Husband and Wives (17 page)

I saw Milt looking at me as I held Michael, and knew he was thinking the same thing.

Milt Kovak – Friday

I looked over at my wife and saw that she was holding Rene’s baby, and turned to look for Rene. Couldn’t help it, a man has a right to gaze at a cute butt – I think that’s in the constitution somewhere. I found her in the middle of the bunch of kids, her little girl in her arms, talking to Rachael McKinsey’s kids and giving pats here and there. Couldn’t see her butt though; too many kids in the way.

Then out of nowhere, the big yellow dog came galloping at me and threw himself in my arms, I swear to God. I almost lost my balance. He was licking my face and I was holding him fore and aft, and let me tell you he was heavy.

‘Butch!’ Carol Anne yelled. She ran over to me. ‘Just put her down. Butch, what were you thinking?’

Butch turned back to me and stood up, his – I mean her – paws on my shoulders and licked my face some more.

‘Hey, Sheriff!’ one of the boys called. ‘She likes you!’ And all the kids laughed like – well, kids.

‘Butch!’ Carol Anne said, pulling at her collar, ‘Get down! The sheriff doesn’t want you drooling all over him!’

I looked over at my wife who was laughing along with the kids. She caught my eye and I gave her a mean look. That just made her laugh harder.

Enough falderal, I thought. I needed to be getting on back to the shop. I had a few more questions for ol’ Michael McKinsey – like, what the hell happened to Nalene, his first wife? How’d she happen to die? That sort of thing. The circumstances seemed a little more than suspicious, if you ask me. Of course no one has – asked me, that is.

I radioed in and asked if anyone was near Bishop and found out Dalton was. I told him to come pick me up at The Branches asap. I thought I’d leave the van for Nita and Jean.

I told the women what I was up to, just in time for Dalton’s squad car to come screeching into the cul-de-sac. I waved goodbye and sat riding shotgun. Once we were on the road and I’d filled Dalton in on everything that had happened that morning, and he’d told me why he’d been out this way (a carjacking outside Bishop in the country – a Bishop cardiologist and his wife, both shaky but at home, who promised to come to the station in the morning to look at mugshots), I said, ‘Dalton, I got something I need you to do.’

‘Sure, Milt. Anything you say,’ Dalton said.

‘You know that big dance coming up next month at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall?’ I said.

‘Sure, Milt. I heard about it.’

‘You going?’

‘Ah, hadn’t thought about it much,’ he said. ‘I took Mama a couple of years, since she knew people there, but most of them are gone now and it just depresses her, so I doubt if she’ll want to go.’

All I could do was shake my head. ‘Well, Dalton, I think you should go this year, but I don’t think you should take your mama. I think you should take Holly.’

All was silence behind the wheel. I let it go for close to five minutes, like you do in an interrogation when you want the perp to talk; you be silent and then the perp has to fill the silence with something. Well, it didn’t work. Dalton could out-silence me. So I finally said, ‘Dalton, did you hear me?’

‘What’s that, Milt?’

‘Did you hear what I said about taking Holly Humphries to the VFW dance next month?’

Silence.

‘Dalton, you have to acknowledge that I said something.’

‘Well, yeah, Milt, you said something,’ he finally said.

‘Good. What did I say?’ I asked him.

Silence.

‘Dalton!’ I yelled at the top of my lungs. He swerved all over the road, but it was empty so we didn’t hit anything.

‘Milt, don’t yell at me!’ he said, once he had the car straightened out.

‘So, you can’t stand Holly, is that what you’re saying?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said, ‘that ain’t it.’

‘You just don’t like her much?’

‘Noooo,’ he said, ‘that ain’t it.’

‘Then what
is
it?’ I demanded.

‘Milt,’ he said, looking over at me, his face tormented, ‘it’s a Sadie Hawkins dance. You know, where the girls ask the guys . . .’

‘I know, I know!’ I said, and threw my head back against the headrest. ‘Shit,’ I said. To get off that subject, I asked him, ‘So how’s your ID of that DB going?’

‘Not so good,’ Dalton said. ‘But Anthony gave me an idea, and I think I can get Holly to help me with the computers . . .’

‘Good, good,’ I said, cutting him off. If you let Dalton go, he could talk your ear off and I wasn’t in the mood.

We rode the rest of the way in silence and once at the shop, I told Dalton to bring McKinsey to the interrogation room and went in there to wait for him.

He came in five minutes later, dressed in county-blue coveralls, hands cuffed in front, leg irons intact, and Dalton placed him in the chair opposite me. ‘Milt?’ Dalton said. ‘You want me to stay?’

‘No, Dalton, that’s OK,’ I told him. He left and I turned to McKinsey. ‘Bollinger find you a criminal attorney yet?’

‘Yeah. I talked to him on the phone. Said I shouldn’t answer any of your questions and to keep my mouth shut until he gets here. Which I’m doing.’

‘When’s he supposed to get here?’ I asked.

‘This afternoon,’ McKinsey answered.

I nodded my head. ‘OK,’ I said. I stood up. ‘I can tell him then about the murder charges.’

I started toward the door and McKinsey said, ‘Now, hold on, Sheriff! What murder charges? Rachael ain’t dead, is she?’

‘No, your – excuse the expression – wife is doing real fine, under the circumstances, those being that you beat the shit out of her and the kid, Melissa.’

‘The kid? I never touched that kid!’

‘Yeah, I figured Emily for that,’ I said.

‘I never said that!’ McKinsey shouted. ‘Who the hell you think I murdered, for God’s sake?’

‘Mary Hudson, of course,’ I said. ‘I figured she found out what you were doing with the Owen family – stealing their money and beating ’em up and all – and said she was gonna turn you in, so you killed her.’

McKinsey tried to stand up. ‘Listen! Listen, Sheriff! I never in my life even spoke to that Hudson woman, I swear to God! OK, I mighta done some of what you’re saying, I mighta been a little hard on Rachael for talking back and such, but I never, ever killed anybody! And I never stole anything from her! The woman didn’t have a pot to piss in, for God’s sake. Now that Hudson woman, I saw her in church with her family, that’s all. I barely spoke to her husband, and I’m a married man – I don’t talk to another man’s women.’

I sat down across from him and he too sat back down. He was breathing hard. ‘So, I can talk to you right now without your lawyer?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, sure! I don’t want you thinking I killed somebody, for God’s sake!’

‘So you never killed anybody?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you!’ McKinsey shouted.

‘So what happened to Nalene?’ I asked.

‘Huh?’

‘Nalene. Your first wife? The one before Emily? The one y’all had cremated in Oklahoma City, the one you told the church ran off, the one you collected $150,000 insurance payment for. You know, Nalene.’

McKinsey’s face turned red, a different shade than the one he turned when he got mad – I think this was the embarrassment shade of red. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with that,’ he said. ‘Nalene just up and died in her sleep one night. I was with Emily so I didn’t find her. Emily found her when she didn’t come to breakfast and she went to check on her.’

‘How old was Nalene?’

‘Close to forty,’ McKinsey said, like forty was a good age for a first wife to die.

‘What did she die of?’

McKinsey shrugged his shoulders.

I rubbed my face with my hands, trying to keep patience with this dumbass. ‘Y’all had her cremated. Nobody’s gonna do that without a death certificate. So y’all had to call the ME or something. There had to be some record.’

‘Emily said we couldn’t call the ME here ’cause everybody would be snooping into our business. She said we should drive Nalene to Oklahoma City, check into a motel, move the body in at night, then call an ambulance in the morning. Which is what I did. Emily stayed in the bathroom so there wouldn’t be any questions. The ambulance guys said Nalene had a heart attack, a JP signed off on it, and I had a funeral home come pick her up. Told them we were from out of town and I wanted her cremated and I’d take the ashes home to bury.’

‘What
did
you do with the cremains?’

‘Ah, I haven’t exactly picked ’em up yet,’ he said.

‘What do you think Nalene died of, Michael?’ I asked.

‘I guess a heart attack, like the ambulance people said.’

‘You don’t think Emily had a hand in it?’

‘No!’ he all but shouted. ‘Emily’s the love of my life! She’d never do anything like that.’

‘So why did you have Nalene insured for so much?’ I asked.

‘Insured?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. There was a $150,000 insurance policy on her,’ I said.

‘No there wasn’t,’ he said, a confused look on his face.

I sighed. If he didn’t know about the insurance money, was it possible he didn’t know about the social security or pension money Rachael should have been receiving? Was little Emily that good? Maybe she was.

EIGHT

Jean Mcdonnell – Friday

W
e got the kids all straightened out – boys off to Carol Anne’s former home, where her mother and brother now lived, and the girls in Carol Anne’s new home, Sister Mary’s former home. Carol Anne explained to me that with her four boys and Mary’s three boys (not counting Little Mark), she and Jerry had thought seriously about making Carol Anne’s former home into a permanent home for the boys, with Denise and Dennis as chaperones, leaving the four girls and Mark at Carol Anne’s new house.

‘I still think of this place as Mary’s house,’ she said, looking around the kitchen where the two of us sat at the breakfast table.

I looked where she looked, and couldn’t help agreeing with her. ‘This
is
Mary’s house,’ I said. ‘You need to make it your own. If you’ll excuse my saying so, your house was very different from this one – more lively, more exciting. You need to make your mark on this one, even if it means moving some of your stuff over here. Or,’ I said, grinning at her, ‘maybe just mess up some stuff in these cabinets. That would be a start.’

Carol Anne laughed. ‘Sister Mary
was
very neat,’ she replied. ‘It’s like pulling teeth to keep all this the way she had it.’

‘You’re too young to have your teeth pulled,’ I said. ‘So don’t. This is no longer Sister Mary’s house. It’s yours and Jerry’s. Talk to him – ask him what he likes best about this house, and what he likes best about your old house. Compromise.’

Carol Anne was slowly nodding her head as I talked. ‘That’s a good idea. Now that we’re moving children around, maybe it
is
time to move some furniture and stuff around too.’

I squeezed her hand as the kitchen door swung open and Lynnie, Mary’s oldest daughter, came in. Her face was very serious. ‘Mama Carol Anne, we need to talk.’

‘We have company right now, Lynnie,’ she said.

I started to stand up but Lynnie shooed me down. ‘No, Dr McDonnell. Please stay. I think you might be a good referee for this,’ Lynnie said.

I sat back down. ‘If it’s OK with Carol Anne,’ I said.

Carol Anne nodded. ‘Of course, although I can’t imagine—’

‘I want to wear real clothes!’ Lynnie all but shouted. ‘June and Sammie and the boys wear real clothes, why can’t we? We stand out like sore thumbs at school. I don’t have any friends because they think I’m some sort of weirdo! We used to wear regular clothes before we moved here!’ Lynnie stopped and took a deep breath. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s what I have to say.’

Carol Anne nodded her head and looked down at her baggy black dress, the one she’d been wearing (or one of many she’d been wearing) since Mary’s death. ‘I’ll talk to your father.’

‘Mama Carol Anne, that’s not enough! You have to be on our side when you talk to him! Can’t you see how none of us have any friends because of these stupid clothes?’

‘Clothes do not make the person, it’s what’s in—’

‘Oh, bull!’ Lynnie said. ‘Even you don’t believe that! Think back to when you were a teenager! Would you have been accepted by your peers wearing this crap?’

‘Lynnie, your language. Please don’t use those words, they’re offensive.’ Carol Anne sighed. ‘Yes, I understand what you’re saying. And I sympathize. Like I said, I’ll talk to your father.’

‘OK,’ Lynnie said. Then she looked at me. ‘Dr McDonnell, do you have anything to add?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘No, I think you covered the issue nicely,’ I told her.

She nodded and walked out.

Milt Kovak – Friday

I got a call from Charlie Smith, police chief of Longbranch. ‘Milt, Charlie.’

‘Hey, Charlie,’ I said. ‘What’s up?’

‘Tatum Barclay’s dander,’ he said.

‘What’s his problem?’ I said, not the least bit interested. Tatum Barclay was a lawyer, and a pretty bad one. I think he mighta won a case once, but it woulda been a long time ago.

‘Seems you got his clients in your jailhouse that should be in my jailhouse,’ Charlie said.

‘Oh, ’cause they live inside the city limits, you mean?’ I asked.

‘That’s Barclay’s point. Personally, I don’t need ’em and I don’t want ’em.’

‘Oh, I’d happily give ’em up, Charlie. Bring ’em over to you all tied up in a pretty bow. ’Cept the murder I think one of ’em committed was in the county, which is why I’m holding ’em.’

‘Good enough for me. I’ll call Barclay back and tell him to bug you and not me.’

‘You’re a peach, Charlie.’

‘I try to please,’ he said as he hung up.

I sighed. I truly did not want to have a pow-wow with Tatum Barclay. But I had to wonder, why in the world would David Bollinger hire that nincompoop? Barclay
had
to be the worst lawyer in Oklahoma, maybe the entire Southwest, if not the United States of America. Hell, maybe the universe, I don’t know. But he was bad. He was the kind of lawyer who sounded good – a real fast talker, but when it came right down to it, he didn’t know a brief from his shorts.