was just driving too fast. Man that age should know better.”

  “Hey”—James tried a chuckle, and it came out choked—“one day you’ll be a man that age.”

  “Well, I hope I’ll know better by then,” Holt said dryly.

  James paused. How to bring things around to the next concern? Couldn’t think of any way other than outright asking. He took a breath. “You find anything on that black angel?”

  Holt groaned. “Aw, geez, Dad, you’re not going voodoo on me, too?”

  Voodoo? Was that what the town was saying? “Just asking. Not saying there’s anything to it. But there’s going to be talk until you can come up with an explanation.”

  “Talk I can handle. And I’ll find an explanation. One that doesn’t involve black magic or the devil. You can count on that.”

  James nodded. As long as it didn’t involve him either.

  13

  Arlen Mayborne still worked at Hammerbilt, although no longer as an accounting assistant. He was head of the department now and Edie had little trouble getting in touch with him.

  She told him she was a business writer doing a story on the economics of small-town America, and arranged an appointment with him on her first day off. A shift must have ended because cars streamed out of the gates as Edie pulled in.

  The plant itself was a sprawling complex that seemed to stretch for miles on the north side of town. Edie stopped to give her name at the guardhouse and to get directions to the office area. Once there, she asked for Mayborne at the reception desk.

  She sat in a vinyl-covered chair to wait. Copies of HVAC Today were scattered over a nearby coffee table. The hard clink of metal on metal drifted in from a distance along with the industrial odor of s
teel, grease, and sweat.

  Edie had eschewed makeup, leaving her face pale and unremarkable. Her hair was up, but she’d taken care to keep it neat and presentable. Black slacks and a blazer completed the discreet costume. Her arms were covered; she didn’t want her body art to distract.

  And it didn’t. Mayborne gave her a perfunctory smile when he came to get her, but there was nothing in it that said, who is this freak? A look she often got in her usual getup. Not that she cared. She was a freak. Had been all her life. And it all started here, somewhere in Hammerbilt.

  She followed him down a corridor, past the mailroom, and around a corner, rigid with anticipation. Would she run into anyone she knew from the bar? Mayborne had never turned up at Red’s, and she could only hope he never would. But Howard worked here. So did his friend, Russ. Would they recognize her in her nunlike costume? She gripped her hands waiting for someone to shout, “Hey, Edie!”

  But no one did, and by the time they reached the accounting department, she had loosened up enough to feel the tension in her neck and shoulders.

  The accounting department was a wide room with four desks and a private office to one side. Gray metal file cabinets lined the walls, a copy machine and a paper shredder stood in one corner. Cold and impersonal, the place smelled of paper and copier ink.

  Two men in dull white shirts and Wal-Mart ties, neither particularly crisp, occupied two of the desks. A woman in a lumpy stretch top sat outside the private office. Department secretary? The other woman was young—younger than Edie. Wearing a suit that hung on her bony frame, she looked barely out of high school. Of the four, she stared frankly as Edie came in with Mayborne.

  Was this where her father sat? A place like this could drive anyone to despair.

  Mayborne led her into the little office, offered her a chair, and sat behind the desk. He was a thin man, tall, with a concave chest that hung inside a too-large shirt. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. The lenses were dirty and spotted but he didn’t seem to notice. Edie tried not to.

  “So what would you like to know, Miss Swann?” He gave her a polite smile that stretched his pale skin. Atop his head thinning red hair looped in lean curls.

  On the drive over, she’d plotted the route of the interview, starting with the innocuous. She took out a notebook and pen, held the pen poised over the paper. “Tell me about coming to work for Hammerbilt.”

  “Well now, I came right out of high school in the spring of ’86,” he said. “Completed my accounting degree at night. Hammerbilt had just started a program to help employees who wanted higher education. Still running, too, I’m proud to say.”

  She pretended to take notes. “When was that?”

  “A year or two after I came. One of the previous department heads, Swanford, he started it.”

  Her pen skidded to a such a hard stop it poked a hole through the paper. She hadn’t expected her father’s name to come up so easily. She forced herself to breathe normally.

  “Swanford? Can you spell that for me? I’d like to get in touch with him.”

  A tiny pause. “Well, sorry to say, he passed. Years ago. Very tragic. Took his own life.”

  As it always did, her stomach clenched at the phrasing. “How awful. Why?”

  He leaned over the desk, lowered his voice. “Rumor had it he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.”

  “Embezzlement?”

  “Never proved, mind you. He died before it could come to trial. And frankly, I had trouble believing it at first. But you never know, do you? Innocent men don’t do themselves in.” He sat back abruptly. “You’re not going to write about this, are you? It happened so long ago. Don’t want to dredge it all up again. Terrible time. Terrible.”

  She flashed him a sympathetic smile. “I can only imagine. Must have been pure chaos here. Schedules just go out the window when something like that happens, don’t they?”

  He nodded. ”Mrs. Garvey was in a complete frenzy, if I remember correctly.”

  Her attention focused. An unfamiliar name. A new lead? “Mrs. Garvey?”

  “Hannah Garvey. The department secretary.”

  “How can I get in touch with her?”

  “Oh, she passed, too. They’re all going, the old ones.”

  She tried not to show her disappointment. The one lead he’d given her, and it was a dead end. Literally.

  “Even Mr. Butene, the plant comptroller,” Mayborne mused.

  Her heart squeezed. That was a name she recognized. “Oh?”

  “Died a few months after poor Hannah. Fell off a ladder. Did you know how high a percentage of fatal accidents take place in the home?” He shook his head. Sighed. But Edie only hugged her pen tighter.

  Another name crossed off, but this one for good. Three names gone and she was no closer to uncovering the truth. When would she catch a break? Disappointment turned into annoyance. Waste of time. Total waste of time.

  Then again, maybe not. She’d passed a mailroom on her way to the accounting department, hadn’t she? An idea began to form.

  “You must have seen a lot of changes in the plant and the town,” she prompted, and while Mayborne talked about his years at the plant she had time to firm up her idea.

  When Mayborne wound down, she said, “You must like it at Hammerbilt to have been here so long.”

  “Plant’s been good to me. And, well, to be honest, not much else to do in Redbud.”

  She rose to go, extended a hand. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Happy to do it. You send me a copy of that article, now.” He gave her a card with his name and address on it. She pocketed it, and he came around the desk.

  “No need to see me out. I know the way.”

  He waved her off, and she put her plan into action, heading back to reception with a bit of a detour. She’d been going to do this on her way back from the plant, maybe take a ride over to the next town. But how could she resist using Hammerbilt to send her next little package?

  She slipped into the mailroom. A woman was sorting mail, but she didn’t look away from the wall of cubbyholes she was filling. Edie spotted the container marked “outgoing,” and dropped the small padded envelope from her purse into the basket.

  Just in case, she kept her head down and gazed at the floor as she swept out of the mailroom. Gazed down and smiled.

  Then she raced back to Red’s and arrived in a party mood, humming as she ran up the iron steps to her room. She knew exactly what she would do to finish off this glorious afternoon.

  She flung open the door, stripped off the confining clothes she’d worn to see Arlen Mayborne, and shoved on a pair of cutoffs and a tank. Got her headphones and flipped through her CDs for the one she wanted to listen to. With a pail of water borrowed from Red, a sponge and her bike cleaner, chrome polish and wax, her terry-cloth towels and chamois, she was all set.

  Back in the alley, she smiled silently to the bike. Hello, Beauty.

  The water was cold but that was fine in the warm summer air. She sponged down the bike, then sprayed it with Showbike and cleaned out the grunge. After the dirt was gone, she started on the chrome, buffing and polishing the handlebars and down those gorgeous legs. They were going on a little trip tonight, and she wanted the bike to look its best, all shiny and new like the metal had captured the sun and couldn’t help but glow.

  God, she felt free. She’d been inside the monster, right there in the heart of Hammerbilt. Even used the plant to send her latest little bomb. And it felt good. So good.

  She pictured the recipient. Would he quake and stagger when he opened the package? Would his heart go off on him, like Lyle’s did? And Runkle? What had he done? She hoped he’d trembled with fear, desperate to know who planted his little missive. She wanted to shake them all up, the guilty and the innocent—the whole town if need be. Then maybe the truth would stumble, tattered and worn, maybe, pale but alive, into the light.

  For the past twenty-five years Runkle Real Estate had
worked out of a small storefront two blocks off the town square. Over the years the business had expanded and outgrown its original space, but it wasn’t until a prime location near the new west side condos opened up that Runkle thought seriously about moving.

  When Holt arrived at the old storefront off Main he found it a mess of boxes and files, stacks of books and papers, phones and computer wires that created a minefield of junk to negotiate.

  Marydell Figgis, one of Runkle’s agents, greeted Holt with swollen red eyes. “I just can’t believe it.” A large, middle-aged woman, Marydell came with a full bust, plump cheeks, and short blond hair inexpertly fixed. A hundred years ago she would have looked at home in a farmyard, a wide apron over her ample chest holding grain for a flock of chickens. Now she squeezed into a pantsuit and sold the land her ancestors once farmed.

  She blew her nose loudly. “Another week and we’d be moved.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe he’s… he’s gone.” Her voice cracked and Holt shifted uncomfortably under the emotion.

  He cleared his throat. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  She inhaled a shaky breath. “Of course.” Glanced around for a place they could sit. Couldn’t find one. “All the chairs are already gone,” she said lamely and looked as if she was going to burst into tears again.

  “That’s okay,” Holt said quickly. “This won’t take long.” He plunged right in. “Do you know what Mr. Runkle did yesterday? Did he have any appointments?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did.” She scanned the room again. “He keeps his own schedule. We all do.” She fished through some boxes. Came up empty-handed. Crossed to the other side of the room and dug around some more. “I’m sorry. I can’t seem to find…” She straightened. “We have a sign-out board and the schedule is usually posted. But with the move and everything…”

  Holt spied a couple of PCs on the floor. “What about a computer? He keep his schedule there?”

  “Oh, no. He was very old-fashioned. Wrote everything down in a book.”

  “And the book is…?”

  “Should be here.” She gave him an apologetic looked. Dabbed at her nose again. “Somewhere. I do know he was going to show the old Bellingham house on Dogwood.”