Damage (22 page)

"And so is sleeping with your boss," she said sarcastically. "Only slightly unethical. A minor infraction of workplace policy, don't you think?"

"Which is significantly less egregious than attempted homicide and evading arrest," Charlie countered. "And every second he's here, we become more and more guilty of aiding and abetting."

"You do know those mean exactly the same thing," she said.

"They do not," Charlie said. "Aiding means to offer assistance. Abetting means to offer encouragement."

"So if we help him then we've aided him, but if we tell him he's doing an outstanding job then we've abetted him? You're so stupid. I'm getting the dictionary."

"Hey! Merriam and Webster, this is really fascinating," Ray interrupted. "But can I please just borrow one of your cars? And a jacket, too? It's starting to get chilly out there."

"Take Charlie's," Becky offered. "It's got a full tank of gas."

"Like hell!" Charlie argued. "You think it's such a great idea, give him your car. That way I can visit you both at the same time when you're sharing a jail cell."

Becky huffed and got up from the kitchen table. Ray grabbed two slices of her homemade banana bread and scarfed one down. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until she placed the plate of baked goods in front of him. She returned from the bedroom a minute later and handed Ray a single car key. Charlie shook his head disapprovingly.
 
Ray reached for the key and she pulled it back.

"Don't damage my little car, or I'll make your life a living hell," she warned.

"I promise to take excellent care of it."

Wednesday, Part IX

Ray considered driving to Whitlock to swap out Becky's adorable yellow Beetle for his own slightly more masculine car, but it would waste too much time. Also, he didn't fancy the idea of showing up in the parking lot of the sheriff's department when he was supposed to be sitting in a Glen Meadows holding cell for attacking Deputy Greevey. The less attention he drew to himself the better, even if that meant driving a vehicle that looked like a piece of candy, smelt like vanilla perfume, and had a giant felt sunflower poking out from the cup holder.

He thought about his conversation with Billy at the hospital as he drove to St. Thomas. What part of the brain gets switched off to allow a man to kill someone he barely even knows? And how does that man look in the eyes of a friend he's known all his life and set him up to take the blame for it? Clearly, Ray knew little to nothing about the true character of his cousin. Yes, Billy had a temper and lashed out when angered, especially when he had a few drinks in him, but cold-blooded assassinations were more than Ray could imagine. He searched through childhood memories but could find no sign of the kind of calculating viciousness necessary to do what Billy, by his own admission, had done to the Wallaces, and to Jake, and to who knows how many other people.

He had no idea what he might do if he actually found Billy. If he hadn't been able to talk him into turning himself over to the authorities back at the hospital, he wondered why he thought he could manage it now. Ray knew, but didn't want to admit, he was trying more for himself than for Billy. He wanted to avoid attending another funeral so soon after Jake's, if at all possible.

Halfway to St. Thomas, the thought occurred to him that Billy might have gone home to see his wife and children before heading out to take care of Redmond and his daughter. He almost ran off the road twice trying to dial Amy's cell number. Amy didn't give him a chance to say hello.

"What the hell's going on, Ray?" she cried.

"Amy, calm down," he said.

"Don't you tell me to calm down! The Glen Meadows police chief just called looking for the both of you. He said you damn near killed Dean Greevey and that you're both fugitives. What did you get my husband involved with?"

"Whoa! Hold your horses," Ray ordered, hitting the breaks and pulling the car onto the shoulder of the road. "First off, your buddy Dean was coming after me. All I did was defend myself as best I could at the time. Son of a bitch should be happy I didn't take his fucking head off. And secondly, your loving husband dragged me into this when he had to show off his handiwork Monday morning."

"What are you talking about?"

"Billy murdered Evan Wallace," Ray yelled. His anger sank immediately to the background as he realized the effect his words would have on Amy. He quickly tried to soften his tone of voice. "He told me so this afternoon at the hospital."

"Why would he do that?" she asked, her voice faltering.

"Because Redmond ordered him to," Ray said. "It gets worse, Amy. He tried to frame Jake for it. That's why Jake killed himself. He...
 
I think he thought he'd actually done it."

Amy whimpered.

"I'm sorry, Amy," he said.

"No," she managed to say. "You're lying. You're lying!"

Her words dissolved into a stream of shrill sounds out of which the only word Ray could occasionally understand was "lying." He tried to break in to calm her down, but it was no use. He hung up and threw the phone down on the passenger seat. After a moment's pause to collect his thoughts, he continued his journey to St. Thomas.

Things already seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. As he passed the site where the tent had stood for Sunday's country club groundbreaking ceremony, the flashing lights of an ambulance flickered in his rearview mirror. He slowed and pulled again onto the grassy shoulder of the road to let it pass. Before he could continue his trip, another ambulance and a county sheriff's patrol car flew down the rural road, rattling the windows in the little car. As he neared the driveway for the St. Thomas Retirement Community, Ray could see the winding lane leading up the building was choked with emergency response vehicles. Many of the residents were gathered outside the main entrance. Ray pulled into the lower parking lot close to the road, then cautiously walked up to the crowd of senior citizens being held at bay by a young deputy guarding the doors leading to the lobby. Ray carried the sunflower from the car with him in the hopes it might help him look like a visitor come to spend time with his grandmother.

"What happened?" he asked a stooped woman who clutched her walker and craning as best she could to peek around her fellow residents.

"Nobody seems to know," the woman complained. She pointed toward the building. "And they won't tell us what's happened."

Off to their right, several lawns down from the lobby, sat a rail-thin old man in a plastic lawn chair with a portable oxygen tank clutched in his arms like a newborn baby. Avery Lowson was the only person in the crowd not interested in the commotion that fascinated everyone else. He sat perfectly still, staring down at the grass near his feet.

"Mr. Lowson?" Ray approached slowly so as not to startle him. He squatted in front of the old man and looked up at him. "Mr. Lowson?"

The oxygen tank hissed quietly under the din of police radios and chattering residents. "Mimi's dead," Lowson croaked.

"Mr. Lowson, did you see Deputy Merrill here this evening? William Merrill? Did he speak to you?"

"He didn't tell me anything I didn't already suspect," Lowson said between shallow breaths. He lifted his eyes to look at Ray. "I just wish I had the strength to have done it myself. I would have taken my time with it. She deserved more than one bullet."

Ray's stomach fell away. "Do you know where he is now?"

Lowson, lost in thought, appeared confused by the question. "Who?"

"Deputy Merrill!" Ray barked before he could stop himself. "Did he say where he was going? Did he tell you anything about what he was planning to do next?"

"He's gone to do what's necessary," Lowson whispered.

"But what does that mean? You have to tell me where he's gone!"

"Is there a problem over here?" The voice was too young to belong to any of the residents. Ray looked over his shoulder to see the deputy who had been guarding the main entrance approaching them.

"No, sir," Ray called to him. "No problem at all."

The deputy continued to step closer until he could see around Ray to the feeble old man in the lawn chair. He addressed Lowson specifically. "Is everything okay, sir?"

Ray remained crouched in front of the old man, his back to the approaching deputy and his head turned just enough to watch him out of the corner of his eye. Lowson didn't speak, didn't even make eye contact. He simply nodded his head slowly and waved a hand to shoo him away. Visibly annoyed at being summarily dismissed, the deputy headed back to the gray-haired crowd at the main entrance.

"He's gone to find Redmond, hasn't he?" Ray spoke calmly. Getting upset again would only bring the deputy back and steel Lowson to his silent resolve. "Please. Mr. Lowson, tell me where he's gone. He's the only family I got left who's on speaking terms with me."

"He hasn't got to go looking for Edgar anywhere," Lowson said as air hissed from the tube under his nostrils. "They'll find each other at the house. Whichever one is left standing goes to jail for the rest of his life. It doesn't matter which one, but I'd like to think it'll be Edgar. He deserves a slower punishment."

"What house?" Ray demanded.

At that moment, the cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Caller ID showed it was Detective Pritchard trying to reach him. Three rings in, after contemplating not answering the call, Ray stepped away from Lowson and hit the talk button.

"Hello?"

"Where are you?" Pritchard sounded like a pissy girl.

"I'm at St. Thomas. I just had a nice chat with Avery Lowson," Ray said. "I'd love to tell you Mimi McGinnis says hi, but Billy got here before I did. It's gonna be hard for her to talk from inside a body bag."

"I know about Mimi," Pritchard said dismissively. "I also know you're supposed to be under arrest. How did you... Forget it. It's not important.Did Avery say anything about the sheriff?"

"He wasn't exactly a chatty Cathy," Ray said. "And where the hell have you been? I get jumped at the hospital and when I finally surface you've run off to meet your boyfriends from the SBI."

"We couldn't find you and I couldn't stand around with my thumb up my ass doing nothing, could I? We've been trying to take Sheriff Redmond into custody, but we haven't found him yet. He wasn't at the office and he isn't at his house in Oxton. Avery didn't have anything useful to offer when you talked to him?"

"Well, I didn't say that," Ray confessed. "I asked him where I could find Billy and all he would say is he and Redmond will find each other at the house. He figures they'll shoot it out, I guess. Do you know what house he's talking about? The best I can figure is the Wallace's house, but maybe there's some place more obvious than that."

"It isn't Redmond's house," Pritchard said. "That's where I'm at now and there's no sign of anyone. We'll leave a man here just in case, but I think you're probably right about the Wallace estate."

"I'll meet you there," Ray said.

"No, you won't!"

"I'm twenty miles closer than you are," Ray said. "I can be there in five minutes and give you a call if I see anything. They may not even be there."

"You're staying right where you are," Pritchard ordered. "I'm going to call Chief Yeager and tell him where to find you. If you're lucky, he'll only charge you for attacking Greevey and not throw in all the charges I would if you had pulled that disappearing act on me."

"So, you're saying I'm already in a shit load of trouble?"

"Yes!" Pritchard said.

"Then a little bit more won't kill me," Ray said and hung up.
 

Wednesday, Part X

Becky's yellow beetle buzzed along the winding country roads at speeds it probably had never achieved before in its short history. Unlike Monday, when Ray and Billy had traveled a relatively straight path from Whitlock south to Wilkston Creek, this trip was an endurance course through narrow bridges, backwoods intersections, and hairpin turns. One poorly placed deer and Ray knew they'd be picking shiny yellow bits out of the roadside trees for the next few months. The sun beginning to drop below the tree line didn't help. Blinding shafts of light that snuck between the branches flashed off his mirrors at irregular intervals. Although he was heading primarily east, the curving roads occasionally doubled back on themselves, allowing the intense orange light to catch him right between the eyes.

He tried calling Billy again before leaving St. Thomas, but all he got was voicemail, so he hit the road. A quick scroll through missed calls while on a straightaway showed Amy, Becky and Pritchard had all tried contacting him in the last fifteen minutes. He ignored them all and kept to his mission.

Coming at it as he was from a different direction, he missed the sign proclaiming the entrance to the main drive leading through the Wilkston Creek subdivision. He slammed the brake to the floorboard and tightly gripped the steering wheel. He fishtailed to a squealing halt, checking his rearview mirror when he stopped to make sure no one was behind him, although it would have been too late already if there had been. He cranked the stalled Beetle back to life and made a sloppy five-point turn to bring the car back around to Wilkston Creek. The shadowy canopy of the tree-lined dirt road forced him to switch on his headlights. He slowed the car at each driveway, checking to make sure he didn't miss the right one, until he came at last to the Wallace's estate.
 

Choosing to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to himself, he parked the car at the mouth of the driveway and started walking along the rutted path toward the house. As he neared the clearing between the house to his right and the barn to his left, Ray caught the faint sound of voices. He didn't take for granted they were from Billy and Sheriff Redmond -- after all, there might be landscapers, or housekeepers, or any number of hired hands working the grounds -- but he advanced cautiously all the same.
 

Gaps in the lower branches eventually revealed a large red pickup truck parked close to the barn. The slamming of a car door startled him and he stopped. The sound echoed around the clearing, making it difficult to place its origin. Then he saw someone walking around the back of the truck. Bending and craning to get a better view through the trees, Ray watched Billy take what looked like a shotgun from the bed of the truck and disappear into the darkness of the open barn.