by Ann Mullen
“That’s not entirely true. Even if he’d gone to court on the charges, the judge probably would’ve dismissed them. They were misdemeanors.”
“It didn’t take long for his minor offenses to escalate,” I spat back at him. I stopped as if a lightning bolt had struck me. “Oh, my God! It just sunk in. He’s Daisy Clark’s brother! We’re really in trouble now.”
“No joke,” Mom said. Her face was flushed, but at least she seemed to be getting it together a little bit. “She’s going to piece this puzzle together and we’re not going to be safe.” She hesitated and then said, “Sheriff, I’d like to go back inside my house and take a shower. I’ll leave it up to you and your men to sort all this out.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Watson. All I ask is that you give your clothes to the female deputy inside so they can be sent to the crime lab.”
“I can do that, sheriff. You can keep them. I don’t want them anymore,” Mom said as she turned to me. “Would you please come with me, Jesse?”
“Of course, I will, Mom.”
The two of us walked inside and went to Mom’s bedroom where she had a private bathroom. She closed the bedroom door and then said, “Billy is a good man, Jesse, and he’s right about what he said about God. He was there to protect us and gave us the courage to do what had to be done. I don’t want you to worry yourself about me. Everything will be all right. I’m going to make it. Prayer will get me through this.”
“Then maybe you’ll say a few prayers for me.”
“I always do, honey.”
After Mom took a shower and I was confident she would be safe without me, I jumped in the guest shower. Billy brought my duffel bag in from my car. That was another thing I’d learned from him early on in our relationship—always be prepared; carry a bag of clothes, a few toiletries and a gun everywhere you go. As I showered, I berated myself for listening to my mother’s request for me to leave my gun in the car. I should’ve had it on me at all times. I will from now on, I promised myself.
We gave our bloody clothes to the female deputy and watched her bag them.
“How do you do this?” I asked. “You’re half the size of these men and yet you run with the big dogs as if it was nothing.”
“As my mama always told me, if you’re going to play rough, have an ace in the hole. My ace is my gun and I’m pretty good with it. I can hit a gnat on a …”
I think I’ve heard this one before,” Mom interrupted. “So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going outside to be with my son-in-law.” She turned and left the room.
After Mom was out the door, I looked at the deputy and said, “My mother’s pretty strict about potty mouths. She really gives me the dickens sometimes.”
“I know what you mean,” the deputy said. “My mother’s the same way. It’s been rough on her with my being on the force. She hates it that I’m exposed to such vile language. She doesn’t have a clue. Bad language is the least of my worries. If I told her some of the situations I’ve been in, she’d freak out. So I don’t tell her.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I know it’s your job, but your compassion is comforting.”
“Here,” she said, slipping a card into my hand. “It’s the name and number of a counselor who can help you and your mother work through this trauma. You might not think you need help now, but you do. Make sure your mother goes. Mothers have a tendency to think they’re invincible, but they’re not. Sometimes they need our help.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thanks so much for your kindness.”
She handed me another card and said, “My name’s Deputy Katherine Kingsley. If you ever need me, my number’s on the card.”
The now infamous wall phone in the kitchen rang, resonating off the walls like the bell at St. Andrews Cathedral.
I looked over at the clock on the living room wall and saw that it was ten minutes past six. We had missed our dinner engagement with Daisy and Gabe. The phone call had to be from her.
“Sheriff,” I called out. “That’s probably Daisy Clark calling. We had a dinner engagement over in Madison County with her and her husband ten minutes ago.”
He came over, took me by the arm and said, “I want you to talk to her. Don’t let on about her brother. I need to buy some time. Can you handle this? You’d really be helping me out.”
“You bet I can,” I said. “But why do you need to buy some time? Don’t you have a responsibility to notify the family immediately? I’m not going to be the one to tell her, that’s for sure.”
“While I assess the situation, I’m waiting for a warrant to search Kansas Moon’s place. I sent my deputies up there and they’re just waiting to hear from me. By the time the deceased is bagged, tagged and in the morgue, and I’ve searched his place, then I’ll notify his family.”
“How will you keep this out of the news?”
“You let me worry about that,” he replied. “Just answer the phone, please.”
Chapter 12
Sheriff Hudson walked over, picked up the receiver and then handed it to me. “Make up something, but be convincing,” he whispered. “We don’t want to tip our hand.”
“Hello,” I said into the phone, huffing as if I were out of breath. “Hold on a minute,” I raised my voice and pretended to be talking to someone in the room. “I’m sorry,” I said back into the receiver. “Can I help you?”
“It’s me, Daisy. Is this Jesse?”
“Daisy! Oh, I’m so sorry about dinner. Mom just had one of her episodes and the ambulance is here, so I have to go. I’ll call you later, if you want me to.”
“I hope your mother’s going to be all right.” The concern in her voice sounded genuine.
“She thinks it’s just an anxiety attack, but we have to be sure. Please tell Gabe that I’m sorry about dinner. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything. I have to go.” I ended the conversation. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to ask which hospital Mom was going to, and I wanted to convey a sense of urgency. I put the receiver back into its holder and turned to Sheriff Hudson.
“How was that?” I asked, proud of myself for coming up with such a convincing lie at the spur of the moment. I’m getting pretty good at that.
“You do well under pressure, Mrs. Blackhawk.”
“Oh, sheriff, I’ve told you before to call me Jesse. I think we know each other well enough now that you can call me by my first name, and I’ll call you Sheriff Hudson. That is your name, isn’t it?” I forced a smile.
“We have been through a lot together.” He winked. He looked over at the body lying on the floor. “We’ve done the crime scene preliminaries and the M.E. should be here any minute. He’ll take the body to the morgue and begin an autopsy.”
“Can he do an autopsy without the family’s consent?”
“This is a violent crime. Of, course, he can.”
“What will an autopsy prove? You know all the facts.”
“It’s standard procedure. I do the crime scene and I leave the rest to the M.E.”
The sheriff’s walkie-talkie buzzed. The call was from the dispatcher at the Sheriff’s Office.
“You have your warrant, Sheriff Hudson,” the voice on the other end said.
Sheriff Hudson immediately buzzed one of his men. “It’s a go, Deputy Hayden. Get back with me if you find anything.” He released the hold button.
“What do you expect to find?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Hopefully, we’ll find something that will explain his behavior. I’d like to know what made him go off the deep end. He went from petty theft to attempted murder. Something made him snap. He didn’t just wake up this morning and decide to break into your mother’s house and steal something or do bodily harm. But if he did, I’m sure he saw the cars parked out front. He must’ve known someone was here. He’s never broken into anyone’s house. The M.O. doesn’t fit.”
“Daisy,” I suggested, finally seeing the light. “She’s on to us. There’s no doubt in my mind. She found
out she was being tailed, tracked Jonathan down and shot him, then realized he was related to my mother by marriage. She found out that the guy she shot is the brother of the man who is married to her friend’s daughter. I’m sure she felt betrayed by her dear friend, Minnie. She put two and two together and came up with twenty to life and decided to change the tables on us. She was going to eliminate the problem—us. She set this whole thing up. She called my mother and told her about Alice, knowing that my mother would want to attend the funeral and then invited Mom to go with her and Gabe. The idea was to go to the funeral and then after they dropped Mom off, the brother would break in and kill Mom. Having me along was just the icing on the cake. She could kill two birds… as the saying goes. She’s sneaky. She enlists the help of her mentally challenged brother to do the deed and she has her husband as an alibi. She was scared. She did her homework. She knows all about Billy, his agency, his brother the bounty hunter, and me the troublemaker, but she didn’t know what we had on her. She’s no dummy. What she didn’t count on was her brother failing to kill us. She thought we were just two helpless women. Boy was she ever wrong.”
“I guess she didn’t know what she was up against,” Sheriff Hudson said with a slight grin. “I admire your strength, Jesse. Now that I know you better, I regret some of the things I thought about you in the past. You have good intentions; sometimes you just don’t know how to put them to proper use.”
“Thanks, sheriff. I like you, too.”
“So she called here to find out why you didn’t show up for dinner, establishing yet another alibi,” the sheriff pondered.
“I bet she just about wet her pants when I answered the phone. That means she probably called her brother and when she couldn’t reach him, she panicked. I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t hiding out in the woods watching us at this very minute. We don’t know that she actually called from the restaurant in Madison, but if she did, she could be here in fifteen minutes. We’ve been talking that long.”
We both looked at each other and then looked around as if we were being watched.
“I don’t like what I’m thinking,” I said.
“I don’t either.”
Sheriff Hudson got on the walkie-talkie and alerted his men. He told them to be on the lookout for Daisy Clark.”
“Do your men know what Daisy looks like?”
“Sure, they do. I told you we have her under surveillance. Let’s go outside and wait for the M.E. That way we can keep our eyes open for Daisy, just in case she does show up.”
“What about the body?”
The sheriff looked over at the deputy standing by the utility room door. “Deputy Kline will stay with the body. Besides, he’s not going anywhere.”
“Why Sheriff Hudson, I think you were making a joke.”
“I have to find humor wherever I can.” He smiled at me and led me to the front door.
The medical examiner showed up with his group of technicians as we were walking out onto the porch.
The sheriff turned to me and said, “Fill everybody in on our suspicions while I talk with the M.E., okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
Just then, the sheriff got a call on his walkie-talkie. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Sheriff, you need to come up here and see this,” the voice on the other end said.
“Just tell me, Deputy Cash. I’m busy at the moment.”
“Sir, I think this is something you need to see for yourself.”
“Where’s Deputy Hayden?”
“He’s down in the basement. I’m at point. Sir, you really need to come up here. We’re going to secure the area and wait for you.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes.” The sheriff fiddled with his walkie-talkie and then greeted the M.E. He shook the man’s hand and said, “Hope I didn’t drag you away from anything too important, Snake.”
“Nothing I couldn’t put on hold, Spider.”
The sheriff turned, smiled at all of us and said, “We all have nicknames, but I’d better never hear mine come out of the mouths of any of you, or I’ll lock you up for sure.” He looked over at Cole. “I need you inside, deputy.”
Cole turned and followed the two men into the house while the rest of us stayed on the porch, talking about our feelings and fears.
“I wonder what they found up at that guy’s house,” Mom said.
“They probably found the carcasses of all the animals that have been missing in Dogwood Valley,” I blurted out.
Mom and I looked at each other and for a brief moment an eerie feeling passed between us. I could feel it, so I knew she could, too.
“You were inside for a long time. What did you and the sheriff talk about, Jesse?” Billy asked. “I hope you didn’t say anything you shouldn’t have. I started to come inside, but…”
“I wanted him here with me,” Mom said. “I don’t know how I feel about killing someone. I don’t think it has hit me, yet, otherwise, I’d probably be hysterical.”
“We’ll help each other through this, Mom.”
“I know what you’re going through,” Billy said. “The first time I killed someone, I had no remorse. I thought that was odd, and that’s what scared me. It was self-defense, but still, you should feel some sadness just for the fact that a life is lost, shouldn’t you?”
“I have no remorse,” I said, softly. “I am sorry a life was taken, but I’d rather it be him than my mother. That’s how I’ll get through the day.”
“You can feel however you feel,” Russ said. “However, if you show no remorse the police will think you have something to hide.”
“We have nothing to hide. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Russ said. “But it’s usually through the bars of a jail cell. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve been called in to represent who said the same thing.”
“I need to sit down,” I said. “I have something to tell y’all.”
Billy got up from the swing and motioned for me to sit, but instead, I turned and walked the length of the porch searching for a sign that Daisy might be lurking behind a tree. The deputies who were in the front yard were gone and the only people left besides Mom, Billy, Russ and me, were in the house. I walked back over to the swing and sat down. I began my story with the phone call from Daisy and ended it with my suspicions.
“Sheriff Hudson agrees with me.”
“I think I need to get the two of you out of here and take you back home,” Billy said. “This day has been one we won’t forget for some time.”
“That’s true,” Russ agreed.
“We can’t leave now, Billy,” I said. “Don’t you want to know what they found at Kansas Moon’s house? It sounds as if they found something terrible from the way that deputy talked.”
“I agree with Jesse,” Mom said. “She seems to be handling this tragedy better that I am. If she wants to go snooping around, go with her. I’m sure I can drive my van back to your house by myself.”
“No way! You’re not driving all the way to Charlottesville by yourself. It’s not safe. What if Crazy Daisy gets behind you? You could be her next victim. Absolutely not!” I was adamant.
“Do you have any of those anxiety pills in that duffel bag of yours, Missy? I’m going to need one or two if I have to go snooping around a dead man’s house with you.” She looked at me and then at Billy. “I’m not staying around here by myself. I’m going with you guys.”
“Zoloft? They don’t work like … oh, you mean the other ones—the tranquilizers. I’m sure there’s probably a few left. I don’t take them anymore, but I never got around to throwing them or the other ones out. I think I kept them because I was afraid one day I might need them. How did you know they were in my duffel bag, Mom?”
“I snooped a while back. I just wanted to see what you carry in that bag. You and Billy both carry a bag everywhere you go, so I wanted to see what I needed to carry in mine. He told me to put one together when we first start
ed out on our endeavor.”
“I call them my crazy pills, Mom, because I used them when I had a full-blown anxiety attack. I would’ve gone crazy without them. They’re strong, so I’ll give you a half of one if you’re serious.”
“Go get the bag.”
“It’s on the sofa in the living room. I’ll be right back.”
“This is getting out of hand,” Russ said. “Billy, you need to take your family home, not go snooping around a dead man’s house. But knowing you as I do, I know I’m wasting my breath.” He looked at each one of us. “I can’t believe it.” He looked back at Billy. “What have you done to these women? This time last year, you and Jesse were trying to keep her mother from finding out all the stuff you get into, and now, she’s as much a part of your little posse as the rest of the Blackhawk clan.”
“The family that snoops together, stays together,” I said as I got up to go into the house.
Mom snickered, which was a sure sign that she wasn’t going to fall apart on me just yet, and after I gave her one of my pills, she’d be even better. Relief would work its way back into my life, if only for a little while.
I opened the front door, walked in and pointed to the duffel bag lying on the sofa when the sheriff looked up at me. He shook his head in acknowledgement. When I grabbed the bag and turned to leave, I overheard the M.E. tell the sheriff that when he went to check body temp, he noticed scars on the stomach indicative of a dog’s bite. He’d be able to tell more when he got the body back to the morgue. I acted as if I wasn’t paying attention to the conversation as I headed out the door, but the minute I got on the porch, I blabbed everything.
“He has dog bites on his stomach!” I blurted out.
“He’s the dognapper!” Mom yelled. “I’d bet my paycheck on it if I had one.”
“Not so loud, Mama,” I whispered to emphasize the urgency. “Sheriff Hudson might hear you and know I was listening in.”
“He already knows,” Sheriff Hudson said as he stepped out onto the porch. “I know you don’t think you pulled that old trick on me.”
“I was getting… oh, never mind.”