Olson nodded. “Have to get me one of those someday. Not that I have many home movies. Some good films out there, though.”
Katie nodded, smiling.
Olson threw back his shoulders. “So! Oh--also dropped by to let you know I just received a call from Angel Robichou. She’s decided to move up Dean’s funeral a few days. It’ll be tomorrow. Eleven a.m. sharp.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She wanted to get it over with, I guess, put the last of it behind her, get on with her life. Can’t blame her.”
“No.”
“Course…with the little Amy thing still unresolved—the reason she invited you folks down here to Manchac—I reckon it’s still not all behind her yet, is it?”
I don’t think he meant it as a dig.
“You two any closer on that, the Amy thing?”
“A little…” Katie ventured.
“Yeah?”
Katie nodded.
“Anything you can talk about?”
“Not really enough to talk about,” I said.
Olson nodded. “I see. Shame. Sweet little girl, or so I hear.”
Katie and I nodded concurringly.
Oh…” Olson reached into his breast pocket, extracted a piece of folded pink paper, “I also got the tox report back on Dean…”
Katie held out her hand immediately.
The deputy ignored her, unfolded the paper almost absently. “Very interesting report…”
Katie left her hand hanging in the air. “May we see it?” .
Olson was silent a moment, then looked up from the paper. “You know, Katie—can I still call you ‘Katie’?”
“Of course.”
“You know, Katie, driving over here tonight I kept thinking about my high school Latin classes for some reason. Don’t know why, really. You folks got any ideas about that?”
“Your Latin?” from Katie. “Why would we?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Quid Pro Quo…that kind of stuff.” And he held the report a little higher.
I took a deep breath, blew it out.
“What do you want, Deputy?” from Katie.
“Jimmy.”
“What do you want, ‘Jimmy’?” just a trace of impatience in her voice now.
“That depends. What are you trading?”
Katie shrugged innocence, sat down on the edge of the bed, making it bounce once. “Don’t have much, I’m afraid. Wish we did.”
Olson nodded affably, folded the paper, stuffed it back in his uniform pocket.
Katie looked at the pocket intently a moment.
Olson caught her eye, smiled affably.
“Okay,” Katie said, leaning back on her arms, “you first, Deputy. Have a drink. Quid Quo Pro.”
Olson thought about it, dropped his hat on the only chair. “All right. Coffee.”
“No. Old Granddad.”
Olson smiled wryly. “Like I said, officially still on dut—“
“Quid pro quo.”
His smile widened. “All right. One quick one.”
Katie got it for him, stood silently, arms folded, until he’d knocked it back.
Olson made a smacking sound. “Not bad. Now your turn.”
She glanced cautiously at me. “We…think we might be getting closer on Amy’s case.”
The deputy gave her a rueful look. “Is that’s all, Miss Bracken—Katie? Not much quid for the quo. When did you stop trusting me?”
Katie stood there uncertainly, glanced nervously at me again.
I came over, picked up an empty glass, held it out to her. “We’re a bit on edge of late, Jimmy,” as she poured.
He nodded. “Anything I can do about it?”
I thought for a moment, decided lay out my cards. Our cards. “It’s a trapdoor, Jimmy.”
Katie nearly sloshed my glass.
“But not in the floor or wall. In the mausoleum roof.”
Olson’s face lit.
He shook his head, smiling. “The roof…” nodding now appreciatively, “I never would have thought of it…”
“I think that was the idea.” I said.
He kept nodding, pleased, as if suddenly getting an old joke. “But how? Who got in?”
He looked back and forth at us.
“How about another drink?” from Katie.
“Miss Bracken—“
“’What happened to ‘Katie’?”
“Katie, you’re not going to get me drunk tonight. I think we’ve both got information for the other person. Why don’t we all just loosen up here?”
“We have reason to believe our lives may be threatened,” she said.
Olson grunted. “Good for you! I have reason to believe it, too. That’s why I’m here. To help. You’ve been inside the crypt, haven’t you. Aside from the funeral, I mean.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” I told him. “First through the front door. The only door. By using the key. That someone dropped in the grass after Roger’s funeral.”
“Dean? He was pretty drunk.”
“Maybe,” Katie said, “but we think Dianne pickpocketed it. We caught her leaving the crypt one night with a paper bag.”
“Diane stole the money.”
“No,” I sipped, “the bag looked empty. Somebody got there first. Somebody who knew about the trapdoor. Probably the same somebody that saw Dianne the same time we did, followed her. And killed her.”
“Cut her throat.”
“Yes.”
Face rife with fascination now, Olson began pacing a tight circle before the TV. “Go on.”
“Dianne was killed because her childhood boyfriend Roger told her about Dean’s money, where it was hidden. We think Roger may also have built the trapdoor, though it could have been Dean. We’ll never know, because Dean was the next to die. Supposedly of a heart attack. Now, how about that tox report, Jimmy? Or is it still Deputy Olson?”
Olson glanced down at this shirt, pulled out the report, handed it to Katie.
She combed it quickly, expertly. “’…high amounts of digitalis found in the bloodstream.’” She looked up at us. “A heart attack all right. An inflicted one.”
“Someone crept up behind him in the crypt,” I said, “just as he was removing the money. Someone who followed Dean to the cemetery, onto the roof of the mausoleum, through the trapdoor and into the crypt, via a prearranged rope ladder.”
“Dean removed the money, you said. From where?” Olson said.
“His daughter Amy’s vault. The vault itself is empty, of course—Amy’s not there—but the money was. Hidden. In a false bottom. Nimble minded Katie figured it out.”
“Nimble fingered,” she said.
“Christ.”
“Nice, huh?” from Katie, “honor thy wife and children.”
Olson still wasn’t quite there yet. “So this…someone injects Dean with digitalis, stops his heart, and takes the money?”
I shook my head. “Would have taken the money, if he’d had time. But we messed up his plans. Katie and I showed up at the cemetery first, and we had the key to the front door.”
“You got in, saw the killer?”
I shook my head. “The killer heard us coming, knew once we came in, he couldn’t sneak past us out the front door--there’s no inside lock. Knew also he couldn’t carry all that money with him and manage to climb a flimsy rope ladder to the trapdoor.”
“So?”
“So he hid it. Hid the money in the crypt before Katie and I entered through the door.”
Olson was flush with excitement that looked genuine. “Hid it where?”
I shrugged irony. “Somewhere in the crypt.”
“In that little crypt? Where?”
“We don’t know,” Katie said, “but not in Amy’s vault. He did leave her vault pulled open a fraction—to distract us, probably--then hightailed it out of there through the roof hatch, hauling up the ladder behind him before we got through the door.”
“And found Dean Robichou lying dead on the stone floor,” I add
ed.
I stepped backward slowly, arms folded, and leaned against the front door of the cabin. “Wouldn’t happen to know where that money is now, would you, Deputy?”
Olson’s face was blank. Then broke wide in a smile. “It’s ‘Jimmy.’ And you don’t believe that or you wouldn’t have told me all this.”
I shrugged. “Well, you are the one with the gun. But who says I’ve told you all of it?”
Olson returned a cunning smile. “You’ve told me enough, Elliot. If I was the killer—came here tonight to kill the two of you and cover my tracks—I’d have plenty of reason.”
Katie twitched on the bed.
I nodded grimly at Olson from the door. “Yes, you would.”
“So you must not believe I’m the killer.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I told the motel proprietor to keep an eye on this room tonight. And two bloody bodies and a dead cat would take a long time to clean up.”
“I’d never do that,” Olson said levelly.
“No?”
“No.” He looked down at the floor. “I love that cat.”
Katie sputtered sudden laugher.
Maybe it was partly from tension.
But Olson had a goofy smile on his face now that helped evaporate suspicion.
I nodded up at him. “So. Are we out of quid pro quos? Working together again as a team on this thing?”
“We never stopped, Elliot, as far as I’m concerned. Just one more thing, though…”
I saw Katie tighten on the bed.
Olson nodded at the TV. “Let me see what’s on the DVD.”
My guts twisted. I couldn’t look at Katie for fear of what I’d find in her face.
I finally pushed from the wall and flopped back in the chair. “Oh, the hell with it. Katie. Show him. Play that work of cinematic genius.”
Katie sat staring at me for a moment. Then got up from the bed and retrieved the remote.
Just before she hit the Play button Olson waved his hand. “Never mind, Katie. I’ve already seen it.”
We both spun around to him.
“Just wanted to see if you really trusted me.”
Katie’s expression was almost comical. “You’ve seen it?”
Olson nodded at the window. “Through the blinds, earlier. From the opening credits to the end credits.” He turned to me. “Except for that missing The End part.”
I sagged with relief.
Katie flopped back on the bed with a whoosh. “God, I’m glad that’s over!”
I tossed up my hands. “So. Where do we go from here, gang?”
Jimmy began pacing again. “Still have to find a killer.”
“Any ideas? Brain-children of late?”
Jimmy paced, rubbed at his chin. “Not sure, exactly…”
He kept glancing at the TV.
“What is it, Jimmy?” from Katie, sitting up again.
The deputy stopped pacing, turned to us. “Before--when I was peeping through your blinds…”
He turned to the TV again. “…maybe you could play that movie for me again, just the first part.”
Katie glanced at me. I nodded. She picked up the remote. Jimmy stepped closer to the TV.
The credits came up. Two young men and a girl in a cemetery. Talking. A wide shot. A medium shot, a close-up, and back to a wide shot.
“Stop it there, can you?” Jimmy asked.
Katie keyed the remote.
“Can you back it up a little? Slowly?”
Katie put the DVD in frame reverse.
“There! Hold it!”
Katie stopped the film on a single frame. The close-up.
Jimmy walked to the set, hunkered down, squinted at the screen. “You guys seeing what I’m seeing?”
I didn’t.
“I do!” from an excited Katie, who was across the room and digging through her heavy bag again.
I gave Jimmy a quizzical look. He jerked his head at the still frame on the TV. “The yearbook,” he said. “Roger’s yearbook—“
“Here it is!” Katie squealed, holding up the Polaroid that had fallen from Roger’s yearbook that day we were all casing his room. The Polaroid that showed the two young men smiling at the camera before the door to the mausoleum.
I took the photo from her, glanced at it, turned to TV screen, held up the photo for comparison. The two boys in both snapshot and movie were grinning wide, leaning against each other, twin tattoos proudly visible on each arm.
Jimmy’s voice sounded almost rehearsed. “It’s Cormac.”
I looked back at the snapshot of the young Roger and the nearly-as-young sheriff.
Jimmy dropped down on the edge of the bed solemnly, fingers laced in front of him on his knees. He looked suddenly older. “I think I knew it all along, somehow…”
Katie touched his shoulder lightly.
I sat there across from them, mind churning. “If Cormac and Jimmy were the kidnappers, they did it for only one reason—Dean Robichou’s money. Which they didn’t get. Not back then. All they got was shredded paper…”
Jimmy sighed. “But whenever you involve more than one person in a crime—including innocent little Amy—you put yourself in that person’s trust. Amy they got rid of quickly. But Cormac had to keep on trusting Roger and Dianne for years, trust them from that day on to keep their respective mouths shut. That’s a lot of weight to bear, lot of sleepless nights. Especially when you keep your nose clean and finally get in a position to run for office, the election for which is, by the way, two days away at the county seat.”
“So Dianne was in on it from the start?” from Katie. “Twenty years ago!”
Jimmy shrugged. “Maybe that’s one part of Elliot’s film that differs from reality. But that would make it differ for Cormac too. Roger and Dianne stayed tight over the years. He could have spilled the beans to her at any time over those years and Cormac knew it.”
“Knew it for sure when he saw Dianne leave the mausoleum empty-handed with that paper bag.” I said.
Jimmy nodded. “In any event, he was running for office. Even if he didn’t need Dean’s money to help finance it, he’d have money of his own someday—real money—and Roger and Dianne dogging and threatening him at every turn would have been too much, too risky. He had no choice, really, not if he was ever going to have a real night’s sleep in the White House.”
Katie snorted. “Cormac’s not smart enough for the White House.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Jimmy muttered.
I sat there quietly.
So quietly, and for so long, both Katie and Jimmy finally looked up at me.
“Sorry. But I just can’t give you two what I know you want from me. Everything you say could be true—and I’ll admit it’s a weirdly prophetic film, especially from a bumbling, fever-ridden student--but it’s still only that, just a film. A movie. A fiction.”
Katie slapped her knees. Hard. “Oh come on, Elliot! I mean, there’s such a thing as healthy skepticism but you’ve gone beyond the pale! Jimmy’s a newcomer to your movie and he believes there’s something to it!”
I shook my head stubbornly. “Maybe. But a court would agree with me. It’s all just speculation. Damn compelling speculation, but legally only that.”
“Elliot—“
I turned to them. “Listen! Both of you! I’ve come to love little Amy over the past few weeks, no one wants her disappearance solved more than I! Which is exactly why, unless we have nothing less than proof positive, it would be a disservice to her memory! Do you think I don’t want to believe? Do you think I don’t want that poor child’s mother to know the truth, no matter how painful it may be? The truth is just about the only thing Angel Robichou has to cling to right now, and it’s tearing my heart out not see she gets it!”
Katie slumped on the mattress.
Jimmy rocked on his elbows. Finally, he stood and started toward me.
The explosion was so loud it sounded like it must have come from inside. Jimmy’s hand was on the grip of his
.45 and for one mad moment I thought he’d managed some incredible TV quick draw, turned and shot Katie, that it was her blood sprayed across the ceiling. Then his eyes rolled back, his uniform front began to blossom darkly, he fell straight down to his knees, waved an instant and toppled on his face.
The back of my neck was stinging as if a swarm of mosquitoes had entered the room. Maybe some had: the window and part of the blinds held a dinner plate-sized hole of shattered glass and buckled plastic
Katie—less shell-shocked than I--was up and moving barely in time to avoid the second shot, exploding behind me, further deafening my still-ringing ears and taking a noticeable hunk from the bathroom door jamb beyond Katie as she dove for the wall switch.
The room went dark.
I hit the motel floor reflexively as the third shot roared out a bright tongue of flame from the ruined window and I heard the face of the TV implode in a vacuum rush of air and splintering glass.
A moment of blessed silence amid a skein of blue smoke and reek of cordite.
Then came the terrible pounding at the thin motel door…
THIRTY-FIVE
“Katie!”
“I’m okay! Are you hit?”
I could barely hear her over the steady thunderous pounding at the door.
“I don’t think so!”
“What about Jimmy?”
“He’s down!”
“Dead?”
“Not sure!”
“We have to check on him! Can you find him?”
The motel door made a splintering sound.
“Katie, we’ve got to get out of here!”
“Not without Jimmy!”
I started belly crawling on my elbows like a soldier, head low, cocked in the direction of her voice. “There’s no time! The shooter’s coming through that door! We won’t be any good to Jimmy if we’re shot, too! Where are you?”
“Behind the bed!”
I brushed past Olson’s body and scuttled toward her voice.
It was black as death in there, the walls ringing with the echo of the continuous pounding. Someone wanted in bad. I kept thinking: why doesn’t he just shoot out the rest of the glass, come through the window? Maybe fear of being sliced up in the darkness by all that glass...
I found the edge of the bed and, a moment later, Katie’s prostrate form, belly down like me, hands covering her head. I brushed at them, felt bits of glass in her hair, nothing wet.
FEVER DREAMS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 36