Dead to the World (19 page)
Authors: Susan Rogers Cooper
2004–2014
Eddy got caught when he was sixteen stealing a car. He ended up in juvie until his eighteenth birthday. Upon release, his sister Darlene picked him up and took him back to her apartment in Biloxi. His parents had gotten a divorce while he was inside and Mom was shacked up with a guy only slightly older than Eddy, and dear old Dad had turned into a serious drunk, living in and out of halfway houses. So it was Darlene who gave him solace, who nurtured him and took care of him, feeding him and housing him while he sat around and did nothing but play video games, the more violent the better.
No one but Darlene knows if she ever really reacted to her little brother’s penchant for violence. Maybe because he never used it against her, she really didn’t care. Who knew?
In 2008, Darlene, with Eddy in tow, moved to Houston, Texas, following on the heels of the only man who’d ever paid much attention to her. Eddy knew this guy had no romantic interest in his sister, not even a purely sexual interest, but he didn’t let it bother him. In fact, nothing that didn’t affect Eddy directly ever bothered him. He was like his grandfather in that respect. And, as it turned out, in other respects as well.
Being in the state of Texas brought to Eddy’s mind his father’s story of the town of Peaceful and the old Victorian on Post Oak Street. He wondered sometimes, when trying to fall asleep, what the treasure might be, and if it truly existed. But Dad had said his father was adamant, that he knew for a fact there was a treasure in the old house, and that’s why Grandpa’s older brother had married that Bishop girl in the first place, to get his hands on the treasure and keep Grandpa Edgar from it.
This pissed Eddy off. If Grandpa Edgar had been able to get hold of that treasure way back when, how different could Eddy’s life be now? Way different, he figured. He’d be one of those boys he hated so much at school – the ones born with the silver spoons in their mouths. But Eddy would have been better than those guys – mainly because he was way smarter to start with – and by now he could be a multimillionaire, maybe even a billionaire. Maybe he could
invent
video games instead of just playing them, and his would be way better than any of the ones he played now. Ha! He thought. Maybe
real
violence! Like snuff films he could turn into games. He liked the thought of that, and the thought of all the more money he could make – if he just had that treasure to start with.
These thoughts nagged at him so hard day in and day out that, three years after moving to Houston, Eddy stole a hundred dollars from Darlene’s purse, grabbed her keys and her car, bought a map and headed to Peaceful, Texas.
BACK HOME
T
he kids got back to the Pugh house a little after six. Holding hard to Bess’s hand, Logan turned to the other two and asked, ‘Can y’all figure out something for dinner without Bess?’
‘Of course,’ Alicia said, while Megan said, ‘Not any worse than if she was here.’
‘Why?’ Bess asked, not letting go of Logan’s hand, but looking up at him with a slight frown.
Looking down at her, a small smile playing across his lips, he said, ‘Because I thought maybe it would be OK if you came home with me for dinner. What do you think?’
‘What would your mother say?’ Bess asked, terrified of the idea.
‘I already called her, when y’all were getting the car at the hospital. She said that would be great. She really wants to meet you.’
Bess gulped in air. ‘Oh,’ was all she could think of to say.
‘Go for it!’ Megan said.
‘Definitely,’ Alicia agreed, smiling. She stopped smiling when her cell phone rang and she saw the caller ID. Turning her back on the others she said, ‘What?’ into the phone.
‘Hey,’ Graham said.
‘What do you want?’ Alicia demanded.
‘I think we need to talk,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the Dairy Queen for dinner?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Some place more expensive.’
‘Hey, I’m just a poor student, you know,’ Graham said.
‘Then maybe you should stop going to the movies,’ Alicia said with some heat.
There was silence on the other end of the line. ‘Diego’s,’ he said, naming one of the fancier Mexican restaurants in town. ‘Half an hour.’
‘Maybe,’ Alicia said. ‘Or maybe not.’
She came back to the group who’d been standing around staring at her. ‘Who was that?’ Megan asked.
‘Your brother,’ Alicia said. ‘He wants to talk.’
‘Oh, shit,’ Megan said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Bess rubbed Alicia’s arm. ‘Me, too,’ she said.
Alicia shook them both off. ‘No biggie,’ she said. ‘It is what it is.’ She took the keys to the minivan from Megan’s fingertips. ‘Looks like you’re on your own for dinner, Megs,’ she said and walked to the minivan, which was blocking Logan’s car and would have to be moved anyway.
‘You want to come with us?’ Bess asked Megan, hoping her sister would say yes. She wasn’t sure she was up to meeting the parents. She’d heard stories … lots and lots of stories. Most of them not turning out so well.
‘Are you kidding?’ Megan said. ‘You forget you never did eat your leftover steak, nor did you throw it away.’ She grinned. ‘Dinner!’ And with that she turned and walked into the house.
Bess and Logan moved onto the grass as Alicia backed the minivan out of the driveway, then Logan walked her to the shotgun side of the car and opened the door for her. She crawled in while he went around and got in the driver’s side. Life as she knew it was about to change. For her and Alicia both.
Willis and I ducked down, Willis grabbing the chief’s legs and dragging him away from the door. I grabbed the chief’s gun from its holster and held it
Cagney & Lacey
style. Willis took it out of my hand. ‘The safety’s on,’ he said, with a look on his face indicating he thought I was a ninny. Under the circumstances I let it slide.
‘Give me my goddam gun!’ Chief Cotton said, using one arm to rise himself from the second-floor balcony.
‘You right-handed or left-handed?’ Willis asked, noticing that he was favoring his right arm, the one dripping blood all over the place.
‘I’m a south-paw, now give me my goddam gun!’ Willis handed it to him butt first and the chief said, ‘Now stand me up.’
Willis got him to a standing position and I took a look at his arm. ‘We need to call an ambulance,’ I said.
‘In a minute!’ he said, irritated. Again, under the circumstances, who could blame him for a little irritation? ‘They still in there?’ he asked.
‘Nobody’s moved,’ I said.
‘Is there a back door to these places?’ Willis asked.
‘Probably not,’ the chief said. ‘They put these up in about a week, week and a half tops. Cheap shit like this don’t usually have extra doors, do they?’
‘Probably not,’ Willis said.
The chief, gun in front of him in a one-handed stance (personally I prefer the two-handed
Cagney & Lacey
style, but he did have one arm out of commission), headed back toward Mary Mays’ front door. Standing to the side and leaning against the wall he called out, ‘Mary! You need to come out, hon! Ain’t no need for this. Who’s in there with you? I know you didn’t shoot at me, girl, so you’re OK. Somebody’s making you do this, right, hon? I know this ain’t your style. You’re a good girl, always have been. This is just a little hiccup, so to speak. We’ll get it worked out. But whoever’s in there with you needs to put down their gun and come out with their hands up. You tell them to do that, OK, Mary, girl?’
‘Shut up, you old fool!’ came a male voice. Then another shot came through the now closed front door.
‘Mary, you OK?’ the chief called out. ‘I’m worried about you, girl. Whoever this asshole is, if he’s willing to shoot at me, what’s he gonna do to you? Answer me that!’
‘Chief, go away!’ Mary called out. ‘Just leave us be!’
‘Who is this guy’s got you so wrapped up, honey? Your mama and daddy know about this? You know it’s gonna crush ’em. You don’t wanna do this!’
There was a shouted but feminine ‘No!’ from inside the apartment, sounds of a struggle, then silence. Gingerly the chief pushed open the door. Mary Mays lay on the floor, her head bleeding. When the chief, with gun drawn, checked out the one bedroom in the back of the apartment, he saw a window open wide, the screen gone, and a man running full tilt down the street.
2012–2014
Eddy was not charmed by the beauty of Peaceful, Texas. In fact, he hardly noticed it. He found a cheap motel on the outskirts of town and, after depositing his one piece of luggage, got back in the car and drove by the house on Post Oak Street. To a boy raised in a two-bedroom duplex, the old Victorian was huge. He wondered how in the world he was going to be able to search the whole place. There definitely was an attic – he could see that just by looking. And maybe there was a basement, too. He knew people didn’t go in for basements too much in the South, but a house this old and this big … maybe this was the exception.
But he couldn’t just sit in his parked car outside the house indefinitely. Someone – like a nosy neighbor – could get suspicious. So he drove on and decided to treat himself to lunch at the Dairy Queen. Once inside, he noticed a woman looking at him. Unfortunately for him, that woman was in uniform – a police uniform. He tried not to look her way, although it was his tendency to check out good-looking women whenever possible, and this one was a real knock-out, even in her bulky uniform. He couldn’t help wondering what she might look like out of it, but then he wondered that about most every women he encountered – fat, thin, young, and sometimes even old.
He was sitting there minding his own business, chomping down on his D-Q Dude, when the woman ambled over to him. ‘Hi. Haven’t seen you around before,’ she said.
Eddy looked up. ‘Just visiting,’ he said, wondering if he was going to have to take off before he even saw the inside of the house.
Then she smiled at him and he immediately recognized it. She wasn’t interested in him as a possible threat to peaceful Peaceful, she was interested in him like a woman to a man. He smiled back.
They hooked up that night at his motel. After she left – he found out she lived with her parents and had to get home before they noticed she was gone – he drove his car a block down Post Oak Street from the old Victorian and walked down to what should have been his family home. It was late, way past midnight, and the street was empty, lights off in the houses he passed. There were a few porch lights blazing, and a streetlight, but it was half a block away from the old Victorian, leaving it in shadow. He found his way into the yard and began a slow progress around the house. He knew what the outside of a basement door should look like, but didn’t see one in his perusal of the house and grounds. He ignored or didn’t even notice the well-kept grounds with its flowers and trees – not that he could have seen much in the dark even if he so desired. He was almost to the back door, up on the porch, ready to try the door, when the porch light came on and the door swung open, revealing an old lady in her nightclothes. She opened her mouth as if to scream, then stopped, her eyes big.
‘Daddy?’ she asked.
Maybe a bit quicker on the uptake than his old man – taking more after Grandpa Edgar – Eddy said, ‘Hush, honey. Go back to bed.’
And Miss Hutchins, sure she was dreaming, did exactly that.
W
illis used his cell phone to call an ambulance for both the chief and Mary Mays. She was unconscious and her head wound was bleeding like – well, a head wound. I found a dish towel that I held to her head while we awaited the ambulance. The chief was sitting on the floor, next to Mary’s body, shaking his head.
‘Can’t believe she’s mixed up in this!’ He looked at me, a pitiful expression on her face. ‘She did real good at the academy. Top of her class.’
‘Whoever this guy is, it’s all his fault,’ I soothed.
‘Well, yeah, of course. But I thought Mary was smarter than fallin’ for some jerk-weed bad boy!’ he said, again shaking his head.
‘Did you get a look at him?’ I asked.
‘Naw, just the back of him,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t even tell how tall he was from up here. Not fat’s about the only thing I’m sure of.’
Willis, who had been out on the balcony that surrounded the second floor, stuck his head inside. ‘Ambulance is here,’ he said.
I helped the chief to stand up. ‘Hope she’s gonna be OK,’ he said, looking down at his officer. ‘She’s a good girl. Really.’
‘I’m sure she is,’ I said in a more patronizing tone than I’d intended. Considering the way she’d treated Willis and me lately, and the fact that she might be involved in the deaths of Diamond Lovesy and Humphrey Hammerschultz, I doubted she was
that
good a girl. I was thinking she was a stone-cold bitch – but I didn’t mention my opinion to the chief.
The ambulance attendants came up with the gurney and, after checking out Mary Mays, got her on it and out onto the balcony and down the stairs to the waiting bus. The chief was right behind them, holding tightly to the railing of the stairs. Willis was already down, waiting by the ambulance, as I came down after the chief. I saw the chief hand Willis a ring of keys.
‘Take my squad car back to the shop, OK?’ he said. ‘I’ll get a ride back after they patch me up.’
Willis nodded, patted Chief Cotton on his good arm and helped him into the back of the ambulance, where he sat down next to the stretcher that carried Mary Mays. I almost felt bad about Mary, seeing the look on the chief’s face. He looked ten years older than he had when we first met, and very, very sad.
Willis and I headed back upstairs to Mary’s apartment. The chief was otherwise occupied – both physically and mentally – and obviously hadn’t even thought about securing the scene or getting a forensic team in to check it out. Not that he actually had a team – there’d been that one lady with the bag at the Bishop’s Inn when we’d found Humphrey, and I’d seen the same lady at the scene of Diamond’s murder.
‘Maybe we should call the station and get that forensic woman out here,’ I suggested to Willis.
He nodded, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and went to the balcony to put in the call. I headed into the bedroom. If there was anything left of Mary’s ‘bad boy,’ I figured this was where I’d find it. And there was. Trying not to touch anything, I went back into the kitchen, found some tongs in a bowl of kitchen tools on the stove top and took them back into the bedroom with me, using them to move away scattered clothing. Some of the items were definitely larger than Mary’s clothes and looked more like those of a man than a woman. And there were male toiletries in the bathroom. I’m not sure what that told me other than the ‘bad boy’ was indeed shacking up with Mary, but I’d already figured that.
Willis came back in. ‘That old lady at the station—’
‘Mildred,’ I supplied.
‘Whatever. She kept bugging me to tell her what happened, but I didn’t!’ he said, like a little boy proud of his first major accomplishment. ‘She did say she’d send the forensic woman out, but kept insisting I tell her why I was calling instead of the chief.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘That he asked me to call,’ Willis said, and grinned. I hoped he was finally beginning to understand my penchant for things mysterious. Changing the subject, he asked, ‘What did you find?’
I shook my head. ‘Not much. A guy’s been living here, all right. There’s men clothes in the bedroom and a few toiletries in the bathroom, but nothing of any significance.’
Willis frowned. ‘Were they all new?’ he asked. ‘Because we found the same crap in Miss Hutchins’ attic.’
My eyes got wide and I grinned at my clever husband. ‘You’re right!’ I said. ‘Let’s go see.’
There were a couple of shirts hanging in the closet with the tags still on them, and all the toiletries, when lifted with the tongs, seemed fairly full. Willis borrowed the tongs to open the only drawer in the bathroom. And there, staring up at us – if it had eyes, which of course, it didn’t – was the sheathed straight-razor that Mary Mays was supposed to have fingerprinted.
There was no noise, just possibly a shadow passing between the bedroom light and Willis and me still in the bathroom. That was the only thing that made me turn around. When I did, I grabbed Willis’s arm. There was a man standing there, pointing a gun at us. I had no doubt this was Mary Mays’ bad boy. Surprisingly, though, he looked like the same guy who’d been in the picture with Diamond Lovesy, and the same guy Miss Hutchins had called ‘daddy.’
‘So,’ I said, putting on a braver face than I felt, ‘you’re Miss Hutchins’ daddy, huh? You’re kinda young.’
He grinned at me. ‘Not for a ghost, huh?’ he said.
‘You look pretty substantial to me,’ Willis said.
‘Oh, I am. Substantial enough to blow a hole through the both of you!’
‘You’re Edgar Hutchins’ grandson, right?’ I said.
The grin left his face and he frowned at me. ‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.
‘Who else could you be? You’re too young to be his son. The family resemblance, the destroyed pictures so no one would know about that resemblance, Miss Hutchins seeing you all those times and believing you were her father. Personally,’ I said, ‘I don’t believe in ghosts, so I figured it had to be a relative. Especially when we found a picture of you with Diamond Lovesy. What was your connection to her?’
‘She was my half-sister. And that stupid name is one she made up. Her real name was Darlene Winslow. My daddy gave her his name, although she wasn’t really his kid. And he never let her forget it, either,’ he said with a grin.
‘So your name is Winslow?’ Willis asked. ‘Not Hutchins?’
‘Ol’ Grandpa Edgar changed his name when he came out of the Philippines,’ he said. ‘Least, that’s what my daddy told me. Actually named me after the old coot. They call me Eddy. But ol’ Edgar went AWOL, so he couldn’t very well use the Hutchins name now could he?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re doing here,’ I said. ‘Why are you harassing the old lady? What’s in it for you? I can’t see you doing anything that doesn’t profit you somehow.’
The grin was back on his face. It was a lovely grin, full of straight, pearly white teeth and a dimple in his left cheek – just no sparkle in the eyes. Actually, there wasn’t much of anything in those eyes. No spark, no shine, no depth, no life. They were as cold as the proverbial witch’s tit.
‘Profit? I guess you can say that. I don’t mind telling y’all, since you’re going to be dead in a few minutes anyway. It’s a treasure. Real treasure. No fooling around.’
‘Is that what all the banging around has been about?’ Willis asked. ‘By the way, what were you dragging down the hall Saturday night? Sounded like something heavy.’
‘Oh? Y’all heard that? Sorry to wake you,’ he said, the grin even wider than before. ‘It was an old chest. Had a strong lock on it. Figured if I tried to get it open up in the attic I’d be heard. So I dragged it outside and into my car. Opened it up there. It wasn’t all that heavy.’
‘No treasure inside?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Just some old clothes. Mary, the dumb ass, said they were worth a mint – real vintage, she said. But who in their right mind would buy old clothes?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ I said.
‘So what happened to Humphrey?’ Willis asked.
Eddy shrugged. ‘That asshole! Darlene – Diamond to you – knew about the treasure I was after and told Humphrey. For some reason she thought he was her true love. He couldn’t see her for nothing. Actually, I think he was more interested in me than her. But he’s the one who got her into this whole psychic scam bullshit and made some decent money. I told her I knew where we could get some real money and she could dump his fat ass. But then she told him!’ He frowned. ‘The bitch! She was supposed to be on my side, but she goes and tells that dipshit!’
‘That must have been annoying,’ I said, edging closer to the drawer where the straight-razor still resided in its sheath. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, especially up against a gun, but it was the only thing I could think of.
‘Annoying shit!’ he said vehemently. ‘That SOB thought he could bargain with me. Came up with this plan of him and Darlene getting into the house and helping me look for it. Like he was gonna
share
the treasure with me when he found it! I’ve been in and out of this house for months. I know where everything is! Still, I didn’t mind helping Darlene a bit at first – not enough to bother me, mind – then that stupid Hammerschultz gets stinking drunk and I go downstairs in the middle of the night and he’s all, “When I find it, I’m keeping it, asshole, and you and your sister can shove it.” So I grabbed him and sorta twisted his head. Didn’t really mean to kill him,’ he said. Then he grinned again. ‘But it sure made a neat popping sound when I broke his neck.’
I thought I was going to throw up in my mouth. This guy was one of the sickest people I’d met – and in my hobby of finding killers, I’d met a few true sickos. But this one took the cake. ‘You moved the chest
after
you killed him?’
‘Well, I was gonna get him to help me, but when he said what he said …’
‘So you’re the one who wrote the reservation in Miss Hutchins’ book?’
He said nothing, just grinned at me.
‘And then you shot your own sister?’ I asked.
He straightened his shoulders and got an indignant look on his face. ‘Hell, no! That’s family! You don’t kill your kin.’ He stopped and thought about it, then said, ‘Mostly. But no, I didn’t shoot Darlene. Ol’ Mary Mays did that. Darlene was really pissed about Humphrey and she asked me to meet her to talk, but I was busy, so I sent Mary. And Darlene’s all shook up, tells Mary she’s gonna turn us both in for killing Humphrey, and get this, Mary says she said, “the love of her life!” That squirrely old fag!’ He laughed out loud. ‘She wasn’t joking, though. And she shook Mary up so much that she just lost it and shot her.’ He shrugged. ‘I had nothing to do with that.’
‘Why did you come back here?’ Willis asked him.
‘To the apartment, you mean?’
Willis nodded.
‘Well, there was Mary – before she grew a fuckin’ conscience and wanted to confess everything. But then I saw them take the policeman away in the ambulance. Thought you two would be long gone. I just needed one little thing. If you wouldn’t mind, lady, open that drawer behind you and hand me that thing in the red velvet bag.’
‘You mean your straight-razor?’ I asked, doing as he said. But I didn’t hand it to him. Instead, I hefted it in my hand. ‘Family heirloom?’ I asked.
‘Guess so,’ he said. ‘It was Grandpa Edgar’s. Now hand it over.’
‘Put down the gun,’ came a voice from behind us.
Eddy whirled around to stare at the forensic lady standing there with her bag in her hand. She held no weapon, so he shot her. Luckily, he wasn’t a very good shot and the bullet only grazed her, but my husband, bless him, took that opportunity to jump into action and managed to knock Eddy to the ground, pushing the gun away. I grabbed it while Willis continued to knock Eddy around a bit. I really didn’t blame him – I mean, we were both pretty high on adrenaline.