Bouquet of Lies (26 page)

Thirty-one

THEY SAT IN a small room at the police station: Lacey, Dan, Uncle D, and Tiffany. All four had Styrofoam cups of bad coffee in or near their hands. No one actually needed the caffeine to keep them awake. Tiffany’s story was compelling enough to do that job. She didn’t hold back.

“Edward’s gone now,” she said. “I heard it on the radio. I didn’t have to be afraid. I could come back to the house. I was safe to connect with my girls.”

Lacey held her tongue and let Uncle D do the talking. Or questioning, rather. He ignored her explanation and focused elsewhere.

“Tell me about Honey,” Uncle D said.

“I’d known Honey for years. Off and on. She was a good person. When things got hard because, well, because of a lot of things. She was there.” Tiffany paused, eyes glistening. “See.” She closed her eyes. “See, Harper sent money for a long time. For years he sent money. He knew where I lived. Kept tabs on where I lived, in fact. A caged bird doesn’t sing.”

“What does that mean?” Lacey asked.

Tiffany looked at her, shook her head and went on with her story. “He sent enough so that I was comfortable. Had a nice place until . . . Well, I’ll get to that.

“Anyway, the money stopped. Harper wouldn’t have stopped it. It had to be Edward. Either way, I . . .”

She squeezed her lips together.

“Okay. I moved. I had to move. I couldn’t afford the rent. I was hooked on crystal meth. I moved in with Honey. I didn’t tell Harper my new address.”

“Because?” Uncle D asked.

“Because I didn’t want Edward to know where I lived.”

“Why not?”

“I’d gotten it into my head to let Edward know what I thought of him. Stupid, I know. But when you’re high, you do stupid things. I sent him this letter. I threatened him.”

“Threatened him with what?” Uncle D asked.

“I’ll get to that. Unless you want me to go there now.”

Uncle D waved her on.

“Like I said. I was high.” She paused. “You might have guessed, that’s where most of the money went. Not at first. But, you know, later on. So I was blowing off steam. Years and years of steam.” She paused again. “I had to move. And change my name.

“It was a few months after that this guy, this dick, cornered me. He gave me some money. A thousand bucks to share any dirt I had on Harper. Harper? I said. You’ve got to be kidding. He’s a straight arrow, unlike his father. And I, being high, told him the one thing I knew Edward wouldn’t want shared with anyone.”

Tiffany looked up to the ceiling. “A thousand bucks. I was so stupid. At that point, I would have told him for nothing. I’d never breathed a word of it. I was too scared to. But now I figured they didn’t know where I lived. Didn’t know my new name. Anyway, when I came down, I realized, if this guy could find me, Edward could find me. And it was the drugs that had made me write that letter to Edward in the first place.”

“After having been cut off from your payoff?” Lacey heard the sarcasm in her own voice.

Tiffany grimaced, but didn’t comment. “That’s when I decided to clean up my act. And it was working out. I felt better about myself. Lined up some houses to clean. I was saving some money. Everything seemed fine for a few months. And then Honey told me you’d come by.”

Tiffany looked at Lacey.

“I panicked. I decided to move right away. And then Honey got murdered and I thought Edward did it.”

“Edward?” Lacey’s brow dipped.

“I knew about Harper’s murder. I thought he’d done that too. Maybe Harper had left everything to him. I didn’t know. But then I realized Edward would have known Honey wasn’t me. I thought, maybe it was a coincidence. Just some freak. But she’d taken my ID and so that didn’t jibe.”

Tiffany shook her head. “I was scared. Really scared.”

Words flew out of Lacey’s mouth. “If you thought Edward was so dangerous, why’d you leave two babies with him? Your babies. Why’d you leave us? Why’d you abandon us?”

Tiffany’s eyes looked hot and wet. She gazed at Lacey and rubbed her lips together. “Because Harper made me leave.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“He did do that. Blood is thicker than water, no matter what. He took Edward’s side. Don’t think it helped that Harriet didn’t exactly approve of me and wanted you two little girls for herself. She didn’t love her son, but she protected him. She loved her grandson and she loved you.”

Everyone was silent. Lacey thought about it. If Harper would lie all those years and let his kids think their mother was dead, then he was capable of forcing Crystal to go away. Still. A mother should have fought for her children.

“So explain. I still don’t get it. Blood is thicker than water. I’m your blood. Darla’s your blood. You left!”

Darla’s nightmare was different this time. She wasn’t caged. She wasn’t a victim. She was a killer. She held a poker with two hands as her mother instructed her on the fine art of the perfect swing.

“Like this.” Her mother clutched a pretend poker. She lifted it over her head and swung down in an arc. “Za-zoom! Now you try.”

A tough and determined Darla eyed her father kneeling before her, head bowed. She lifted the poker and brought it down, gently touching the crown of his head.

“X marks the spot,” her mother said.

Darla brought the poker up and then, as hard as she could, sliced it downward and bashed Harper’s skull. It split open with a loud crack, blood spurting everywhere. “Ooh, messy.”

“Yes, very messy. Sometimes the things we must do are very untidy. Now. Over here. This one,” her mother instructed.

Darla and her mother moved two steps to the right. There knelt Edward. He wasn’t as complacent as his son. His face contorted this way then that and although he didn’t speak, snarls spewed from his twisted mouth.

“What’s that?” Darla’s mother asked, cocking an ear toward Edward. “You hate your granddaughter? Yes. We know.” She looked at Darla. “Would you like to do the honors?”

“I most certainly would.” With a smile this time, Darla raised the poker and came down hard.

“Very nice,” her mother said. “Very professional.”

Darla shook her head. “Now I never have to hear him call me names again.”

“That’s right. And now, my sweet one, here is what you do next. Put the poker down.”

Darla did.

“And you’re going to shoot a gun.” Her mother held a gun in her hand.

“Must I?”

“I’m afraid you must. Mother knows best. Now don’t argue.”

“I would never do that.”

“There’s my sweet. Take the gun.”

Darla did.

“Get ready.”

Darla held it, arms extended, finger on the trigger.

“And when your sister walks through that door, fire.”

“I don’t really want to.”

“Mother knows best.”

“Mother knows best,” Darla repeated.

The door opened and Darla screamed.

“Wake up. Wake up, baby. Darla, wake up.”

Darla opened her eyes with a start. “Where am I?” Her voice was urgent, desperate. She rolled her head from side to side on the pillow. Hands were on her. An arm lifted her and another hugged her.

Who is that? Where am I? My face is hot. My body’s cold. Where am I?
She struggled.

“Darla. Darla, stop. You’re in our motel room. We’re together. You’re fine.”

Randy? Randy, is that you?
“Randy?”

“Yes. It’s me.”

Her muscles relaxed and she started to cry. “I did it. I killed my father and my grandfather.”

“What? No.”

“I did. I really did. I saw. And I didn’t mind it.”

“You were dreaming.”

“I know. But I realized. Mother’s dead. She’s really dead. The Reverend Irene said so. And dead people don’t hit live people with pokers. I was there. Both times. It had to be me. It had to be me.” Her body racked with sobs.

“Listen to me. Listen. You didn’t kill anyone.”

Darla reached an arm around Randy and clung to him. She didn’t say anything.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

Darla nodded. Her head rubbed against his chest.

“Now listen. Really listen. I know you think your sister loves you, and maybe a part of her does. But she’s money hungry.”

“That’s what the Reverend Irene says. And mother sometimes, when I hear her in my head.” She began to cry again.

“There’s no point in fighting the truth. I’m afraid for you. I can’t be with you all of the time and I don’t trust Lacey. I’ve told you this before. You have to listen this time. Your sister killed Harper and Edward.”

“But she was on stage when—”

“No. You aren’t listening. On stage she did that disappearing trick. She was gone for a while.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. And when Edward was killed, she says she was asleep in her room. I don’t believe it. Not for a second. And now that Harper and Edward are dead, all that’s left is you.”

Darla twisted so she could face Randy and pushed up with one hand. “And you! I’ve put you in danger. She’ll come after you! We have to get a divorce.”

Randy laughed. “No. We have to protect ourselves. That’s why you have a gun now. For when I’m not there. But Darla, I have to be confident that you will shoot when you have to. When Lacey comes near. When you sense danger. Shoot first and ask questions later.”

Thirty-two

TIFFANY’S FACE WAS in her hands, fingertips over closed eyes. Her cigarette break was over and she had been given a glass of water. She was stalling and Lacey was running out of patience. It was time for Tiffany to tell what happened.

“Mrs. Bouquet.”

Uncle D’s words startled Tiffany and Lacey at the same time. They both glanced at the rotund cop.

Mrs. Bouquet?
He was right. Her mother was Mrs. Bouquet. They’d never divorced.

“You can call me Crystal.” She looked down at the table and murmured, “Now that Edward’s dead.” She swallowed. “It’s hard to tell this story.” Her hands balled into fists. With eyes glued to the tabletop she took a deep breath before she began.

“Harper was gone a lot. Building his empire. And I was young and didn’t quite get it.”

“Where’d you meet?” Lacey asked. “I never knew.”

Crystal looked at her. “I was a waitress.”

“Where?”

Crystal closed her eyes. “Hooters.”

There was silence. No one laughed.

“Go on,” Uncle D prodded.

“Harriet didn’t like me all that much and Edward was just downright rude. I must have heard every Hooter joke ever created. Things weren’t perfect, but I coped.” She looked at Lacey. “And then you came along and I loved being a mother. I mean I just loved it. I adored you. So did your father and your grandmother. But it did something weird to Edward. He got worse.”

“I bet.”

“He was jealous.” Crystal crossed her arms. “That’s when I decided I would try to make friends.”

Lacey couldn’t help herself. She let loose with a “Ha!”

Tears came to Crystal’s eyes and Lacey wiped the smirk from her face. “So what happened?”

“He went along with it.”

“What do you mean?” Uncle D asked.

“He pretended we were friends. Best friends. He was nice. Like he’d seen the light and become another person.”

“Nice? Edward?” Lacey raised both brows. “He had a motive for everything. Must have been buttering you up for something.”

“He . . . he . . .” More tears spilled from Crystal, although her voice remained clear. “One night we had some whiskey together.” She wiped away the tears. “Your father was on a long business trip. Six weeks. Six weeks in Hong Kong. And Harriet knew her son. She told me not to play with snakes. Yeah. She called her own son a snake. I explained to her. I told her I was just trying to get along with Edward. Be friends for the sake of harmony in the family. She told me I should keep my distance. I didn’t listen.”

Crystal rubbed her face and was quiet for a moment.

“I blacked out the night we were drinking and it wasn’t from the whiskey. I have absolutely no memory of what happened. But . . .” She swallowed. “Nine months later Darla came along.”

Lacey felt like she’d been slugged in the stomach. The hair on the back of her neck rose. She felt nauseous. “Are you saying Darla is Edward’s daughter?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

The blood drained from Lacey’s body and she was certain she was going to retch. She wanted to call her mother a liar, but the words lodged in her throat and stayed there.

No one spoke. Everyone stared. Lacey regained a measure of composure and it occurred to her: Why would Crystal make up such a thing? There was nothing to gain. Nothing at all. It had to be true.

Lacey spoke. “Darla used to say Edward had a special pocketful of hatred for her and I told her it wasn’t true. He hated everybody. He was an equal-opportunity hater.”

“Edward
would
hate his own daughter,” Crystal said. Her eyes went to the table. “Harper did the math. And Edward fed him lies.” Her eyes glistened. “He said I came on to him. And, who knows? It’s possible that in Edward’s sick brain that’s how he saw it. I had tried to make friends.”

She wiped her eyes and swallowed. She looked at Lacey.

“At least he never tried to say I ran around on my husband. Of course, Harriet would have known that wasn’t true and squashed any lie like that. Not to defend me to Harper, but because the baby was blood and that meant a lot in her book.”

She took a deep breath and looked away.

“Your father never touched me after that. I tried to explain, of course. But he didn’t listen. He said I could stay until the baby was born and then I was to leave. He said it just like that. No emotion. Like it was easy to see me go. He said he was going to keep the kids and that he’d send me money every month.

“I thought he would change his mind. You know. It would be months before the baby arrived, enough time for him to realize I would never have seduced Edward.

“But he didn’t. He never budged. He wouldn’t even talk about it. Didn’t matter to him—or Harriet—that Edward was the bad guy in all this. I mean, because they knew I was telling the truth. They had to. They knew what he was like. What he was capable of. They just accepted it and tolerated it. But instead of kicking him out, I had to pay.”

Her voice trailed with a touch of anger.

“That blood thing, you know. How blood is thicker than anything. That’s what mattered. No analyzing who did what. No being fair. Blood. That was it with them.” Crystal’s jaw twitched.

Lacey digested her mother’s words. It was easy to make herself sound like a sacrificial lamb, but Lacey wasn’t buying it. She believed Edward drugged her mother and all that. But why not get a divorce then? Make it official. She didn’t know how much money her father paid her mother, but the court probably would have ordered more and she would have gotten at least partial custody of her kids. Unless the truth was Crystal didn’t want her kids.

Bitterness found its way into her voice. “Why didn’t you divorce him? The courts would have ordered equal time with us.”

“You’ve never been poor,” Crystal said. “What lawyer do you think I could have gotten? Harriet might protect her no-good son, but she would have smeared me and not cared about the truth.”

“Grandmama Harriet wasn’t like that.”

“You don’t know. You were her granddaughter. She loved you. I was an outsider and a person from the wrong side of town.”

Silence for a moment again.

“Anyway, I didn’t have any money to fight. And I thought, naively of course, that if we stayed married there was always a chance that we might get back together.”

“Why would you want to get back together after he threw you out like that?”

“Love, and you girls. And I blamed Harriet. I knew she influenced him. What she said went.” Crystal took a breath. “So I hung on. And I believed Harper when he said that a time might come when he would let me see my kids. I clung to that hope. But as time went on, it became clear that nothing was going to change.”

Crystal stared at Lacey and Lacey could see that life had taken a toll. Her mother was only thirty-nine. She was pretty, but aged and tired-looking. Life had not worked out for her. And maybe, because of how she’d been treated, she had a good reason to turn to drugs. Lots of people did.

No! Lacey squashed the soft thought. Her mother should have fought for her kids. No matter what the outcome, she should have fought.

A question crept into Lacey’s mind. A confusing question. She asked, “Why didn’t Father divorce you? Why this lie that you were dead?”

“I was dead to him.”

“I know. To him. I get that. Very poetic. But you weren’t dead. And why not just show up at the house and say here I am? What could he do then?”

“I guess I didn’t have the nerve.”

“At least you’re being honest about that.”

“I’m being honest about all of it!”

Lacey felt Dan’s hands on her shoulders. He’d gotten up. He was steadying her the way he did the night her father was murdered. It helped. She touched his hand.

“I was young,” Crystal said. “I held out hope for a long time. I thought, if I just went along, something good might happen. I didn’t know he told you I was dead. I just knew there’d be consequences for standing up to the Bouquets. I didn’t know what those consequences were. I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to do.”

Tears fell, but Lacey’s heart had hardened. She felt no sympathy.

“And then . . . and then I got this idea. I knew a way into the house and I decided I would see you secretly. I snuck in during the middle of the night, as often as I could. And I watched the two of you sleeping.”

Lacey felt her heart hammer.

“I left little presents sometimes. Things I hoped would go unnoticed by Harper and Edward and Harriet. Or maybe I hoped they would notice and then they’d realize how much I loved you girls and I’d get to come back.”

“Hope springs eternal,” Dan said softly.

Don’t feel sorry for her,
Lacey thought. “You have no idea what that did to Darla,” she told her mother.

Crystal looked at Lacey and sighed.

“How’d you get in?” Uncle D asked. “You said you knew a way. I assume you didn’t have a key.”

Crystal shrugged. “No, I didn’t have a key. There’s a secret way in.”

“No, there isn’t,” Lacey said. “I would know.”

“Not unless you stumbled upon it or someone told you. Edward showed me when . . . when he’d been drinking and I was trying to be friends.”

Lacey frowned.

“There’s this door, like a cellar door in the back yard out near the fence. It’s camouflaged. Edward wanted us to go in it.”

“Did you?” Lacey asked.

“Not then. I was afraid to. But after I decided I needed to see you one way or the other.” She shrugged. “I tried it. There’s a tunnel. It leads to a set of stairs and a door in a closet in one of the bedrooms that isn’t used in the north part of the house.”

“It wasn’t locked?”

“Yeah, it was locked. I broke in. It doesn’t affect the alarm.”

“Interesting.” Uncle D nodded.

Lacey might have thought it interesting, too, except she was all wrapped up in her parents’ history.

“So there’s a secret passage,” Lacey said. “I really don’t care. You still haven’t answered my question. Why didn’t Father divorce you? I just don’t get it.”

Crystal put a fingernail to her mouth. Everyone gave her time to answer. She sighed. “It’s because of something I knew. Because I would have talked. Because it would get into the divorce action and become part of the written record. Because family business was family business and Harriet was the way she was and she ran the show. Because even though Harriet had born a daughter and loved her completely. Even though she hated her son because he was just a bad seed. When her son killed her daughter, she still protected him.”

No one spoke. It was like her words hung in the air.

Finally Lacey broke the silence. “Debbie.”

Uncle D leaned forward in the chair. “Edward killed his baby sister? How do you know this?”

“Because Harper told me on our wedding night. It was like an addendum to the marriage vows. ‘And to prove to you I love you, that we’ll be bonded for life, here’s the family secret.’” She paused. “When Edward was nine he suffocated Deborah. That baby’s bones are buried somewhere in that house.”