Dawn's Light (31 page)

“I think we should start at the Tomlin house,” Mark said. “You have an in there. You can bring condolences, as the sister of another victim. Maybe she's had time to think about who Blake's enemies were.”

Deni dreaded facing the grieving woman. She'd lost so much even before her father was jailed. Deni hoped she'd be able to keep her emotions under control. The last thing she needed was to lose it right in front of the widow. Melissa shouldn't have to comfort
her
.

They passed the park where Beth had been injured. Deni saw children playing there now. Several moms clustered around the swing sets and slides. If only they'd been there that rainy day.

Deni's throat constricted as her gaze drifted to the trees where her parents had found Beth.

“You okay?”

She swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

They reached Melissa's yard. Deni's gaze drifted to the park again, and she saw the swing set where Beth must have been sitting when Clay attacked her. She would have had a perfect view of the Tomlins' house from there.

Mark knocked on the door, then touched her back. She felt the reassurance in his hand and told herself she had a job to do.

The door opened. A woman a little older than her own mother appeared. Her eyes were red and sunken in, her skin pale and gaunt. She must be Melissa's mother. “Mrs. Tomlin?”

“Anthony,” Mark corrected.

“Oh yes. Mrs. Anthony.”

The woman just looked at Mark. “You've already locked my husband up. I don't know what else you want.”

Mark started to answer, but Deni touched his arm, stopping him. “Ma'am, I asked him to come with me. I'm Beth Branning's sister. She's the girl who was attacked at the park. I just wanted to come by and talk to Melissa for a minute.”

Her expression softened, and she let out a long, broken sigh. “I'm sorry about your sister.” She shot another suspicious glance at Mark, then backed away from the door. “Come in. I'll see if Melissa is up.”

Deni and Mark stepped inside. The house was stale, dark, cluttered, as if no one cared enough to straighten it up. A two-year-old played on the floor, his toys strewn across the carpet.

Mark stooped in front of him. “How's it going, buddy?”

The child smiled and slapped his hand.

“Don't touch my son.”

Melissa came in, looking as if she hadn't been out of bed all day. She wore boxer shorts and a rumpled T-shirt, and her hair was disheveled.

Mark got to his feet. Deni stepped toward her. “Melissa, I'm Deni Branning.”

“I know. The girl's sister.”

“That's right. I just wanted to come by and tell you how sorry I am about your husband's death. And your father …”

Melissa dropped into a chair.

“Please, sit down,” Mrs. Anthony said.

Mark and Deni sat on the couch, realizing that this family's pain was even greater than that of Deni's own family. At least the Brannings still had hope that Beth would recover.

“What do you want?” Melissa asked wearily.

Deni's throat was dry. “Before Clay Tharpe was killed, he told Mark that he had an accomplice.”

Melissa flinched at the news. “
What
?” She got up, backed away. “You don't believe him, do you?”

“We don't know,” Mark said. “But if there's a possibility, we need to know.”

“We were wondering if you knew of any enemies that your husband had,” Deni said. “Particularly right here in this neighborhood. Someone who may have schemed with Tharpe to kill him.”

Melissa was shaking. She brought her hand to her head, as if trying to think. “No, no enemies. I can't think of any.”

She tried to sweep her frizzy hair behind her ears, but it wouldn't stay. “Listen, what's happening to my father is so unfair. The bond is too high; I can't bail him out. He was so angry about the murder … but it wasn't premeditated. He didn't mean to do it. I know he didn't. Everyone carries a gun nowadays. It's a scary world out there. He forgot he couldn't take it into the courthouse.”

That couldn't be true. Deni had been carefully searched before she'd gotten in. He couldn't have made it past security unless his gun had been deliberately, carefully hidden. “Do you have a lawyer?”

“Yes. He'll see him today.”

“Maybe the lawyer can get his bond reduced. Melissa, I know you said no enemies. But can you think of anyone at all who might have had a dispute with your husband?”

“No!” She went to the child, picked him up. “I have to change his diaper.”

Deni wasn't likely to get anywhere with them. They were too upset to think clearly. Maybe she would get more from the neighbors. “I understand. I'm really sorry for the intrusion. We'll go now.”

Mrs. Anthony walked them to the door. “I hope your little sister will be all right,” she said.

“I hope so too. It's all in God's hands.” It felt like one of those churchy things to say. As Deni walked back to her bike, she wondered if Mrs. Anthony saw it that way. Was she a believer? Did she, too, see a purpose in the cruelest of events?

Or was she sick of the lip service people paid to the grieving?

Mark pulled her close as they walked and kissed her cheek. “You did good,” he said.

“No, I didn't. We should have left them alone. Those poor women.”

“Well, don't get discouraged now,” Mark said, looking up the street. “We have lots more people to talk to.”

Three houses away Deni saw a lady working in her garden. “Let's talk to her next, since she's outside.”

Mark agreed, and they walked their bikes to her house. When Deni introduced herself, the woman gave her a boisterous hug. “Bless your heart! It's a shame that your sister got caught in this mess. But you know, what happened to Blake was bound to happen. That man was mean.”

Deni frowned. “
Blake
was mean? In what way?”

“Smashin' furniture, beatin' that poor woman in the face. I've seen her eye so swole up she couldn't see out of it. And y'ask me, that little boy had his fair share of bruises, too.”

Deni met Mark's stunned eyes. “Did others in the neighborhood ever witness that?” she asked.

“'Course they did. You couldn't help hear it. We talked about what to do about him.”

Deni glanced at Mark. He had that look on his face that he had when he slammed against the crux of a case.

“Did anyone confront him about it?” Mark asked.

“You bet they did. One time a few weeks ago a couple of the men interrupted when Blake got too rough with his wife, and they escorted him out of the neighborhood. He came back, apologizin' up and down, and she took him right back in.”

Deni was amazed no one had mentioned it before. “Could you point us to those people who escorted him out?”

She pointed. “Melissa's next-door neighbors. The ones on either side of them. Tell them Corinna sent you. They'll talk.”

Deni could hardly wait to talk to them. As she and Mark stepped out into the street, Mark spoke quietly. “Let me do the talking from here on out, okay?”

She didn't argue. “Can you believe this? Blake Tomlin was a wife-beater? Why wouldn't Melissa have told us that?”

Mark sighed. “Maybe she knows her father was the accomplice. Maybe he wanted Blake dead for what he'd done to Melissa. Maybe he hired him. Maybe that's why he killed him—to shut him up.”

“Wait.” Deni stopped in the middle of the street. “He wouldn't kill Clay in front of the judge to keep him from telling him he's a killer!”

Mark had to chuckle. “That would be pretty dumb. But people who are emotional don't think.”

“That's not it. That man didn't look like a killer.”

“But he
was
a killer. We
saw
him kill Clay Tharpe.”

She thought of the anguished look on Scott Anthony's face after he shot Clay Tharpe, and the submissive way he'd let them take him away. It seemed more an act of grief than an attempt to cover up a crime.

They found one of the men at home and questioned him about Corinna's story. “Yeah, it happened that way, all right. We intervened several times when they were fighting.”

“Why didn't you tell the deputies that when they questioned you?” Mark asked.

“Because they weren't interviewing us about Blake. They were questioning us about that girl who was attacked in the park.”

They interviewed the rest of the neighbors on the street one by one. All were more than willing to tell what they knew. Each had the same refrain. Blake Tomlin was a wife-beater, and everyone knew it.

Deni and Mark headed back to the hospital. “So we have a wife-beater who's even hurt his son,” Deni said. “We have neighbors who've pulled him off his wife. Then on the day the bank opens, that same guy is murdered? There's some connection here that we're missing.”

“Maybe God used Tharpe to bring Tomlin's crimes back on his own head.”

“Maybe,” Deni said. “But I'm more inclined to think that someone else used Tharpe.”

Mark had to agree. “Mr. Anthony sure had a motive.”

“But he'd have to be an idiot. Seems to me he'd be better off taking his chances that Tharpe would talk than he would gunning him down in cold blood right in front of the judge. Maybe we should go back to Tharpe's neighborhood and talk to
his
neighbors. Maybe we'll find another Corinna.”

seventy-five

F
ATIGUE CLAWED THROUGH
C
RAIG LIKE A LIVING THING
, making him long for sleep and a reprieve from the urgency in every area of his life. He was used to working on pure adrenaline. For the last year, working for Senator Crawford, everything had been an emergency, and there were no slow days. But at least then he'd been able to focus one hundred percent on work, and hadn't felt the heavy weight of responsibility for a dying child.

Among the hundreds of job applicants, his team had found a few war veterans and ham radio operators who were fluent in Morse code, making it possible to communicate by telegraph through a series of relay stations between here and Washington. The government also had communications experts building radios with vacuum tubes, which would be available sooner than transistors would.

Craig jotted the note that he wanted sent to Senator Crawford's office and bent over Horace Hancock, who had just finished receiving a message. “Hey, Horace,” he said to the World War II veteran. “I have to get this to Senator Crawford ASAP.”

The old man adjusted his glasses and read the note aloud. “Senator Crawford, please advise if you've been able to find MRI scanners or contacts with Hope Drug Manufacturer? Hoped to hear from you by now. Deni's sister is dying. Please respond. Craig Martin.”

“That's a long one,” Horace said.

“Where would I shorten it?”

Horace took his pencil and marked out a few words, and changed a few others. “Pls advise if u found whr MRI scanners r bing manufctrd r contact at Hope Drug Mnufctr stop Hoped 2 hr frm u by now stop Deni's sister dying stop Craig Martin.”

Craig read back over it. “Is this some kind of telegraph shorthand?”

Horace shook his head. “No, I learned this from my granddaughter who used to love to text-message me.”

Craig grinned. “Should have known.”

“Hey, it works.”

“Could you get it out now?”

He waited as Horace sent the message. If things were working the way they should, Senator Crawford would have the message sometime in the next hour. He'd done a lot for Senator Crawford when he worked as his aid. Maybe the overworked legislator would want to return the favor.

Another of the telegraph operators threw down his headphones and jumped to his feet. “Hot dog!” the white-haired man shouted. “The Tennessee Valley Authority is back in business.”

Craig dashed to his side and read the message. That meant that electricity would reach the distribution plants, and power would flow to the transmission lines in Crockett. If they could get the substations reconnected to those transmission lines, they could get power to the homes in Crockett—and to the hospital.

It all seemed doable now. “I've got to get word to our transmission engineers,” he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. Grabbing his hard hat, he bolted out to his car.

seventy-six

K
AY GREW MORE DESPERATE AS
B
ETH'S CONDITION
declined. Her blood pressure had dropped, and her kidney function was failing. They cared for her with sponge baths and massages, as well as frequent repositioning to keep her from getting bedsores. But they were losing her.

Kay and Doug read Scripture aloud to her, as if the words themselves could speak life into her. But the book of James was more for them than for her.

“ ‘Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.’ ”

The verses seemed to reflect the growing shame Kay harbored over her hatred for the dead Clay Tharpe. “Do you think that's why God hasn't answered our prayers for Beth's healing?” she asked.

Doug stopped reading and looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean my anger. My hatred. It said the anger of man doesn't achieve the righteousness of God. Do you think God would have healed her if I hadn't gone to the jail and tried to start a lynching that day?”

“No, I don't think that, Kay.”

She sighed, not sure she believed him. “I talked to God about it.” She looked at the IV bag. The slow drips continued. “I've repented over and over. I really am sorry I did it. But there's nothing more I can do.”

“Then he is faithful and just to forgive you, sweetheart.”

“But he won't forgive us if
we
don't forgive, will he? I'm not sure I've forgiven. How can you forgive someone who's dead? How do you let it go when every day you have to watch your daughter die?”

“She's not dying. She's going to live.” He turned his chair toward Kay's and set his hands on her knees. “Look at me, love.”

She turned and met his eyes.

“You have to stop beating yourself up. You had human emotions, and you acted on them. But you're not the one who killed Clay Tharpe. And you're not the one who's keeping Beth from waking up.”