Somewhere Between Luck and Trust (38 page)

“Go on.”

She hated to repeat the next part out loud, but it had to be said. “By that time I had fallen in love with Jackson Ford—I’m sure you know who he is—and we were together a lot. So Jackson knew about the trouble. In fact, he was here a time or two when it got rowdy, and he told me he’d see what he could do. I thought he meant he would talk to some guys and ask them to put a stop to it. But that’s not what happened.”

She turned a little to see Sully, who was as serious as if he was standing at a funeral. He met her gaze and held it, so she addressed the next part to him.

“I know you don’t know exactly
when
Duke Howard was killed. I know by the time his body was found near that camp where he’d been hunting, it was impossible to be totally accurate. But right about the time Duke was most likely killed, Jackson came to my house with a gun. He told me he was leaving it for my protection. He told me he wanted me to have it in case things got bad in the woods some night or strangers came up to my house.”

“So Ford brought you a gun.” The sheriff didn’t seem particularly interested.

“I hate guns, always have, always will. So at first I refused to take it. But Jackson made it clear this was really important to him. I figured he needed to feel like he’d protected me, so I agreed. I kept all my valuables behind a loose panel in my bathroom, one that hid the pipes in the wall, so he told me to put the gun there, where it would be hidden, but I could get to it easily.”

“Did you?” Sully asked, earning a sharp glance from the sheriff.

“No, because Betsy’s grandchildren liked to visit my cottage. I always kept candy for them, and sometimes I would babysit if Betsy had something else to do. I didn’t want them stumbling on the gun, and they were inquisitive little boys, always nosing around. So instead I decided to wrap the gun in a newspaper, put it in a metal box I had and bury it in my yard.”

“You buried a gun? You couldn’t just put it up somewhere too high for the kids to reach?” Sheriff Carter sounded like he didn’t believe her.

“I guess you don’t know kids very well. But just as important, I didn’t want the gun anywhere near me. I only took it to make Jackson feel better, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep with it in the house. So I wrapped it in newspaper, put it in the lockbox and buried it over there.”

She pointed to a flower border along the side of the garage, or what had once been a flower border, but was now just a patch of weeds.

“And the gun’s still there?” the sheriff asked.

“I can’t say for sure, since this is the first time I’ve been back to Berle since I got out of prison. But that’s where I buried it.”

“And all this is important why?” Sheriff Carter asked.

She knew he was already beginning to figure out where she was going, just from his tone and the fact that he wasn’t a stupid man. But she laid it out for him.

“The gun was never meant for my protection. I’m pretty sure it’s the murder weapon, the gun Jackson used to kill Duke Howard, because
he
is the one who killed him. With Kenny’s
own
gun that Jackson stole from him, probably on the day of Duke’s murder.”

Before he could interrupt, she recounted something Kenny had told her in his second letter. “You never found that gun did you? You just found bullet casings where Kenny did his target practicing, and they matched the bullets you found in Duke’s body.”

The sheriff didn’t answer, which meant she was right.

“Stealing a gun from Kenny wouldn’t have been hard for Jackson or anybody,” she said. “Kenny lived alone, and he was careless about things like that. He had guns all over the place.”

She let that hang in the air while everybody began to put the story together on their own, before she continued.

“Jackson gave me the gun because
he
didn’t want to be found with it. He knew it was possible he might be questioned, that you might even get a search warrant for his house or other property, because he was nearly as close to Duke as Kenny was. He should have been a natural suspect.”

“Ford had an alibi for the weekend Howard died,” the sheriff said gruffly. “We checked.”

Sully’s voice was grim. “Nan Tyler. Who was in love with him at the time. She said they were out of town together, but nobody was ever asked to confirm it, because we settled on Kenny right away.”

Cristy knew she ought to move on. “I think after he killed Duke, Jackson wanted to take the gun back to Kenny’s and leave it where you would find it when you searched, but for some reason he couldn’t. Maybe Kenny was there, or somebody else was. So he gave it to me, planning to come back for it when he could get into Kenny’s house without being seen. He even told me where to hide it, so it would be easy to grab when I wasn’t home, or when he just went into the bathroom and closed the door.”

She paused. “Only I didn’t put it where he told me to, and of course I didn’t tell him I buried it. I knew he’d think I was crazy.”

“Did he ask you about it?”

“He couldn’t, because if he did, then I would wonder why he wanted to know, and why he was looking for it in the first place.”

“This is just a theo—”

She interrupted. “It’s
more
than a theory. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Jackson knew once Duke’s body was found, my suspicions about the gun would shift into high gear. If he could find it and take it back to Kenny’s, then even if I was disloyal enough to tell you what I suspected, without the gun in my possession, it would simply be my word against his. But he couldn’t get the gun back, and he couldn’t ask me where it was and draw attention to himself.”

“I hope you’re almost done,” Sheriff Carter said.

“Let her talk,” Sully said. He looked up. “Please, sir?”

The sheriff glared at him, but Cristy spoke a little faster.

“I think Jackson saw just one way out. He took me to look at engagement rings. Then he slipped the most expensive one into my shopping bag, and suddenly I was in jail. Then he had all the time in the world to tear my house apart, find the gun, take it back to Kenny’s and hide it where you would find it once you got around to searching Kenny’s house. But Jackson never found what he was looking for.”

“And you think by having you arrested, he figured he’d be off the hook? You don’t think he considered you might
tell
somebody what you knew?”

“Think about it, sir,” Cristy said. “At that point nobody even knew Duke was dead. I was sitting in jail for a crime I didn’t commit, and Jackson had put me there. Even that took a little while to understand. But by the time I heard about Duke and put the story together in my mind, I knew nobody would believe me. Jackson had made sure of that. I was in jail for a felony. Plus I knew the gun would have my fingerprints on it. I wrapped it up. I buried it. And I didn’t have a bit of proof Jackson gave it to me.”

“You can say that again.” Sheriff Carter didn’t sound convinced.

“The gun should still be right there, in the lockbox. It
will
have my fingerprints on it, but I’m praying it’ll have Jackson’s, too, although I guess that’s a long shot, since he’s not stupid. No matter how hard you look, though, you won’t find any connection between me and Duke’s murder. I didn’t know him well, and I never had any reason to hurt or kill him.”

“So let’s say we find the murder weapon where you claim it’s buried. Maybe Kenny Glover gave it to you to hide after he murdered Duke Howard, and you’re trying to set up Ford because he sent you to jail.”

“You can look from now until doomsday, and you won’t find one person who ever saw Kenny and me alone together. He’s never been in this house, and he would never have asked me for that kind of favor, because I would have no reason whatsoever to grant it.”

“You got something to dig with?”

“There used to be an old shovel in the garage.”

Sully left to look for it.

“Jackson has been threatening me,” Cristy said. “Ask Sully. He was outside my house the first time it happened, and he saw a note Jackson broke into my house to leave for me. I’m the only person alive who knows where the gun that killed Duke is hidden, and he’s made it clear that if I turn over this gun to you, he’ll do his worst.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because it’s the right thing. Kenny and Duke fought before he was killed, something he’s admitted all along, but he didn’t kill Duke, and he doesn’t deserve to go to prison or worse. Jackson killed him, even if it can’t be proved.”

“You have any theories why Ford might have wanted to kill him?”

“I have some good ones,” Sully said, coming back with a rusty shovel. “I’ve just been waiting to collect more evidence.”

The sheriff looked angry at that, tight-lipped and narrow-eyed. “We don’t pay you to be the Lone Ranger, Sullivan. Dig up the damn gun.”

Sheriff Carter, Sully and Cristy crossed to the flower bed. The others, who had remained perfectly silent, but whose presence had helped her tell the story, moved closer, but not too close. Cristy couldn’t smile, but she nodded in thanks.

“Where exactly?” Sully asked.

She estimated the distance from one end of the bed to the other, and positioned herself about a third of the way down from the farthest end. She knelt and dug a little in the soil, where she found the shriveled edges of peat pots and a stake with a faded picture.

She got to her feet and pointed. “There was a space right there, between my marigolds and snapdragons. I buried it right in between, then I planted a six-pack of puny little begonias on top of them. They never did bloom.”

“We’re not interested in your gardening skills.” The sheriff pointed. “Dig.”

“It should be maybe a foot and a half deep,” Cristy said. “I didn’t want anybody coming across the lockbox if Betsy decided to get a gardener back here without telling me.”

Everyone fell silent. Cristy listened to the whoosh of the shovel as Sully dug. From the woods she heard the cawing of a crow, and then behind her, footsteps. She felt a hand on her shoulder and realized that Georgia had come up to offer comfort. Gratefully she slipped her arm around Georgia’s waist.

Time passed until the next sound was the clanking of metal against metal. Sully dug some more, then when the hole was large enough, he used the shovel to gently pry up the metal box.

Cristy was relieved. “I guess it just didn’t occur to Jackson I would bury it, or he would have dug up the whole yard.”

“It’s an interesting form of gun control,” Georgia said.

“You two stand back,” Sheriff Carter said. “Is this thing locked?”

“No, I got the box for pennies at a garage sale, and the key never worked.”

The sheriff took out his handkerchief and opened it. He used the handkerchief to push newspaper to the side, then he lifted out the gun. “Smith and Wesson .38 Special,” he said, turning it over.

Sully caught Cristy’s eye. “Consistent with the gun used to kill Duke Howard.”

The sheriff was still examining it. “We won’t know if this is the murder weapon until we do some tests. We’re not going to assume anything.”

Cristy was staring at the box now, not at the gun.

“Sheriff?”

He glanced at her. “What?”

“Will you please look closer at the newspaper?”

Frowning, he told Sully to get something to fish it out with. Sully got out his handkerchief and carefully took the paper and shook it out. “Date’s right,” he said, a hint of triumph in his voice.

But Cristy was looking at something on the underside, the same handwriting she had seen in a note left in the Goddess House by a man who had wanted to frighten her into silence.

“Jackson wrote something on the paper. Look.” She pointed, and tilted her head to see better. “That’s his handwriting. Anybody who’s ever seen it will recognize it. He’s the one who left the newspaper on the table the day he brought me the gun. The only papers I ever had were his. I never bought one in my life, because I couldn’t even begin to read one until recently. I’m dyslexic, so what good would a paper have done me?”

“You can’t read, but you know that’s Ford’s handwriting?”

“Sometimes he left notes he scrawled on the newspaper, but I couldn’t read his notes, either. I was never sure if he didn’t know or if he was just taunting me.” She stared at the writing as Sully turned the paper so they could both see it better.

A word jumped out at her. A word she could read because it met all the rules she had so carefully learned. “Duke,” she said out loud.

“They’re directions.” Sully held the paper closer, then he glanced up at the sheriff. “And guess where they lead?”

By then Cristy had pieced together more of the words,
road
and
turn
and even
red house.

“Just about where Duke’s body was found?” She saw Sully nod, and her next words exploded before she could call them back. “So it wasn’t just the gun that Jackson needed to get rid of. Duke must have called Jackson when he was at my house—”

“You don’t remember a call?” Sheriff Carter asked.

“I was probably at the shop. Duke would have called Jackson on his cell phone. He must have told him where he was and asked him to meet him. Jackson jotted the directions on the newspaper, but then he left it on my table. At the time I probably figured this was just another of those notes I couldn’t read. I bet he panicked when he realized what he’d done, and suddenly he had another good reason to get rid of me.”

This time the sheriff didn’t argue. “I’ll be damned.”

“No, I think Jackson Ford will get to claim that honor,” Sully said. “Looks to me like what we have here might just be a one-way ticket to hell with Ford’s name written all over it.”

Chapter Forty-Five

CRISTY THOUGHT IT
would be months, even longer perhaps, before she stopped listening for muffled footsteps at night outside the Goddess House. Three weeks had passed since the sheriff unearthed the gun, and June was nearly a memory. But she had yet to leave Beau outside when she left, and she always brought him to the garden as an outdoor alarm system when she went to weed or water.

Despite the precautions, she knew there was little chance Jackson Ford would ever threaten her again. In addition to everything that had transpired at Betsy’s Bouquets, a partial fingerprint matching Jackson’s had been found on the cylinder release of the handgun that had, as she had long suspected, been the murder weapon.

Jackson, who was now under constant surveillance, had been called in three times for questioning, the last time to discuss details Kenny had provided about their car theft and chop shop escapades. Kenny, in return for his cooperation, would probably receive a suspended sentence when the case came to trial.

Sully said the sheriff and the assistant district attorney were making certain they had everything they needed for a conviction on both the murder and the thefts before Jackson was arrested. But it would probably be only days now before Kenny walked out of the county jail and Jackson walked in. In the meantime Pinckney had his son under something resembling house arrest. He claimed he was protecting Jackson from being framed, but Sully thought the sick old man was trying to keep Jackson from adding another crime to his repertoire.

House arrest or not, Sully still spent evenings and nights at the Goddess House, even during the week Clara had stayed with her, and Wayne was still on constant alert to be certain Michael was safe.

Cristy thought about that as she turned into the familiar Mars Hill driveway and braked to a stop in front of Berdine’s house. Michael was in the safest of hands here. That was the only reason she had been able to turn over the murder weapon. There was nothing the Bates family wouldn’t do for her son. She knew just how lucky she and Michael were.

She gathered her purse and a shopping bag. Since she had called ahead, Berdine was at the door with Michael in her arms. The baby wore dark shorts over his diapers and a striped knit shirt with a slogan.

Once she was in the doorway she fingered the T-shirt and squinted, then shook her head. “Can’t read it all. I Was...Born...” She shrugged.

“I Was Born Awesome.”

“Truer words were never spoken.” She leaned down and kissed her son’s sweet-smelling curls. “Did he just get up from a nap, or is he heading for one?”

“Somewhere in between. Did Clara get off okay?”

Cristy had brought Clara to meet Michael before her flight back to Oklahoma two weeks ago, and that had been the last time Cristy had seen her son.

She slipped the purse and bag over her arm so Berdine could transfer the baby. “She’s finishing up her final classes this week. She said to tell you she loved seeing you again. And meeting Michael, of course.”

“I’m making dinner,” Berdine said. “You’ll stay?”

“No, I just want to spend a little time with him, then I have to go.”

Berdine made her offer harder to refuse. “Ham and scalloped potatoes.”

“You’re such a good cook, but I can’t. Sully’s coming back early tonight. He says he has news, and he’s bringing pizza from my favorite shop in Berle.”

“News about Jackson?”

“He sounded happy, not like someone who hated to break bad news.”

“I hate being glad that—” she lowered her voice “—you-know-who’s father is going to jail, but—” Berdine stopped and kissed Michael’s cheek, as if to ask forgiveness.

“Michael will be safer. If Jackson is convicted of Duke’s murder, he’ll go away for a long time. Then there’s the car theft ring, and Sully thinks Jackson may have staged a hit-and-run where a young woman died. They’re scouring for evidence. He’s a dangerous man.” She paused, shifting Michael’s weight so he could play with her hair. “I can look back at this now and realize I was lucky to come through all of it alive, and with Michael, too.”

Berdine nodded, but she didn’t smile. “You were, on both counts.”

“I think Michael and I will go play in his room a little while.”

“You do that. You can feed him a little later if you’re still around.”

Cristy didn’t commit. She knew she wouldn’t be here. Once she said what she had come to say, she would leave. It would be better for all of them that way.

These days Michael was sitting up by himself, and crawling, too. The floor of his room was baby-proof, and she got toys off the shelf after she placed him in the middle of the rug. Immediately he went for a stuffed giraffe, throwing his arms around the toy’s long neck and gathering it against him so he could chew on an ear. She wondered when he would see his first real giraffe, what zoo and when. He had so many firsts ahead of him.

She sat across from him, but he didn’t crawl toward her. He liked her well enough. He didn’t cry when she held him, and he didn’t scream for Berdine. But he was an active little boy, and she thought in his baby mind, she was just another toy, one of the kind with two legs, who existed solely to meet his every need.

“I brought you something, giraffe boy.” Cristy reached for the bag and untied the knotted handle. “I made this just for you. I hope you’ll keep it until it’s worn to nothing. I want you to love it to death, and I hope if you turn out to be dyslexic, like me, maybe feeling these letters and seeing them so early will help you a little. What do you think?”

She removed the alphabet quilt and shook out the folds. Mrs. Nedley had helped her finish it, and while the quilt was fairly primitive, it was bright and sturdy. Cristy was proud of it.

Willie and Dawson had moved out of the motel and into the house Willie had rented, where Cristy had been invited to finish the quilt on a breezy screened porch. Things were still tough for the mother and son, but after an up-close view, she was pretty sure they were going to make it.

Michael abandoned the giraffe for the quilt. He crawled over to grab the edge, and Cristy put the quilt on her lap and him along with it.

“Gotcha!” She snuggled him against her and held him tight for a moment, before she bundled the quilt into his arms.

“I have to talk to you,” she said, as he grabbed a corner and gurgled excitedly. “Will you listen?”

He gurgled louder, grabbing the quilt with both hands and raising it to his mouth.

“Good.” She took that as consent.

“Michael, I love you. So I hope you never think that
not
loving you was the reason I sent you here. I couldn’t put you in foster care, even though I knew having you here might be hard on Berdine and Wayne and the girls.”

She cleared her throat, because it threatened to close. “See, Berdine and Wayne, well, I knew they would treat you right, even if it might be hard for them to give you up. But even after I got out of prison, I knew I wasn’t ready to be a good mommy yet. I wish that were different, but the truth is, I had too many things to learn before I could take care of anybody else. I could hardly take care of myself. Other people had to pitch in.”

She felt tears on her cheeks, but she was able to finish, hugging him as she did. “I’m just glad, little guy, that while I was figuring things out, you had such a good place to be, with people who love you and know just how to treat you.”

Michael shifted and launched himself off her lap and onto the floor, but he continued to hold the quilt. He rolled over to his back and held handfuls of it above his face and laughed.

She laughed a little, too.

Berdine found them that way sometime later, on the floor together, still playing with the quilt.

“Wayne’s home,” she said, “and Michael’s probably getting hungry.”

Cristy sat up. “Come see what I made him.”

Berdine squatted on the floor beside them to look at the quilt.

“It’s beautiful.” She fingered the border. “You made it yourself?”

“I wanted him to have something special from me.”

Berdine didn’t look at her. “He’ll always treasure it, I know.”

Cristy closed her eyes, because what she had to say was easier that way. “Someday when we explain to him that I’m his birth mother, even though I wasn’t able to raise him, I want him to know I loved him enough to make this quilt just for him.”

Berdine lowered herself to the floor so she was sitting, too. “What are you saying?”

Cristy opened her eyes, filled with tears again. “Berdine, you’re Michael’s real mother, and Wayne’s the only father he’s ever going to know. He belongs with you and your family. I’ve thought and thought, and I finally know what’s best for all of us. I’ve made a lot of changes, and I’m growing up, but I’m still not ready to be a good mother. I have so much I have to learn and do before I can be. I’m not the mother Michael needs. He needs you.

“But what about
you?
”

Cristy had thought about that, too. “If you’ll let me, I would still like to be part of Michael’s life. Not a big part. I’d like to be his cousin, just the way I’m Odile and Franny’s cousin. I’d like to visit once in a while and see how all of you are doing. And when he’s old enough, I’d like to help you explain how all this came about. But I don’t want to raise Michael, and I don’t want to interfere or have any say in decisions. If my being here, even a little, ever gets too hard—”

Berdine put her hand on Cristy’s knee. “No, no! Of course it won’t be too hard. You belong in his life and ours—”

“No, I don’t.” Cristy took her cousin’s hand. “I really don’t, but if you’ll let me have a tiny piece of him, I’d be so grateful. A tiny piece, though. Just the way I do with your girls. A cousin who loves them, all three of
your
children, but doesn’t see them often. I don’t want him to be confused about who his real parents are. Not ever.”

Berdine was crying now. “You must know how I feel, and Wayne will be over the moon, and the girls, too. But you’re sure? You’ve thought this through?”

“I love Michael. When I realized that, this whole thing stopped being about me and it was finally about him. This is right, and it’s time to make it legal.”

Berdine hugged her, and they stayed that way until Michael decided he was hungry after all. In the end Berdine was the one who scooped him up and took him into the kitchen to be fed.

Cristy took her time folding the quilt and straightening his room. She smoothed the sheet in his crib, placed all his toys on the shelf, and gave a special extended hug to the giraffe Michael was so fond of and the plaid dog she had bought for him. She wondered if he would still have them the next time she saw him, or whether he would have given up all his baby toys for bicycles and baseballs.

When her tears finally dried, she left by the side door and drove away.