Buried in Secrets

by Denise Grover Swank

  She released a harsh laugh. “That’s a good one. First of all, I ain’t married, but even if Chuck washed dishes, he ran off with Becca Sloan a few weeks ago.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I heard you were married.”

  She snorted. “Momma liked to tell people that. She thought people were gonna judge me for having a baby without a marriage license, but Chuck would never pull the trigger. Guess now I know why.”

  “I’m sorry,” I added softly.

  She rested her hand on her belly. “My momma was supposed to help me raise him. We were gonna—” She stopped abruptly and sucked in a breath. “Now it’s just me. I might be havin’ this baby, but he ain’t gonna get a job and pay the electric bill,” she snapped, but I knew her anger wasn’t directed at me. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  I hoped I was only getting started.

  Chapter Twelve

  We drove in silence for a few minutes. Ashlynn looked out the window, her body turned away from me. She reminded me a little of Lula back in December, when she was pregnant and thought she was alone. Unplanned pregnancies weren’t all that uncommon here—not that I was judging—but all too often the women didn’t receive much support. It was clear Ashlynn had lost her main supporter the moment Pam was locked up.

  “When are you due?” I finally asked.

  “The end of August,” she said, still staring out the side window.

  “And you’re having a boy? You called your baby a him.”

  “Yeah.” Her response was flat, making me wonder if she would have preferred a girl. Or maybe she was intimidated to now be facing this alone.

  “Are you and your mother close?”

  She didn’t answer, and I glanced over to see her wiping a tear from her cheek. She caught me looking at her and shrugged. “Close enough.”

  “How long ago did you graduate high school?” I asked.

  Her body jolted. “I graduated a year ago. This ain’t no teen pregnancy.” But then her cheeks flushed, making me think maybe she hadn’t turned twenty yet.

  “I’m not judging you, Ashlynn. You’re about to have a baby and your mother’s in jail, likely to go to prison. I’m just trying to figure out how to help you.”

  Her body tensed. “I don’t need your help.”

  I inwardly groaned. While she probably did need my help, I needed to stop trying to force it on people. I was very much an outsider, and while many people in Drum had accepted me in a short period of time—likely because Max had given me his blessing, so to speak—not everyone appreciated my attempts at intervention. Max himself had bristled at my tendency to offer unsolicited advice. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to insinuate…” I took a breath. “I just know how hard this will be without your mother. When I was in college, I had a friend who had a baby without the support of a significant other. Her mother had died years before, so she didn’t have much support, and she was still in school. She didn’t like to ask for help, so my friends and I kind of had to force it on her.” Belatedly, I realized that Charlene “Carly” Moore had never gone to college, but I had to trust that Ashlynn likely wouldn’t be repeating this conversation.

  “You may be driving me to see my mother, but we ain’t friends.”

  “You’re right,” I said, not taking offense and telling myself to let this go. “We’re not friends, but if you ever need a friend, I’m here for you, okay? I can give you my home phone number before we part ways in Ewing, and you know I work at Max’s Tavern. You can always reach me there.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to help me out so bad?” Then horror filled her eyes. “You ain’t gettin’ my baby.”

  “What?” I protested. “I don’t want your baby! I don’t even know if I want babies of my own!”

  “Then why are you so interested in mine? Are you a trafficker?”

  “Of babies?” I asked, incredulously. “No!” I pushed out a sigh. “Look, I’m not some evil person, I promise—I just like to help people. But I do admit to coming on strong sometimes.” I took a breath, then tried to appear less crazy. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”

  “I ain’t alone, you know. I’ve got my Aunt Selena.”

  I perked up at that. “Is she your mother’s sister?”

  “No, she’s Momma’s friend. But we call her aunt.”

  Selena? She never came to the ladies’ luncheons. I wondered where she fit into Pam’s life. “I take it she lives around here?”

  “She lives in downtown Drum. By the Methodist Church.”

  She had an uncommon enough name that Ruth or Max probably knew her, especially if she lived downtown. I’d ask them later.

  We sat in silence after that. Everything I thought of bringing up seemed too intrusive, and I didn’t want to give her any more reasons to think I was a potential child trafficker. Instead, we listened to music on a used iPod Marco had gotten for me and preloaded with some of my favorite music.

  Thinking about the day Marco had given it to me made me smile, but a wash of sadness quickly followed. For the first time since I’d arrived in Drum, I wondered if my priorities were off. Instead of trying to dig up evidence on Bart, maybe I should be putting all of this energy into figuring out a way to have a normal life. I could live as Carly Moore and maybe marry Marco. We wouldn’t be safe in Drum, Tennessee, not with Bart Drummond holding threats over my head, but what if we went somewhere else? I could go as Carly Roland and keep dyeing my hair. Maybe my father would never find me.

  That was a foolish pipe dream. My father wouldn’t give up searching for me until the day I died.

  So why was I spending all this time on Bart Drummond? Was it my way of burying my head in the sand and hiding from the real problem?

  While I knew the location of the sheriff’s department, I didn’t know where to find the county jail. Strangely—or not—Ashlynn did.

  “Do you want me to come in?” I asked as I pulled into the parking lot.

  “I’m not a kid,” she snapped. Obviously, she was still offended by my questions.

  “I know, but it’s your mom…”

  She shot me a withering look, then got out of the car. “I’ll be fine. Come back and get me in forty-five minutes.” She shut the door with a little more force than was necessary.

  As I watched her walk toward the entrance, I decided to run by the nursing home to see Thelma. It was five minutes away, which meant I had time for a quick visit before I needed to get back.

  I bounded into the Greener Pastures Nursing Home, pausing only to wave to my two friends, Roberta and Gladys, who sat at their usual table in the main living area, working on a puzzle.

  “Where are you goin’ in such a hurry?” Roberta barked. She was notoriously grumpy and would likely hold this over my head for months. Especially when she discovered I hadn’t brought her and Gladys a new puzzle or a bag of candies.

  I just gave her another wave as I headed down the hallway toward Thelma’s room. I was going to pay for that later.

  When I reached her door, it was partially closed. I started to knock, but an orderly in the hall said, “She’s in the garden. Her friend brought her some new plants last week, and she likes to dote on them.”

  I knew exactly who she meant. In fact, I was the one who’d first brought Emmaline Haskell to see Thelma. Thelma loved flowers, and Emmaline’s property and small greenhouse were bursting with them. They’d hit it off, and Emmaline had made several more visits to see Thelma without me.

  I let myself out the door to the courtyard, and sure enough, Thelma was leaning on a four-footed cane with one hand while she wielded a garden hose with the other, watering the plants. Emmaline had brought rose bushes on our first visit, but the space was now planted with multiple varieties of flowers.

  “Carly,” she exclaimed in surprise, leaning on her cane as she loosened her hold on the sprayer nozzle at the end of the hose. The flow turned to a trickle.

  It was good to see her up and moving around.
She had a bad knee and refused to have surgery, so she spent most of her time in her room. But the project of beautifying the courtyard had gotten her up and moving.

  “You and Emmaline have been busy.”

  Her face beamed. “It’s a real garden now.”

  “It is. It’s absolutely beautiful.”

  “What brings you here today?” she asked, squeezing the handle and moving the stream of water to the next plant.

  “I’d love to say it’s just for a chat, but I don’t have much time, so I need to be more direct.”

  Her smile faded some, but the cheerfulness didn’t leave her voice. “I’m listening.”

  “Do you want to sit?” I asked, gesturing to a concrete bench.

  “I’ll keep watering, but you sit so I don’t have to look up at you.”

  I took a seat on the bench even though she was only a couple of inches shorter than me. “Did you hear about the murder of the insurance agent a few days ago?”

  She shook her head. “That’s the beauty of a place like this. I don’t have to hear about what’s goin’ on outside these walls.”

  “The woman who murdered him is one of my customers at the tavern. She’s as sweet as they come. I would have thought her incapable of harming anyone.”

  “Do they have enough evidence to charge her?”

  I grimaced. “There’s no question she did it. She walked in and shot him in front of three witnesses. There’s even security camera footage of her walking out of the office with the gun in her hand. Then she drove down the street and waited for the police to come arrest her.”

  Confusion filled her eyes. “Then what…oh.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly.

  She laid the hose down in the flower bed and hobbled over to sit next to me. “You think Bart called in a favor.”

  I nodded.

  Her shoulders drooped. “Tell me everything.”

  And I did, including the lack of an apparent connection between Pam and Jim, what I’d learned on my visit to her house, and how I’d just dropped Ashlynn off at the county jail.

  “I remember the mess with her son a couple of years ago,” she said with a faraway look. “I know the family of the man he hit. Karl Lister.”

  “Really? I didn’t know his name,” I said. “But I did hear there was a potential lawsuit. Do you think Bart might have had something to do with it?”

  Her gaze turned to me. “I don’t know all the details, but Karl struggled to walk after the accident. His legs were broken in multiple places and he had several surgeries. But I’m pretty sure the boy’s insurance paid for most of it.”

  “So what was the lawsuit for? Pain and suffering?”

  “And some medical bills,” Thelma said. “I know he received a settlement of some kind, but I don’t know how it came about or even how much he got.”

  “So if there was a lawsuit, I might be able to get the details from the courthouse.”

  “That’s a good place to start. Tell Rosemarie that I sent you.”

  “You know just about everyone around here,” I said with a grin. At least it felt that way.

  “Not everyone, but enough of ’em.”

  We were silent for a moment before I asked, “What’s your gut on this, Miss Thelma? Do you think Bart had any involvement in Jim Palmer’s murder?”

  “It’s hard to say,” she said. “You’ll definitely need more evidence to prove it, but it’s a new case. A fresh trail. If he was involved, you have a better chance of tracing it to him than any of the old cases. The question is: are you sure you want to pursue this?”

  I wasn’t surprised she’d asked. While she’d volunteered information in the past, I knew she was concerned about me getting too involved in Bart’s business.

  “Of course I want to pursue this. If we’re right, he coerced—likely threatened—a woman to kill a man. A woman who can’t even put out mouse traps because she doesn’t like hurting living creatures. That kind of evil needs to be stopped.”

  Her lips pressed tightly together, she gave me a brisk nod. “Well, then. Do you know where to start?”

  “I have a few leads,” I said, reluctant to say more. While I trusted her, Marco was right: I could never be too sure about who might be listening.

  She didn’t look offended that I didn’t elaborate. “When he’s done this in the past, he’s had help covering it up. You might see if the same deputies handled the previous cases.”

  “Good idea.” The first place to start was my notebook full of cases—a few of the news articles had listed the investigators’ names but others hadn’t—and I might be able to get copies of the police reports for the rest. The Hensen County Sheriff’s Department had earned a reputation for being corrupt, but not all of the deputies were cut from the same cloth. Some of them were good people who’d felt powerless to change things…but had hung on because they feared the situation would get worse if they left. Marco was a perfect example.

  “I think I found something else worth mentioning,” I said. “A family of five that died in a house explosion. It only happened about twelve years ago, so I think it’s a different case than the one you told me about before.”

  Her face paled. “There seems to be a lot of gas explosions around these parts.”

  “So I noticed. There was another one too, five years ago, but thankfully the family wasn’t home.”

  “Could have been a warnin’,” she said.

  I’d like to think Bart didn’t kill everyone on his revenge list. “Do you know anything about a man named Ted Butcher?”

  Her lips pursed. “The name sounds familiar.”

  “He crashed his car into a tree about a week after the explosion that killed the family.”

  “There are a lot of car crashes around here—winding roads and careless drivers.”

  “But Ted Butcher had two overdoses after that. The last one was two years ago.”

  “You think he killed that family and couldn’t live with the guilt?” she asked.

  “It’s a theory.”

  She was silent for a moment, her eyes far off, then she shook her head. “I don’t know him. I don’t even know of any Butchers in the area.”

  “Honestly, there a good chance it’s nothing.” Hank and Bingham were proof enough that drug use was alive and well in the area. He could be an addict who’d crashed his car while he was high. Nevertheless, I wanted to talk to him. It was worth a try.

  “Have you heard any more from Emily Drummond?” Thelma asked.

  I gave her a tight smile and shook my head. “Not since our tea party in March.” I grimaced. “What do you think will happen to her after Bart’s gone?”

  She chuckled. “I like your confidence.”

  “Someone has to stop him. It might as well be me. I can’t let him do this to anyone else.” I cocked my head. “Do you know anything about the Palmer family? I take it he owned Jim Palmer Insurance.”

  “Yes, but his father owned it. He was Jim, Sr.”

  “So the murdered man was a junior.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea what could have instigated Jim, Jr. to go to Bart for a favor in the first place?”

  “It might not have been Jim, Jr. who went,” she said with a knowing look. “It may have been his father.”

  “Or his wife?”

  “Possibly,” she said with a sigh.

  I held up my hand as her previous statement sank in. “Wait. You’re saying Bart holds the next generation responsible for the sins of their fathers?”

  “And mothers too. A debt must be repaid regardless of who took it out.”

  “That’s medieval.”

  “It’s archaic.” She grasped my hand. “It’s time to end his reign. He’s hurt far too many people, many of them innocent bystanders.” She squeezed my hand tighter, and her eyes pleaded with me. “But you can’t do this alone.”

  “I have Marco,” I said. “Since he’s in the sheriff’s department, he can help me in ways other people can’
t.”

  “Still, he has his own job to do,” she said evenly. “You need someone with you. Like when you were lookin’ for Lula.”

  “There is no one else. And Marco only got involved with looking for Lula because he was bored out of his mind while he was on medical leave.”

  “I’m sure that’s what you thought at the time,” she said with a wink. She’d obviously been comparing notes with Gladys and Roberta.

  I decided to ignore her insinuation. “I’ll be careful, and if I feel like things are getting scary or out of control, I’ll tell Marco.”

  “Good, because he won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know,” I said simply.

  Her expression softened. “That boy loves you. When are you goin’ to give him a chance?”

  I groaned, but I couldn’t help smiling. “Not you too, Miss Thelma.”

  “Even Greta’s got a boyfriend. You’ve been single far too long.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There are other things in life besides having a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe so,” she said with a wink. “But they sure do make life a lot more fun.”

  “Now I know you’ve been spending too much time with Gladys and Roberta.”

  “Seriously, though,” she said, turning somber, “about this case—you need to do this quietly. You can’t let Bart know what you’re up to. Just keep playing it like you’re a concerned friend. In fact, you might want to let this go for a few weeks, or even a few months, then pick it up after things die down.”

  “But then it will be too late to help Pam.”

  She shook her head, sadness filling her eyes. “Pam’s a lost cause, Carly. There’s no helpin’ her now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I pulled into the jail parking lot five minutes early. I didn’t see Ashlynn waiting for me outside, so I parked in a spot that gave me full view of the exit. Then I waited for twenty minutes, getting more anxious as each one ticked by. I hadn’t gotten her cell phone number—if she had one—and we hadn’t made arrangements about where to meet. What if Ashlynn had come out early and left on her own? Or what if she was still ticked with me and had found her own ride to work?