"Can't you?" Kendall asked with condescension.
The other officer picked up the story. "When we got to their house, Lottie was sitting at the kitchen table sipping a straight whiskey, cool as a cucumber."
"I imagine Mrs. Lynam was in shock and deserved a drink for having been raped."
"Raped! Charlie was her husband. They were married for years," the assisting officer argued. "We got us a clear-cut case of murder here. It's plain to see what happened."
"Oh?" Kendall's inflection invited him to speculate.
"Charlie came home drunk. That didn't set too well with Lottie. She probably nagged him about it, and he knocked her around a bit. I'm not saying that was right," he added quickly. "Anyhow, Lottie was riled, so when he fell asleep, she shot and killed him."
"Have you got statements from the witnesses?" Kendall asked.
"Witnesses?"
"Anyone who was there and saw what happened," she explained innocently.
"Can a neighbor substantiate that such an argument took place? Can anyone testify that Mrs. Lynam was angry with her husband and shot him with a pistol, which, incidentally, she could have handled at any time before last night?"
The two officers exchanged glances. "There aren't any neighbors," one grudgingly admitted. "Their place is out yonder in the country."
"I see. So nobody overheard this quarrel that you've alleged took place. Nobody witnessed a murder."
The officer threw his toothpick to the floor and shoved away from the wall. "Nobody witnessed any rape either."
Kendall thanked them and asked to see her client alone.
Once the policemen left the room, Lottie spoke for the first time. "It's pretty much like they said."
Kendall had feared as much, but she didn't let her discouragement show.
"Based on the physical evidence they already have, it's almost certain you'll be indicted for murder. Regard less of that tap dance I did for the policemen, we know you pulled the trigger on the gun that killed your husband. You're not innocent that's the fact. Guilt, however, is a determination. So my job is to explore and expose the circumstances of your life with Charles that will mitigate your guile.
"Before I enter that courtroom to represent you, I'll have to know more than I'll probably need to know about you and your marriage. The courtroom is no place to spring a surprise on your own counsel. So I apologize in advance for prying into matters that deserve privacy. That's an unpleasant but necessary aspect of my job."
Lottie clearly didn't want the intrusion, but she gave Ken dall a nod, indicating that she should proceed.
Kendall began by getting biographical information. She learned that Lottie had been born in Prosper, the youngest of five children. Her parents were deceased; siblings were scattered. She graduated from high school, attended one year of junior college, then took a secretarial job in an insurance office.
Charlie Lynam was a traveling salesman who sold office supplies. "He called on the insurance office," she said to Ken dall.
"He started flirting and asking me out. At first I said no, but finally I gave in and we dated whenever he was in town. One thing led to another."
They had been married for seven years. They had no children. "I can't have kids. I had appendicitis when I was a teenager. The resultant infection left me sterile."
Lottie Lynam hadn't led a very fulfilling life. The longer she talked, the more sympathy she evoked from Kendall, who had to remind herself to maintain a professional detachment.
She wanted very badly to help this woman, who had been forced to take desperate measures to save herself from a chronically abusive husband.
Kendall opened a file folder. "I did some research while you were showering and having breakfast. In the past three years you've called the police to the house seven times." She looked up. "Right?"
"If you say so. I lost count."
"On two of those occasions you were hospitalized. Once with several broken ribs. The other time with a burn on your back. What kind of burn, Mrs. Lynam?"
"He branded me with my curling iron," she said with remarkable composure. "I guess I was lucky. He tried to . . . get it inside me. He said he wanted to make me his once and for all."
Again Kendall had to concentrate on the facts and not let her pity show. "Was he jealous?"
"Crazy jealous. Of everybody in pants. I couldn't go any where, do anything, that he didn't accuse me of trying to attract other men. He wanted me to look nice, but then when I fixed up, he'd get mad if any other man so much as glanced at me. Then he'd get drunk, and beat me up."
"Did he ever threaten your life?"
"Too many times to count."
"I'd like you to think of specific times, preferably when someone might have overheard him threaten to kill you. Did you ever discuss his abusive behavior with anyone? A minister?
A marriage counselor, perhaps?" Lottie shook her head. "It would be helpful if someone could corroborate how fearful you were that during one of his tantrums he might actually kill you. Wasn't there anyone you discussed this with?"
She hesitated. "No."
"Okay. What happened last night, Mrs. Lynam?"
"Charlie had been out on the road for several days. He came home tired and cranky' and started drinking. Before long he was drunk.
"He pitched a billy fit and made a terrible mess of the dinner I'd cooked. He threw food against the wall. Broke dishes."
"Did the police see this?"
"No. I cleaned it up.
That's too bad. The evidence of a temper tantrum would have come in handy if she could have proved that Charlie was the one who had thrown the tantrum.
"Go on," Kendall prompted.
"He stormed out of the house and was gone for hours. About midnight, he came back, drunker and meaner than when he left. I refused to have sex with him, so he did this to me,"
she said, indicating her battered face. "I thought it was legally rape when a woman said no."
"It is. You made it quite clear to him that you didn't choose to have sex last night, is that correct?"
She nodded. "But he forced me. He pinned me down on the bed and held his arm across my throat. He ripped off my panties and had me. It hurt. He hurt me on purpose."
"They cleaned your fingernails at the hospital. Will they find tissue beneath them, evidence that you struggled?"
"They should. I fought him like a hellcat. When he was finished, he crouched over me. He called me awful names, then threatened to kill me."
"What were his exact words?"
"He got his pistol from the bedside drawer, poked the barrel between my teeth, and said he ought to blow my goddamn head off. He might have killed me right then, except he passed out.
"For a long time I just lay there, too tired and sore and scared to move. I knew that for the hours he was asleep I'd be safe. But what about when he woke up? That's when I decided to kill him first, before he could kill me."
Looking Kendall squarely in the eye, she confessed, "I picked up the pistol and shot him in the head three times, just like they said. I'm not sorry I did it, either. Sooner or later he would have killed me. My life isn't anything to brag about, but I didn't want to die."
Back in her office, Kendall watched raindrops striking the window like metal pellets. "Uncanny," she murmured.
That morning when she arrived at the courthouse, Bama had predicted rain. "Before dark," the panhandler had said, nodding sagely.
Kendall had looked doubtfully at the clear sky overhead.
"I don't see any clouds, Bama. Are you sure?"
"Storm before sunset. Mark my words."
He had been right. Thunder was echoing off the distant mountains, shrouded now in low clouds and fog. Shrugging off a vague sense of foreboding, Kendall responded to telephone messages and opened her mail.
In the mail delivered that morning was another letter from the Crooks, denouncing her and issuing veiled and grossly misspelled threats. It was the fifth such piece of correspondence
she had received since Billy Joe's accident, but it wasn't the worst. A few days after his arm was severed, she had received a package containing a dead rat.
Word of it had spread like wildfire through the courthouse.
Eventually it reached the newspaper office two blocks away.
Soon, Matt was in her office, demanding to know if what he had heard was true.
When she showed him the stinking evidence, he had been ready to organize a team of vigilantes to go after the twins
and anyone else by the name of Crook. Gibb, who had also heard the news, backed Matt's plan.
Kendall had prevailed upon them to do nothing. "They're upset over Billy Joe. To some extent, I sympathize with them."
"Sympathize! You did all you could for that snot-nosed little thief," Matt shouted.
"This scare tactic is way out of line, even for scum like the Crooks," Gibb said. "They're hoodlums and should be taken care of once and for all."
"They're backward people," she conceded, trying to calm them.
Matt said, "I warned that white trash that if they harmed you'
"And they haven't. If we retaliate, we're sinking to their level. Please, Matt, Gibb. Don't do anything rash. It could ultimately prove more harmful to me than anything the Crooks might do. I must respond in a professional manner, which I believe is to ignore it."
She had managed to contain them and to win a promise that there wouldn't be any reprisals. Considering the extent of their anger, she had wisely kept silent about the other messages from the Crooks. She had told Matt that her wind shield had been broken when a truck on the highway threw up a rock. The truth was that she had discovered it broken when she reached her car one evening after work. The rock that had broken it had a threatening, badly worded note attached.
Because they might later be used as evidence, she didn't destroy the notes sent to her office, but kept them locked in a file cabinet. She added this latest letter to the folder and returned her attention to Lottie Lynam. No doubt this case would dominate her schedule for the next several months.
As expected, she heard from Solicitor Daboey Gorn later that afternoon. He began the conversation with an expansive prediction: "Well, looks like we're going to have some excitement around here."
"Oh, really?" Kendall asked innocently. "Are we getting the proposed new elevator? That thing we've got is so rickety, I always take the stairs."
He chuckled in appreciation of her humor. "That dumb act won't wash with me, Mrs. Burnwood. You've got yourself a hot case."
"True. I like sinking my teeth into something as heinous as assault and battery and rape."
"How about murder one?"
"Murder one?" she asked, sounding stunned. "Are we talking about the same case?"
"Lottie Lynam."
"You're going for murder one? I'm speechless."'
"You've seen the same evidence reports that I have."
"So how could you have missed the pictures of Mrs. Lynam taken at the hospital, or the files on her previous hospital visits, or the police reports documenting the violent domestic disturbances at the Lynams' house?"
"All of which support my argument of premeditation," he said. "Lottie had a lot of reasons to do it and a long time to think about it. She'll be indicted for murder with malice and aforethought. Were you hoping for manslaughter? Forget it.
Your client thought it over for hours last night before finally deciding to plug Charlie."
"That can't be proved and you know it, Daboey. Right off the top of my head, I can think of a hundred ways to work in reasonable doubt."
"Okay, Counselor, let's stop beating around the bush," he said after a thoughtful moment. "Charlie Lynam isn't exactly a sympathetic victim. Everybody knows that he drank too much and routinely worked Lottie over. Let's save the taxpayers some money, and ourselves a lot of time."
"What's your best offer?" she asked, cutting to the chase.
"You get Lottie to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
She'll probably get twenty and serve eight at most."
"Thank you, but no thanks. My client is not guilty."
"Not guilty!" Now it was his turn to sound dismayed.
"You're entering a not-guilty plea?"
"That's exactly what I'm going to do."
"What's your defense, insanity?"
"Lottie Lynam is perfectly sane. She knew what she had to do in order to save her own life. Granted, it was a desperate move, but killing her husband was an obvious act of self defense."
, Chapter 10
r. Pepperdyne?"
"In here," he called.
The younger, greener agent bustled into the small kitchen.
Pepperdyne glanced up from his perusal of Kendall Burnwood's household accounts, which were spread before him on the table.
"Something?"
"Yes, sir. We just found this in the bedroom. It was taped to the underside of a bureau drawer."
Pepperdyne took the-bundle of papers from the excited agent and began reading them. His subordinate, too keyed up to sit still, paced the narrow space between the table and stove. "I thought that business about the preacher that Bob Whitaker was particularly interesting," he ventured. "Did we know that he never graduated seminary and in fact was asked to leave because his beliefs were so unorthodox?"
"No," Pepperdyne admitted tightly.
"But Mrs. Burnwood knew it. She made it her business to know. It's all documented."
"Hmm. Our Mrs. Burnwood must have been awfully busy."
"And there's a whole dossier on the D.A. in Prosper. Except that in South Carolina they're called solicitors. Have you read that yet?"
"Summarize it for me."
"Gore was disbarred in Louisiana. That's when he moved to South Carolina. A few years later he's elected solicitor in Prosper County. Fishy, to say the least. And there's even more about the judge. Bankers, school administrators, law officers.
You name a pillar of that community and she's chipped away at his foundation, exposing a crack wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. It's all in there."
In spite of himself, Pepperdyne was impressed by the extensive research, which rivaled some the department had turned out.
"It must've taken her a lot of time to do this much research,"
the other agent remarked. "And smarts."
"Oh, she's got plenty of smarts," Pepperdyne said. "She's also as slippery as snot on a doorknob."
"It's been almost two weeks since they left the hospital, and not a trace of them."
"I know how long it's been," Pepperdyne snapped. He shot to his feet, the sudden movement almost toppling the tiny kitchen table. His tone sent his subordinate scuttling out of the room, muttering something about continuing the search in the bedroom.
Pepperdyne moved to the kitchen sink. On the windowsill above it, a limp ivy was putting up a valiant struggle for survival despite its lack of water. It was in a ceramic pot with sunflowers on it. The window curtains had tiebacks also shaped like sunflowers. Pepperdyne caught himself fingering one, a partial smile on his lips.
These Belong to a kidnapper, he reminded himself, snatching back his hand.
But at least they didn't belong to a killer. The autopsy performed on the body recovered from the auto accident in Georgia proved that the passenger had died from the impact of the crash. Mrs. Burnwood hadn't let her drown. So she wasn't a killer. Yet.
Pepperdyne gazed out the window, ruminating over what this most recent discovery revealed about Mrs. Burnwood and the people in South Carolina with whom she'd had dealings.
The more he learned, the less he knew. Every question that was answered prompted another one even more complex and alarming. The longer they were missing, the colder their trail became.
Cursing softly, he banged his fist against the windowsill.
"Where are you, lady? And what have you done with him?"
The wall phone rang. Pepperdyne's head snapped around.
He seared at the instrum
ent. It rang a second time. There was an outside chance that someone was calling Kendall Burnwood, someone who might give them a clue to go on. If that was the case, he didn't want to scare him off.
His gut clenching, he lifted the receiver and said a cautious hello.
"Mr. Pepperdyne?"
"Speaking," he said, relaxing.
"Rawlins, sir. We've got something."
Pepperdyne's stomach quickened again when he recognized the name of one of the agents who had stayed behind in Stephensville, Georgia. "I'm listening."
"We've got a man here who says he sold a car to Kendall Burnwood. He's identified her by her picture."
"Positively identified?"
"No question."
"Where in hell has he been all this time?"
"Visiting his grandkids in Florida. He'd never flown before, so he bought a plane ticket to Miami with the money Mrs. Burnwood paid him for the car."
"She had cash?"
"That's what he said.
Bad news. She wouldn't be leaving a paper trail. Not that she would be that careless, but one could always hope.
"He was out of town when we did the door-co-door search,"
the agent added. "Just got back last night, he said, and was catching up on local news when he saw her picture in the paper. He read the story and called us."
"get out an APB on that car."
"It's done, sir."
"Good. Keep tabs on him. I'm on my way.
Chapter 11
Make them stop! I can't stand it. Stop their crying, stop their crying, stop their crying. Oh, Jesus! Oh, God. No!"
His own scream woke him up. He sprang into a sitting position and glanced around wildly. Automatically he went for the weapon he had secreted beneath the mattress.
"It's not there." It was Kendall's voice. He could hear her, but he couldn't see her. "I took it and hid it where you can't find it this time."
He shook his head clear, searched the room for her, and eventually spotted her sprawled on the floor at the side of the bed. "What happened? What are you doing on the floor?"
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