One Foot in the Grave

by Denise Grover Swank

  Taking the card, she looked it over before lifting her glare to him. “Everyone knows the sheriff’s department in this county is a boys’ club. I find it hard to believe you’re still there if you’re not playin’ the game.”

  “You’d be surprised how many more there are like me,” he said. “We’re slowly building in numbers and strength.” He pointed to the card. “Call me. If I can’t get to you, I have a few friends who can.”

  She glanced at the card again, then back up to Marco. Something in her gave way, and the distrust leached from her gaze.

  “Thank you,” she said with tears in her eyes.

  “And please call me if you think of anything else that can help us,” Marco said.

  She nodded.

  “One more thing,” Marco said. “Can you keep this on the down-low? We try not to publicize that there’s a group of us who aren’t following the boys’ club rules.”

  Tammy clutched the card to her chest. “Your secret is safe with me, and so is your name.”

  “Thank you,” Marco said with a nod, then turned and glanced at me before we headed out the door.

  We didn’t speak until we got in the car.

  “Are you sure you can trust her, Marco?” I asked, struck by the full realization of what he’d told her.

  “There’s no way of knowing for sure, but she was scared, and I had to take a chance.”

  I was silent for a moment. “You’re working to bring the good ol’ boys club down—you and your friends.”

  “We’ve been workin’ on it for a while,” he said, rubbing between his eyebrows as if he had a headache. Then he rushed to add, “I didn’t keep it a secret from you. I’ve mentioned things before.”

  He’d made no secret of the fact that he didn’t see eye to eye with a good portion of the department. I knew he’d been held back from promotions because of it. But I’d had no idea that he was actively trying to change things.

  “Don’t be mad, Carly,” he pleaded. “And please don’t take this as a sign that you can’t trust me.”

  I turned to him, shaking my head. “You’re like me.”

  A soft smile filled his eyes. “Tryin’ to right injustices, big and small?”

  “My injustices are really big, Marco,” I whispered, getting teary-eyed.

  “I know, and we’re workin’ our way up to it, remember?”

  Wyatt had said the very same thing to me, not so long ago, and I couldn’t help but think about how that had turned out. “I want to believe you, Marco, and I do, but…”

  “You’ve been burned,” he said softly. “I know, and you have no idea how much I want to beat the shit out of every man who has hurt you, Wyatt included. But that won’t prove anything other than I have a temper and know how to use my fists. The only way I know how to prove that you can trust me is to be a man of my word.” He took a breath. “I know that’s gonna take time, but I’m a patient man. I’m willing to earn it.”

  I turned away from him and studied the front doors of the building, knowing he was talking about so much more than earning my trust.

  “So what do you want to do next?” I asked.

  “I think we should see May,” he said.

  “Agreed.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. “Hey, Darren, it’s Marco. Can you look up an address for me?…Thanks, it’s for May Agnew, maiden name May McMurphy. Last known address is in Piedmont, before that Ewing…yeah, give me a call. I’m in Ewing, so I’ll be able to pick up.”

  After he disconnected the call, I asked, “Now what?”

  “Let’s do a drive-by of Mitzi’s house.”

  “Won’t it be a problem if Paul sees you?” I asked.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said, “but maybe drive down the opposite side of the street so it’s less likely I’ll be noticed.”

  “Or we could not drive by it at all,” I said. “What do we hope to accomplish?”

  “I don’t know,” Marco said. “Just call it following my gut.”

  I flexed my hands on the steering wheel, my insides still twisting with anxiety from my newfound knowledge.

  What if Paul found out what Marco and his friends were doing? Would he try to kill them to keep them quiet? The thought terrified me, but hiding from this wouldn’t make it go away. If Paul was connected to Heather’s death—and we could prove it—it might help Marco dismantle the corruption in the department.

  I had to trust that he knew what he was doing. “Okay.”

  I started the car and headed to the Conrads’ house, on the other side of town. Just like we’d discussed, I drove down the opposite side of the street past their place.

  “Two cars in the driveway,” Marco said. “But his sheriff cruiser’s not here.”

  “There were two cars yesterday, but no sheriff SUV,” I said. “And Paul was waiting for me when I got there. I didn’t even make it to the door.”

  “He must have left his patrol vehicle at the station, and Mitzi must have told him you were comin’ after Abby’s call.”

  “Agreed,” I said as I kept driving past the house, going just under the speed limit.

  “Drive around the block again,” Marco said. “Only this time, pull to the side of the road about thirty feet down the block. We’ll watch the house for a bit.”

  I made a loop and parked at the end of the street, the Conrads’ house in view.

  “What are we looking for?” I asked.

  “Any signs of activity. To see who comes and goes.”

  “What if no one comes or goes?” I asked.

  “Then we’ll have a long, boring afternoon,” he said with a teasing grin. When I seemed unimpressed, he added, “We’re just watching until I get that address from Darren.”

  “Shouldn’t he have it by now?”

  “He might be busy. It’s an unofficial request.”

  We sat in silence for a couple of minutes before Marco’s cell phone rang.

  “Darren,” he said, picking it up and taking the call. He grinned at me as he wrote an address on the paper bag that had held our lunch. He hung up, and I was about to start the car to head to Piedmont, but Marco leaned forward. “We have activity.”

  I turned my attention back to Mitzi’s house, surprised to see Mitzi walking out of the house with an infant car seat in her hands. A toddler followed behind her.

  “Where’s Paul?” I asked as she strapped her children into the backseat of an old green sedan.

  “Good question,” Marco said.

  Mitzi got behind the wheel of her car and backed out, then drove past us to the end of the street.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked, starting the engine.

  “Start driving slowly to the end of the street so I can see which direction she’s going.”

  “Okay.” I did as he instructed, pulling away from the curb and heading the opposite direction as Marco angled the rearview mirror so he could watch her without turning around.

  “She turned west,” he said. “Turn right at the end of the street and we’ll follow her.”

  “Okay.” I turned right at the corner, and Marco told me to keep going a couple of blocks until the road dead-ended onto a busier street.

  “Turn right here,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll catch up to her soon.”

  “How do you know she isn’t going the other way?” I asked as I followed his instruction.

  “Because she would’ve taken a different turn out of her neighborhood if she wanted to go that way.”

  I sped up a little, and I was relieved when I saw a green sedan farther ahead. “I see her.”

  “Let’s hang back a bit,” Marco said. “She’s probably spooked, and we don’t want to freak her out with those babies in the car.”

  “Good idea.”

  We followed her for nearly a mile until she turned into a grocery store parking lot.

  “She’s going grocery shopping?” I asked.

  “Paul probably figures anyone who wants to talk to her wi
ll come to the house.”

  “Are we going to try to talk to her at the grocery store?” I asked.

  “You bet your ass we are,” Marco said with a grin.

  I pulled into a parking spot, and we watched Mitzi struggle to get both kids out of the car and into the shopping cart she’d retrieved from a cart corral.

  Watching her struggle irked me. “If Paul’s home, then why on earth isn’t he watching the kids so she can do her shopping?”

  “You’re seriously askin’ that?” Marco asked. “You think a man like Paul is willin’ to take care of his own kids?”

  “I guess you have a point.”

  Marco reached for his door handle as Mitzi started to roll her cart toward the store. “Let’s go.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Marco, wait. You can’t talk to her. What if she connects you to this somehow? It could put you in danger with Paul and the corrupt deputies. Besides, if he’s half as bad as he seems to be, I suspect she won’t want to talk to anyone who works in the department.”

  He hesitated, thinking on it, then made a face. “Dammit.”

  “I can handle it,” I said softly.

  “I know you can. I just don’t like you doin’ it alone. Not with someone like Paul Conrad involved.”

  “But he’s not here,” I insisted. “At least let me try.”

  He drew a deep breath, then blew it out with a worried look. “Okay, but if you feel unsafe, then come straight here.”

  “Okay,” I said as I reached for the recorder in my purse and checked the tape. “Dammit. I forgot the tape’s almost full, and I don’t want to record over my conversations with Emily or Thelma.”

  His eyes lit up. “Hey, your phone works here, right?”

  I grabbed my cell phone out of my purse. “Three bars.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking the recorder, “call me and tuck your phone into your purse. If you leave it on top, with nothing over it, I should be able to listen to your conversation. I can tape the conversation on mine.”

  “Oh! Good idea.” I called his number, and as soon as he answered, I put the phone in my bag.

  “Let’s do this,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

  “Carly,” Marco said, worry in his voice. “Be careful.”

  I nodded, then headed inside, feeling like a bundle of nerves as I tried to figure out how to approach her. Once I got into the store, I saw her turn down an aisle, so I grabbed a shopping cart and headed to the aisle next to hers, which turned out to be the chips and snacks aisle. I grabbed a box of crackers and some microwave popcorn, and then feigned serious interest in the ingredients listed on a jar of almonds. I snuck glances out of the corner of my eye, watching for her to turn down my aisle. After several seconds, I set down the jar and picked up a random can, still watching.

  Had she skipped this aisle? Maybe she was picking up a short list of things instead of doing her weekly shopping.

  Time to go search for her.

  I set the can back on the shelf and started pushing my cart to the end of the aisle when a cart with an infant car seat locked onto the front turned down the aisle.

  Mitzi.

  She stopped to grab two different flavors of Doritos, so I pushed my cart toward hers, my heart beating frantically against my ribs. I really hoped I didn’t blow this.

  “Excuse me,” I said as I stopped next to her. “Mitzi?”

  Her eyes flew wide, giving me a panicked look that suggested she was on the verge of grabbing the kids and running.

  I held up my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m Carly. Abby told you I needed to talk to you.”

  Her head swiveled from side to side as though looking to see if we had any witnesses. “Why are you talkin’ to me here?”

  “I came by your house yesterday and your husband didn’t want me to talk to you.”

  “I shouldn’t be talkin’ to you now.” She glanced down at the little boy in her cart, who looked up at me with a curious scrutiny. Her gaze jerked up to mine. “Are you followin’ me?”

  “Mitzi, I only want to ask you a few questions about Heather.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about her in front of my kids.”

  “Okay,” I said in a sympathetic tone. “I understand. Can we meet somewhere else?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked doubtful. “Maybe when Paul leaves for work.”

  “Do you want me to come to your house?”

  She shook her head with panic in her eyes. “No! The neighbors will tell him.”

  I slid between the carts until I was standing on the other side of her, away from her cart and her son’s listening ears, and whispered, “Mitzi, do you need help?”

  Tears slid down her cheeks. “You need to go.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I will, but I’m worried about you. I can help you if you need it.”

  Her back stiffened, and she swiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’m fine. Maybe we can talk about it next week when things die down.”

  “It can’t wait until next week,” I said. “I can walk with you while you shop, and we can talk in code if you like. So we don’t scare your son.”

  The look on her face suggested she was about to shoot me down, but to my surprise, she nodded. “Okay.”

  She started down the aisle, and I said, “I’m going to just leave my cart here and walk with you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Were you and her close before she left?” I asked.

  Her mouth twisted wistfully. “I thought so, but lookin’ back, I don’t know that she could be friends with people. Paul says she was a user, and even though he’s guilty of a lot of things, he knows how to read people.”

  “Did Paul know her?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t know him through our friends.”

  “But you knew him back then.”

  Her cheeks pinkened. “Not before she left, but we met soon afterward.”

  “How did you meet?”

  She grimaced and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Paul pulled me over for speedin’, even though I wasn’t, and made me get out of the car. He said he was goin’ to let me off with a warnin’, but only if I gave him my phone number.”

  I gasped. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

  A smile lifted the corner of her lips. “He told me that he’d seen me around town before and didn’t know how else to approach me.”

  “And you said this was after Heather left?”

  “About six months after.” She leaned in further, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “He was married, but I didn’t know it at the time.”

  “Did he take you to the Mountain View Lodge?” I asked.

  She looked taken aback by my question, so I was surprised when she said, “No. He’d always come to my house. I always thought it was strange that we didn’t go to his place, but he always had an excuse. Then the one time we went there, his wife found us.” She sniffed. “Lookin’ back, I think he planned it that way.”

  What a first-class asshole. But she clearly wasn’t ready to talk about that yet, at least not to me, so I veered back to the subject at hand.

  “Was Heather upset when Wyatt didn’t propose at Christmas?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Boy, was she. She’d been countin’ on it. She’d already asked me and Abby to be her maids of honor.”

  “Really?” I said. “I didn’t think she and Abby were close at that point.”

  “That’s the sad thing. They weren’t. But Abby came home over her Christmas break, and Heather asked us both then. When she told us that Wyatt hadn’t proposed like she’d planned, I told her not to worry. He’d come around. And then he did, only Bart wouldn’t give Wyatt the tavern or any piece of his inheritance, and Heather was fit to be tied. I tried to tell her that any woman in town would kill to have Wyatt Drummond for a husband, with or without the money, but she said she wanted more.”

  “So she set him up to get arrested?”

&
nbsp; Guilt filled her eyes. “I don’t know for sure, but I’ve suspected.”

  “Do you know if Heather had another boyfriend after the arrest?”

  “She met someone at the salon. She was always pretty vague about him. One night she got super drunk and admitted he was married. But it fizzled out, because the next thing I knew, she was askin’ me to arrange a going-away party for her. She seemed excited about her plan to leave, even if she kept it close to her chest. I have to confess that part of me was happy she was goin’.”

  “But you threw her a going-away party anyway?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a sniff. “I’d just lost my job at the Mountain View Lodge after snatchin’ a key and lettin’ Heather use a room to meet her guy from the salon. They’d taken to meeting there, I guess, but she was running short on money and she seemed desperate when she asked me for a room that night.”

  What if she wasn’t meeting the salon guy? What if she’d been meeting Paul? Or what if they were one and the same? It would fit with the timeline Tammy had given us. Although Tammy hadn’t recognized the picture of Heather, she’d likely seen her in the dark. For all I knew, she’d been wearing a hat or her hair had been up. “And you have no idea who he was?”

  “No. I tried to pry it out of her, and she would only tell me that he was a forty-three-year-old banker having a midlife crisis. She’d hoped he’d be her next ticket to livin’ high on the hog.”

  Had Heather told her the truth? If so, that would definitely strike Paul out as her boyfriend. I’d guess him to be in his late thirties, early forties now.

  “Do you know if she left Wyatt a note saying she was pregnant the day of her going-away party?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a frown. “Said she did it as a joke—one last way to get Wyatt. But I didn’t know about it until after he left the party. I’d overheard them arguing in the room.”

  “Did you think she was really leaving town?” I asked.

  “She acted so excited about it, but it was hard to imagine she’d just go. I knew five thousand was much less than she’d hoped for. I figured she still had something going. A plan to get more money. She admitted as much to me before the party. Said she might not have to leave after all if it worked out.” She sighed. “But something changed. After the party, she collapsed on the sofa and said she was tired of it all. She just wanted to leave and get a fresh start. And for the longest time, I thought that was exactly what she’d done.”