by P. J. Vernon
Still crouching on the stair landing, my heart fluttered. How the hell would Dr. Conner be surprised by none of this? I hadn’t seen her in years. How could she have any idea what I was going through?
“Mary-Ann, I understand your concern, believe me, but…” Mamma paused. “Would you all excuse us for a moment?”
“Of course,” Pastor Calcutt answered. The floorboards creaked as Mamma and Dr. Conner exited into the foyer. I shrank further back on the landing and froze as the creaky parlor doors slid closed. A cabal within a cabal. Typical Mamma.
Dr. Conner picked up where the conversation had been left, straining to whisper. “I haven’t slept, Joanna. Not from the moment I heard what happened to Mr. Godfrey. And now the car accident?”
“How do you think I feel, Mary-Ann? She’s my child.”
“I regret everything I did,” Dr. Conner said. “Everything I didn’t do.”
My heart beat in erratic fits and starts. Eavesdropping on this conversation would pair nicely with wine. Glasses and glasses of wine.
“What’s done is done,” Mamma said, seeming to reassure herself as much as the doctor. “Believe me, regrets are about all I have left.”
“Then fix it, Joanna,” Dr. Conner implored. “Make it right. Get Gray to a doctor. One who specializes in these sorts of things. The lying. It was out of control back then, and I’m afraid to ask if she’s kept it up. From the news report, I’m worried—”
“Don’t you dare go down that path. Gray has had problems, but they have nothing to do with this. Besides, what good will it do now? So many years later? It’ll dredge up pain and heartbreak, and it won’t get anybody any closer to finding Paul. Wherever the hell he’s gone off to. I swear, I’m starting to hate that man. I don’t use that word often, but I truly hate him. Putting Gray through all this. Pushing her to a breaking point. He’d be better off dead.”
Paul dead? As Mamma spoke, I ground my back teeth and picked at my scabbed nailbed. My husband is fucking missing, and she’s telling people she wished he was dead?
Dr. Conner hesitated, then said, “Regardless of the circumstances now, Gray needs a specialist. I almost…”
“You almost what?”
“I could go to her myself, Joanna. Confront her again about the lies.”
“You wouldn’t.” More shuffling. Mamma must be stepping closer to Dr. Conner. “It could destroy her at a time like this.”
“It could jar her into getting help. Maybe even save her. I don’t know why I let you talk me into sitting on this all this years ago.”
I struggled to remain still. My legs turned numb and my heart pounded strong enough to shatter my ribcage.
Mamma grew indignant. “Do you hear yourself, Mary-Ann? Years ago. Decades, in fact. The situation was delicate back then. Seamus was running for president and discretion was the only way.”
Dr. Conner scoffed, “A lot of good discretion did for Seamus.”
“Regardless, it’s too late now. You’ve been compensated for your troubles.” Mamma’s voice quaked. “We’ve all got regrets. We’ve all made difficult decisions, but circumstances called for them. What’s important now is getting Gray better. And I don’t believe for a second that digging up skeletons is gonna help my daughter one bit.”
Dr. Conner exhaled loudly. “Maybe you’re correct, but now you’ve got a chance to make things better moving forward. None of this Reformed Disciples bullshit. Get her into a psychiatrist’s office. Under whatever pretenses you have to.”
Mamma’s silence suggested careful thinking. “Okay, Mary-Ann. You’re right. I’ll need a day or two to come up with a reason. You think she’ll be okay till then?”
“You know I can’t answer that question, Joanna. I’m an internist. I don’t have the training.”
My trembling ceased. If they were speaking about a psychiatrist specializing in addiction, I’d given them more than enough reason to see one. Was something else being considered here? The heels of both women clacked against the pine as they made for the kitchen. And what had Mamma meant by saying Dr. Conner had been compensated?
Here I was, hiding on the stairs like a child listening to other people bicker over me as though I was a child, too. Sure, I had problems, deep problems, but I could take control. In the hospital, they’d recommended a psychiatrist, but Mamma hadn’t made an appointment for me. Still, I didn’t need Mamma’s permission to see one, and after the accident, I had nothing left to hide. Drinking was no longer a poorly kept secret, but an open wound. The discretion that’d kept me from help in the past had vanished. All I needed was a referral from a willing primary-care doctor. One like Mary-Ann Conner.
Breathing deep, I opened the door to the Yellow Room, scanning it for my phone. I spotted it on the dresser, likely placed there by Charlotte when we returned to the house. She’d been holding onto it for me. I pressed the home button, and the screen lit up. There was a notification. An email, to be exact.
From [email protected].
29
Nina
I rang Andrew up the morning after we’d had drinks, asking to meet again. He flew out today, and I still had questions. He suggested the highway Waffle House across from his hotel. A Waffle House. His last day in Elizabeth, and he wanted to wring every last drop of Dixie from this experience on his way out. Like the night before, I made sure to beat him there. By the time he arrived, I was pushing what was left of my hash browns around my plate with a fork. Smeared ketchup like blood spatter.
“Good morning,” Andrew said as he made his way to my corner booth. He tapped a server on the shoulder on his way, ordered a coffee. His smile still came off too wide.
“Hello.” I checked my phone once more before returning it to my pocket. A text from the hospice nurse I’d requested for Auntie confirming she was fine—at least as fine as circumstances allowed. And a couple from Sammie indicating the divers had arrived on the crime scene.
I’d have to lie to Sammie when he asked how I learned about Paul and Charlotte’s affair. I didn’t believe that Andrew had the information “above board,” but there was no reason to pull Sammie into a gray area.
“Heading back already, then?” I asked Andrew as he sat down.
“Cup of joe at your request, then it’s off to the airport.”
“Right.” I smirked. “Paul’s damaged goods. Your job is done.”
“Correct.”
“Tell me something.” A thought had gnawed at me since my last encounter with Andrew, and if I wanted an answer, it was now or never. “Why tell me what you found? You already knew Paul’s shot at congress was done after what your team found on his computer, and you obviously had a flight home booked before last night.”
He paused for a moment, sipping coffee from the chipped brown mug that was placed before him. “Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
We made eye contact. “Because I respect you, Nina.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. Completely true.” The look on his face said he meant it. He held out his right hand and began to count fingers. “Look, in any small town, there are three centers of power. Local money, local politics, and local police. Money? That’s the Kings. Politics? Well, that’s the Kings again. But the police? You’re young, you’re black, you’re a woman, and you’re the police.”
“Four,” I corrected. “Four centers of power. You forgot local religion.” Blessed Lamb Baptist conjured itself inside my head.
“Fine. But in a town like this?” He cocked his head. “You’re some kind of woman. And if that’s not worth a great deal of respect, I don’t know what is.”
He stood, draining his coffee in three large gulps, and placing his mug on the tabletop.
“Then humor me one last time.”
“How so?” he asked, his forehead creasing.
I edged forward in my seat. “Aside from a few details, you know mostly what I know about Paul’s case.”
“That might be true.”
; From his incredulous expression, I wondered if he knew more—if he knew about Annie. Pushing the thought aside, I went on. “As a former agent, what would your next move be? You’d go after the sister, but how?”
He glanced towards the window for a moment. To the silvered sky, swollen with rain. When he looked back, he spoke matter-of-factly. “I’d lie.”
I grinned sideways. “Go on.”
He brushed his lapel with his palm, leaned in over the table, and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “You need to get all the phones in that house wiretapped. Track emails, cell phones, the works. There’s a great deal of pressure on every member of that family; conversations are bound to happen.”
I scoffed. “Joanna would never allow it. The lies about the affair might justify a warrant, but that family would circle the wagons like you’ve never seen.”
He matched my smirk. “That’s why you lie. You tell them the investigation is now focused on kidnapping. Tracing the ransom call is still the easiest way to catch a kidnapper.”
“They might consent to the phone wiretapping, then,” I agreed. “Might.”
“Come up with a cover story so they’ll buy the delay,” he mused. “Then you—”
“Play them off each other. See what the wiretaps catch.”
He hesitated, then said, “Except you’re in a time crunch.”
“The blood found on the scene. It’s a race against the body divers. If Paul’s recovered, the kidnapping rouse is shot.”
Andrew stood once more, and tossed a crisp twenty onto the table. “I’d wish you good luck, Nina, but I don’t think you need any.” Before turning around, he added, “Have a nice day, detective.” With that, Andrew was gone. For a moment, I thought a tiny part of me might miss that smile. Then the moment passed.
I laid my head back against the torn leather cushion. Staring at the mildewed ceiling, I recounted the revelations over the past twenty-four hours.
Paul’s rain-diluted blood in the marsh meant he might be dead. Politician Paul, who’d been engaged in an affair with his wife’s sister. His wife who nearly drank herself to death, possibly as a result of being sexually assaulted by her cousin. Oh, who also happened to be a venerable defense attorney.
Then there was Annie. Annie whose real name may be Charlotte.
My initial instincts might’ve been right all along. Annie was Paul’s mistress, and the calls were meant to torture Gray. Annie had always struck me as a pseudonym, and, according to Andrew’s findings, Charlotte had a knack for making up names. Florencia.
But what would Charlotte’s motive be?
There were two possibilities. The first had to do with Paul’s congressional run. Someone as unstable as Gray would be an immense political liability. More so than debts, perhaps. Could he and Charlotte have concocted this scheme in an elaborate attempt to push Gray off the edge? It sounded crazy, but if so, they’d nearly succeeded yesterday.
If Gray had died in the wreck, what might’ve happened? Paul could’ve suddenly surfaced, rich from his wife’s inheritance. He might even have public sympathy on his side. Certainly, he’d have publicity, and that’d be more valuable than support from Cooper and Waters at the ballot box. In fact, were Gray to die, nearly all Paul’s problems would vanish. Charlotte’s hands would be clean, too. After all, a woman named Annie had tormented Gray, not her.
But the second possibility cast an even darker shadow over Gray’s sister. A jealous fight by the highway turned ugly. Perhaps Charlotte murdered Paul—we had her DNA in the lab if we found anything at the scene—but why antagonize Gray? I recalled our coffee shop conversation. She’d looked me in my eyes and lied to me about her divorce. About Paul. Was she also lying about how much she cared for Gray? And she was more than a good liar. She was almost flawless.
Was she good enough to play the part of Annie?
Drowning in motives and opportunities, I reminded myself the simplest answer was usually the right one. But there was nothing simple about any of this. Did Auntie Tilda know something that could help me? Was there a connection to Joanna’s checks? As I thought of Auntie’s relationship to the King girls, my head swirled.
Tapping all the communications coming in and out of Piper Point would be like kicking over a rotten log. There was no telling what unsavory things might slither out. And that was if the family even bought the kidnapping angle and allowed me to do it.
* * *
Back at the station, Burton summoned me to his corner office before I could flag Sammie down. The eight mounted deer heads turned the paneled space into a redneck natural history museum. Counting Burton’s glower, nine pairs of eyes bore down on me.
“Jacob Wilcox,” Burton started, pausing dramatically between the first and last name.
“Admitted to assaulting our missing person—”
“Wasn’t on the goddamn highway.”
I shifted in my seat. Regardless of his point, the dressing down felt obstructive.
“Sheriff—”
“You are walking the line, Nina,” he said, placing both elbows on his heavy desk and clasping his hands together. “Walking a fine line.”
I sat back. Let him talk, let him get it all out.
“One more.” He pointed his index finger to the ceiling. “One more fuck up and you’re off this.”
I hesitated, met his eyes, said, “Yes sir.”
“This is Paul Godfrey we’re talking about, detective. Not some Dixie Outfitters trash picking fights down at Ruby’s. A fucking politician. The King Family.”
“I understand—”
“You aren’t right for this case. Not with that aunt of yours.”
My cheeks flushed. “That’s not a fair statement.”
“I want to be wrong, but you’re making my position easier every damn second. I’ve got the paperwork filled out to bench you. All I have to do is pull the trigger.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he excused me with a patronizing flick of his wrist. As his office door closed behind me, I puffed my cheeks. The lub-dub of my heartbeat made thinking hard, but I pushed the confrontation aside. No time to dwell on what he’d say about my next plan.
Ten minutes later, Sammie sat across from me in the conference room, stretching a rubber band with both thumbs. Shirt wrinkled. Almost as dubious as Burton had been, only for different reasons.
“How’d you know, Nina?”
“A hunch,” I replied, avoiding his eyes.
“You had a hunch that Paul Godfrey and Charlotte Barfield were engaged in an affair? Bullshit.” He leaned forward, fingers steepled on the tabletop. “You expect me to believe that a hunch had me cross-referencing business trips on Paul’s calendar with purchases on his Navy Union card—the one Gray knows nothing about, mind you—to determine which trips he’d lied about?”
I looked up from the table. “Yeah—”
“You know, I might’ve believed you if your hunch hadn’t been so damn spot on.”
I sprang up from my chair. “There’s something there, then? Something that links the two of them?” My pulse raced. He slid a manila folder across the table, and I slapped it open.
He flicked his chin. “I found thirty-eight instances of travel in Paul’s schedule this past year. During most of those trips, absolutely zero purchases were made with the Navy Union card, which makes sense. Paul had a Cooper and Waters expense account for every sanctioned trip.”
I arched my brow. “Except…”
Sammie held up his fingers. “Except five. Five trips were recorded as business travel on his calendar even though his Navy Union card was used. Interestingly, the destinations are all Canadian cities. Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, you get the idea.”
I cracked a grin. “Paul had a system to keep things straight for himself.”
“Sure looks like it. Because each time Paul’s calendar indicated he took a ‘trip’ to a city in Canada, his Navy Union card was used for purchases in the Raleigh-Durham area.”
I thumbed through Sammie�
�s notes in the manila folder. “When was the most recent trip?”
“A couple months back. Listed as Toronto. The purchases don’t appear to have been suspicious themselves so we haven’t flagged them for further investigation. Groceries, restaurants, gasoline. That sort of thing.”
“But we’ve got a link. We can put him in Raleigh.”
Sammie tried to temper my excitement. “You think Charlotte’s good for this, then? Paul’s disappearance, Annie, everything?”
“Best break we’ve had yet.”
“Besides the blood.” Sammie shrugged.
I stood up from my seat, uncapping a dry-erase marker. I paced to one of the glass walls and began to write. “Correct. Which brings me to my next point.”
As I wrote, Sammie’s eyes burned into the back of my neck, but even he couldn’t argue with results. Not results like these. The marker squeaked across glass, and I took a step back.
“Our next move,” I announced. Behind me, in large red letters: Kidnapping Hypothesis.
Sammie narrowed his eyes. “A kidnapping with no ransom demand this late in the game? Not impossible, but sure as hell unlikely.”
“That’s right.” I grinned. “Which means we have our work cut out for us if we’re going to make the Kings believe it.”
Sammie shook his head. “You think lying to the family is the best course of action at this point?”
I clasped my hands together in a fist and exhaled. “I’ve made a mistake. I moved too slowly on this from the start. I take responsibility for that.”
Another headshake from Sammie. “Making another mistake won’t fix that.”
“We need to make up for lost time. Wiretaps are the quickest way to do that. Joanna King deals in half-truths and lies. And now we’ve learned Charlotte does, too. Go with me on this one, Sammie. If it doesn’t work out, then it’s on me. Not you. I give you my word on that.”
Sammie grew quiet as he considered my argument, then spoke, “Your word. Given the course of this investigation, the delays, your family history—” He hesitated once more. “I hope your word is as good as it used to be.”
The sentiment hurt coming from Sammie. It hurt because it was true.