Half Past Dead

by Meryl Sawyer

  Kat needed to end the awkward break in the conversation. “Was it a lot of money?”

  “I didn’t count it but it had to be thousands of dollars. In small bills. There wasn’t anything larger than a twenty that I saw.”

  Drug money, Kat silently concluded. She vividly recalled what Justin had told her about “double blind” drops.

  “Where would Gary Don get that much money?” she asked, testing Lola Rae’s logic. Love was blind, deaf, and dumb—too often.

  “Gamblin’,” Lola Rae replied without hesitation. “There’s always a game going on in the back room at the bar. He takes a cut for running the table. A lot of times he bets.” Lola Rae’s lips drew into a grim smile as tight as a corpse’s. “He gave me a wad of cash to start All Washed Up. Now he’s handing that ho money for something.”

  Kat could hardly wait to tell Justin about this development. It could be related to the case somehow. Twin Oaks was simply too small to have the drug running and murders not be linked. There must be a lot of cash floating around and an extreme need for secrecy to force the group to stash it in a log. It had to be retrieved and brought to a central point…like a bank. The casino was another possibility, she reluctantly admitted to herself. This wasn’t going to be simple. She would need Justin’s help to unravel this mess.

  “Did you take the money or leave it in the old log?” she asked, attempting to sound nonchalant. Don’t make Lola Rae suspicious. Go along with her assumptions.

  “I left it.” Lola Rae barked out a sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh. “I thought I’d catch Teresa picking it up. Know what I mean? I waited until the sun came up but she never showed.”

  It was almost two in the afternoon—plenty of time for the next link in the drug network to have picked up the money. Maybe they’d left more drugs to be sold. She wasn’t sure what any of this meant, but she firmly believed this was a piece of the puzzle.

  Justin needed to be informed of this development as soon as possible, but she didn’t dare alert Lola Rae. Let her assume this was about another woman until they knew the truth.

  “Is there a good place to hide and watch the tree?” Kat asked.

  “Yeah. I rolled my brother’s old Triumph behind a stand of bramble bushes and scrub oak. Even in a full moon, no one could spot me in that thicket.” Lola Rae’s dark eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I’ll go out there with you. Teresa might have been working. Let’s see if she picks up the money today. Who knows? It might be someone else.”

  “Like who?” There was a serrated edge to Lola Rae’s voice now.

  Game’s up, thought Kat. Lola Rae knows where I’m going with this. Be straight with her. “Didn’t it seem odd that Gary Don would leave the money out in the boonies rather than hand it to Teresa directly?”

  Lola Rae brushed a limp hank of hair off her shoulder. “Not really. Gary Don’s a tease. He told me I’d find what I needed in an old coffee can behind the post office.” She smiled wistfully as if remembering those days with youthful happiness. “Sure enough. There it was.”

  “Small bills?”

  “Uh-huh. Gary Don told me to keep it hidden and feed it into my cash drawer a little at a time.” Lola Rae’s lips trembled for a second, then tears welled up in her eyes again. “Every night, I’d check the coffee can. You have no idea the security it gave me to know I had enough money to run my shop.”

  Lola Rae was one of eight children, and her parents had struggled constantly to keep up with the bills. Lola Rae had no one to count on but herself. A familiar feeling, Kat decided. From the moment her father had died, Kat had known she must support herself. Oh, her mother allowed her to live with her—but she was expected to pay rent. If she hadn’t come up with the money, she would have been out on the street.

  Too bad Lola Rae’s security had come at such a price.

  JUSTIN GRINNED across the wide mahogany desk at Cloris Howard. “I’m not asking to see any personal information from the bank’s files.” He blasted the bank president with a good ole boy smile even though he was pissed big-time that she’d kept him waiting for over a half hour. “But I’ll get a court order if I need to.”

  Cloris inhaled, her delicate nostrils flaring just slightly, but she didn’t respond. Beneath her cool demeanor he detected a cunning ruthlessness that he’d encountered in powerful men who saw themselves as above the law.

  “I’m here to do a little more background on Elmer. I’m sure you want to see his murder solved.”

  “Of course,” she replied smoothly. “I was convinced that Wells woman had shot poor Elmer but…”

  “She has an airtight alibi.”

  “So it seems.” Her observant eyes were a flawless blue, but with no depth of emotion. “How may I help?”

  “What was Elmer working on when he was killed?”

  “I would have to check.” A note of defiance underscored her words as well as a subtle challenge. “The usual, I’m sure. He handled all our loans.”

  “Any problem transactions?” Justin was fishing here, slowly leading up to the questions he really needed to ask.

  “I’m not aware of any, and I’m sure if there had been something, Elmer would have conferred with me.”

  Justin didn’t doubt it. Any jerk could see Cloris Howard called the shots around the bank. Elmer wouldn’t be able to take a crap without her okay.

  Justin decided now was the time to drop the bomb. “Did Elmer mention that Buck Mason was getting his new loan from Jackson Mutual?”

  “That’s a lie,” Cloris blurted out before she could stop herself, and Justin smiled inwardly, knowing he’d struck a sore spot. Cloris glanced down at her calendar for a moment, then responded in her usual detached voice. “Buck has always done his banking here. Why would he go all the way into Jackson?”

  “A better rate?”

  “Impossible. Ask anyone. We offer the best rates and services around.”

  Her haughty tone was like a burr under his saddle. How could the woman be so sure? Unless…“Buck and Elmer had met just hours before Elmer was killed. Buck himself told me that he’d broken the news about the Jackson bank to Elmer then.”

  “That’s absurd! Buck would never do that.”

  He opened his mouth to ask the million-dollar question: Why not? A loan was a loan. A good businessman could get one anywhere. What was so special about Mercury? The service? Yeah, right.

  The cell phone in his pocket vibrated—three quick bursts. The code he’d given Kat. “Gotta take this.” He stood up and pulled the cell out of his pocket as he walked over to the window, his back to Cloris. “Radner here.”

  “It’s Kat,” she whispered.

  “The reception’s lousy,” he told her, not wanting Cloris to guess who was on the line.

  “I don’t want anyone to hear me. I’m with Lola Rae. We’re heading out to a spot along the levee. I think it’s a drug money drop-off point.”

  Holy shit! She could get herself killed. “I’ll meet you. I—”

  “That’ll blow everything. I’m leaving my cell phone on. It’ll act like a microphone, if you don’t turn yours off.”

  Justin started to protest, then stared at his cell phone for a second. What choice did he have? He flipped it shut, put it in his pocket, but didn’t disconnect. He’d planted a miniature GPS tracking device in the heel of Kat’s shoe. With the handheld monitor he kept in his truck, he could follow her anywhere within in a sixty-mile radius. But this way, he could track her and hear the conversation.

  “Is there a problem?” Cloris asked, her voice just a touch too interested.

  He gazed at her a moment, thinking of Kat out in the woods with Lola Rae. Anything could happen. He’d planned to string Cloris along with a little game of cat-and-mouse to see what he could discover, but he didn’t have the time now.

  “No problem,” he assured the oh-so-cool Ms. Howard. “I spent time with Ida Lou Bitner. Did she tell you Elmer planned to retire in two months and move to Guyana wher
e he’d start a mission?”

  Cloris started to giggle. “Elmer? A mission in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Who said it was in the middle of nowhere?”

  Cloris didn’t miss a beat. “Elmer did. He mentioned his plan to move to Guyana and start a religious school. It was just talk, that’s all. Elmer wouldn’t venture off on his own to some small outpost north of Brazil that most people can’t find on a map.”

  “Ida Lou tells me the funding was in place. Elmer had even made a deal with a realtor in Guyana to purchase a school and orphanage once run by a Jesuit order.”

  “Really?” Her tone expressed surprise, but Justin had a gut-deep feeling that she knew all about Bitner’s plans to leave the country. “Reverend Applegate never mentioned—”

  “I don’t think he knew. This wasn’t going to be a Baptist mission affiliated with Applegate’s church. Elmer alone would be in charge.”

  It sounded a lot like a cult thing to Justin, but he wanted to get Cloris’s reaction. After all, she’d worked with Bitner for almost twenty years. Hadn’t they talked?

  “Interesting.” She appeared to be weighing her answer, debating whether to say more. But she kept her response to the single word. Justin had no idea what was really going on in her head.

  Could she have pulled the trigger and shot the man who’d worked for her for over twenty years? Justin wouldn’t bet against it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  TORI NOTICED the feathery trail of white powder on the garage floor when she went to check her mother’s car battery. She should sell the old clunker, but that would only emphasize to her mother how near death loomed. The powder had spilled from a small green box shoved behind the old refrigerator her mother insisted on keeping in the two-car garage. Tori pried out the small box.

  Rat poison.

  Had rats invaded the pantry again? None of the nurses had mentioned it. She walked back into the house, calling softly, “Emilie, Emilie.”

  Emilie Yates was the night nurse. Almost sixty, with thinning white hair pulled back in a knot at the nape of her neck, Emilie had a lumberjack’s body and a sunny disposition. No matter how ill Tori’s mother felt, Emilie could make her smile. She was a rock and Tori had counted on her for most of this year.

  Emilie poked her head around the corner, a finger to her lips. “Shh! Your mother’s asleep.”

  Tori didn’t point out that her mother was so heavily sedated these days that she usually slept twenty-three hours a day. She held out the small box of rat poison. “Are we having problems with rats again?”

  Emile shook her head, adding, “I found it on the kitchen counter the other evening. I wanted to throw it out, but your mother insisted on taking care of it herself.”

  “Oh.” Tori let out the word slowly. Why on earth had her mother shoved it behind the old fridge where they kept extra sodas?

  “Your mother’s going fast,” Emilie said, her grizzled brows knitting into a tight frown. “It won’t be long now.”

  Tori swallowed hard. Emilie had years of experience with these situations. No doubt what she’d said was true. Why not allow her mother to die in peace, believing Tori was going to become a Kincaid? Why tell her that Tori was seriously considering giving back the ring and moving to Atlanta?

  “I’m not sure your sister should visit again,” Emilie said carefully. “Your mother was really upset after the last visit.”

  “What visit?” Tori struggled to keep her voice down. She’d asked the day nurse and her mother if Kat had come here, but she hadn’t seen Kat.

  “The other evening when I arrived your mother was sitting in front of the television all agitated. She claimed Kaitlin had been bugging her.”

  “Bugging her?”

  “About the past. Why she didn’t love her.” Emilie’s gaze sharpened. “I guess your sister had popped in real unexpected like between nursing shifts and asked questions that disturbed your ma.”

  “Mother told me Kat hadn’t visited.”

  Emilie tapped her head. “It’s all the medication. Addles the brain. I’ve seen patients forget their own names and babble like loonie-tunes. Next day after the medicine cleared out of their systems, they became themselves again. It’s best to talk to them just before they receive pain medication.”

  “Okay, when Mother wakes up, don’t give her anything. I need to talk to her.”

  Emilie nodded thoughtfully. “Tie up any loose ends before it’s too late.”

  Tori busied herself sorting through things in the garage, making piles for charity and throwing useless items into the trash, while she waited for her mother to wake up. Had her mother poisoned Kat? Tori knew she wanted to get rid of Kat—they both did—but would she have gone that far? No. Her mother would never have resorted to poisoning her own daughter.

  She finished what she could do in the garage and returned to the small condo, but her mother was still sleeping. She could go through things in the second bedroom. It would cut down on the sorting she would have to do later, but Tori was afraid her mother might notice.

  Tori tried Clay’s cell phone again. Still no answer. Either he’d left it in his car or he had it off. She didn’t bother to call his office again.

  Where was he?

  Clearly, he’d lied. He wasn’t at a deposition or his secretary would have known. Could he have gone home to Oakhurst for some reason? She couldn’t imagine why he would have. The judge and Rob Everett had driven into Jackson to confer with political honchos. Only his mother would have been at home—assuming she didn’t have a club meeting or a luncheon to attend.

  “Your mother’s awake,” Emilie informed her in a whisper.

  “I’ll go talk to her.”

  The older woman studied her for a moment before saying, “Some medications have half lives and remain in the system for days if not longer. It could be some time until she’s herself again. That’ll mean she may suffer a lot.”

  Tori’s throat closed up and she drew in a harsh breath. “I need to talk to her. I’ll make it quick.”

  Emilie nodded her approval, and Tori went into the bedroom. Her mother was sitting propped up against a bank of pillows, her skin a parched gray against the stark-white fabric. She seemed to have shrunk since Tori had visited yesterday, and she realized with heart-knocking alarm that Emilie was absolutely right. The end could be days or even hours away.

  “Mom,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  Her mother managed an indifferent shrug. Tori sat beside her on the bed, attempting to gauge how lucid her mother was. She took her mother’s frail hand in hers and stroked her palm with her thumb. She noticed her mother’s eyes drift to the engagement ring. Let her mother go to glory believing Tori would become a Kincaid. Tori could put off any decision about Clay until her mother was gone.

  “Ma, listen to me. I need to ask you a few questions.”

  Her mother’s gaze rose to Tori’s face. She appeared to be more clear-headed than she had when Tori had arrived. “’Bout what?”

  Tori swallowed hard, then asked, “Do you have a will somewhere?”

  “Will? I don’t…need a will.”

  “Ma,” she said gently as she touched her mother’s cheek. “You’re not getting any better—”

  “I know,” she responded with a suggestion of the smile Tori remembered so well. “I’m…how do they say it? Terminal.”

  The word tore at something inside Tori’s chest. It was the first time her mother had used it. She ventured a slight nod, silently acknowledging they’d crossed a line and were facing death head-on. “If something should happen, you wouldn’t want Kat to get half of everything you have. Would you?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” her mother said in a voice that seemed stronger than it had been in weeks. “Everything…goes to you.”

  Tori wondered if the combination of so many medications had confused her normally rational mother. If she had no will, the state would equally divide her property between her heirs. Kat would get half
.

  “You think I’ve lost it,” her mother said.

  “Well, you may not be thinking clearly because of the drugs.”

  “I’m a little fuzzy after an injection,” she admitted, “but I haven’t had one for hours. It hurts to breathe, let alone move, but my mind is crystal-clear at the moment.”

  Tori wondered how lucid her mother actually was, but didn’t dispute her. She ran out of energy very quickly. Tori needed to settle this now before her mother was exhausted.

  “There’s something important I need to tell you.” She patted the sheet for Tori to move closer.

  Tori scooted over, more than a little uneasy. Why would her mother wait so long to tell her something important?

  “All I have to leave you is this place.” She waved one frail hand to indicate the small condo she’d purchased after Kat’s father had unexpectedly died.

  It was in good shape thanks to Tori’s contributions for upkeep and decorating. It would bring top dollar—not as much as a home like Oakhurst—but enough that with the sale of her own condo Tori could reestablish herself in Atlanta. Of course there would be outstanding medical bills and a funeral to consider, but Tori calculated that she would have enough to begin again without scrounging for pennies—if she decided not to become Mrs. Clayton Kincaid.

  “I signed and recorded a quit claim deed to this place. It’s yours now.”

  Tori stared at her mother, unable to believe she’d taken this step without consulting her. A dozen thoughts whirled through her brain. As a real estate agent, she’d dealt with enough quit claims to know they were binding. The owner assigned all his property rights to another party. The loan and the liabilities transferred to that person as soon as the document was recorded. This condo and its small loan were now Tori’s responsibility.

  “What do you need to tell me?” Tori asked and her mother grinned, a strange, secret smile that frightened Tori.