by Chris Rogers
“Don’t let Mom see that,” he begged.
“All right. But we’re talking about this later.” Having no place to put it, she shoved the photo at him, then swept through the door to head off her sister.
“Ryan’s clearing some things away,” she told Amy. “He’ll be right out. What smells so good?”
“Garlic bread. I made spaghetti. I know, I know, it’s too heavy for lunch, but Marty looks so thin.”
“Spaghetti’s great. Come on, I’m starved.”
The food probably was great, but pondering what she’d walked in on, Dixie didn’t taste a bite. Kids Ryan’s age were curious—no harm in that. He knew about sex. Dixie remembered the day he confessed to flunking “ovaries” in health class. He probably passed around copies of Playboy, Penthouse, hell, maybe even Hustler among his friends. So why was she so shocked?
Some mofo out there sold my kid shit. Dixie appreciated Lureen’s rage much better now. After working hard to teach her boy what was right and good and worth caring about, Lureen couldn’t control the unknown elements that infringed on his teenage world. Finding a hidden copy of Hustler wouldn’t have shocked Dixie like seeing those disgusting photos sliding out of his printer had. She wasn’t naive. She’d seen raw porno before. But was it really that easy for kids to get the hard stuff these days?
She pushed her spaghetti around her plate. She needed to talk to him about this. In private.
“Ryan and I thought we’d go see the new Van Damme film Saturday night,” she announced. “If that’s okay.”
Amy’s eyes lit up. “A movie? Marty, maybe we should all go. Edna wouldn’t like us moping around.”
Ryan ceased staring miserably at his food and slid a grateful look at Dixie. “Mom, you sure you want to see Van Damme?”
“Oh, is that one of those karate movies? Wouldn’t you rather see a nice comedy, Ryan?”
“We could go to the cineplex, split up to different films,” Dixie offered. Not at all what she had in mind, but she could drag Ryan out to the lobby for a private talk.
“I don’t know where I’ll be on Saturday,” Marty said absently. “But we’ll see”
After lunch, Dixie agreed to drive Marty to his meeting with Ralph Drake. The lawyer gave him a copy of Edna’s will to read, but Marty wanted the shorter oral version. And although Dixie tried to stay out of the conversation, he kept pulling her in.
“You’re a lawyer, Dixie. Tell them. Mother was obviously not herself. She never would’ve given her money to—what was it? The Church of The Light? Who’s ever heard of that? You heard of that?”
Dixie shook her head.
“It’s a legitimate church, Mr. Pine. And your mother was adamant. She even told us she’d talked this over with you.”
“She didn’t tell me anything about a church. Giving her money—my money—to a church. How much are we talking about?”
“About nine hundred thousand dollars,” Drake informed him, straightening a sleeve on his Italian suit jacket.
Marty looked as if he were going to be sick.
“You receive an equal amount,” the lawyer added, “plus the family home and acreage, and your mother’s personal effects. Of course … you can contest.”
“You’re damned right I’ll contest!”
At Marty’s assertion, Drake’s chin kicked up defensively, but his voice remained detached. He took an envelope from the file and handed it across the desk.
“Your mother also left this letter for you.”
“A letter?” Marty’s face paled as if Drake were handing him a trick package that might explode in his face when he opened it. “When … um, when did she write that?”
The envelope was blank except for a cluster of bluebonnets printed in one corner and Marty’s name written in blue ink. Drake consulted his file.
“In February. The same day she signed her new will.”
Marty accepted the envelope. His gaze flickered at Dixie, and the pain she saw made her wonder what that envelope might contain that he expected to be so terrible.
Drake slid a silver letter opener across the desk.
Marty swallowed visibly. “Could I get some water?”
“Certamente.” Drake stood, then raised an eyebrow at Dixie.
She shook her head. She wasn’t thirsty, but she was curious as hell now about that letter.
When Drake left the room, Marty carefully slit the envelope open and unfolded a single sheet of writing paper. As he read, his face sagged like soft clay. When he refolded the paper, his eyes were moist. His lips twitched into a brief, sardonic smile.
“We can go,” he said.
Drake had returned with a glass of water. Marty stood and nodded his thanks, leaving the water untouched.
“I have a few papers you’ll need to sign before you leave,” Drake told him.
“Sure.” Without sitting, Marty signed the documents unread, answered Drake’s questions concerning the money transfer, then started toward the door. “What I said about contesting the will? Forget that. But be sure to tell the Church of The Light not to contact me for any future donations.”
In the hall, headed toward the elevator, Dixie had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him.
“Marty, did Edna say anything in that letter that might be … useful … in what we’re trying to find out?” She didn’t want to pry into a personal message between him and his mother, but he’d asked for help and she couldn’t work in a vacuum.
“No,” he answered curtly. He punched the elevator button. After a moment, he added, “She asked me not to question her bequest to the Church, said they were building a better world and the money would be used for a good cause.”
“You accept that?”
“Yes.”
“It might help if I could read the letter.”
After another pause, he shook his head. “She said she wants to be cremated. And she wants us to have a party instead of a memorial service.”
“That’s all?”
He nodded. But he hadn’t once looked at her since leaving Drake’s office. When Dixie headed for the parking garage across from the Transco Tower, Marty veered toward the Westin Hotel.
“Where are you going?” Dixie called.
“I have some business to take care of.”
“What about the Ames funeral? You might recognize someone there that Edna knew.”
“I’ll catch up with you,” he promised. But his tone held little conviction.
Chapter Twenty-three
Philip Laskey rose from a seat at the back of the chapel to join the end of the viewing line. Fingering a brass disk in his pocket, he lightly traced its three-word engraving, WE THE PEOPLE. The woman who led the line past the coffin stood tall, rigid, and dry-eyed. He’d heard the minister address her as Carrie Severn, Lucy Ames’ daughter.
Tom Severn stood close enough to comfort his wife but didn’t bother, Philip noticed. He wondered how the man could resist. His own hands twitched with the need to stroke the pain from the woman’s brow, to massage the stiffness from her neck. How hollow Carrie Severn must feel, losing her mother.
Philip glanced toward a noise issuing from a first row pew. Bump, bump, bump.
A boy of about five slumped on the seat, legs stretched in front of him, heels thumping the hardwood floor. In the high-ceilinged room, paneled with oak and accented with beveled glass, the sound reverberated over the hushed voices and soft shuffle of footsteps in the viewing line.
Bump, bump.
“Troy, stop that!” Carrie Severn whispered harshly.
Her son, then. Lucy Ames’ obituary had mentioned two grandchildren. Beside the boy sat a girl a year or two older, grinning at Troy from under blond bangs, jaws working at a wad of chewing gum. The boy’s navy-blue suit looked a size too big. Big enough to grow into, Anna Marie would say. Philip’s mother believed in buying well and making a thing last.
The girl shoved an unwrapped stick of gum toward her brother. When he reached for it, she jerked it
back and popped it into her own overfilled mouth.
Bump, bump. Bump, bump.
Carrie Severn, from her place at the casket, aimed her hard brown eyes at Troy and scowled. Her husband ignored the whole scene, staring over the heads of the congregation as if he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Bump, bump, bump.
Philip understood the boy’s fidgeting. The minister’s melancholy eulogy had been lengthy enough to set the entire audience on edge.
Moving away from the dais, Carrie Severn took her children, each by a hand, and ushered them from the chapel. Tom Severn strolled toward several men standing near the back of the church. Pallbearers, Philip guessed. He considered helping them, but instantly rejected the idea. Colonel Jay would be upset knowing he’d even attended the service; he preferred keeping a low profile.
As Philip approached the casket, an image of Anna Marie slid into his inner vision, a bullet hole through her forehead. Philip blinked, to banish the image from his mind, and steadied himself.
Lucy Ames looked nothing like his mother. And no bullet hole marred her wrinkled forehead. The casket’s pink satin lining cast a rosy glow on her cheeks. She appeared to be smiling. No sign at all of the damage from police bullets. He blessed the undertaker’s skill.
Philip glanced quickly around the room. No one had joined the viewing line after him. He slipped the brass disk from his pocket and touched the cold hand. What terrible grief had prompted this mother, this grandmother, into such a hopeless action?
At Philip’s request, Rudy Martinez had brought him the spent shell casing. Philip had flattened it, hammered it smooth, and engraved it. Now he slid the brass disk from his own fingers to Lucy’s.
“We, The People, have avenged you, Lucy Ames,” he murmured. “Rest well.”
Chapter Twenty-four
A somber classical melody drifted from invisible speakers as Dixie followed the viewing line away from the dais. The odor of cut flowers seemed stifling. A few gardenias peeked from a spray of yellow roses covering the pearl-gray casket. The heavily scented blossoms must’ve been a Lucy Ames favorite. Most florists avoided gardenias.
Studying the crowd, she tried to separate the real mourners from the gawkers. Funeral services were not her idea of a good time, especially the dismal sort this one had turned out to be. Edna had the right idea: cremation, ashes tossed to the wind, followed by a rip-roaring party. Life was a tough road—death ought to be the traveler’s reward.
Dixie didn’t believe all these people actually knew the deceased. They’d come to see the Granny Bandit.
She spotted Ben Rashly from HPD Homicide and a pair of FBI types lurking at the edge of the crowd. Their purpose for attending was obvious—they expected a third gang member to show up, possibly in a shiny new sports car purchased with part of the missing loot.
At the front of the church, Lucy Ames’ daughter, the chief reason for Dixie’s attendance, guided two children among the congregation. Except for a son in California, who apparently had elected not to fly home for the funeral, Carrie Severn was Lucy’s only direct kin, according to the newspaper. She and her family lived in Austin.
Dixie wasn’t quite sure how to approach Lucy’s daughter to ask if her mother had ever mentioned Edna. It seemed disrespectful to start a conversation here, and during the entire service, Carrie Severn’s mouth had remained a tight, angry slash in her perfectly groomed face.
But if not here, where? The daughter would know more than anyone who her mother’s friends were, and she might head straight back to Austin after the service.
When Dixie reached the steps outside the church, Ben Rashly fell in beside her, tobacco drifting to the ground like brown snow as he filled a curved pipe. Dapper as usual, he wore a charcoal-gray suit and matching striped tie, his fine white hair combed neatly across his bald spot. The lines in his face seemed more deeply etched today. Working with FBI agents could do that.
“Isn’t this a little out of your jurisdiction?” Dixie asked him.
“Do I look like I’m on duty?”
“You’re always on duty, Rash.” And she certainly couldn’t approach the Severns with him here.
Ahead of them, a black limousine stood ready to drive the family members to the cemetery. Maybe Rashly would skip the grave site.
As the crowd parted, making a path for the coffin and pallbearers, he stepped back a pace. Dixie joined him.
“Did you know the deceased?” she asked.
“That’s supposed to be my question.” He flicked a lighter on, held it sideways to the pipe bowl, and drew several short, quick puffs. “What’re you doing here, Flannigan? What do you know about Lucy Ames?”
“I know she didn’t look like any bank robber I ever saw.”
He squinted at the coffin being boosted into the back of a hearse. “Short career.”
“Really, Rash, what’s a Houston Homicide cop doing at a Webster funeral? Are you on the task force?”
He shook his head and plucked a tobacco leaf from his lower lip. “My wife and Lucy Ames were in the same sorority. Ida’s visiting her sister in Arizona. She heard about the Ames robbery and called me, all torn up about it. Feeling guilty, like if she’d been a better ‘sister,’ kept track, maybe Lucy wouldn’t have taken to knocking off banks. Whatever sense that makes.”
“So you promised to come and represent her?”
His steady eyes moved around the crowd.
“From what Ida said, Ames worked at Texas Citizens Bank since the day it opened. Her divorce didn’t leave her hurting for money, and she was never wild and crazy. Married right out of college, did her stint as a mother before starting on a career. She and Ida worked with their sorority sisters at Christmas every year, collecting food and clothing for the homeless. This past Christmas, Lucy didn’t show. Ida feels bad for never calling to find out why.”
Dixie considered that for a minute. She didn’t recall whether Edna had attended college, much less whether she’d been active in a sorority. She made a mental note to check it out.
“What about them?” Dixie nodded toward the FBI agents. “Are they sharing information?”
Rashly scowled at her.
“Flannigan, this case is already a mess. The feds won’t be nearly as understanding as I am if they catch you sticking your nose in.” Turning away from the two agents, he knocked his pipe against the heel of his shoe to clear it. “When you get through here,” he said gruffly, “maybe you should drop by my office and tell me what you’ve learned.”
“Not much to tell.”
“Flannigan—”
“Okay, okay.” She’d wondered why he was giving up information so easily. Naturally, he expected tit for tat.
The pallbearers had shut the hearse doors. Carrie Severn and her family were ushered into a limousine.
“Have you talked to her?” Dixie asked Rashly.
He shook his head. “Glad I don’t have to. Spent this morning with another bereaved widow.”
Dixie realized who he meant. Just before the funeral, she’d heard about the sniper killing of an HPD patrolman. “Did you know the officer?”
“Personally?” His face was tight and gray. “I know he got up every morning, strapped on a piece, and put himself on the line. That’s all I have to know.” He glanced at the FBI agents. “I meant what I said about coming by later.”
“I’ll be there. Aren’t you going to the cemetery?”
“Hell, I’ve had about all the fun today I can stand.”
After twenty minutes of oratory at the grave, Dixie wished she’d taken her cue from Rashly. The minister managed to drone on without repeating anything he’d said at the chapel, but the generic message didn’t convince Dixie he’d ever met the deceased.
Contrary to his promise, Marty hadn’t shown up. Dixie continued to puzzle over his reaction to Edna’s letter. He’d gone from contempt at Drake’s handling of the will to complete acquiescence. Had something Edna wrote caused him to lose interest in discovering what drov
e his mother to bank robbery?
Dixie scanned the faces of the assembly—which far outnumbered the crowd at the church. Some of them may have known Lucy at the bank, although, according to the news coverage, she hadn’t worked directly with customers. Several women in the bunch were middle-aged or older and might’ve been Lucy’s friends. Dixie couldn’t talk to them without missing her chance with Carrie Severn. Yet, one figure standing alone at the edge of the crowd drew Dixie’s attention. A shriveled-up prune of a woman, thin, well dressed, she seemed entranced with the minister’s every word.
Finally, he began to wind down.
Dixie sidled toward the front row where she could approach Lucy’s daughter after the hugging was over. Tom Severn had started moving his children away from the open grave.
“Daddy?” The girl, a miniature female copy of her father, including a grown-up frown, tugged at his hand. “Will the police kill us, too?”
“No!” His glance caught Dixie’s. “Where do children get such ideas?”
“When you don’t have answers, I suppose imagination ills in the gaps.” Dixie longed to move on, to leave this family to grieve in peace. Instead, she placed herself in Carrie’s path. “Mrs. Severn …? I’m … awfully sorry for your loss. May I speak with you for a moment?”
“If you’re a reporter—”
“No, I’m not.” Dixie spoke gently but firmly. “I didn’t know Lucy, but I knew Edna Pine—”
“Who?”
“The other woman who was … shot by police officers.”
“What is this? Who are you?”
“My name is Dixie Flannigan. I was Edna Pine’s neighbor. She and your mother must’ve known each other. I thought, if we could figure out how—”
“The police already went over all that. I don’t know how they knew each other, and I don’t care. I just want this whole mess to go away.”
Carrie tried to move off, but Dixie blocked her. “It won’t go away until the police find—”