Unless you stop it.
“They killed Liz,” she whispered, her breath fogging on the window. “One way or another, they’re responsible. If I do this, they’ll come after me too. It won’t be easy.” And Molly knew all too well how vicious her uncle and his kin could be. That she’d seen up close and personal.
Molly’s gaze shifted to the sky. Those puffy clouds were thicker, building more in the west, and a slight gray color spoke of the gathering moisture. And they reminded her that she usually charged toward danger when others sought shelter. “They think they know me. They don’t.”
Molly straightened her shoulders and swallowed hard, pushing away the claustrophobia that threatened to strangle her. She crossed the room and opened the office door. Russell stood on the other side, waiting. Molly nodded for him to come in.
He settled in his chair. “Well?”
She sat as well and pushed the letter toward him. “Please read this.”
Russell hesitated a few moments, but reached for the sheets across the desk. He pulled a slim pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses from his pocket and slipped them on. As he read through the letter, Molly watched his eyebrows go through a series of arches and descents. When he finished, he paused, pressing the letter flat on his desk. Finally, he raised his gaze to meet hers.
“Why didn’t you tell me she’d signed a quitclaim deed?” The calm in her voice surprised her.
Russell cleared his throat as he pushed the letter back toward her. “For the same reason she didn’t mail this letter.”
“You wanted me here before I had all the information.”
He nodded. “Will you honor her request? Have you made a decision? Do you want to go through the will and the estate paperwork?”
She shook her head. “Neither. Before I do, I’d like to see the house.”
“I understand.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a set of keys. Then he pressed a button on his phone. “Shirley?”
“Yes, sir?”
Russell’s next words left Molly staring at him in another round of astonishment.
“Please call Sheriff Olson and tell him to warn the deputies. We’re on our way. We’ll need protection, at least two men.”
3
The journey to Elizabeth Morrow’s home felt like a chaotic three-car funeral procession. Russell led the way in his charcoal-gray, late-model Mercedes, a big car as polished and immaculate as he was. Molly followed at a safe distance since Kitty and Lyric tailgated her in an ancient Impala that seemed to be constructed primarily of Bondo and dust. At times, the Impala lunged so close to the Explorer, Molly couldn’t see its headlights. She found ignoring them next to impossible, since they kept swerving and blowing the horn at her. Each jerk of the Impala toward her made her heart tighten and jump a little. Her Explorer had seen some rough territory, but she didn’t think it would survive a battle with the Chevy tank following her.
Suddenly, the fact that Russell had sheriff’s deputies guarding her aunt’s home sounded like a great idea. It had startled her, but he’d explained during the elevator ride down that Aunt Liz had arranged it with the sheriff before her death.
So she’d suspected they wouldn’t give up until she was dead. Even after.
The deputies had taken up guard, along with some private security folks, after the 911 call, which had, fortunately, come from a friend, not Lyric or any of the family. Russell also had the locks changed immediately, since Lyric had made duplicates for every key used in the house, even the ones for the upstairs bathrooms and the attic.
In retaliation, Kitty and Lyric—and occasionally Bird and some of his family—had started haunting the law office, undeterred by the security guards Russell had hired. The guards looked like former linebackers to Molly, making her relieved to see them when she’d returned to her Explorer. They’d held Kitty and Lyric at bay while Molly and Russell left, but the Impala had caught up quickly, despite the fact that it belched white smoke out the back and appeared ready to blow the head gasket at any moment.
Molly glanced one more time in her rearview mirror at the weaving car, trying to ignore the twinge of fear their behavior created. Aunt Liz, what have you done? What have I done?
Molly pursed her lips and focused again on the broad rear of the Mercedes. Despite the fact she’d told Russell she had not made a decision, Molly knew she had. Unlike the rest of her family, Aunt Liz had stayed in touch after Molly left Alabama. Her persistence had annoyed Molly at first, but eventually she accepted her aunt’s contact. She’d never really stopped loving her—no fault for the past rifts lay at Aunt Liz’s feet—and Molly knew her decision to leave the state and family behind had hurt Aunt Liz.
She could do this. She could honor her aunt this much. After all, it shouldn’t take that long, maybe a week or two, then she could turn the house over to Russell to sell and be done with it. A couple of weeks. Mama always said you could walk a mile with a rock in your shoe if it was the only way to get home.
So her decision was made. Of course, the fact that Kitty and Lyric had irritated her beyond reason didn’t exactly discourage her. By now, she wanted to make sure they’d never lay a hand on a single molecule of Aunt Liz’s property.
With a sly smile, Molly began to play with the Impala. Slowing down and speeding up for no reason. Hitting her brakes unexpectedly. After a while, they backed off a bit, even if they did continue swerving and leaning on the horn. Molly grinned. “Don’t mess with me, girls. You will not get what you want.”
When Russell abruptly slowed the Mercedes, Molly realized they approached the last long curve before entering Carterton. She winced as she heard screeching brakes behind her, and the headlights of the Impala disappeared from her rearview mirror, too close to her bumper to be visible. Now will you back off?
And they did, a little, as Molly frowned, looking around. She hadn’t even noticed they had left the Gadsden city limits. Twenty years ago, long stretches of pinewoods had lain between the two communities. This curve had been lined on both sides with tall Southern pines so thick that deer were a nuisance to nighttime drivers year round. But the pines had been cleared; now parallel brick walls bordered the road, broken only by gated entrances to upscale subdivisions. Behind her lay stretches of strip malls and similar house clusters. Had all the little towns surrounding Gadsden really run together?
Apparently so. They passed the gas station Molly remembered as the beginning of Carterton. Beyond that, the road suddenly divided into a boulevard, headed by a rose-filled island with an elegant sign that proclaimed, “Welcome to Carterton! Southern Hospitality at Its Best!” Precisely spaced Bradford pear trees stood in the boulevard greenway, and the speed limit dropped to twenty-five miles per hour.
Molly gaped at the other changes. The city hall had sprouted a second story. The Baptist church had acquired a fellowship hall, a Sunday school wing, and an enlarged parking lot. On the opposite side of the boulevard, new constructions completely blocked the Methodist church and the old general store from view. The old depot had been refurbished as a restaurant, and a shiny new strip of stores next to it boasted a hair-and-nail salon, a tattoo parlor, a chiropractor’s office, and a Dollar General.
“A Dollar General,” murmured Molly. “You’ve hit the big time, Carterton.” But even her inner cynic felt slapped at the growth her hometown had experienced. “I guess nothing stands still for long.” Behind her, Kitty pounded the horn. “Except my family.”
The Mercedes turned up a narrow side street, and Molly followed slowly, bracing herself again as her mental movie of childhood continued playing. In it, Maple Street had been a narrow lane leading to the public swimming pool a mile from the main road. A half mile in, one of the town’s wealthier families had built matching Victorians on either side of the street. Built in the early 1920s and intended for their twin daughters, the tree-filled lots had remained unchanged for more than fifty years. When both women died within days of each other in 1970, the houses were sold at auction. Aunt Liz, alre
ady accepting her role as maiden aunt in the family, bought one, then renovated and furnished it top to bottom with comfortable but elegant décor. The house became a second home to her many nieces and nephews, who often stayed over.
Molly, who had come along ten years later, winced as delicious memories of days in that house returned, along with some less pleasant. “A mostly normal childhood,” she whispered. For years, those two Victorians had stood alone on the street, painted queens that represented the town’s elite. As Carterton had grown, that had changed as developers bought the land around them.
Today a dozen or so houses lined both sides of the street, surrounding the Victorians like serf cottages around a castle. All looked relatively new—and somewhat identical—with their half-brick half-vinyl siding constructions. Some of the trees remained, and Maple Street was still lined with maples. But many had been cleared to make way for narrow yards littered with bikes, balls, and play sets. Neat bushes remained netted with last year’s Christmas lights, and random forsythia and azalea bushes dotted unexpected spots. On the right, behind the lots and the houses, an expansive pine grove between this neighborhood and the next ensured privacy and a place for kids to run and play yet be safe.
In this constellation of new, lower-middle-class residences, the two Victorians shone like suns with their gables, scrollwork, and blue, green, and pink paint jobs. The one on the left looked polished and welcoming, with fresh paint, a neatly trimmed lawn, paved drive, and a matching storage building to one side. The one on the right, Aunt Liz’s home … not so much.
Russell turned into the rutted gravel drive of the house, and the last of Molly’s pleasant memories dissipated as she looked at the tattered and unkempt front yard. Three white wooden steps led up to the house’s wide, wraparound porch. Faded white latticework ran from the rail to the roof along the front and sides, almost invisible behind overgrown morning glory and moonflower vines. The house was bad enough, but Molly grimaced at the sight of a mud-covered black pickup backed up to the house. Next to it, a red-faced, paunchy, and almost bald man stood nose-to-nose with a lean, calm deputy, one of at least four officers that she could spot. The overall-clad man’s scratchy voice reached Molly even through the closed windows of the Explorer as he demanded his right to access the house and its contents. Next to him, a woman waited, hands on hips, a scowl on her narrow face. Her jeans and t-shirt had seen hard times and hung loosely on a thin frame. Her wispy, whisky-shade hair was more squirrel’s nest than hairdo.
“Bird,” Molly whispered, anger building to slice through her again. “And his lovely wife Nina. Vultures at the site of the roadkill.”
She parked behind the Mercedes and slid out of the SUV, resisting the urge to dig her gun case from beneath the seat. Instead, she glanced at Russell, who stood beside his car, watching her closely. As she approached him, he whispered, “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Keep me from killing him, will you?”
“Just try not to do it in front of the sheriff.”
She glanced at the four officers. “Which one is he?”
He nodded at an older, uniformed man still on the porch, and Molly headed that way, even as Kitty and Lyric’s car crunched to a halt behind them. Their screeching joined Bird’s. The shouted words blended together in one accusatory shout. This is our stuff. You have no right to keep it away from us. Same song, different pitch, a talent-show reject stuck on repeat.
Molly hesitated as an unmistakable odor hit her, a combination of rotting food and molded cardboard. And something even more pungent. The scent of a landfill. But … no, this was not just the stench of garbage … this was the scent of a tornado-crushed town, three weeks into the aftermath. Somewhere in that house were dead animals. Her eyes narrowed. Blossom—
She had no time to think about it. Bird had spotted her. He shoved a finger in her direction, then dodged around the young deputy, closing in on Molly. “You! You’re the cause of all this!”
Nina, following a foot behind Bird, joined the fray. “Tell her, Bird! She has no right!”
Molly detoured behind the Mercedes, putting the big car between her and Bird, whose bellows echoed off the steel of the cars. He followed, but her duck around the car gave her time to reach the porch where Russell and the sheriff waited near the top of the steps. A few of the deputies clustered near the base of the steps, moving a few feet backward as Molly approached. She stopped on the second step, glancing from Russell to the sheriff, who nodded a welcome. Molly returned it, remembering that Liz had thought highly of this man.
“You have no right to this!” Bird marched to the steps, halting only when the young deputy caught up with him and blocked his path again. Nina thudded into Bird’s back, and the sheriff moved closer to Molly. Bird was not deterred. “You’re not family anymore! I’m her next of kin! This house is mine!”
Kitty punched him in the arm. “Ours! Lyric took care of her! Liz promised.”
“Yeah!” screeched Lyric, a few steps behind her mother. “It’s mine!”
Bird glared, stepping away from her, almost tripping over his wife.
The overwhelming reek strengthened, and Molly’s eyes began to water. She’d had enough. Molly threw up her hands and called on her best over-the-roar-of-the-storm voice as the anger finally pitched out of her. “ALL OF YOU! SHUT UP!”
They stared at her, stunned. Behind her, Russell made an odd choking noise.
Molly pointed at the blue Explorer. “That is all I want to own! But Aunt Liz had other ideas!” Bird opened his mouth, but Molly screamed. “Shut it!”
“Now wait a minute—” Kitty started.
“You, too! All of you, be silent for one minute!” Surprisingly, they waited. “Aunt Liz signed this house over to me before she died. Legally, it’s now mine. She did it for her own reasons. You don’t like it. I don’t like it. But I will honor her, and as long as I breathe, you will, too, or I’ll sic every single one of these fine officers on you.
“And I will be distributing her property according to her wishes. Not mine, and certainly not yours. She’s charged me with this because she couldn’t trust any of you to do it without getting greedy. Guess what? She was right. Obviously. That’s our family history, which you are amply demonstrating today.”
Molly paused, trying to calm herself, but the anger boiling within would not be quieted. Her voice dropped, taking on a harsh, bitter tone. “Now understand this. I will stand between you and every piece of trash in this house until her wishes are granted, and I can promise you I’m just as mean and ornery as any of you. Probably more so. Get used to it.”
Lyric whimpered. “But she promised me that—”
“Then it’ll be in her will,” Molly snapped. “And if anyone tries to take anything behind my back, I’ll hunt you down with every legal recourse I have available.” She snapped an arm out, pointing at each of them. Her voice rose in volume, echoing over the lawn. “Do not tempt me. I am not Liz. I’ve spent a lifetime hating everyone in this family except Aunt Liz, and I make my living chasing down tornadoes, so don’t think I won’t take you on.”
Bird glowered at her, the sparse wisps of white hair left on his head flipping about in a light breeze. “So what’s next, Your Majesty?”
The breeze also stirred up the odor of the landfill again, annoying Molly. “I will work with Mr. Williams on Aunt Liz’s desires, then make inventory for the will probate. We’ll have to see what happens after that.” She stared at Lyric. “Where’s Blossom?”
Kitty gasped, indignant. “You’re asking about the cat?”
Molly ignored her, keeping her stare on Lyric. The younger woman looked at the dirt. “She ran away after Aunt Liz died.”
“Great. So y’all run off everyone, including the cat.”
“Don’t think we’re just going to slink away,” Kitty said. “I don’t care what the will says.”
“I would expect no less,” Molly said. She turned and stepped onto the porch, a little surprised by how dark and c
ool the miasma of covering vines made it. She looked up at Russell. “You have the keys?”
He nodded but hesitated. “This may not be pleasant.”
She held out her hand. “It’ll be fine. My memories of this house aren’t all great anyway.”
His eyes softened in concern as he pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket. “Are you sure?” He separated one key from the cluster and held it out.
She took it. “I’m sure.” With the deputies behind her, Molly unlocked the door and pushed it open.
And gagged.
4
The stench rolled over Molly like a dump truck, pushing her backward on the porch. Her relatives, clustered at the bottom step, hooted as she gagged again, bending over to fight the nausea that roiled through her stomach. Russell placed a comforting hand on her back. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “The house has been closed up since her death.”
Molly straightened, pressing her hand over her mouth a few moments, glaring at him. Finally, she sputtered, “So who else is dead in there!?”
More guffaws emanated from Bird, but both Kitty and Lyric glowered at her. “See what Lyric had to put up with?” demanded Kitty.
Russell turned his back on the group and leaned close to Molly. “No one. Liz was—” He stopped abruptly, searching for the right word. “A collector of family memorabilia.”
“So that included dead animals and rotten fruit?” She stared at him. “You said ‘hoarder,’ but this is unbelievable. No ‘memorabilia’ smells like that! I know that smell. Something’s dead in there.” She pushed the door back, but it stopped halfway, blocked by something. She stared, stunned at what she saw in the opening.
A narrow path of hardwood floor weaved its way among mounds of trash bags, clothes, boxes, books, and newspapers. To the left, Molly could see the edge of a staircase leading up, also piled high with unrecognizable lumps. On the right side of the path, the top of what might be an antique secretary peered over a mound of storage containers. In front of the door sat two boxes so heavily laden they had collapsed into each other. Something greasy oozed from the corner of one of them. She turned again to Russell. “How long has it been like this?”
Murder in the Family Page 3