Shades of Deception

by Charlie Hudson

  “I’m Pam. You the detective who called me?”

  To say she fit the place was as much stereotyping as it was accurate. She was as tall as Bev with an extra twenty or so pounds, her shoulders broad and hips wide. Her hair, far too dark to be natural at her age, was piled on top in a tangled way, held in place by a tortoise shell colored clip. Her make-up wasn’t as heavy as it could have been, although she did have vivid red lipstick that matched her trimmed and polished nails. Her brown eyes were wide beneath shaped eyebrows and braces had obviously not been part of her youth. Her grip was strong and Bev had no doubt she could handle either the baseball bat or shotgun probably stowed out of sight and within easy reach.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Bev said, reaching for her badge.

  “I don’t need that.” She turned toward the trio. “Ed, you boys need a refill, either get it yourself and I’ll catch up or wait ‘til I’m done. I got a meeting for a little bit.” She pointed to the table in the right corner. “Get you something?”

  “I’m good, thanks,” Bev said as the woman poured a slug of neat bourbon into a glass before leading Bev to the table. She took the seat facing the bar which allowed Bev to have her back to the wall facing the front door. “I appreciate you seeing me this afternoon.”

  “A goddamn shame,” she said and lifted her glass in a toast. “Can you tell me what happened? It was on the news, but no real information.”

  “We’re not certain yet,” Bev said. “Have you known Mrs. Sharpe long?”

  “Oh hell, yeah, I’m the one got her the job here — been six, seven years now, but we met long time back. She started working part time at Sunrise Diner and I go there for breakfast a lot. We hit it off.” Kineski tapped one of her gold hoop earrings to make it sway. “She’s like a lot of people around — one job isn’t usually enough. She got on with the grocery store and that interfered with the diner schedule, so I told her we could use a hand from about six o’clock ‘til closing.”

  “Did she ever talk about health problems?”

  “Cathy? No, other than the kind of bone-tired you get being on your feet all day, plus some. It was like that the other night. Back aching and it was a light crowd. I told her to go home and she knew I wouldn’t cut her hours short. A few extra bucks her way is no big deal and she has enough to cope with as a single mother trying to raise a kid — especially that one of hers.”

  There was no mistaking Kineski’s meaning. “They’ve been alone together since the daughter was young?”

  “Yeah, most of the girl’s life.” The woman took a smaller sip. “Listen, I’m not going to say Cathy should be up for Mother of the Year award, but what with her dying like she did, I know people will say things that aren’t true — it’s pretty much human nature. There’ll be talk about an overdose I’m sure and I’ll tell you right now, she didn’t do drugs and she didn’t wash down a bunch of pills by mistake.” She cast a glance toward the men at the bar before gazing directly into Bev’s eyes. “Cathy liked her booze and Lord knows she had shit for taste when it came to men. I don’t mean abusers — the down on their luck kind was what she went for. The particular bum she married and had the good sense to finally throw out, could never hold a job for more than about a week and it was always someone else’s fault of course. He had no problem spending every dime she brought home though.”

  “You knew him?” Bev wasn’t in a hurry. Kineski was probably the best source of information about Mrs. Sharpe, since the strength of the mother-daughter relationship was questionable.

  “Nope, that was when Crystal was maybe three, but after she told me about him, it tracked with what I saw. Part of why she married him was to get the hell away from wherever in Kansas it was she was from. He had these big plans for starting over in the Keys, all of which were either total bullshit or fell apart after they got here. She did at least learn her lesson about not marrying badly again or letting these losers move in with her. That’s what I mean about she wasn’t a bad mother. Not compared to plenty I know.”

  Bev wasn’t quite ready to agree with Kineski’s definition of bad mother.

  “See, she came from a shitty background and to top it off, she had all kinds of problems with Crystal she couldn’t really admit to.” She looked at her empty glass. “I’m going to get the guys and me a refill. I’ll bring you a Coke or something.”

  “Diet if you have it,” Bev said. Kineski seemed to want to talk about her friend and that was the second time she’d remarked about Crystal. If Doc Cooper was correct, Mrs. Sharpe’s death was simply an unfortunate accident in the life of a woman who was apparently prone to poor choices. Why did she have the feeling there were some missing pieces?

  It didn’t take Kineski long to return. She set a tall glass on a coaster and a cocktail napkin in front of Bev. She’d added a little water and ice to her glass this time. “Where was I? Oh yeah, the nightmare Cathy ran away from. I didn’t get this all at once from her, so I don’t want you to think she was the type who was always crying on someone’s shoulder. We’d close up together and bits and pieces came out, maybe more lately because of her trying not to admit things about Crystal. Those are my words, not anything she ever said out and out.”

  Bev nodded, keeping up with the shifting points.

  “Cathy grew up in some dinky place in the middle of Kansas where her dad worked as a mechanic. He was the one she was close to and once she got old enough, she couldn’t understand why her dad put up with what he did. Based on what she said, my take on it is he was one of these guys who just wanted to pretend things weren’t as bad as they were. Cathy’s mom was always running him down, talking about how she could have done better, and Cathy’s first memories were how mad her mom would get over everything. She was careful not to leave visible marks though and it wasn’t always hitting her. She had a way of pinching her shoulder that hurt like hell and shutting her in a closet was common. A baby sister was born when Cathy was five and she thought she was the sweetest thing, but I guess that didn’t help. Cathy said she took over feeding the baby and changing her diapers because otherwise she would lay there screaming with no attention.” Kineski ran her finger around the top of her glass, her voice dropping a note. “It was right after her sister turned three Cathy woke up in the middle of the night because she heard cracking noises. She smelled smoke and realized the house was on fire. She ran to the door and couldn’t get it open. She didn’t hear anyone else and she had one window in her bedroom. It was stuck and she couldn’t open it either.”

  Bev raised her eyebrows in question.

  “She managed to have enough sense to grab one of her heavy winter boots from the closet and break the glass to crawl through. Can you imagine how scared she must have been?”

  Jesus. “So what happened?”

  “You mean after she stumbled into the front yard where her mother was sobbing into a neighbor’s arms about her whole family being trapped? She said she never forgot the look on her mother’s face. Relief wasn’t what she saw.”

  “She was just a kid and it had to be traumatic,” Bev said logically. “She might have misunderstood.”

  Kineski held one finger up. “Not if you heard her tell it. Within minutes her mother was grabbing her and talking about how thankful she was. The fire truck was there by then, but there had never been a chance to save the place. All kind of sympathy for the family, a little life insurance and they moved to the next town over where Cathy’s mother remarried in less than six months. This time it was a guy who owned a furniture store and was almost twenty years older than her mom — he was widowed, too. Cathy said he was a workaholic, but not a bad guy. He mostly ignored her and had no clue her mother was running around on him. All she had to do was make it home before he did, which wasn’t tough. Cathy learned to be pretty much invisible, took care of herself, and managed her nightmares as best she could. She said she didn’t have the words to explain it then, but it was like her mo
ther barely acknowledged her existence. Oh, she put on a front when her husband was around and that wasn’t often.”

  Bev wondered how much truth there was to any of this.

  Kineski leaned forward, both hands wrapped around her glass. “It gets worse. Barely two years into the marriage, Cathy wakes up in the wee hours of the morning to the sound of sirens. She freaks, of course thinking fire again. It’s an ambulance though with her stepfather dead of an apparent heart attack.” She smiled grimly. “Older husband, younger wife, the stuff of comedy.”

  “Not funny in this case?”

  “The son and daughter by the first marriage don’t think so. Not surprisingly, they’d objected to the marriage, especially to Cathy’s mother, and basically been told by their father if they wanted to stay in the will, they had to play nice. Not that he was loaded, but he did okay. The minute they heard about him being dead, they started in on the sheriff who I guess leaned on the medical examiner.”

  Bev felt the first stir of genuine interest. “Not a natural cause?”

  “He’d actually had a mild attack a few years before, so under the circumstances, it wasn’t a bad bet no one would look closely. Tiny puncture between the third and fourth toe, left foot.”

  One of the simplest ways to induce a heart attack was with a bubble of air in a syringe. If no one was looking for an injection site and the murderer had been careful, the odds were against detecting it. “Cathy was still not very old. How did she find this out?”

  “Something like this makes the local news big time. They went to trial pretty quickly — life sentence for her mother.” Kineski swirled the remaining liquid in her glass. “No grandparents, aunts, or uncles for Cathy so it was a series of foster homes until she latched onto the first guy who seemed to offer her a way out.”

  “Crystal’s father?”

  “Actually, he came later and that leads me to the shit hand Cathy was dealt with that daughter of hers.” Kineski straightened and looked toward the bar. “Give me a minute to take care of the guys and get a cup of coffee. You want one?”

  Bev had hardly touched her Diet Coke and she suspected the coffee was far from fresh. “No thanks.” She didn’t bother to check her watch. She’d already spent longer than she’d intended. Since Doc Cooper wouldn’t have his initial report until late afternoon or tomorrow and her schedule had been surprisingly light, she’d decided to check into Mrs. Sharpe. She had correctly assumed if she had either an unacknowledged medical issue or a drug problem, the woman she worked with at the bar was a likely source of information. She sure as hell was getting an earful. What, if any bearing did it have?

  “Look, I know this probably isn’t what you were expecting when you called me,” Kineski said when she sat again. “The sad truth is, I’m one of the only people Cathy could really call a friend. I don’t mean people didn’t warm to her — she was friendly with her co-workers and our regulars liked her. Actual friends, though, the ones you can confide in are different, you know what I mean?”

  Bev nodded and used the napkin to wipe condensation from her glass.

  “My real point is, Cathy might not have made all the best life choices, but she’s never had much of a break either. She has this baby and for the first time, here’s this adorable little girl, someone she’s supposed to be able to love and get love in return, right? You have kids?”

  “Uh, no,” Bev said.

  “Me, I’ve got three — two boys and a girl — and yeah, when they’re babies you can pour all kinds of love into them.” She paused and gave a slight shake of her head. “I’m getting off track. The thing is, even when Cathy was realizing she needed to give her husband the boot, this precious little girl was starting to pull away from her. Didn’t want to be held anymore, or snuggled, wouldn’t spontaneously come to Cathy. For a while Cathy thought maybe she was picking up on the family tension and was withdrawing. After her husband was gone though, it didn’t get better. There was never a closeness no matter how hard she tried. I’m not saying she spoiled the girl, God knows she couldn’t have done it by giving her things. Working two jobs like she was didn’t leave a lot of spare time either and I think she finally decided it was easier to let her have as much independence as you can give to a kid her age. You’ve met Crystal?”

  Bev didn’t want to sound abrupt. “Yes.” Independent fit the teen when Bev had talked to her. Mature for her age was what most people were saying.

  Kineski’s voice hardened. “Every once in a while she’d drop Cathy off and take the car. In this business if you’re any good, you get to where you can read people pretty well. Like you’re wondering why the hell I’m telling you all this.”

  Bev couldn’t stop her smile of admission.

  Sorrow flashed through Kineski’s eyes. “Cathy would brag about how smart Crystal was, and I don’t doubt that, but the looks I would see her give Cathy weren’t, ‘Gee, Mom, I’m a smartass teenager who isn’t old enough yet to know you’re not a total dumbass.’ No, that girl’s attitude was pure contempt. Cathy had either gotten used to it or wanted to pretend it wasn’t true. She let something slip a few times about wondering if she could do something different to have a stronger relationship and I was as noncommittal as I could be. I knew better than to try and give advice on that.” The woman pushed her chair back. “Here’s the thing — Cathy’s mother was some kind of psycho and her own daughter didn’t give a damn about her. What the hell did Cathy ever do to deserve such shit? I know this isn’t what you came here for, and maybe this was some freak accident or some weird genetic ‘Gotcha’ she had lurking inside her. I’ll tell you flat out, whatever happened wasn’t Cathy’s fault. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.”

  Bev rose with her. “I understand, and I’ll keep you posted. One more thing. Do you know if Mrs. Sharpe tried to contact Crystal’s father in the past?”

  Kineski shook her head rapidly. “His name was Mike and the first few years, he’d call with some excuse and ask for money. It was maybe four years ago he sent a post card from Texas. Said he was going to Mexico and had a line on something big, but needed a stake to make the trip. She never heard from him again. She thought maybe he was dead because he’d never gone as long as this without asking for money. I assume she kept the divorce papers and probably the marriage certificate and his name will be on Crystal’s birth certificate.” She reached for Bev’s glass. “I’ll do the right thing and offer to help with Cathy’s arrangements and whatever. My bet is Crystal will gladly take money and turn me down for anything else. Well, you know where I am if you need anything else.”

  Bev blinked in the bright sunshine when she stepped outside, processing the flood of information. Had her opinion of Catherine Sharpe changed? Had she really formed an opinion in the first place? It would be easy enough to check on the story about her terrible background, but there was no reason to. Although she was probably emotionally damaged, Kineski’s insistence Catherine didn’t do drugs was supported by a lack of anything found in the trailer.

  And Crystal? She climbed into her car and concentrated on her interactions with the girl. Her refusal to have her mother with her the day of Raney’s death had sounded logical and everyone had remarked about how maturely she seemed to handle the incident. Had it been the strength they took it for, a mask she’d later dropped and sobbed hysterically, or a lack of caring no one suspected? Although she’d held together this morning more than other people Bev could think of, her response had been appropriate and Les hadn’t commented otherwise.

  The truth was if Doc Cooper’s initial assessment of accidental death held, none of this was Bev’s business. Nor was what happened to Crystal. She was of legal age and yeah, it kind of sucked she apparently didn’t have a single relative she could turn to. On the other hand, with what Bev had just heard, the girl might be better off without family.

  Crystal shut off all the lights except the one over the stove, unplugged the
leftover relic of the house telephone, and turned her cell to vibrate. All the shades were closed and she hoped that was enough to keep old Mrs. Plummer away. She was serving her purpose and Crystal was going to have to put up with her for at least a while longer. When she’d picked the nosey bitch to be the one to find her mother’s body, she hadn’t realized how useful she would be with everything else. The woman obviously had even less of a life than she’d thought. Crystal had enough food to last a month, a special collection from the residents gave her almost $400, the grocery store was donating money directly to the funeral home, and she’d persuaded scarecrow-looking Mr. Cunningham to offer her legal services at no charge. She sure as hell had barely ever spoken to him and she wasn’t sure her mother had either. What the hell kind of competent lawyer would retire to a trailer park like this dump? He’d seemed to know what he was talking about though and had taken her side when Mrs. Plummer insisted she couldn’t possibly let Crystal stay on her own. She’d only given in when Crystal had shakily explained she felt she needed some rest and she promised to call Mrs. Plummer if she couldn’t handle being alone. So far, all she had to do was choke up a little and let the woman be the center of attention. She was eager to promote Crystal’s image as a tragic figure bearing up so well at such a young age. Of course she was happy to be of what assistance she could in the face of something so devastating.

  The hard-eyed bitch, Pam, who worked with her mother at Marty’s, called too and offered to help. She hadn’t seen Pam often, but she wasn’t comfortable around her. She didn’t particularly want her involved, but shit, money was money. She wanted to cover some of the costs, that was okay by her. Same deal as with the store, it was going straight to the funeral home and Crystal would try to avoid her at the short service planned. Cremation and something real simple at the funeral home was the minimum she could do without people thinking she was being disrespectful. Claiming she couldn’t cope with anything longer had shut down the idea of one of those fucking Celebration of Life things. As if there was anything to celebrate about her mother’s life.