Dead Weight (8 page)

Willis and Tom made arrangements for Tom to go into Codderville the next morning and see about getting Berta out on her own recognizance, or have Willis and me post bail. There went my new two-seater.

Finally, around five a.m., we were able to fall into bed. Even though he had eventually managed to get on my side in the stand-off with Luna, he still wasn’t speaking to me. Which was OK since I was too tired for a coherent answer.

By eight, Willis was up and getting dressed for work.

‘Honey, come back to bed,’ I said. ‘You didn’t get any sleep!’

‘And whose fault is that?’ he said, pulling on a Polo shirt. Every day is casual Friday in Willis-world.

‘Screw you,’ I said, and nestled under the covers and closed my eyes.

The next time they opened it was to the noise in the kitchen, just beyond my bedroom door. I gingerly got out of bed and waddled to the door to take a peek.

Graham was dressed and ready for his summer job (working concession at the Movies Six in Codderville), and just sitting down to a bowl of cold cereal. Bess was warming a bran muffin (she actually eats them like they taste good – you can certainly tell she’s not my biological child), and dressed for her summer job (working retail at a dress shop in the white rock mall here in Black Cat Ridge). Alicia was drinking orange juice and eating an apple (again, not my biological child, obviously), and dressed for her summer job (interning at the D.A.’s office in Codderville), while Megan was just sitting down to a platter of eggs, bacon and two donuts, and still wearing her nightclothes (yes, my biological child).

‘Too much noise,’ I said through the crack in the door.

Graham looked up. ‘You sick?’ he inquired, milk and cornflakes visible when he spoke.

‘Yes!’ I said and slammed the door.

I awoke again at the ringing of the phone. I ignored it. Five minutes later Megan came into the room.

‘Mom, that was Mrs McClure. She wants me over there and she’s coming over here. I have to get dressed and I would suggest you do the same,’ my darling daughter said.

‘Excuse me?’ I said, in my most haughty mother-getting-uppity voice.

‘It’s just a suggestion!’ she said and left the room in a huff.

I was not in a good mood. I require a full eight hours of sleep to become, once again, a human being. Give me less than that and the result is not pretty. I was sitting on the edge of the bed contemplating my feet when I heard Megan shout out from the front door, ‘Mom, I’m leaving!’

I nodded my agreement and thought again of standing up. Before that thought could go from my brain to my feet, the doorbell rang, I heard the door open and Trisha say, ‘E.J., you in your room? I’m coming back!’

And she followed the word with the deed. I looked up to see her standing at the door to my bedroom. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

And well she might. Standing before me was a cute little woman, blonde hair curled and combed, face painted and plucked, and clothes just so. Standing before her was a not-so-cute bigger woman, with newly colored red hair standing straight up in every direction, face still wrinkled from the sheet creases, and only one button functioning on ten-year-old flannel pajamas.

‘Willis and Luna were waiting for Berta and me when we walked in last night,’ I told her.

‘Oh, shit!’ she said, and came to sit down on the bed. ‘What happened?’

‘It wasn’t pretty,’ I said. ‘Bottom line, Luna arrested her and she’s now in lock-up. Your husband is supposed to be trying to get her out.’

‘He is?’ she said, eyebrows arched.

‘He didn’t tell you?’ I asked.

‘Tom doesn’t tell me about his clients. He considers even their identify privileged.’

I contemplated the thought of a man keeping his mouth shut. Amazing.

‘E.J.?’ Trisha said, breaking my reverie.

‘Huh?’

Trisha sighed and turned toward the door. ‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said.

‘Huh?’

The coffee was strong and hot and it made the agony of putting on clothes worth it. I took the cup in two hands and sat down at the kitchen table, only then realizing that I’d put on my ‘big’ jeans – from before I lost the thirty-five pounds – and not my ‘new’ jeans. As I sat, the butt of the jeans slid down and I ended up sitting on my panties. I was actually quite proud of that.

In a halting, slightly confused and roundabout diatribe, I told Trisha what we’d learned about Berta Harris the night before.

‘So what do we do now?’ Trisha asked.

‘Umm,’ I said.

‘E.J., that’s not an answer,’ Trisha said.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, holding the coffee mug tightly. ‘What time is it?’

‘Ten o’clock,’ she said.

‘What’s the temp?’

Trisha shook her head. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘How bad?’ I asked. Along with the drought, we’d been having record-breaking high temps with so far this summer thirty days of plus-one-hundred-degrees temperatures.

‘Ninety-two,’ she said quietly.

I said a very bad word.

Trisha stood up. ‘Come on, let’s go to the police station. See what Tom’s doing about getting Berta out of jail.’

She grabbed an arm and pulled. I reluctantly stood up.

MEGAN

I saw Mom and Mrs McClure pull out of the driveway in Mrs McClure’s car, one of those Toyota hybrids that are really cute and, you know, save the earth and stuff. As soon as they were gone, I set the girls (Tabitha and Tamara, btw) down in front of the TV to watch
Sponge Bob
, and walked casually into Mrs McClure’s bedroom. In the original book written for babysitters everywhere, it is not only OK but a downright requirement that you check out the lady of the house’s jewelry box and underwear drawer. You don’t actually
take
anything, for gawd’s sake – it’s just what one does.

Mrs McClure had a dressing table with a rolling stool in front of it that was padded and had a ruffled skirt. It was rose colored to match the walls and bedspread. On top of it was an obvious jewelry box and two smaller Asian-looking round china boxes, and some perfume and cologne bottles. I only sprayed a couple of the cologne bottles because I didn’t want her to smell it and think I’d been riffling through her stuff. The smaller of the two china boxes held costume jewelry earrings. Some really cute, some old-lady-looking. The larger box held an assortment of junk: fingernail stuff – emery files, cuticle sticks, scissors, etc. – key rings, and an ornate, old-fashioned key attached to a bejeweled key ring. The jewelry box – the big wooden one – looked like a miniature hutch or whatever you call that thing in the dining room that holds china and stuff. The two doors on either side of the piece held necklaces – long ones with pendants, and short ones with pearls and diamonds and stuff. This box, I think, was where she kept the good stuff. The top you lifted up and it showed a velvet ring holder thingy with some really,
really
nice rings – like diamonds and rubies and stuff. Real expensive. Under that top part were drawers that held bracelets – one tennis bracelet with so many diamonds it made me almost swoon! – and pins and stuff. My mother’s jewelry was nothing like this! She had a diamond in her engagement ring, but it was way less than a karat. I know these things. I think I was born with this knowledge.

Then I moved to her dresser and found her underwear drawer. OMG! Mrs McClure was a slut! There was a teddy with the nipple holes cut out, and panties with the crotch cut out, and – yes, you guessed it! – handcuffs with pink rabbit fur trim! Not only was she a slut, she killed a bunny to further her erotic fantasies! I was flabbergasted. I got on the phone immediately to Azalea and D’Wanda. There was no way I was keeping
this
to myself!

We picked the wrong day to visit the Codderville Police Department. It seems, I gathered from bits and pieces I overheard while waiting for Luna, that CPD had raided a meth lab at the crack of dawn this morning and now had in custody eight guys who were actually there to cook the meth, plus ten women and seventeen children who were asleep in various parts of the house. All except the men were milling about while CPD officials tried to figure out if the women were culpable and, if so, what to do with the children. And the children were what you’d expect from kids raised in a meth house: slightly, but not by much, better behaved than my own.

After an hour of sitting on our butts on a waiting area bench, Luna stuck her head out of a door I knew led to the homicide division and crooked a finger at me. Trisha and I followed like good puppy dogs.

Lt Luna had been upgraded from a desk to an actual office. It was a little smaller than my under-the-stairs-closet-turned-office at home, and, relatively speaking, as or more crowded than the bullpen out front. Luna sat in a big chair behind her desk. There were two visitor’s chairs – in a room that could barely house one – in which sat Tom McClure and Berta Harris. I hugged Berta while Trisha stayed outside, then traded places so Trisha could hug her and glare at her husband.

‘How was I supposed to know she was a friend of yours?’ Tom demanded. Well, actually, it was more pleading than demanding.

‘Are you releasing her?’ I demanded of Luna.

‘And why should I?’ Luna demanded back.

‘Because she’s innocent!’ I said rather loudly. I had pushed my way back into the office and was caught between Luna’s desk and the wall.

Berta leaned forward and patted my hand. ‘It’s OK, E.J. I think we’re working things out,’ she said.

I patted her back. ‘Just don’t trust her!’

Luna gave me a vaguely hurt look and I felt vaguely guilty.

Finally Tom spoke up. At first he tried to stand to speak, but realizing the futility of that gesture, he fell back in his chair and said, ‘Lieutenant Luna and I have worked out a plan.’

‘Hi, E.J.,’ came a voice from outside the office. I turned to see Ken Killian, Sr, Kerry’s husband.

‘Ken!’ I exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Berta called me. She told me everything she knows. I believe her. What about you?’ he asked, obviously seriously wanting to know.

I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I believe her.’

‘Well, isn’t that nice,’ Luna said. ‘Now that we have Pugh’s
approval
, may we please move forward?’

Everyone, including Trisha and myself, nodded.

‘So Berta will be staying at Mr Killian’s house—’

‘What?’ I said, turning quickly to Ken. ‘Ken, are you sure?’

‘We have a guest room—’

‘
And
she will report in daily,’ Luna continued, ‘to me. If she misses a day, we’ll find her and she’ll be locked up again.’

‘Why?’ I demanded.

Luna stood up and leaned on her desk, glaring directly at me. She had more room to stand behind her desk. ‘
Because
we still don’t know
who
this woman is! Or what connection she has to Kerry Killian’s death.’ She looked out the door at Ken. ‘Sorry, Mr Killian. At your request, Pugh, I had Martinez look up Berta Harris’s death certificate, and surprise, surprise, there wasn’t one! Since she made up the name and she isn’t dead!’ This time she shot a look at Berta. Berta shrugged her shoulders. ‘For all we know, this woman could be a mass murderer! An escapee from an asylum! We just don’t know! I could put an ankle bracelet on her, Pugh – would that work better for you?’

I held up my hands in surrender. ‘No, no, this is fine,’ I said. ‘Just fine. May we leave now, Lieutenant?’ I asked sweetly.

‘Please,’ she said, standing tall. ‘Please leave. I’m begging you all.’

We worked our way out of her office then headed through the bullpen, where some of the children had found the crime scene tape and were cordoning off the area near the water fountain.

Five minutes later we were sitting down to ice tea at a diner in Codderville. It was close to the police station and one I’d never been to before. Molly’s Munchies. A brave name, I thought, for something so close to the police station. And it was true to its word. The entire establishment smelled like patchouli and was decorated in Grateful Dead posters and Indian-print bedspreads. It looked and smelled like my dorm room in my freshman year of college. The food items were vegetarian, heavy on the tofu. I’d be coming back, if only to bask in the ambience.

‘Is your husband still mad?’ Berta asked me once we’d been seated.

‘He’ll get over it,’ I assured her. He always did, I’ll give him that. Mostly he was worried for me, but when it involved the kids, like last year, he was happy I knew a little something about what to do.

‘So have you gotten any new memories?’ Trisha asked Berta.

She shook her head. ‘No, none at all. It’s like I was born in that hospital. The day I woke up. If Kerry hadn’t found me . . .’ Her voice trailed off. We were silent, all of us getting real busy putting things in our iced tea – the offerings were packets of raw sugar, a bottle of locally grown honey, and that new ‘natural’ artificial sweetener, Truvia – anything to keep from having to deal with Berta’s pain. Finally Berta said, ‘It’s my fault she’s dead.’

Ken covered Berta’s hand with his own. ‘No, it’s not. It’s the fault of whoever shot her. You didn’t do that. If she hadn’t helped you she would never have been able to live with herself. Kerry was a helper. It’s what she did. The fact that she never told me about you says a lot about my wife,’ Ken said, tears floating in his eyes. ‘We were very close, and she didn’t even tell me about you. That’s how far she went in protecting you.’ He shook his head. ‘She didn’t suspect me or anything, I’m not saying that. But I could have dropped a word or a hint that someone else might have carried to someone else, and so on. Kerry always said a secret wasn’t a secret if you told someone.’

Berta was nodding, her head down. I saw Ken squeeze her hand then place his own back on his side of the table.

‘Maybe if we drive around Codderville you might recognize something. Obviously you don’t really know anything or anyone in Black Cat Ridge,’ I said.

Berta’s head sprang up. ‘No! This is where I was found! This is where the person who wants to kill me is!’

‘She’s right, E.J.,’ Trisha said. ‘We shouldn’t take the chance.’