by BJ Bourg
“What’s going on?” Susan asked as she rushed after me and climbed into my Tahoe with me.
After asking her to hand me the Springfield 1911 in the glove box, I told her what Albert had said and what I suspected. I then asked her if she had noticed the freshly planted flowers in Winona’s garden. She nodded slowly, thoughtfully.
“The money’s in her garden,” I said with certainty. “She’s going for that money and then she’s leaving town. God help Leah if she doesn’t realize what’s going on.”
CHAPTER 45
Winona didn’t speak much on the drive to her house, and Leah didn’t press the issue. She knew it was an emotional time for her victim and she didn’t want to contribute to her stress.
When Leah turned the chief’s truck into Winona’s driveway, the headlights illuminated the small garden out front. She frowned. “Those damn reporters trampled your flowers,” she said, pointing to the damage.
“And I worked so hard on those flowers.” Winona sighed and stepped out of the truck. She paused in the doorway and carefully surveyed the dark neighborhood. “You know, I’ll be fine now. The reporters are gone and I don’t think they’re coming back. You scared them away.”
Leah stepped out and met Winona in the front of the truck. “Are you sure? I can have you in a room within the hour. You can stay there as long as you like.”
“I’d really like to see my daughters.” Winona shifted her feet. “I think I’ll pack my stuff and leave tonight. I’m serious, I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll stand guard while you pack,” Leah offered.
“Really, Detective Anderson, that’s not necessary. You’ve done enough.”
Leah smiled. “I insist.”
Winona nodded and hurried into her house to gather up her things. Leah turned away and strode toward the driver’s door. She glanced at the garden as she walked and stopped suddenly, something catching her eye. A clump of daylilies was resting on its side near a stepping stone. The flowers were beautiful and colorful. She moved closer and picked up the clump.
Leah then approached the small hole in the garden where the flowers had previously been planted. She squatted in that spot and scooped out a handful of dirt to make room for replanting the daylilies. When she did so, her fingers scraped against something solid but smooth a few inches into the soft topsoil.
“What the hell?” She scooped up several more handfuls of dirt and tossed them aside. A leather satchel slowly came into view. Curiosity getting the best of her, she pulled the satchel from the hole and unsnapped it. She gasped out loud when the glow from the truck’s headlights revealed a bag filled with one-hundred-dollar bills wrapped in stacks of $10,000.
Suddenly, there was a subtle, yet distinct, metallic clicking noise behind her. She whirled around to see Winona standing there holding a silver revolver, and it was aimed directly at her.
“God, I wish you hadn’t done that,” Winona said sadly. “Of all the people in my life, you have been the most caring.”
“What’s going on?” Leah asked. She was confused. “Is this money from the heist?”
“Come on, Detective Anderson, you’re not that stupid.”
Leah’s surroundings seemed to spin around like she was trapped inside a glass top. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be right. “Are you saying you’re involved in the heist?”
“Not involved,” Winona corrected. “I helped to plan it.”
“That can’t be right.” Leah almost forgot about the revolver aimed directly at her as she squatted in Winona’s garden. “Bud beat the shit out of you and left you for dead. He almost succeeded in killing you.”
“That wasn’t Bud. It was Jimmy.”
“Jimmy beat you up? But why didn’t you tell me that? I would’ve arrested him.”
“I couldn’t.” Winona sighed. “Jimmy’s my brother and Duke’s my dad.”
Leah’s mouth dropped open. Before she could respond, the radio in her chief’s truck scratched to life and the dispatcher called out her call sign. She glanced longingly toward the truck.
“Don’t even think about it,” Winona said. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you right there in my garden.”
CHAPTER 46
After a long silence between them, Leah indicated Winona with a nod of her head. “I thought you told me your dad abused you and you ran away from home. You left Virginia to come here to get away from your dad—that’s what you said in your statement. You begged me not to contact your family for fear that he would find you and abuse you again.”
“It’s what I had to say to get you on my side. I left my controlling mom and came here to Utah, where my real dad and brother were living.” Winona frowned sadly. “I guess I’ve got no one now, thanks to you and those cops from Louisiana. Of course, it wouldn’t have been long before you figured it out. Dad said Jimmy has been handing out hundreds like it was candy. He’s crazy, you know. He killed that boy in Louisiana for no reason. And he…he wasn’t supposed to hurt the clerk at the video store.”
Leah’s heart almost stopped beating at the shocking revelation about the clerk, but she said nothing. As long as Winona was willing to talk, she was willing to listen.
“If only he had listened,” Winona said, shaking her head. “Jimmy was supposed to walk into the video store wearing a mask, tie up the girl, and lock her in the bathroom. When Bud walked in, Jimmy would get the drop on him, and Dad would walk in behind him to cut off his escape. They were supposed to tie him up and take his keys, but Jimmy screwed everything up when he deviated from the plan.”
When Winona quit talking, Leah ventured softly, “What did Jimmy do to screw up the plan?”
“When Jimmy was alone with the girl, he…he attacked her and began violating her.” Winona squeezed her eyes shut as tears began to flow. She lifted the revolver and scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her gun hand. Through the tears, she continued talking. “Dad heard her screaming from outside and went to investigate. He found Jimmy on top of her. Before he could intervene, Jimmy had choked her unconscious.”
Although Winona was no longer pointing her gun at Leah, Leah didn’t even think to go for her own gun. “Did Jimmy beat you as part of the plan to throw us off?”
Winona took a deep breath and exhaled. Nodding, she said, “And I think he took great pleasure in doing it. They were supposed to rough me up a little and leave me behind to make it look like Bud was part of the operation, but Jimmy got carried away. He really hurt me. If Dad hadn’t pulled him off of me, I think he would’ve killed me.”
“Did Bud see what Jimmy did to you?”
“No, he was already dead.”
“Jimmy did it?”
“No—I did.”
Leah stifled a gasp of shock. She didn’t want to come across as judgmental. “You?”
“Yeah. When Bud went inside the video store, he saw Dad and Jimmy standing over the clerk arguing. He ran back to the truck to get his radio. Dad chased him, but Bud got to the truck first and kicked Dad in the chest, knocking him backwards. Bud closed the door and was about to call for help. I…I had no choice. I took out my gun and shot him in the head. He…um, he was shocked and he froze in place when he saw me pointing my gun at him.”
Winona paused and shook her head, staring off into the distance. “There’s not a night that goes by that I don’t see his face. The shock…the fear he felt when he realized what was happening. I had never killed a person before. It was horrible. It haunts me constantly.”
“I’m so sorry,” Leah said, trying to sound sympathetic. “What’d you do next?”
“Well, Dad said we should go ahead with the plan—that we had gone too far to back out,” she explained. “So, I gave my gun to Jimmy so he could shoot the clerk. We had to finish her at that point, you understand? Things had gone too far and it was Jimmy’s fault. Afterward, I traded guns with Bud. We had the same kind, so it was an easy fix. That’s when I let Jimmy beat up on me. I actually passed out at one point. When I came to, Da
d was yelling at Jimmy that he almost killed me. Jimmy said he had to make it look real if we wanted to fool the cops. Dad told him to get his ass in the truck and then he came over to me and wanted to take me to the hospital. I was in pain, but I didn’t feel like it was serious, so I told him to go and finish it. But after he left, I really thought I was going to die.”
There was a long silence between the two of them. When Winona seemed to get control of her sobbing, Leah asked, “Why’d they bury the money with the body and leave it in the ground for so long?”
“It was only Dad who buried the money and Bud’s body. We didn’t trust that Jimmy would be able to wait that long to get his cut, so we didn’t tell him where it was buried.”
“Why Louisiana?”
“I dated a guy from Mechant Loup whose family had a piece of property in the middle of the swamps. It was as far away from Utah as we could find, and I knew no one would ever go digging around in those swamps. It was filled with alligators and snakes and there wasn’t a building near it. It was even hard to walk around in. It was the perfect spot.” She shook her head again. “We were so close, and then Jimmy had to go and screw things up again.”
“But why leave the money in the ground for so long?” Leah pressed gently. “I mean, after all you had to go through to get it, why just bury it and leave it? Why not use it to improve your quality of life?”
“Thirty years is what I decided on,” Winona explained. “It would be long enough that the authorities would forget about the case. It wouldn’t be suspicious when I quit the company, because it would be time for my retirement anyway. So, basically, it was our retirement fund. All we had to do was work as normal people for the next thirty years and then retire from our jobs. You’d be surprised how easy it is to work a nine-to-five making peanuts when you know you’ve got a fortune waiting for you.”
Winona paused for a moment and took a long breath. She had stopped crying, but there was still a sad look in her eyes as she continued her story. “The plan was for us to divvy up the cash three ways and use it a little at a time for the rest of our lives, so as not to bring suspicion upon ourselves.”
“What happened with the boy from Louisiana? Why’d Jimmy kill him?”
“He was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Winona frowned. “I really wish he hadn’t done that. He could’ve scared the kid away and he and Dad could’ve just come back home.”
“But what happened?”
“Jimmy and Dad had dug up the money and carried most of it to the truck,” Winona explained. “They were coming back for the last bag and to bury Bud again when they heard someone moving around in the woods. Jimmy snuck up and saw the boy take the satchel of money. That’s when he grabbed the shovel and hit the boy in the head. Jimmy said he hid the shovel where they’ll never find it. He also told Dad he didn’t mean to hit the kid so hard, but I don’t believe him. He’s mean.”
“Oh, they found the shovel.”
Winona lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yep. The detectives from Louisiana believe it was taken from your boyfriend’s barn.”
“Yeah, I told them where to find it. Dad and Jimmy didn’t want to get caught with digging tools.”
There was a long pause where both women were silent.
“I still can’t believe what you’re telling me,” Leah said, shaking her head. She was still squatting in the garden, frozen under the weight of Winona’s revelations. “Why would you agree to go along with this?”
“Without that money, I knew there was no way I could ever give my daughters the life they deserved, and their father certainly doesn’t give a shit about them. They’ve taken out loans for college. They both have car notes. They can’t even afford to buy a house because their rent is so high. They’re drowning in debt—just like I was and just like I knew they would be. Back then, I knew this was the only way I could ever hope to help them get a leg up in life. Sure, I had to wait thirty years to realize those dreams, but I knew it would be worth it in the end. It gave me hope.”
Leah scowled, still befuddled that she hadn’t suspected Winona even once over the years. “Your last name is Munday—the same as your mom’s married name. There’s no connection between you and Duke Smith. If there was, I would’ve found it thirty years ago.”
“There isn’t any, which is the only way our plan worked. My stepdad adopted me when I was young, so I carried his name. It was without my consent, but I was too young to argue. Had you known Duke and Jimmy were family, you would’ve suspected them of being involved right away.” Winona fixed Leah with a pointed stare. “Right?”
“I guess so,” Leah acknowledged, noting that the muzzle of the revolver had dipped so much that it was now pointing at the ground. “What are we doing here, Winona? How are we getting out of this situation?”
“I’ll split half the money with you,” Winona said without hesitation. “Now that Dad and Jimmy are gone, there’s enough for you and me to retire in peace and prosperity. We can be happy for once and forever.”
“It’s all here?” Leah indicated the fresh mounds of dirt scattered throughout the garden.
“Yeah. I buried it here last night.” The muzzle of Winona’s gun shifted toward the garden. “You can see for yourself. Just let me leave with my half and don’t tell anyone what you know. You can take your half and we can both retire in peace as very rich women.”
“I’m not for sale, Winona.” Leah stood slowly to her feet. “I can’t let you leave—with or without the money.”
Winona shifted the muzzle of the pistol back toward Leah. “You can’t stop me.”
Just then, tires screeched and headlights flooded the front of Winona’s house, illuminating Winona and temporarily blinding her. She shielded her eyes, trying to see what was happening.
“Drop the gun or I’ll shoot you where you stand!” called a commanding voice that Leah recognized. It was Clint Wolf, and it was his turn to save her life.
“Wait, don’t shoot,” Leah called, holding up her right hand. She wasn’t one bit intimidated by the situation. “She won’t pull the trigger.”
“How do you know?” Winona asked.
“I never once doubted you—not in thirty years,” Leah said softly. “I’ve been by your side through it all. I fought for you. I trusted you. Now, it’s your turn to trust me. I’ll continue to stick by you all the way to the end, but I have to be alive to do that. If you kill me, you’ll be all alone. There’ll be no one to fight for you.”
“You’d continue fighting for me?” Winona asked cautiously. “Even after everything I’ve done?”
“I will.”
“Why?”
“I don’t believe you’re a bad person,” Leah explained. “You were just desperate. Well, there’s no need to be desperate any longer.”
“But I’ll go to prison.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
Winona hesitated. She shifted her eyes to the blinding light and then back to Leah. Leah stepped forward and held out her hand.
“Let me help you,” she pleaded. “I’ve been with you since the beginning. Let me be there for you to the end.”
“But—”
“I can get you off on insanity,” Leah whispered so only Winona could hear. “You’ll be free in a year. Trust me—there’s enough evidence in my file to convince any jury.”
“Really?” Winona asked.
“Really.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
“Because I always believe my victims.”
Winona’s shoulders slumped and she sighed heavily. Finally, she stepped off the porch and handed her gun to Leah. “Thank you so much. I knew I could always count on—”
As soon as the fingers of Leah’s left hand were wrapped around the revolver, she let out a vicious punch with her right hand that caught Winona square on the chin, dropping her in a heap on the ground. Leah tossed the gun aside and flipped Winona to her stomach. She dropped all of her weight to Wi
nona’s back, forcing her lungs to expel violently. After handcuffing the woman, Leah jerked her to her feet and shoved her up against the chief’s truck.
“But…but I trusted you!” Winona wailed, blood pouring from her mouth. “You lied to me!”
“You’ve lied to me for thirty years, you little bitch.” Leah shoved her face in Winona’s. “How’s it feel?”
CHAPTER 47
Two weeks later…
I leaned back from my desk and rubbed my eyes with the fingers of my left hand, careful not to put any pressure on the bandage. While the flesh on my palm was healing nicely, it was still tender to the touch. I had been diagnosed with a second-degree rope burn and they said it might take a few weeks to heal completely. Unfortunately, all of the calluses I’d worked so hard to develop over the years had been ripped off in a second, and I’d to start working on them all over again.
I glanced at the time displayed at the bottom corner of my computer screen. It was five o’clock on a Friday and it was time to go home for the weekend. I had gotten off the phone with Detective Leah Anderson about fifteen minutes ago, and she had notified me that Winona Munday had been formally charged with the murder of Bud Walker and the armed robbery of the armored car. Winona had also been charged as a principal to the murder of the young clerk, Rebecca.
“And get this,” Leah had announced excitedly, “the insurance company that covered the $2,000,000 loss during the heist has been out of business for twenty years and, since they were already made whole, the president of the armored car company decided to donate the recovered money to Bud’s daughter. She’ll never have to work another day in her life.”
“It won’t bring her dad back,” I’d mumbled, “but it’ll sure make her life a little easier.”
“That, it will.” Leah had then tried to again thank me for helping solve her case, but I just brushed her off and hung up the phone.
Now, I opened the box I’d received from FedEx earlier today. It was from the Windrift Police Department and it contained my Beretta 92FS pistol that had fallen over the cliff. I found myself holding my breath as I unwrapped it and checked it for damage and functionality.