Murder Once Removed

by S. C. Perkins

  “But why?” I asked, perplexed. “Wasn’t she already being courted by Albert and getting ready to move to North Carolina? Why would she care if her business didn’t thrive?”

  “It was because of Albert, Lucy. He wanted to move back to Texas. Mary-Eliza was supposed to get their shop going so that when Albert got to San Antonio again, they’d have land and a textile business up and running.”

  I gave myself a mental face palm. Could I be any denser? Bolts of fabric were textiles. Albert wouldn’t be “getting into” the textiles business, though. He’d be getting back into it. Caleb must have known it somehow and threatened Mary-Eliza into selling to keep Albert Tanner from moving back to San Antonio.

  Again, but why?

  Jesse pulled out his cell phone to check it as we sat at the light at Congress and East Riverside. He frowned at the screen, which was devoid of messages, and continued venting.

  “Then once that bastard Caleb took our lands, he gave all of them to his kids, with the best properties—my land, being that I’m the oldest of all my cousins and would have inherited them—going to his daughter, Jane. She never had kids, though, so she willed them to her favorite nephew, who is Applewhite’s great-granddad.”

  He was concentrating on texting someone. His cousin Mark, most likely. But I was thankful because it meant he didn’t see me stop breathing at the mention of Jane.

  Jane Applewhite … and Albert Tanner. Why didn’t I see it before?

  Albert Tanner left Texas in late 1848 to mid-1849. Jane Applewhite gave birth to a child out of wedlock in the summer of 1849.

  Sixteen years later, in 1865, Jane’s father, Caleb Applewhite, was willing to do anything to keep Albert from moving back to Texas. This included blackmailing Mary-Eliza Ayers into selling her father’s lands to keep Albert from having a reason to come back into the lives of Jane and her now teenaged son. The son who she couldn’t even recognize as her own since she bore him out of wedlock.

  I would bet any amount of money that the woman I’d found in the legislative journals as Jane Tanner was, in reality, Jane Applewhite. Had she and Albert been secretly married? Or had she just taken the name Tanner to disguise herself when her father presented her petition?

  Or had Caleb insisted she use the name Tanner to keep her secret as an unwed mother from coming out in the open?

  I’d probably never know. But at least it was another mystery partly solved.

  Then another bolt of realization hit me. If my assumptions were correct, that meant Jesse’s fifth great-grandfather and Senator Applewhite’s third great-grandfather were one in the same man: Albert Tanner.

  My captor and the senator he was trying to kill were fourth cousins, twice removed.

  My head was spinning with so many facts and relationships that I didn’t notice Jesse had stopped my car. I looked around the parking area of my complex. It was the most empty I’d seen it in days. None of my neighbors, including Jackson, were currently at home. I felt my stomach drop. This was so not good.

  Turning off the engine, Jesse unbuckled his seatbelt, and let his drawl flow.

  “Now you wait right there, sugar pie, and I’ll come around and open your door for you.”

  At my look of unfettered disgust, Jesse laughed. From the backseat, he grabbed his black bag. He’d opened his door and was coming around to mine at a fast clip.

  I was sweating. I only had an instant to get this right.

  I slipped my shaky hand in my tote bag, placing one finger on my iPad’s home button. It lit up and I let my fingers fly, thankful for my email’s autocomplete function as I tapped only the letters “B,” “F,” and “A”, with returns between each, before hitting send.

  By the time he opened my door, I was unbuckling my seatbelt, my heart pounding wildly in my chest. I didn’t know if my video would even go out, but I was hoping Jesse would have had to stop jamming cellular data in order to text his cousin Mark. If so, then I prayed my message was winging its way to Ben and Flaco, as well as Serena and Josephine, who I had both separately and as a group contact under the word “Amigas.”

  “Ready?” Jesse asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  His face went hard. He pulled out the stiletto and flicked it open, using its sharp tip like a pointer to direct my gaze as he drew up the legs of his jeans, one after the other. Clipped to the inside of each boot was a scabbard holding a knife. Much bigger knives. Even the molded handles looked dark and vicious. My breathing went shallow as I imagined the pain those blades could wreak.

  “Too bad. Get out. We’re going to your place to do some gardening.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jesse draped his arm around my shoulders again as we walked up the brick path to my building. The day seemed to be getting brighter, or maybe it was my panic response starting to set in.

  “What do you mean, ‘gardening’?” I said, not caring that I sounded pissy. I glanced around. No one was out and about. Then I saw one neighbor walking into his unit at the far end of my complex and my hopes lifted until I recognized the tween kid in baggy jeans with red headphones straddling his spiky dark hair. Diego was jamming out to his music again and too far away to do much, if he even heard me in the first place.

  I said, “Is this about that damn gardenia bush? It’s just a plant, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Not to your friend Dr. Dell, it wasn’t.”

  I blinked, suddenly bringing to mind Homer the security guard telling me Winnie had been insistent I not forget to take the gardenia home with me. Comprehension hit me between the eyes.

  “She used it as her hiding place,” I said in wonder. “For Jeb’s missing letter. She must have put it in the pot somehow. But how did you know Winnie hid it there?”

  Jesse didn’t answer as he checked his phone again, and I could feel the anger course through him when his screen came up blank. He tapped in a short message with his thumb and sent it.

  Mark was clearly not responding to Jesse’s texts. Could the federal agent be reconsidering his “debt payment” to his cousin?

  Damn, I hoped so.

  My hopes were dashed as Jesse’s phone buzzed. I felt his arm relax and a smile played at his lips. He’d gotten the message he wanted.

  Mark wasn’t backing out of whatever their plan was, and it fully dawned on me that I was on my own here. Ahead on the pathway, NPH was stretching, like he’d just woken from a nap. Seeing me, he started my way for some affection. Then, noticing the human he didn’t know, he stopped, flicked his fluffy tail in annoyance, and, to my relief, disappeared into the safety of the bushes.

  Jesse stopped as we reached my stairwell, not taking his arm off my neck. “Since we’re coming to the end of our time together, you should know that if you hadn’t taken the daguerreotype from the sweet old lady’s house in San Antonio, we wouldn’t be in this mess and your friend Dr. Dell would still be alive.”

  I felt tears burning my eyes and looked away. It was true. If I’d left the daguerreotype at Betty-Anne’s house, he would have stolen it the night he broke in and Winnie wouldn’t have lost her life guarding it. The overwhelming guilt I felt kept me from making a retort. He smiled, knowing this, and went on.

  “You know, at first I called your Dr. Dell, but she brushed me off. Then I went to the Hamilton Center to see her, but she was busy in meetings—and on a conference call with Senator Applewhite.” He nearly spat out the name. “I hung around, waiting for her to leave her office so I could look for the daguerreotype. I could see the gardenia on her conference table. Of course, it was nothing but a stupid plant at the time.”

  He started up the stairs; I had no choice but to keep up. He said, “I figured once she left her office, I’d steal the letter from behind the photo and no one would be the wiser. I’d have what I needed, the Hallorans would have their proof, and all would be good. Then Dr. Dell caught me looking around. I tried to discuss things civilly, but she ran me out of her office.”

  I thought about what had happened afterwa
rd. “You must have threatened her, too. Enough for her to get flustered and hide the letter in the gardenia meant for me instead of putting the letter in the Hamilton Center’s safe.”

  Jesse gave me a Who, me? look, then stage-whispered into my ear, “I told her I’d seen their safe and could crack it in a heartbeat.”

  I jerked my head away, but held my temper. “Then you went back later to the event at the Hamilton Center—dressed like a woman so she wouldn’t immediately call security—and attempted to talk her into giving the letter to you, but she still said no.”

  “She told me to go to hell, actually.”

  Good for you, Winnie. I second that.

  “Afterward,” he said, “I went up to her office to try again. She tried to push me out, we fought, she got her head bashed in, and I left, trashing the place to make it look like a robbery and grabbing the daguerreotype and some others on my way out.”

  He shrugged, as if killing my friend was nothing but an unfortunate by-product of the moment. His arm was still over my shoulders, but I couldn’t feel it. I was in shock.

  Jesse continued, “When I opened the case and found the letter Jeb wrote wasn’t there, oh, it pissed me off. However, it didn’t take me long to recall the only thing missing from Dr. Dell’s office was the plant—which she’d planned to give to you—so I knew she must have hidden the letter in it for you to find.”

  I said, “Then the next day, you saw a gardenia on my office balcony and figured you’d have a little look-see, huh?”

  His mouth quirked up at my sarcasm. “That’s about right.” Then he sniffed, “But, of course, the letter wasn’t in the plant, and I hadn’t yet realized there were two of them. I assumed—logically, I think you’d agree—that you’d found the letter and had stored it someplace, so I went to your friend’s party to ask you about it.”

  One hand went instinctively to my rib cage. “Yeah, I remember how you ‘asked’ me. I’m guessing the senator fully recalls how you ‘asked’ him at Waterloo Park, too, with your cousin letting you know exactly where they would be stopping so you could lie in wait.”

  He turned and gave me a beatific smile. That’s when I knew for absolute certain he’d lost his grasp on what was real and what wasn’t.

  He continued. “Anyway, I dang near gave up on finding that letter, until Cousin Mark heard from your Agent Turner there were two gardenia bushes.” He waved his free arm in a situation-encompassing gesture. “And here we are.”

  We reached the top of my stairs when a roar of clapping and whistling made us whip around to look out over the wrought-iron fence that separated my complex from Little Stacy Park. All we could see was trees.

  “Oh goody,” Jesse said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “The senator started his speech. It’s always nice not to have to go track him down, don’t you agree?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him he and the senator were cousins, descended from the same man. Then I shut it again. I’d promised Senator Applewhite I wouldn’t tell a soul of his true lineage, and I intended to keep that promise.

  I also had a feeling it wouldn’t matter to Jesse. His line of thinking was warped, and knowing he and the senator were related might enrage him more.

  I felt anger well up in me. It wasn’t the kind that would find me unleashing a can of whup-ass on Jesse and escaping to save the senator; it was the kind that made me stop caring. Jesse wanted this letter Jeb Inscore wrote? Fine, he could damn well have it. If that letter and whatever it said could cause this much harm to me and the people I care about, I didn’t want the thing anymore.

  “I give,” I said, with much less pleasure than I’d said it this morning to Serena and Josephine, which by now felt like a lifetime ago. “I can’t imagine that a letter over one hundred and sixty years old could possibly be in my gardenia bush without being damaged, but if it’s there, then it’s yours. Winnie may have felt it important enough to fight for, but I won’t. I don’t even care what it says anymore. I just don’t care. Just take it and walk away.”

  “I planned to anyway, Lucy.” He slid my key into the lock of my front door, opened it, and dragged me with him. Once inside, he pulled one of the knives from his boot and attached it to the waistband of his jeans. My keys went into his front pocket.

  It was then, right when I was trapped in my own condo with a killer, that I remembered Winnie’s gardenia was no longer on my balcony. It was now somewhere on the grounds of my condo complex, having been planted this morning by Jackson.

  Wait. Jackson had called me, then texted, asking that I return his call, hadn’t he? It didn’t seem urgent at the time—was it possible he found Jeb’s hidden letter when he went to plant the gardenia?

  My thoughts galloped. I could confess to Jesse that the gardenia and Jeb’s letter were no longer on my balcony, but then I’d be sending a killer on the hunt for Jackson. I couldn’t do that, no way. I’d rather keep putting my own life in danger if it meant my friend would stay safe.

  I thought about the voice recording I’d made, and hoped like hell it had sent. If I could only stall Jesse for a while longer, maybe one of my friends would listen to the file and come to my aid. Every minute I kept Jesse from going after Senator Applewhite—or anyone else, for that matter—was a minute more for my recording to be received and heard.

  I set my jaw as Jesse turned and locked us into the condo. When he took my arm again to start marching me past the kitchen toward my balcony, I didn’t resist. I did, however, keep talking.

  “I do want to know one thing,” I said as we passed my dining room table. “How did you find out about Mary-Eliza being compelled to sell the land she inherited to Caleb?”

  Two steps further and we’d reached my tiny living room. He paused, giving dismissive glances to my artwork choices and feminine decor, then turned to regard me. “I guess there’s no reason not to tell you,” he finally said. “When I was about twelve, I was staying at my great-grandmother’s house for the summer since my own mama and grandmama were always too drunk to keep tabs on me. Anyway, up in the attic, I found this shoebox with some old leather diaries in it. They were really small, like three inches by five inches.”

  “Did you get to read any of them?”

  He nodded. “All of ’em. Great-Grandmama said she’d never even looked at them and I shouldn’t read them because they weren’t my business, but that just made me want to even more. There was one for each year from 1865 to 1895. I spent every day for a week up there reading. That’s how I found out about Caleb and my family’s lands. She wrote about it.”

  “Sounds like she detailed her whole life,” I said, looking up into his face. “How did she come across to you?”

  For a moment, he and I were no more than two people who respected the lives of those ancestors who had come before us, no matter what their trials and tribulations.

  “The first couple of years, she was real happy. They were living high on the hog in Greenville. She was having Albert’s kids and she loved the guy. But the money started going away by 1872. Albert died of some fever in late 1878, and by Easter of the next year, she realized that all the money from the sale of her daddy’s land was gone and Albert, his drinking, and his sucking at being a good gambler were to blame.”

  He emitted one short, mirthless laugh, then said. “After that, each year, her diary entries got sadder. She even contemplated suicide at one point, but didn’t because of her kids. They moved from the biggest house in town to a one-bedroom shack by the railroad tracks.”

  He aimed for my balcony again, but I resisted just enough to make him look back to me. Every second he didn’t know about the missing gardenia was another second for one of my friends to find me.

  “When did she find out about Jane Applewhite getting her father’s land?” I asked, because it was the first thing that came to mind.

  It didn’t work. He maneuvered me the last two steps, flicked open the lock on my French doors. The door opened smoothly and I waited for Jesse to go ballistic when he saw
an absence of gardenia plants. Instead, he pulled me outside, put the canvas bag on the ground, and picked up the little potted shrub.

  I frowned. What was it still doing here? It was in a slightly different spot than where I’d left it this morning, so Jackson must have come by. Why didn’t he take it? Did he not find the letter? Or, was Jesse wrong? Had Winnie hidden the letter somewhere else?

  Jesse seemed to not notice my shocked expression and continued his familial history lesson.

  “Mary-Eliza found out about the lands going to the Applewhite kids in 1878, after Albert died. Hattie Inscore wrote and told her. Apparently, they were school buds or something. She’d kept Hattie’s letter in one of her diaries.” He picked up the gardenia and studied it. “Hattie wrote of going through her father’s things and finding the daguerreotype of dead ol’ Seth Halloran. The letter Inscore wrote was with it, and it freaked Hattie out. That’s why she hid the letter in the photo case.”

  I was gaping at him, willing him to keep talking. I was fascinated by what he was saying and also panicked to stretch out time.

  “You know what Jeb’s letter was about, Lucy?”

  “Was it the real name of the man who had Seth murdered?”

  “Ding, ding,” he said, giving me a wink. “Inscore wrote it to Halloran’s wife. Want to know who C.A. was?”

  I wanted him to be Cantwell Ayers, I honestly did. I now knew I’d be wrong, though. And as much as I didn’t want to say the name aloud, I was determined not to give Jesse the satisfaction of saying it first.

  “Caleb Applewhite,” I said.

  He turned to me with a mean smile and dumped the gardenia all over my balcony. Dirt went everywhere and I took a step back as he said, “You got it. The very man who took my family’s lands. In the letter, Inscore added an extra note that said he knew Mary-Eliza was forced to sell her lands to Caleb. Which, in my mind, adds to the reasons why his direct descendant needs to be held accountable.”

  “Don’t you still have Mary-Eliza’s diaries?” I asked, frowning. “If the diary contained the proof Mary-Eliza sold her lands to Caleb under duress, why do you need Jeb’s letter?” I made my own situation-encompassing gesture. “Why go through all of this?”