Final Justice (18 page)

Flinging back the covers, he bounded out of bed to tower over her. His face was red, and his breath was coming in quick, hot gasps, and he kept his fists squeezed tight at his sides. "There's a limit to what a man can take, and you're fast pushing me to mine. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Now get out of here and let me have some peace. I'm dog-assed tired, and I don't need this crap."

Alma stared at him uncertainly. True, he had never hit her, but there was always a first time, and she figured she had made her point, anyway. "You just remember what I said about your bringing home your crud," she said in retreat as she backed toward the door. "And I'm going to tell Tammy not to use the toilet after you till she wipes if off with bleach."

* * *

It was almost ten when Matt called and woke him up the next morning. "We gotta do something about Rudy. His old man called that jack-legged lawyer from Childersburg, Steve Lindsey, and he says you got no right to hold Rudy, and if you don't let him go he says he's calling the attorney general."

Luke was worn out. His whole body ached, and his mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died. "Stall him. Tell him you can't get up with me. Meanwhile, I'll go back to the hospital and see if I can talk to Rudy's wife."

He hung up and went to take a shower, glad Alma had gone to church and he had the house to himself. The bottle of bleach she had left on the back of the commode got him riled all over again, and he angrily shoved out the window screen and threw it in the yard. The woman was going to drive him crazy.

Shaved, showered, and dressed in a uniform fresh from the cleaners, his stomach led him to the kitchen. He made a peanut butter and banana sandwich and wolfed it down on the way to the prowler.

Because it was Sunday afternoon, the hospital parking lot was full.

Ramona Whitley, wearing a pink volunteer smock, was on duty at the visitor's desk. Mrs. Veazey was in Room 110, she said, but both visitors' passes were out. She offered to call the room and have someone come out so he could go in, but Luke said he would try later.

He left by the front door, walked around the side of the building, and reentered the hospital by way of the emergency room. Positioning himself where he could keep an eye on Room 110, he figured the visitors could only be members of Rudy's family and wouldn't stay long. He was right. Within ten minutes, Bertha Veazey came out with her sister, Pinella.

He stepped around a corner so they wouldn't see him and heard Bertha boasting as they passed, "She won't sign no papers on my boy. She knows he'll kill her if she does."

In a husky cigarette voice, Pinella agreed, "Well, I don't think she will, either, but he shouldn't beat up on her like that. He was drunk again, won't he?"

"Well, she drives him to drink, her and her hoity-toity ways, but that's what he gets for not marryin' one of his own kind. And if she don't learn her place, he's gonna keep on beatin' up on her. That's the way men are. Lord knows, Wilbur smacked me around till I got over my sassiness."

"Well, Ernie's hit me a few times, too, but he's done good by me and the kids. We ain't never gone to bed hungry."

The voices faded away. The ignorant prattle disgusted Luke. He had heard it before from other battered wives. He entered the room and was glad the other bed was empty so he could talk to Emma Jean without anyone hearing.

She was laying on her side facing the wall, her back to the door.

"Mrs. Veazey, it's Sheriff Ballard. I know you probably aren't feeling good, but I really need to talk to you."

When she did not respond, he walked around the bed, wincing to see her bruised and swollen face. "I'm sorry about the baby." It seemed the proper thing to say, even if he didn't mean it.

"I'm not."

He saw that the frightened doe eyes of the night before were now red sparks of anger.

"I don't want his baby."

Her face crumpled like paper tossed into a trash can, and her hands snaked from beneath the sheets to cover her eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Please don't tell anybody."

Luke pulled up a chair and sat down. "You don't ever have to worry about anything you tell me. Now I'm going to stick my nose in your business
again,
and tell you
again,
that you ought to leave him and go back to your family. But first I want you to sign a warrant for what he did to you."

"I don't have any family. I don't have anywhere else to go. Rudy is all I've got. And I'm not signing any warrant, so you can leave."

Luke argued, "The warrant will teach him a lesson. He won't go to prison this time, but he'll get a suspended sentence. He's got sense enough to know if it happens again, the judge would throw the book at him."

"He'd kill me."

"I know his mother was just here to scare you into thinking that, but..."

"It was my fault."

"And how do you figure that?"

It was like a dam unleashed, as though she had to hear with her own ears some kind of justification for what had happened, even if it meant taking the blame herself. "We were at the dance in Talladega. I didn't want to go, but Rudy made me. He made me dance with Frank Goforth, and I didn't want to do that, either, because I can't stand the way he looks at me when I go in the supermarket where he's the meat cutter. But Rudy was dancing with Frank's wife, Nina, so I didn't see any way out of it. It was a slow dance, too, which made it worse because Frank danced me into the shadows and started rubbing... ," she trailed to an embarrassed silence.

"It's okay," Luke prodded. "You can tell me anything."

Finally, she went on. "He started rubbing his
thing
against me and kind of hunching at me. Then he whispered that I should meet him in the alley behind the supermarket sometime, so we could sneak into the storage room and have some real fun." Her face twisted with disgust. "He said he'd give me the sirloin between his legs and, afterwards, he'd give me a pound of hamburger for free to take home for supper."

Luke thought that sounded just like Frank Goforth, who fancied himself a lady's man but had all the class of a pig at a trough. "So Rudy saw what was going on and got mad and took it out on you."

"Not exactly. I told him about it on the way home, 'cause I was so mad at Frank, but he said Frank wouldn't have acted like that if I hadn't given him reason to think he could. One thing led to another, and he started hitting me." She bit her lower lip, then winced because it was sore. "I shouldn't have called the law. He didn't hit me in the stomach till after I did."

If Rudy had walked in the room right then, Luke knew he would have pounded him right into the floor and not given a damn as to the consequences. "Sign the warrant, please."

"I can't." She rolled over on her back and stared up at the ceiling. "You just don't understand, sheriff. I'm sorry I bothered you with this, and I'd appreciate it if you'd just go on now. I really don't feel like talking any more."

Either Bertha or Pinela had left their orange visitor's pass on the nightstand next to the bed. Luke picked it up, took a pencil from his pocket, and scribbled both the number of the sheriff's office and his home phone. He stuck it in her hand. "Keep that where you know where it is and call me anytime you need me, day or night."

He could only hope that she didn't throw the numbers away, because if she kept living with Rudy, sooner or later, she was going to need them.

Back at the courthouse, he told Matt to let Rudy go but make sure he left by the back exit because, if he saw his smirking face, he was going to bash it in.

Matt pointed out, "He's going to want to come up here and use the phone to call his old man to come get him."

"He can walk home or use a pay phone on the street. Now if nothing else is going on, I'd like to hide out in my office and catch a nap." He would have preferred his own bed but avoided being around the house when Alma was there, which he knew she would be on a Sunday afternoon.

"Jubal Cochran wants you to call him. He's left two messages."

Jubal had been a big contributor to Luke's campaign, but Luke liked him for reasons beyond that. He was a good man, and Luke felt sorry for him. His wife of forty-some years had died the past week. "He's probably lonesome. If he calls back, tell him I'll drop by later. I'm really bushed, Matt."

"I know. Once I get rid of Rudy, I'm going to take a snooze myself, but I think I'll call Jubal and let him know you'll be around. He sounded upset. Something about Hardy Moon and his wife's funeral."

Luke was careful not to let his sudden interest show. If Jubal had a complaint about Hardy, he damn well wanted to hear it. "Well, maybe I'll take a run over there now."

He was out the door before Matt could ask why he had so abruptly changed his mind.

* * *

Jubal offered what was left of the casseroles and desserts the ladies of his church had brought, but Luke politely declined. The cheese on the broccoli looked like a dirty floor mat, and the pound cake resembled a sour sponge. Besides, he was too anxious to hear what Jubal had to say about Hardy to care about eating.

Jubal settled into his recliner and offered Luke a cigar, which he also declined. Then Jubal lit up his own before explaining what had him upset. "It's about what happened the day Henrietta was buried. Now I know the usual thing is for the family to leave while the grave is filled in and then come back later after the flowers are in place, but I just felt like I wanted to stay with her till she was in the ground. They wouldn't let me, though—Ozzie and Hank. They said Hardy had a rule against it, and he'd have their heads if they covered her up while I was there.

"I said I was staying anyway," he continued, "and Ozzie, he got real huffy and said if I didn't leave that Henrietta would sit right there till I did. They meant it, too. I could tell. So I told 'em to go ahead, and then I made like I was leaving. Only I parked way off down the road and sneaked back."

Luke leaned forward in his chair. "Then what happened?"

"They were too fast. They figured what I was up to and had her buried by the time I got back."

Luke could understand Jubal's disappointment but did not feel he had a legitimate complaint. "I'm sorry, but there's really nothing I can do."

Jubal flared, "Not even about the flowers? And that's just the least of it."

"What about the flowers?" Luke asked patiently.

"When I went back, I saw that some of the ones that were on wire stands had been taken off and put right on the ground. Now you know there was another funeral the day after Henrietta was buried. Bea Canady, remember?"

Luke nodded, wondering what Jubal was leading up to.

Jubal shook his cigar for emphasis as he said, "Well, I'll just bet the stands for Bea's flowers were the same ones taken from Henrietta's grave. I think Hardy had Ozzie and Hank strip off Henrietta's flowers so Lucy could use them on the arrangements for Bea Canady. He has to buy those, you know.

"And that's not the worst part." He lowered his voice to a near whisper. "I think they switched coffins."

Luke tensed. "Why do you say that?"

The corners of Jubal's mouth began to twitch with rage as he recounted how he had looked for Ozzie and Hank to ask them about the flower stands, and when he had gone to the tool shed, thinking they might be in there, he had seen a white pine coffin standing against the wall. "I was curious," he said, "because it was just like the one I picked out for Henrietta, and I remember Hardy telling me at the time that it was the only one he had like that—white pine with lavender lining and a big purple satin bow on the top like a box of candy. I knew Henrietta would have liked it, only I'll bet my last dollar she's not buried in it."

"Now let me get this straight," Luke said carefully. "You're telling me that Hardy only had one coffin like the one you picked out, and you saw what you believe was that very same coffin in the shed after Henrietta was buried?"

"That's right."

"And now you think that's why Ozzie and Hank wouldn't let you stay because they took her out of the coffin you bought and put her in a different coffin?"

Jubal nodded. "A
cheaper
coffin, Luke. That's why he would've done it. He charged me for the better one, then switched."

Luke was not about to confide his suspicion that Hank and Ozzie had probably not bothered to switch coffins and had dumped her right in the ground and quickly covered her up. "Well, I can only say I hope you're wrong."

Jubal's voice cracked and tears trailed down the wrinkles in his face like water streaming through a canyon. "I think that's the way it was, Luke. And I want you to do something about it. I want her dug up and put in her own coffin, and I want that no-good, thieving varmint to pay for daring to commit such a sacrilege."

Luke got to his feet but motioned for Jubal to keep his seat. "Don't worry. I'll check it out and get back to you, but it may take a few days."

"No hurry," Jubal called after him. "Henrietta isn't going any place."

Luke did not turn around as he let himself out the front door because he did not want Jubal to see how he was smiling. He had good reason... because he might have just found a way to bring the hammer down on Hardy Moon.