‘Yeah, but you said Mary used it against you.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah. She could be devious,’ he said, then smiled slightly. ‘Carol Anne would just knock my head off and spit in the hole.’
I couldn’t help but agree. She was one straight-ahead woman. ‘You know it’s bound to come out,’ I said.
I swear his head was gonna come off the way he kept shaking it. ‘No, no way. No need for that, Milt! Why? Why does it need to come out? I could lose everything . . .’
I reached across him and opened the passenger-side door. ‘Shoulda thought about that before you fucked a seventeen-year-old,’ I said.
On my way out of the cul-de-sac, I thought about what I’d learned. Somehow I thought the father of the second baby was maybe more important than the father of the first. I now knew Cheyenne’s daddy really was Jerry. But who was the daddy of the baby boy? Dennis claimed it wasn’t his, and so did Rene. Jerry claimed he didn’t know, and Carol Anne claimed the same. But Jerry said Mary had known. Did Rene tell Mary? And if so, why? And did that have something to do with Mary’s death? Was it possible Brother Earl Bishop, the so-called leader of this flock of multi-marrying weirdoes, had had his way with cute little Rene? Why would she? If I was a woman, I’d run like the devil away from the likes of Brother Earl. Then again, he had four women who up and married him for reasons unknown.
I needed to have a long talk with little Rene, but from what my wife had said, she didn’t seem to be swimming in the deep end of the pool. What you saw was what you got. But then again, she did run like the dickens when I was asking her and Dennis about the paternity of her son.
OK, now, I was coming up with a theory. Rene tells Mary the name of the father of her baby. He, of course, is married, and in case it was Brother Earl, multi-married. He can’t let his wife or wives find out about this. Mary confronts him and wants him to take responsibility for this new baby, and he whacks her over the head with the meat tenderizer. A heat of the moment occurrence. A crime of passion.
A thought – if Brother Earl was the daddy, then what was the problem? What’s one more wife when you already have four? Except Rene is legally married to Jerry. Well, not legally, really. I suppose Jerry was only legally married to Mary, since plural marriage is not legal in the United States. But as far as their sect went, would the fact that she was Jerry’s ‘wife’ be a problem in Brother Earl taking her on as his ‘wife’? Would they have to have a divorce? And if so, how did you go about a divorce when you weren’t legally married? And did any of this mean I had to go talk to Brother Earl yet again?
I was getting a headache.
I had two lines of inquiry to follow up on. Since I was here in The Branches, I needed to go by the country club and see the check-in list for Monday, eight a.m. to three p.m., which was from the time the kids left for school until the time the kids came home from school, which was as close as we could get to an actual time of death. And then there was Andrew Schmidt, the paranoid. I couldn’t really see his involvement in any of this, but he did seem to like ’em young, as in his lovely wife number two, and maybe he took a turn with Miss Rene. The only thing I could do was ask. But being as it was Sunday, I wanted to get home, so I might just put off Schmidt until tomorrow, find him at his place of business.
I got to the club, simply called The Club (this place had a thing about the word ‘the’ with a capital ‘T’), and asked to see The Manager. When she showed up, I was happy. Happy because I have no problem looking at pretty women, especially when my wife’s not around. This one was about six feet tall, had great gobs of black hair cascading down her shoulders, had a fair complexion, lightly dotted with freckles, and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. And she was built like a brick shithouse. She walked up to me with her right arm stretched out and I was hoping she meant to hug me, but it was just to shake my hand. She smiled and I thought my knees would buckle.
‘Sheriff,’ she said, smiling and shaking my hand. ‘Lily Daye, manager of The Club. How may I help you?’
For a minute there I had no idea how she might help me, then I remembered why I was there. ‘You know about the murder on Magnolia Way?’
‘Yes, quite tragic. They’re not members.’
‘I was told there is a back road from The Branches to The Club, so there’s the possibility that someone coming to the club could have gotten through to the residential area.’
‘Yes, I can see why you might think that would be possible.’
To make everything perfect, she had an accent, and it wasn’t an Oklahoma accent either. ‘You don’t think it would be possible?’ I asked.
She looked up, and put a long, manicured index finger against a perfectly chiseled chin. She was thinking and it was lovely. ‘Not impossible,’ she finally said, looking down at me. ‘But highly unlikely.’
‘And why is that?’ I asked, more to hear her talk than wanting an answer.
‘We have very stringent rules here for security reasons. We have many important people coming to The Club from all over the world. We don’t want just anyone walking on to our grounds. As you probably surmised by that woman who was murdered, The Branches will sell a house to anyone. The Club, on the other hand, has standards.’
It was too bad about the hairy mole that grew on her nose, the hunch on her back, and the way her boobs began to sag. No way a woman like that could be pretty.
‘I need to see your sign-in sheets for last Monday, between eight a.m. and three p.m.,’ I said.
‘Our membership is confidential,’ she said in that phony accent and with the cheesy smile.
‘So you’re gonna make me go bother a judge on a Sunday for a warrant? Hope he’s not one of your members – might make him testy.’
‘If he’s a member, I doubt he’ll give you a warrant,’ she said.
Damn, that kinda thing always works on television.
‘I just need to see the names of the people who came during those hours. I don’t want to bother any of your members,’ I said, trying for a nicer tone.
She smiled that cheesy smile. ‘I understand that, Sheriff, I really do,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll have to have a warrant.’ She held out her hand to me and I’d have been rude not to take it. She shook my hand firmly twice and said, ‘Good day, Sheriff,’ and turned around and left.
I’ll give the woman this: she left real good, if you know what I mean.
I got back to my house around three o’clock and me and Johnny Mac got a baseball bat and some gloves and headed out front for an impromptu game of ball. This past summer he’d played T-ball and learned he was good at it. Jean and me decided to encourage that, and, besides, I liked it too. We did that until around five then headed in to see if Jean had any ideas for supper. Lo and behold, the woman had a roast on, which Johnny Mac and I totally approved of. We found something to watch on ESPN to kill an hour before supper, had roast beef with mashed potatoes and a salad, then had our leisurely Sunday night: checking homework due the next day (we never had homework in first grade, but things are all kinds of different nowadays), watching TV while playing a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders, then bath, teeth, story, talk, and bed. Which took us to nine o’clock.
When I came downstairs Jean was watching something on the PBS channel and I waited until it was over before I told her what I’d learned about Jerry Hudson.
‘OK, he is the father of Rene’s baby?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t see why you’re so angry, Milt. We thought all along he was the father of Rene’s baby.’
‘Yeah, but then he said he wasn’t, and that’s what Carol Anne believes, and now I come to find out he is, but they did the deed way before he married her, or whatever you want to call it.’
She shrugged. ‘Let’s just say married, like we mean it.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘OK, I understand your anger, to a degree. But surely Jerry’s not the first guy—’
‘Weren’t you beginning to believe this guy was for real? That he was as good as Carol Anne claimed
he was? That he was actually a righteous, God-fearing Christian man doing what we all want to think God wants us to do?’
Jean sighed. ‘Yes, I guess I was. I think it must be the psychiatrist in me that’s not surprised by this turn of events. No one’s perfect, honey, certainly not Jerry Hudson. And obviously not Mary Hudson, either, as Carol Anne would have us believe. What she did – while on the outside very noble – was really devious and vengeful. Bringing the girl Jerry was unfaithful with into their home, raising his bastard child with her own children, basically never letting Jerry forget what he did. Not a loving thing to do.’
‘So does this get me anywhere with who killed Mary?’ I asked.
Jean gave me a look. ‘Are you thinking Jerry now? He got sick and tired of her rubbing his nose in it and decided to get rid of her?’
‘Why wouldn’t he get rid of Rene instead?’ I asked.
‘Good question. He gets rid of Mary, he still has Rene and Cheyenne sitting in their house being constant reminders of his great “sin.”’
‘Maybe Mary was going to tell Carol Anne?’ I suggested.
I could see her mind working on that one. ‘Hmm, that’s a good one, honey! Of course. Carol Anne is the one woman in his life who still believes in his goodness. But if she finds out that Cheyenne is really his child, then that all falls apart, and she’ll begin to look at him like the asshole he is, just like Mary and Rene. So maybe he and Mary have an argument, and it escalates, and Mary threatens to tell Carol Anne the truth, and Jerry just loses it. Crime of passion – which is what you’ve thought all along.’
I sighed. ‘Yeah. Makes perfect sense. He even has access to the backyard to hide the meat tenderizer that Butch later finds. I’ll check with that forensic kid of Charlie’s tomorrow and see if he’s got the fingerprints off that thing yet.’
‘You sound disappointed,’ my wife said.
I laid down on the couch, my head in her lap. ‘I am,’ I said. ‘Asshole or not, I really got to like old Jerry.’
THIRTEEN
Jean Mcdonnell – Monday
It had been a week since Mary Hudson’s murder, and Milt felt he was closing in on the culprit; that the culprit was her husband, Jerry Hudson, was a problem for him – a problem I understood. We had both gotten close to personal involvement with Jerry and Carol Anne Hudson, and Milt’s disappointment in Jerry’s feet of clay was understandable. But feet of clay was one thing – murder was decidedly another. Could Jerry have murdered Mary?
Certainly, in my professional opinion, anyone could commit murder, given a certain set of circumstances. Were those circumstances present? And did Milt even know if Jerry had an alibi for the time of the murder? Of course, there was no definite time – anywhere from eight a.m. to three p.m. Could Jerry account for every minute of that time? Of course not, no one could.
I was in my office at the hospital, no patients for another hour, but with plenty of paperwork to keep me busy. But I couldn’t concentrate on the paperwork. This entire mess with the Hudson family was too much on my mind. Jerry worked for Telecom International, which was out on Highway 5 on the other side of Longbranch. To get there, Jerry would have to go down Highway 17 from Bishop to Longbranch – approximately twenty miles – to the Highway 5 interchange, then turn right on Highway 5 to Telecom International, another ten miles. Thirty miles, and only about fifteen of it posted at sixty miles an hour or more. The other half was posted at anywhere from twenty-five miles an hour – around the courthouse – to fifty miles an hour. So, approximately forty-five minutes, with minimum traffic, from Jerry’s office to his home. Did he go out to lunch that day? Did he get an hour for lunch? Was he late getting back? Forty-five minutes home, forty-five minutes back, and at least a half an hour to get angry enough to kill his wife. So let’s say at least two hours out of his day.
I called my husband and ran my scenario by him.
‘Two hours?’ he repeated.
‘At least,’ I said. ‘Probably more.’
Milt sighed. ‘Never did check out his alibi. I guess I need to go by Telecom and find out if he has one.’
‘Sorry, honey,’ I said.
‘Do you think he did this?’ Milt asked me.
‘I have no idea. All I can say is, it’s possible.’
Another sigh. ‘Thanks heaps,’ he said, then gave a quick goodbye.
I felt for him, I really did. It couldn’t be easy to suspect a man you liked and respected – feet of clay or not.
I’d barely hung up when the phone rang. ‘Jean McDonnell,’ I said.
‘Dr McDonnell, it’s Carol Anne Hudson.’
‘Carol Anne, hi, how are you?’ I asked.
‘Not that great. Would it be possible for you to come over? I need your advice. I’d come to you but I’ve got all the babies today. Rene’s off doing . . . something,’ she said.
‘I have back-to-back appointments starting in half an hour,’ I said, checking my appointment book. ‘I’ll be free around two this afternoon. How about I drive by then?’
‘Thank you!’ Carol Anne said with some enthusiasm. ‘I’ll see you then.’
As I hung up, I gave a fervent hope to the universe that I could keep my mind on my patients and not on what was going on with the Hudsons. But I was afraid the universe could fail me on this one.
Milt Kovak – Monday
I’d never been to Telecom International before. I’d met their security chief, Lyle Manford, because he’d been on the Longbranch police department for a while back in the eighties. Then he went off to Oklahoma City, worked for them until he ‘retired,’ (never did find out what that meant) then got the job with Telecom when they moved in a few years back. He’s an OK guy, but let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if his ‘retirement’ from the Oklahoma City force had something to do with him skimming a little something off the top, if you know what I mean.
I called ahead and spoke with Lyle, letting him know I was coming to check out an alibi. I drove up Highway 5, found the turn and went down a long road simply marked ‘Telecom’ before I saw the eight-foot big-game fence that went around the whole place, with razor wire on top and a double gate with a checkpoint at both ends. At that point, I had to wonder what in the hell Telecom International actually did and why the need for all this security. I’d had Emmett check this place and their security staff out when they first set up shop, and he never mentioned any of this crap. I wasn’t sure I was all that keen on a place with this kind of security in my county. I stopped my Jeep about a hundred yards from the first check point and called Emmett on my cell phone.
‘Yeah, Milt?’ he said on picking up.
‘Hey. I’m over here at Telecom International. When you checked them out a while back, did you notice the eight-foot big-game fence with the razor wire and the two checkpoints at the gate?’
‘What the fuck?’ Emmett said. ‘No! They didn’t have any kind of fence or anything when I was there. Of course, they were still building on it, but Lyle never said anything about that kind of security.’
‘Well, that’s what they got now. I’ll talk to Lyle. See you when I get back.’
‘Give him some shit,’ Emmett suggested, having been Lyle’s boss when he was on the Longbranch force.
‘I intend to,’ I said and hung up.
I put the Jeep back in gear and headed up to the gate. A guard let me through the first checkpoint, then I was stopped at the second. Lyle was in the guard shack. ‘Hey, Milt,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll ride up there with you,’ he said, climbing in the shotgun side of the Jeep.
Once he was settled and we were on our way, I said, ‘You know, you should have called me or Emmett when y’all installed all this security. What’re y’all hiding out here?’
‘We’re not hiding anything, Milt!’ Lyle said with gusto and a big grin. ‘Industrial espionage is a bitch!’
‘Been having problems? Sounds like the law needs to be involved. Y’all are in the county, Lyle, you should be calling the sheriff’s office if you’r
e getting break-ins and such.’
‘Oh, it’s more subtle than that, Milt,’ Lyle said, slapping me on the back. ‘We handle it all in-house. But if we get a break-in, we’ll call you for sure.’
Ever get the feeling you’re being patronized? I was getting that feeling big time. My first instinct was to elbow him in the gut, but luckily I have good impulse control.
‘So about this alibi I need to check out,’ I started, but Lyle was way ahead of me.
‘Jerry Hudson, right? Man,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘nobody here knew a thing about his marital situation, I swear to God! Three fuckin’ wives? What kind of idiot does that? I had one of those, and luckily I got rid of her!’ he said and belly-laughed at his own humor. When he slapped my knee instead of his own, I was ready to forget about impulse control. I’d stopped the Jeep and he was already moving out of the car before my elbow could make impact. I’d try again later.
‘His supervisor’s name is Drew Cathcart. He’s a foreigner, but he’s OK. Come on in here and I’ll introduce you.’
We walked into a building that was two buildings over from the main road. Lyle opened a door with a keypad and we entered an area with a men’s bathroom on the left and a women’s on the right. Straight ahead was a drinking fountain. A glass door to the right said, ‘Systems Analysis,’ while to the left said, ‘Systems Control.’ We went to the right.
It was a room the size of a warehouse filled with a warren of partitioned cubbyholes in the middle, and glassed-in offices lining the south and north sides, where there were windows. Some of the cubbyholes I saw as we passed had been personalized with plants, pictures of kids and animals, bumper stickers, pins with pithy sayings, and lots and lots of sticky notes stuck on metal cabinets, cloth cubicle sides, and computers. We walked down an aisle and went into an office, third one from the bathrooms.
Drew Cathcart stood as we entered. He was a very short man, not more than five-four or five, with flame-red hair rapidly receding, large freckles, black-framed glasses, and crooked teeth. And Lyle, being the dumbass he was, obviously couldn’t tell the accent was British.
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