Jude Devine Mystery Series (40 page)
The names of the Highland clans were etched on rough-hewn stone slabs marking the spot where their clansmen were buried together in mass graves, along with the few women who had fought beside their husbands. Gazing down at these, Jude had felt a leaden sorrow, a despair so profound she wondered if she had somehow tapped into a chord of grief that echoed through time.
Thinking out loud, she told Eddie, “It was the death of hope, the death of a people more than the death of the individuals.”
“Yes. Our voices were silenced.”
“I’ve learned something,” Jude said. “Beyond silence, the truth waits. It reaches out.”
Eddie’s expression softened. “The spirits of the dead seek their honor in the eyes of the living. They must not be denied.”
Jude met his gaze and saw compassion mixed with something else. Respect?
“Yes,” she said. “Denial…complicity…that’s the gravest silence of all.”
She looked past Poppy’s headstone, across the heartless earth, beyond the mesa to the far horizon. She thought about Ben. Was this why she had never believed him dead—that she could not feel him reaching out to her? That delving into the silence around his disappearance had yielded nothing.
His face glowed in her mind’s eye, golden with the setting sun, and she realized that she would never cease her search. She would not go quietly into the night. She would not say good-bye and fall silent.
Her brother deserved more, and so did she.
Sleep of Reason
When toddler Corban Foley vanishes from his home in the dead of night and a goat's head left on the front lawn, most of Montezuma County turns out for the search. But nothing is at it seems with this case, and Detective Jude Devine soon finds herself caught up in a small-town soap opera whose players seem more interested in their fifteen minutes of fame than in the fate of little Corban.
With the media snapping at her heels, Jude can barely conduct the investigation let alone have a private life, not that it's going well. Jude never liked time-sharing Dr. Mercy Westmoreland with English actress Elspeth Harwood, and when Elspeth buys land locally, Jude has to make some choices. The unexpected arrival in town of Chastity Young and her niece Adeline adds a new complication to Jude's life when she finds herself drawn to Chastity who is far from her usual type.
Book Two in the Jude Devine Mystery Series
Sleep Of Reason
by
Rose Beecham
2006
Sleep of Reason
© 2006 by Rose Beecham. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 10: 1-933110-53-8E
This trade paperback original is published by:
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.,
New York, USA
First Edition, September 2006
This is a work of fiction. names, characters, places, and Incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: J. Barre Greystone
Cover Graphic: By Sheri ([email protected])
Acknowledgements
I belong to that species of author for whom writing a novel is a lonely, antisocial affair. Family and friends are excluded, the phone is ignored, and the espresso machine works overtime. My dear ones, especially my partner, put up with all of this and still love me. Puzzling, but I cannot thank them enough.
I worked on this novel with the support and encouragement of the women who make my life make sense: Fel, Sophie, and JD. In particular, I thank my mother, Wyn, who spent the first part of her big overseas vacation looking after me and my home so I could write much of this work without disturbance.
Lori L. Lake has my thanks for being unfailingly generous with her advice and skills, and only letting me stay precious for twenty-four hours at any time. Shelley Thrasher edited this book with insight and sensitivity, for which I am extremely thankful because it was extremely late to her desk. And Radclyffe, as usual, was the perfect publisher—a patient tyrant and a writers’ friend, without whose mentoring and encouragement I would be a lesser author.
Dedication
To the memory of Jaidyn
and all the children who share his fate.
Author’s Note
When I was living in Melbourne, Australia, a toddler named Jaidyn Leskie vanished in bizarre circumstances, sparking the biggest manhunt in the history of that nation. After Jaidyn’s body was found, his mother’s boyfriend was tried for his murder, acquitted, and was recently alleged to have made a jailhouse confession to the crime.
This novel is not a fictionalized account of Jaidyn’s story, but I was inspired to write it because of that sad case. There are a few superficial similarities to his story, for many common elements can be found in the stories of countless children who die every year at the hands of those supposed to protect them.
Chapter One
At ten in the evening on a freezing Saturday in Cortez, Colorado, Tonya Perkins was chugging a beer and planning to fuck a total stranger when her night on the town was interrupted by a phone call from her boyfriend, Wade Miller.
Wade had bad news. Tonya’s two-year-old son Corban had burned his hand on the stove, and Wade had to take him to the hospital.
“Shit,” said Tonya. She never went out drinking with her friends anymore. She couldn’t pay for a sitter. Now, finally, she had a boyfriend who said he’d mind Corban, and this happened. “Okay. I’ll come home.”
“Nah. You don’t have to. Just thought you should know what happened.”
Tonya heaved a sigh of relief. If Corban was okay then she could stay at the bar. She gave her sister Amberlee a thumbs up and checked out a hot guy across the room. “You sure you don’t need me there?” she asked as someone shoved another pitcher of beer in front of her.
“Yeah. Don’t worry. He’s got himself a sore hand, that’s all.”
“I don’t get it. I just hit him yesterday for reaching up on the stove.”
Wade mumbled something that sounded like, “This time he learned.”
A tightness in his voice registered with Tonya. Guessing at the reason, she took a swig of beer and asked, “What’d you have to pay them at the hospital?”
“It’s fine. I got some extra work.”
Didn’t sound like the Wade Miller Tonya knew. Since he’d started saving up for his new car, he was even stingier than usual. That’s why he didn’t care about missing Amberlee’s party. He acted like he was a hero for babysitting Corban, but Tonya knew he just wanted to avoid buying a round.
“You sure?” She gave him a last chance.
“No sweat. You’re my old lady.”
“I love you, ding dong.” Tonya let her eyes return to the man-meat across the room. She tried to remember his name. Something foreign. Andre. No, Vincente. The guy had his own car repair shop. He looked like Ricky Martin. She decided if she couldn’t get him, she would check out one of the salesmen in town for the agricultural show. They were always married, so no one would make annoying phone calls the next day and start calling himself a boyfriend like Cortez males were in the habit of doing.
“You gonna be much longer?” Wade asked.
“We’re going back to Amberlee’s after this.”
“Right. I forgot. Want me to pick you up later? Like in a few hours or something?”
The stud was looking her way. Tonya sucked in her stomach. “Yeah, okay,” she remembered to answer. She was already fucked up, and she’d only been drinking since eight. Laughing, she said, “I can’t drive. No way. I’d take a wrong turn and end up in the reservoir.”
*
Sitting at a table a few yards away, Matthew Roache had a pitiful look on his face, and his eyes were glued to Tonya. His sister, Heather, felt sorry for him, but this had gone on long enough. He’d been living at her place since he broke up with that slut, and Heather had had it. She was fed up with him and his loser buddies camped on her sofa and eating her food with the TV blaring day and night. And she was fed up with that dirty goat tied up in her yard, causing a problem with the neighbors.
When the heavy snows came a few days back, Matthew brought the disgusting animal into the house, and he was keeping it in the guest bathroom now. He never cleaned up after it. Heather had to scrape droppings off the soles of her best boots on her way out the door tonight.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “She dumped you and she’s with someone else. Forget her. Just walk away and forget her. She’s not worth it.”
“I love her.”
“Well, she doesn’t love you.”
Heather had decided recently that you had to be cruel to be kind. Matthew was her little brother and she loved him, but he was letting Tonya Perkins ruin his life. He’d even lost his job. His boss got fed up with him calling in so-called sick. Heather knew exactly where he was on those supposed sick days—parked outside of that bitch’s house.
Unable to help herself, she stared past a sea of bodies to the peroxide blonde perched on a bar stool and thought,
I hate that woman.
I hope she dies.
Normally she would feel ashamed of herself for thinking such a thing, but as Tonya dropped her cell phone into her purse and leaned back against the bar trying to look sexy, Heather could only marvel at the stupidity of males. How could they be sucked in by such a whore?
Tonya wore fuck-me pumps and a denim miniskirt no one a size XXL should wear. Black fishnet stockings strained over her fat thighs. They couldn’t hide the cellulite, and she must have spent hours with the curling iron, getting her big hairdo coiled into long ringlets. Someone should tell her strawberry blond wasn’t her color.
As if anyone could possibly miss her double Ds, Cortez’s number-one home wrecker tugged her pink crop top down so her staunch, pale breasts bobbed over. This drew attention to the tidemark at the base of her throat where her tan foundation began. She wore candy pink lipstick, baby blue eye shadow, and eyeliner flicked up slightly in the corner of each eye.
Heather almost laughed. How yesterday was
that
look? Turning away before Tonya caught her staring, she could barely stop herself from slapping Matthew upside the head. He was slouched over his beer, sniffing noisily.
“We were supposed to be getting married today,” he choked out.
“As if I could forget. I was supposed to be in Cancun, remember? Has she given you back that ring yet?”
“I don’t care about the ring,” he blubbered.
“Well
I
do. You owe me four hundred dollars.” By rights that engagement ring belonged to her. Matthew had been paying her back the seven hundred she lent him to buy it, but after he lost his job the payments dried up. “I worked hard for that money,” she reminded him.
“I know. “ Matthew snatched her hand and flattened it over his pounding heart. “I’ll pay, I swear. God’s honest truth.”
“Even if you just got the ring back, I could live with that,” she said generously. “I could sell it on eBay.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Try asking. If she says no, then stop by her place when she’s not expecting you and get it off the dresser in her bedroom. She keeps it in that music box I gave her for the engagement.”
“How do you know?”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Duh. I only organized her bachelorette party. I’ve been in her room.”
Matthew seemed to be thinking. He gave a small harsh laugh. “While I’m there, I’m gonna take back that stuffed panda I gave her, too.”
“Oh, that’s smart. You walk out with your hood over your face and carrying a big, huge stuffed animal. Just in case no one noticed you burglarizing the house.”
“I never thought of that.” He snuck another look at Tonya and rifled his fingers frantically through his hair as if that might dislodge the trashy slut from his brain.
“Lovely,” Heather said. “Now you’ve got dandruff in your beer.” Why she bothered trying to make him think with his brain instead of his dick was a mystery. He was never going to ask Tonya for the ring, and if he tried to steal it he would probably get caught. At this rate, she would be spending her next vacation in Kansas, not Cancun.
Predictably her brother acted like everything was settled, promising, “I’ll get a job and pay you back. Twice as much. You’ll be able to go to Mexico just like you planned.”
Heather had heard it all before. The fact was, that woman had cast a spell on Matthew, and until he snapped out of it, he would be unemployed and eating everything in her fridge. “That’s all well and good, but I’ll tell you something you can do for me now. Okay?”
Her brother dragged his arm across his face. “Okay.”
“I want that goat gone by tomorrow. I refuse to have it polluting my home for one more day.”
“He doesn’t hurt anyone. And we don’t have to mow the yard with him chewing on the grass. You’ll be glad when it’s summer.”
“Oh, really? You think I enjoy listening to the neighbors complaining about their kids putting goat poop in their mouths because they think it’s raisins? The joke’s over. It’s you or him.”
“A week,” Matthew begged. “Jason’ll be in town next weekend. He’ll take him.”
“No.”
Their older brother, Jason, hadn’t shown up for months. He had some land in Jackson County, and he was always promising to drive down and visit, but he never got around to it. Heather seriously doubted he’d want the goat anyway. Matthew was kidding himself. He thought he was so funny when he got the animal after 9/11, telling everyone how he was naming it after
My Pet Goat
, the children’s book the President was reading when he was told about the terrorist attack. He just made himself look stupid calling it Bush’s Homeland Security adviser and asking it what color the terror alert should be.
Heather didn’t see the big joke, and she didn’t appreciate her brother disrespecting the President. She’d voted Bush/Cheney both times because she didn’t believe in abortion. She’d tried to talk to Matthew about the unborn and about how the gay lifestyle was being taught in schools as close as Boulder. But even with the sanctity of marriage in direct peril, he’d been too busy running around after Tonya to get to a polling place. That woman had lowered his IQ, which—let’s face it—wasn’t right up there to begin with.
Leaning closer to him, she said, “Listen to me. I’m trying to help you, but you have to start doing stuff for yourself. Get rid of that goat. Get a haircut. I’ll buy you some new pants and a shirt, and you can start applying for jobs. That’s the best revenge you’ll ever get. Show her you don’t care and you’re a success. My boss is looking for guys to help out with a big roofing contract in the spring. That’s good money.”
“Roofing? Oh, man. It’ll be all Mexicans and me. I don’t speak Mexican.”
“It’s better than laying around all day watching the soaps. And think about it, you’d be one of the only white guys so you’d be boss of your own gang pretty quick. Mr. McAllister needs men who can communicate with the client.”
Matthew whined, “Do we have to talk about it now?”
“Yes, we do!” Heather seized his chin and forced his head in Tonya’s direction. “Look at her pawing Vinnie Russo when she’s supposed to be with Wade Miller now. She’s a slut, Matthew. She stole her sister’s husband, and then
he
left her—guess why?”
Matthew looked guilty. “It was love at first sight. We couldn’t help it.”
“Oh, that explains why she seduced Wade off of Brittany Kemple while you two were engaged. If you
had
gotten married, trust me, she’d be cheating on you right now.”
Her brother stiffened. His light brown eyes glittered with fury, and his chest rose and fell like he was palpitating. “I’ll fix her.” He stood up and shoved his chair back.
Heather grabbed his arm. “You can’t fight Vinnie Russo! He’ll kill you.”
“I’m not going to fight Vinnie.” Matthew looked her dead in the eye. He was pale and his mouth shook. “I’m going to do what you said. I’ll show her. I’ll take that job and get a decent car and my own place, and she’ll wish she’d never dumped me for that asshole Wade fucking Miller. And when you get home later, no goat. Okay?”
Before Heather could say thank you, he stalked out of the bar.