Dead Giveaway (28 page)

  Jeff said, ''You gave B.J. Lawrence's address, maybe told him to return to the dead girl, grab some evidence and plant it at Lawrence's house. That about right?''

  ''I left those details to Noreen. She is so much better at those things.''

  ''
Was
so much better,'' said Jeff. ''You shot her, remember?''

  Rankin straightened, squared his shoulders. ''At God's urging. I prayed for guidance while Noreen and B.J. spoke of death and murder in my office tonight, and His voice came to me, told me to rid my life of Satan. Cleanse my soul.''

  ''Did God tell you to rid the world of Verna Mae Olsen? Was she part of Satan's brigade, too?'' Jeff's voice was hard, his eyes cold.

  ''I knew nothing of that until after she was gone. Mrs. Olsen was my sister's best friend, and I would have had serious questions about their methods.''

  ''Whose methods?'' Jeff asked.

  ''Noreen and B.J.'s decision,'' said Rankin. ''It was only later I learned how Mrs. Olsen had come to Noreen, said she had met our daughter's child. That foolish Olsen woman thought she needed to tell this tarnished young man the truth—tell a bastard born of sin the truth. Stupid woman. B.J. was supposed to convince Mrs. Olsen she was wrong. From what I understand, he was unable to do so, and she had to die.''

  Jeff leaned forward. ''
From what you understand?
Do you have any idea what he did to that woman?''

  Rankin shrank back in his chair. ''Noreen kept the details from me. I didn't want to know, anyway. The images of death and sin might have tarnished my next sermon.''

  ''Yeah, you wouldn't want that, would you?'' Jeff leaned back again, chewing hard on his gum.

  ''Tell me about Sara,'' I said. ''How did you find her after she ran away?''

  ''We hired detectives. We were certain that once she knew Lawrence had killed someone she would accept our plan. We could place her in a home for . . . for girls in her condition and then she would return to us afterward.''

  ''Where and when did you find Sara?'' I asked.

  ''If I recall, Noreen found her right after the black boy had been sent to jail.''

  
Right after Lawrence, the first evil, had been purged,
I thought.

  He went on, ''She was in a shelter in Dallas, living like a street person with other harlots.''

  ''You picked her up?'' asked Jeff. He kept his tone even, but a muscle in his jaw was tight with tension.

  ''Noreen and Olive went.''

  ''Your sister's name is Olive Rankin?'' I asked.

  ''Yes. Have you met her?'' He smiled the smarmy smile he seemed to have reserved for me. He simply had no clue how serious this all was and probably thought God had another plan to get him out of this mess.

  ''Remember? I was introduced in the library,'' I said.

  ''That's right. Olive is an absolute saint. Helped Noreen take Sara to a . . . place of confinement.''

  ''A home for unwed mothers?'' I asked.

  ''No. Sara wouldn't agree to that. She wasn't right in the head after being touched by so much evil. She kept saying she was going to marry the black boy, and we kept telling her he was in jail, that God had protected her by sending him away. She wouldn't believe it.''

  ''You said she wasn't right in her head. Did they take her to a psychiatric hospital?''

  ''No, no, no. They keep records. We chose a wilderness camp, one I'd heard about from a parishioner. With their counseling, we thought she'd have time to reflect on her mistakes.''

  ''You sent a pregnant sixteen-year-old to
wilderness camp?
Did her counseling include prenatal care?'' I asked.

  Rankin looked down at the table. ''Olive had to go get her in September. That's when we learned she was sick, might be lost to us forever. Her sins had caught up to her.''

  ''What was wrong?'' Jeff asked.

  ''A blood pressure problem. After the bastard child was born, Noreen and I were certain we'd done the right thing, put the black boy father in the right place. It was his fault Sara became ill. And God made sure that through us, he was punished. You must understand, that after our arrangement with B.J., the help we'd given him to elude the police, we couldn't tell the truth about exactly how we lost Sara, couldn't tell anyone.''

  ''But . . . she's alive,'' I said. ''I saw her.''

  Jeff looked at me, confused. ''You did?''

  ''At the cabin. You didn't?''

  ''There was the nurse's aide and a lady with a walker—looked like she had a stroke. Couldn't seem to talk. That's
her
?''

  ''That's Sara.'' I looked Rankin in the eye. ''Not totally
lost,
huh, Pastor?''

  He hung his head.

  Instead of saying, ''You make me sick,'' like I wanted to, I opted for, ''I need some aspirin.''

  As I left I heard Jeff move on to questions about Noreen's death. I didn't need to relive those events right now, so I was glad to be gone.

  DeShay, who'd been watching through the two-way mirror, had water and aspirin waiting when I came out. ''I thought you might need this. You took a good crack to the head tonight, I hear.''

  ''Thanks, DeShay.'' I gulped down the pills and water. ''Now can someone take me home?''

26

Once I was sitting on my couch with Diva in my lap, I ate my way through a pint of Cherry Garcia ice cream while reflecting on all that had happened in so short a time. The truth Will and I sought when he and his family came to me for answers turned out to be far messier than we could have ever imagined. Although I wanted to say mission accomplished, I decided the word ''mission'' might be forever banned from my vocabulary. Besides, two innocent people were still imprisoned. Sara Rankin was in jail just like Lawrence, a prison without bars, but no less horrible.

  I checked my watch. Past midnight. Will wasn't due back from camp until the day after tomorrow, and I didn't want to wake his parents. But Burl? He was a cop, used to late calls. He'd want to know what had gone down tonight, and I was too wired to sleep. I spent the first fifteen minutes of the call summarizing tonight's drama.

  ''Verna Mae did this to herself,'' Burl said when I was done. '' 'Course if she went and got another kid like she tried to do, we'd never know they got the wrong guy up in Huntsville.''

  ''I didn't know she tried to get another baby,'' I said.

  ''Neither did I until today. I've been asking questions around town since the day you and I met, trying to figure out what I missed back then. Found a woman who once worked with Jasper, and she told me he got pissed off royal because they paid some huge private adoption fee a year after the kid was left on their doorstep and Verna Mae backed out of the deal at the last minute.''

  ''Maybe she originally took money from the Rankins so she could get another baby. Then, when she got cold feet, she fixated on Will.''

  ''Makes sense. I sure hope Lawrence Washington will be freed.''

  ''What do you mean? We know what happened that night. He's innocent.''

  ''You got the preacher's confession, but you better hope Byron Thompson pulls through and tells the truth.''

  ''We have his gun, Burl. We know the same weapon was used to kill both Amanda Mason and Verna Mae.''

  ''Pray the gun B.J. used tonight was the
right
gun. Then your friend Jeff will have something to take to a judge. Tough to get out of jail in Texas, Abby. Even if you're as innocent as a fresh-laid egg.''

  ''They
have
to let him out,'' I said. But I knew he was right. I could recall more than one case where the courts dragged their feet for nearly a year, even after DNA proved the men weren't rapists.

  ''That's why hard evidence, carefully collected and preserved, is so important,'' he said.

  ''You've taught me a lot about evidence on this case. Frustrated the hell out of me a few times, though. I can tell you this, when Lawrence walks out of jail, I want to give him that blanket. Think you could hand it over then?''

  He laughed. ''Sure.''

  We chatted a few more minutes about Lucinda and his boys before I hung up. I was almost tired, until I saw what I looked like after I faced the bathroom mirror. What a wake-up call. I had streaks of dried blood down my neck that had stained my collar, and my lip was still swollen from the storage unit fire. I looked like I'd been in a bar fight.

  I began to carefully separate strands of hair looking for the cut, but the blood had clumped and hardened, and I was afraid to probe more for fear of making my head bleed again. This was a job for Kate. In the morning.

  Jeff called me early, seven a.m. to be exact, and gave me an update. Olive had been taken into custody for questioning, and after an evaluation by a Health and Human Services caseworker, Sara had been sent to the hospital. If Olive cooperated, she might not be charged as an accessory to murder. Ironically, all three hospitalized people—Thaddeus, Sara and B.J.—were in the same place, though Jeff told me B.J. would be moved to the jail infirmary when his condition improved. If he'd confessed to anything, Jeff hadn't heard. He advised me to call Mark Whitley, a defense lawyer, as soon as Whitley's office opened. Lawrence would need counsel to help get him out of prison.

  Even before Kate arrived, I'd decided I needed her assistance with more than just my head wound. I wanted her to go with me to visit Sara Rankin. When Kate arrived with salves and ointments in a little makeup bag, I put in my request. She made some calls and rearranged her schedule to make time this morning.

  While my sister carefully washed blood out of my hair, I provided a more detailed, but still modified, version of what happened last night. She didn't need to know how close I'd come to getting myself killed. By the time I was finished with my summary, I discovered I liked the version I told her, the one where I was in complete control from the minute I was taken from that log cabin—playing B.J. for the fool he was.

  If Kate didn't believe me, she never let on. She carefully treated the cut once she was done with shampooing and said I'd have a scar, but she didn't think I needed stitches. No problem. One more scar for my collection.

  I dressed in lightweight jeans and a yellow camp shirt, not as attractive as Kate's pale blue linen shirt and matching slacks, but comfortable. I was a little sore after the head butting and tackling I'd done last night, but surprisingly not tired.

  We left for the hospital with Kate at the wheel. She had to drive, since my car was in police impound. Kate's office is in the Medical Center, and she was the better choice to find the ever-elusive parking place anyway.

  We got lucky and found a space on the third floor of the hospital garage, then made our way through throngs of visitors and medical personnel and took the elevator to the neurology floor, where Sara Rankin had been admitted for evaluation. When we arrived at her doorway, a slew of white coats surrounded her bed—doctors' rounds going on, I assumed. We couldn't even see Sara, there were so many of them.

  An older black woman with mottled gray hair looked down at a clipboard and said, ''This patient is unusual, suffered a toxemia of pregnancy neurological event, most certainly a stroke, nearly twenty years ago. What's rare is that she may have never had an evaluation or follow-up care. From what her longtime caretaker reported to the police, the patient was in a coma for several months postdelivery, has been aphasic and was never rehabbed. We'll be transferring her to a rehabilitation facility after our evaluation is complete. Moving on, ladies and gentlemen . . .''

  The woman looked up from her clipboard as the interns and residents began to file past us. ''You family?'' she asked.

  ''Um, no. But I was hired by family to find this woman.'' My eyes were on Sara. She wore one of those awful, hang-off-your-shoulders gowns, and though she was now thirty-five years old, she looked like a terrified child. Her walker was in a corner, far from her reach.

  Sara stared at me. Her slack jaw and weakened facial muscles couldn't hide the perceptiveness I saw in those eyes.

  ''Oh,'' the doctor said. ''You're the detective. A police sergeant called and told me you'd be coming. She may not be able to communicate well, but she understands everything you say. Talk to her. She could use some friends.''

  The woman then hustled after her pack of interns.

  Kate was already at the bedside. She picked up one of Sara's hands and said, ''I'm Dr. Rose, a clinical psychologist. Can my sister and I talk to you, tell you why you've been brought here?''

  Sara looked at Kate with questioning eyes, then at me.

  ''Remember me? You saw me through the window last night. I'm Abby.''

  Sara nodded slowly. A yes.

  Kate, still holding onto Sara's hand, dragged over a nearby chair using her foot. She sat down. ''Things have happened over the years, Sara. Things you probably know nothing about. My sister knows all of it, though, and we want to tell you what she's learned. Some of what you hear may be very difficult. I'm here to support you through that. If you're not ready, let us know somehow.''

  She made a sound then, a combination groan-grunt, almost like she was in pain. She lifted her free hand with effort. Though her hand was limp, I knew she was pointing at me. And then came her first words, slurred but understandable. ''You. Tell.''

  ''That's why I came,'' I said with a smile, pulling over a plastic chair to sit next to Kate. ''Do you remember Lawrence?''

  Sara rolled her head left away from us, squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Then she used her hand to make an L and rested the fingers against her heart.

  Unexpected tears sprung to my eyes. Kate's tears were already slipping down her cheeks.

  ''You know he's in prison?'' I said.

  She nodded.

  ''And that he's innocent?''

  Another nod, stronger this time.

  ''We'll get him out. We have proof now, but it may take time,'' I said.

  She closed her eyes, hit her finger-made L against her chest several times.