Unfortunately, I would.
“It came back registered to Dublin Costello.”
“Costello?” I hoped I sounded surprised. “What do you think we’re looking at?”
“Too soon to tell. We’ll know more tomorrow after the examination.”
I was sure we would. I disconnected and turned back, but Eddie had already disappeared inside the camper. I let him go. I had a more pressing issue to deal with now.
My grandmother.
* * *
“I need to know exactly what happened the night you killed Dub Costello.” I placed a cup of coffee in front of her and took the seat across the table, Wilco curled at Gran’s feet, his snout resting on her slipper. “You can’t leave out anything, Gran.”
She held the mug between trembling fingers and took a sip. “I’ve told you most everything there is to say about it.”
“Tell me again. Start with why you went to Dub’s trailer that night. And why you had your gun with you.”
She put her mug down and leaned back. “Your granddad was so sick back then. The cancer, all the medicines he took, and then his mind started to fail. You remember how he’d forget things. I could tell him something and two seconds later it was gone. But things from a long time ago . . .”
“I remember, Gran.” Lung cancer had eaten away at his lungs, stolen his ability to breathe, but the dementia took his mind. I couldn’t decide which was crueler.
Gran took a long sip of coffee before speaking again. “That night, he was so upset. At first, I thought it was your mother’s death. How we’d just learned she was killed and left out there in those woods.”
I squeezed my eyes and tried to block out the images flashing across my memory. I’d found her body, or what was left of it, dumped up in the mountains, rotting and ravaged by animals, picked over beyond recognition.
“It happened that very night of her funeral, remember? Fergus had been in bed all day, unable to go to our own daughter’s funeral. Not that he really understood what was happening. By then, his mind was about gone.” Her eyes widened, her mouth drooped. “Maybe that was a blessing. God’s way of protecting him in his last moments.”
I gave her hand an encouraging pat. “I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me the story again. Just in case there’s something you forgot to mention before.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything about that night. It’s etched in my memory forever.” The words came as barely a sigh. Gran never complained. Never displayed her grief like many widows. After Gramps passed, she went on, stronger than ever, always helpful and outwardly cheerful. But I sensed the toll her grief had taken. I saw it in the small things: dull eyes, weak posture, laughter that didn’t quite meet her eyes. Or like now, pale and ashen, a sheen of sweat on her face as she recalled Gramps’ last moments.
Maybe I was wrong to press her like this. She’d suffered enough. But if I didn’t get to the truth, there could be much more suffering to come. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m okay.” She sat a little straighter and continued the story. “Fergus was babbling a bunch of nonsense that night, living in the past like he always did. At first, he was talking about your mother, remembering the good old days and all. Then he got real upset. He started ranting on about you and how you could never follow our rules, and then he told me about Dub and how he’d . . . you know.”
“Raped me.” The words had festered inside me all these years, like a poisoned cyst, and, now released, they burst out of me, hot and vile. I closed my eyes, swallowed my own emotions; I had to get from Gran the story that only she could tell.
“Yes. And I was so angry. All those years and I hadn’t known what had really happened that night you left Bone Gap.” She clenched her fist. “I’ve never felt so angry in my entire life.”
“The gun. What made you grab your gun?”
“I didn’t. I took my purse. I don’t know why, but I did. The gun was in my purse, like it always was. You remember how your grandfather bought me that gun when all those attacks were going on.”
That was true. Several of our women had been attacked and roughed up. The law never got to the bottom of it. Never really tried, according to Gran and Gramps. That’s when Gramps got her a gun and told her to keep it with her at all times. Was it registered? Traceable? “So you went to Dub’s trailer. With your purse.”
“Yes. I confronted him. Told him I knew what he’d done to you all those years ago. And he laughed. He said you owed it to him. He felt no remorse for what he’d done. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I became so angry, told him he would pay for his sins and that I was going to see to it. And he . . . he exploded. Lord, but I’d never seen a man so angry. He started shaking me . . . and he . . . he had me backed against the kitchen counter. He was hitting me.” She raised her hands, staring at them like they were foreign appendages. “That’s when I cracked. My purse was right there. I got to my gun, and . . .”
She swiped at her eyes. Her skin went from ashen to a splotchy red flush.
“Then what, Gran?”
“I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I ran home. Kevin Doogan was outside and he saw me. Asked me what was wrong and I told him everything. He told me to go inside. Wash up. Change my clothes and to not tell anyone. Not your grandfather, not you. No one. He said he’d take care of everything. I didn’t see him again after that. The next thing I knew, Dub’s place burned to the ground.”
Doogan had done that. He disposed of Dub’s body and burned his place to the ground in order to cover any evidence that might lead back to my grandmother. Over the past months, I’d wondered, over and over, about what compelled him to risk everything for Gran. A woman who wasn’t even family. One answer returned time and again, however unlikely. We’d only known each other for a few days as I’d helped him discover the fate of his sister. Then I’d shared my story with him, a story I’d shared with no one before. And that night in his arms, I’d seen it and felt it: an intimacy borne from an understanding and connection few people share. Doogan would risk anything to protect me.
“How many times did you shoot him, Gran?”
“I . . . I don’t know. . . .” She used her napkin to wipe her forehead.
“It’s important. How many? Just once?”
Her lower lip trembled. “No. More than that. I just kept pulling the trigger.”
It was a little snub-nose revolver—S&W Model 36, with distinct engravings on the metal grip. She may have unloaded the whole cylinder into him. Five rounds, if it was fully loaded. “Do you know how many bullets were in the gun?”
“No. Your grandfather loaded it for me.”
None had been recovered from Dub’s burned-out trailer, and I’d only found one by the remains. There could still be more rounds. Had Doogan picked up some at Dub’s place and gotten rid of them? Had I missed something at the scene? It was possible that bullets had embedded in other parts of the body and been dragged off or ingested by predators. There were too many variables. “And the gun? You’d told me that Doogan took it from you.”
“Yes. But I don’t know what he did with it. Like I said, he told me to go inside and wash up. I didn’t see him after that.”
The gun tied Gran to the murder. If Doogan dumped it somewhere near the body and it was found . . . “Gran, what is it?”
She doubled over the table, grasping her temples and letting out a deep, body-rattling groan that set my nerves on fire. I shot out of my chair. Wilco scrambled out from under the table and began whining and sniffing at Gran’s face. I pushed him away and wrapped my arms over her shoulders. “Gran!”
She started to tell me something, but her words came out garbled and slurred. I knelt down, grasped her cheeks. The left side of her face drooped slightly.
“No! Oh, God, what have I done?” I dialed 911 and gave the operator my address. “Please hurry. It’s my grandmother. She’s having a stroke.”
CHAPTER 12
The doctor delivered the news in the same ma
nner as one might place a drive-through order—brief and to the point. “She’s had a ministroke, or, in medical terms, a transient ischemic attack. The good news is that a TIA usually doesn’t cause permanent disabilities.”
“The bad news?”
“It’s a warning. A bigger, more serious stroke could be coming. She’ll need to make some lifestyle changes.”
Prison would be a huge lifestyle change....
“I want to keep her for observation and more testing. Then after she’s discharged, she’ll have follow-up appointments and medications to take. She’ll need someone at home with her for a while.”
There were more questions I should’ve asked, but shock had slowed my mind. The doctor left and I went back into the room to sit with Gran. She looked frail and small under the thin hospital blankets, tubes running from her veins to an IV bag and monitors. Flashbacks of Gramps ran through my mind. Even with the best care and Gran’s loving touch, he’d deteriorated quickly.
Meg sat by Gran’s bedside. Her hands shook as she smoothed back a piece of Gran’s hair. “I can’t believe this is happening. First Gramps, now Gran.”
“She’s going to be fine.” A brave front, but inside, I wasn’t so sure. I’d been there and seen the change that came over her so suddenly. Fine one minute, and then the next minute, she was slumped over in her chair, confused, weak, one side of her face slack. It’d happened so fast and without warning. It could happen again at any time. Only the next time it could be bigger. Deadly.
Lifestyle changes, the doctor had said. No problem there, Doc. A trial, prosecution, jail time, the rest of her years endured in an institute . . . lifestyle changes didn’t come any bigger than that. I couldn’t bear to see Gran’s life end in such misery. I’d do anything to prevent that from happening. Including tampering with evidence. And so much more, if I had to.
“Brynn.” Meg’s voice, a mixed bag of annoyance and concern, cut through my thoughts. I blinked and focused. Meg looked on with strained eyes. “You’re exhausted,” she said. “Go home. Get some rest. I’ll stay through the night.”
Thank God for Meg. Steady and loyal, she was always there when I needed her the most. I’d questioned my loyalties in the past: the law or my family. But seeing Gran’s fragile state now, knowing that I could have lost her tonight . . . there was no question in my mind. Family would always come first.
I took Meg up on her offer, but I had no intention of going home and resting.
* * *
Wilco turned, lifted his stub, and relieved himself on the old tire propped outside Doogan’s back door. I jumped back, but not quick enough to avoid getting my boot doused. Lovely. I shook my foot, scowled, and went back to looking for the spare key Doogan kept under his back steps.
I hadn’t liked Doogan when we first met. He was too egocentric, too aggressive. I’d had enough of those guys in the Marines—the ones who were all “we’ll take control, do what we want, when we want”—or at least I thought I had. One night with Doogan changed my mind. Except that night ended short and then he disappeared. I hadn’t heard from him since. But maybe it was for the best. Doogan was a Traveller and I’d long ago decided that a relationship with a Pavee would never work for me. Pavee women were expected to stay home, tend to the children, and follow their husbands’ lead. A concept that worked for some, I guessed, but snotty noses and dirty diapers weren’t my thing. Neither was being subordinate to a man. Something I’d discovered long ago, the hard way.
I found the keys taped under the top step and let myself inside, flipped on my flashlight, and made my way through the trailer. The old man Doogan rented from had died a few weeks after Doogan fled Bone Gap. That was over eighteen months ago. The trailer had stood vacant and locked up since then. Long enough for smells to accumulate and multiply. The stench hit Wilco the hardest. He hovered at my feet, nervous and fidgety, his nose working the air like crazy.
The cops had done a job on the place. The day before Dublin Costello’s house burned to the ground and he went missing, Doogan had confronted Dub in the streets, accusing him of murdering his sister. It got nasty and the cops had to break them up, making Doogan the perfect suspect. They’d aggressively sought him ever since, starting with this trailer. Cabinets and drawers were open, the garbage can spilled over, rugs pulled up. A pizza carton was left open on the counter near the sink. White fuzzy mold smothered its contents. I clamped my hand over my nose and mouth and turned away. You’d think a little moldy pizza wouldn’t bother someone used to the stench of days-old human flesh. But, hey, I liked pizza. And I hadn’t eaten.
Add to duty list: Get a pizza. Without white fuzz.
I’d start my search in the bedroom. A room I recalled all too well.
I’d only been in it once before, but the memory of that single night had ignited my dreams many a night over the last year and a half. It had started with a visceral hunger for each other’s bodies and could have ended blissfully if we’d gone to his bedroom at the outset. But we hadn’t made it past the living room before our passions took over . . . and then the memories of another cold living-room floor—Dublin Costello’s floor, where he’d brutally raped me as a teenager—had flooded my brain, crippling me. What happened after that still amazed me. Doogan could have taken advantage of the situation—I’d known men like that—but instead his once-eager hands gently rocked me. He shushed me and pulled the truth from my past. We’d made it to his bed, yes. But for a night of comfort and peace in the arms of a man who cradled me like the small child I’d become from reliving my pent-up fears and revealing past cruelties.
One night, we didn’t even get past first base. And yet Doogan had then turned his life upside down to protect Gran from a crime against the man who had taken my innocence and destroyed my life. I owed Doogan. And I still wanted him.
Add a note to duty list: Find Doogan. With a clear path to home plate.
I forced my gaze away from the rumpled sheets on the bed, looked for any clues to his whereabouts. Doogan lived lean. His dresser drawers contained little more than the essentials: T-shirts, a couple pairs of jeans, socks, and underwear. It appeared he hadn’t returned to take anything at all after dumping Dub’s body. I rummaged around a bit more, went to the closet, and found a trunk on the back of the floor. The contents had already been rifled through and the lid shoved back on top. If there had been anything of interest inside, the cops had probably taken it. Still, I took it to the bed and pulled out the contents one by one: owners’ manuals, electricity bills, a car magazine with a couple pages marked. Nothing that gave me any clue to where he might have gone. Pusser had tracked down his family in Augusta, but no one claimed to have seen him. No surprise there. Pavees never turned on one another.
As I replaced the items, a photo slipped out of the magazine. I turned it over and the air expelled from my lungs. A picture of Doogan, in front of a church altar, with his arm around the shoulders of a beautiful woman with a baby in her arms. The baby wore a baptismal gown. Two other children stood in front of them, a boy and a girl. The boy looked to be about ten. He wore jeans and an untucked shirt. A shock of dark hair fell forward over his defiant eyes. He was wiry, with the same chiseled features as his father. I crumpled the photo, jammed it in my pocket, and turned my back to the bed.
Doogan had children. And a wife.
No wonder he’d left. He had a family. Wife, children . . . another life. He’d satisfied his needs here. He’d gotten answers about his sister’s death, seen her killer avenged. He’d protected an elderly Pavee woman from the crime. Then returned to his family. Simple. It didn’t ever really include you, did it, Brynn?
Wilco pressed against my legs. I brushed him aside and paced the length of the room. I’d thought I’d found someone who cared and took my side . . . now this. My skin prickled with sweat. Wilco nudged me again. I jerked back and kneed him away. He let out a little yelp, but didn’t budge. I looked into his eyes, still trained on me—loyal and loving—and felt a sharp twinge in my gut.
/>
Don’t take it out on your dog, Brynn.
One hand reached out to pet him and the other itched for a drink. A bit of comfort in each hand; that’s what I needed.
Doogan had kept a bottle in his cupboard. Would it be there now? I found it, tossed the top on the way back through his trailer, and took a swig. Hot liquid burned down my throat and hit my stomach, radiating numbing heat outward through my tense muscles. Another long swig and I felt the sharp edges of my emotions start to blur and soften.
I plopped on his sofa, dust clouding the air, and leaned back against the cushion and jammed my hand into my pocket and pulled out a pill. Just a little extra something to numb that part of my brain that the whiskey could never reach. There were four pills left. I took them all.
Wilco hopped onto the sofa and wriggled his way onto my lap, nestling his warm nose into the crook of my neck. We stayed like that for a few minutes, wrapped up together, and soon my own breathing slowed to match the steady rhythm of his. I closed my eyes and felt the Vicodin take effect. It loosened my tense muscles, eased the pounding in my temples. Noises began to fade away: a motorcycle engine, distant music, a car horn. The sounds of Bone Gap were swallowed by the heavy purple curtain of drug-induced calmness. I exhaled and let myself go. I’m staring down at a dead soldier. His helmet is split open. Brown hair flutters across his shrapnel-peppered forehead. A gold band shimmers on his finger. Someone is a widow. I hope they don’t have kids. Mortar shells slice the air and explode nearby. Wilco whines. A man touches my arm and points to the waiting stretcher off to the side. I don’t want to, but I grasp the dead soldier’s ankles. One boot is missing, his lower pant legs a jumble of fabric soaked with blood. A missile whistles through the air. I duck as dust and rubble rain down and hit my skin like splattered grease from a hot frying pan. Gran’s in the kitchen, making fried chicken for dinner. I want to go home. I tighten my grip. The other man gives the signal and we lift. The load is too light. I look down. The soldier is still on the ground . . . but . . . I look at my hands. My throat constricts. A scream pierces the air. My scream. Two bloodied legs—white bones gleaming through mangled flesh—dangle from my grip....
Fractured Truth Page 8
