Dark Hearts

by Sharon Sala

  The killer was in a panic.

  He tried to call Moses Ledbetter to see if he could get the bomb any sooner but didn’t get an answer. He left word for Moses to call, then went home and began to withdraw what money he could get his hands on in case he needed to make a run for it. For him, it was all about timing. Once the witness against him was silenced, even if they dragged the remains of a hundred bodies from the mine, there would never be a way to pin the murders on him. Come hell or high water, he had to find out why Ledbetter wasn’t answering. The guy was an old man after all. He could be sick...he could be dead. He needed to know where he stood.

  * * *

  Lainey’s date with Sam had prompted her to do something she should have done months ago. She had cleaned out her closets.

  It was midafternoon when she finished packing up what she was giving away and carried the last box to her car. She shoved it in the backseat beside the other one, then ran back to the house to get her jacket and purse. She paused to lock up and heard Dandy raising a ruckus. She walked off the porch and looked toward the pasture.

  Dandy was running with his head up and his mane and tail flying. She laughed. He hadn’t done anything like that in ages.

  The beautiful fall day must be agreeing with him.

  “Hey, Dandy! Apple treats for you when I come back!” she yelled.

  The grullo kept running, and for a moment Lainey wished she was on him, riding with the wind on her face and her hair in tangles. Without thinking, she touched her head, then let her hand drop. No hair to blow in tangles. No time to play on a horse. But she could still bring the little pillow-shaped horse treats Dandy loved.

  She headed for the car. Once she gave away the clothes she could no longer wear, she was going shopping. It had taken Sam coming back to make her care about how she looked, but nothing could have changed her heart. She would have loved Sam Jakes for the rest of her life even if she’d never seen him again. The difficult part was finding a way to accept that it had taken death to bring them back together. There had to be a way to reconcile her joy with that tragedy. She drove away while Dandy was still kicking up his heels.

  * * *

  It was after 2:00 p.m. when they brought up the remains. Trey was outside in his police cruiser talking to one of the officers back in town, and Sam was inside the mine with the search-and-rescue team.

  The first person to come up was the coroner, Marv Addison. He was masked up to the bridge of his nose and had goggles over his eyes. He had suited up in coveralls before he went down, which was fortunate, because he came up coated in what looked like a layer of gray silt.

  They unhooked his rigging and sent it back down into the hole. The next thing to come up was the recovery basket, holding a body bag with the remains. Then the others were brought up one by one.

  Sam helped search and rescue carry the basket with the remains to the coroner’s van. They transferred the body bag to the back and went to return the rescue basket to their truck while Sam waited for Dr. Addison to return from talking to Trey and Sheriff Osmond.

  When Dr. Addison finally came back to toss his coveralls in the van, Sam took him aside.

  “I know you aren’t going to release details until you’ve done an autopsy, but can you tell me if you found any identification with the body?”

  Dr. Addison knew Betsy Jakes had been the latest murder victim, and he also knew her daughter, if she woke, would finger the killer. He knew what was at stake and, for once in his life, broke protocol.

  “We recovered a wallet with a driver’s license issued to a young man named Donald Collins. There was nearly five hundred dollars inside, so it wasn’t a robbery. We also recovered a suitcase with clothing and a bus ticket to Los Angeles. And the bones are consistent with a young male Caucasian. I cannot confirm that the bones are those of Donald Collins. But I can confirm that those items were found with the body.”

  “Oh, my God,” Sam mumbled. “Mom was right.”

  “Mom was right about what?” Trey asked, as he walked up behind his brother.

  Sam repeated what the doctor had just told him.

  “Did you find anything that pointed to cause of death?” Trey asked the coroner.

  Dr. Addison shrugged. “Back of his skull is crushed, but I won’t venture a guess as to how it happened. Could be pre-or postmortem. You’ll have to wait for my autopsy report.”

  Trey smiled grimly.

  “Well, since Donny Collins had a bus to catch, I can vouch with some certainty that he didn’t intend to catch it out here. However he died, it wasn’t by his own choice. I think we’ve just found the reason for our three murders. Now all I need to know is who killed the kid and we can find our killer, too.”

  Dr. Addison grabbed some wet wipes and began cleaning his hands, then wiped the dust from his shoes.

  “I’ll make sure you and Sheriff Osmond both have copies of my report as soon as it’s ready,” he said, then got in the van with his crew and drove away.

  Sam looked at Trey. “What next?”

  “I need to swing by the precinct,” Trey said.

  Sam nodded. “I’m going to talk to Will Porter again. See if he knows if Donny Collins had a girlfriend.”

  “What do you think about a killer leaving all that money on a body?” Trey asked.

  Sam frowned. “I would say the killer didn’t need money or he would have looked, even if the death was an accident. It’s human nature. And since Mom said she saw the body in the shaft, they must have seen the killer throw the body down there. If there was anything the killer wanted, he would have taken it before he dumped the body.”

  Trey nodded. “Kind of what I was thinking.”

  “I think we need to avoid talking to Marcus Silver just yet,” Sam added.

  “Why?” Trey asked.

  “He already stated he didn’t need the scholarship money. We know his family was loaded. I’m not saying he’s guilty, but it is a factor to consider,” Sam said.

  “Agreed, so we wait for more information before we draw any conclusions,” Trey said.

  “I think so. I’ll let you know what I find out about the girlfriend,” Sam said.

  “Talk to you later,” Trey said and left the scene.

  Sam went to his car, but as soon as he closed the door, he called Lainey.

  Her phone rang enough times that he thought it was going to voice mail, and then she answered with a breathless catch in her voice. “Hello?”

  “Hey, honey, it’s me. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  She laughed. “No, I’m just trying on clothes.”

  He smiled.

  “A most important task, I would say. Be sure to find something easy for me to take off.”

  She laughed again, and the sound settled in his heart.

  “I’m headed back to Mystic. Is it okay if I come out tonight?” he asked.

  “Only if you stay,” she said. “Bring your toothbrush and your rock-star self.”

  He chuckled. “How did I become a rock star?”

  “Because you’re good, remember? At the risk of overstroking your ego, you’re actually really good, Sam Jakes.”

  “You can never overstroke, honey. It’s when you quit too soon that makes it hurt.”

  She laughed again. “I’m hanging up on you now. I’ll see you around seven?”

  “Yes, you will.”

  Sam was still smiling as he started the car and drove back into town.

  * * *

  Will hadn’t gone to the hospital that morning. Everyone in town knew about his wife now. After all his years of trying to keep her weakness a secret, this kind of news traveled fast no matter what the origin. Now everyone knew she was an alcoholic and that she was dying because of it. He’d stayed home not to be at her side, but because he coul
dn’t face people’s curious stares and questions.

  But sitting still for long periods of time had never been Will’s strong suit. It had been months since Rita had cleaned their house, and even though he knew she was never coming home, he began going room by room, gathering up the liquor bottles from all her hiding places and taking them to the kitchen.

  Then he stood at the sink, opened them one by one and poured the contents down the drain. Every so often he took a drink for the hell of it. Since she was dying, he could hardly drink to her health, so he drank to dull the pain of his guilt.

  It was late afternoon when his cell phone rang. All the bottles were empty and long since carried out to the trash, and he was pretty close to drunk when he answered the call.

  “Hello.”

  “Mr. Porter, this is Dr. Fielding. Your wife’s condition has worsened, and I think you need to get to the hospital as quickly as you can.”

  Will shuddered as he wiped a shaky hand across his face.

  “Yes, thank you. I’ll be right there.”

  He disconnected, and then walked to the kitchen, got the leftover coffee from the coffeemaker and drank it cold straight from the carafe.

  He drank until it was empty, then shuddered and gagged from the quantity and the bitterness. He stood there for a few moments, then staggered to the bathroom and threw up his guts. After a few minutes he washed his face and brushed his teeth, then put on clean clothes and left the house.

  * * *

  Since it was Saturday, Sam knew Will Porter wouldn’t be at school, but the man also wasn’t answering his phone. Since the man’s wife was in ICU, he sent Mike Cantrell a text.

  Have you seen Will Porter today?

  Porter is here. His wife is dying. Family has been called in.

  Okay. Thanks.

  Once again, death was keeping the investigation at a crawl.

  * * *

  Since Sam couldn’t talk to Will Porter, he went back to the police precinct and got Porter’s yearbook. He grabbed a cold pop from Trey’s minifridge, got a package of cheese crackers from the machine and kicked back on the sofa in Trey’s office. He got up once to get a pad of paper and a pen, then went to work.

  He popped a cheese cracker in his mouth and started with the freshman class, searching for girls with the initials BB or the first name Betty. There was only one Betty. He moved to the sophomore class and found one girl with the initials BB, but her first name was Barbara. He took a drink of the cold pop, and then ate a couple more crackers before he started on the junior class. There was one girl named Beth Bradford who had the right initials, and one named Betty. He stopped there, since he already knew there weren’t any Bettys or BBs in the senior class. So if their theory held water, he had four names that might or might not have been the Betty Boop mentioned in Billie Conway’s diaries. And Betty might or might not have been Donny Collins’ girl, which meant there were still too many unknowns. He needed to find out if any of the four still lived in the area and decided to ask Delia, since she’d lived here all her life. He dumped his trash, emptied his cold drink and headed for the motel with the old yearbook in hand.

  * * *

  Delia was filling the cold-drink machine in the motel lobby when Sam walked in. He laid the yearbook aside, took off his jacket and hat and started helping her fill in the slots with bottles of pop without comment.

  She looked a little surprised. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I know, but I already owe you for helping me with Lainey’s new clothes, and when we get through here, I’m going to bug you for more information. This is the least I can do.”

  Delia was pleased, and it showed. When Sam squatted down to fill in the lower slots, she saw the burn scars on the back of his neck, and her first thought was to hug him, then she felt like crying. She had to look away to regain her composure. By the time they were finished, she had pulled herself together again.

  “So what can I help you with?” she asked.

  “Come sit beside me,” he said, sitting on the sofa and patting the other cushion.

  She eased down with a slight groan.

  “Getting old sucks,” she muttered, and then immediately thought of Betsy and wished she could take that back. “I’m sorry. It was a thoughtless comment. Getting older is a gift, because it means I’m still here.”

  His sadness had been instantaneous. His mother’s choices had ended with a bullet to the brain. He was struggling to regain his composure just as Delia was mumbling her apology.

  “Don’t feel bad. I keep thinking it’s not real,” he said.

  She nodded. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “You weren’t in Mom’s class, were you?”

  “No. I was two years behind her. We didn’t become friends until after we were grown and married.”

  “Okay, but you were in high school when she was a senior. Now for the questions. Do you remember Donny Collins?”

  She frowned. “The name is familiar.”

  “He was the salutatorian in the graduating class of 1980.”

  “Oh, right! I knew I knew it. Marcus Silver was valedictorian, right? All of us girls had a crush on him. He wasn’t all that cute, but he was smart and rich, which made up for it.”

  “Yes. So by any chance do you remember if Donny had a girlfriend?”

  “Oh, gosh...that was so long ago I can barely remember what he looks like.”

  Sam opened the yearbook. “This is him,” he said, pointing to Donny’s senior picture.

  “Oh, yes! Now I remember him.”

  “What about a girlfriend? Does anyone come to mind?” he asked.

  She frowned. “I don’t know, honey. It’s been so long.”

  “What if I show you some pictures of other girls and see if anyone rings a bell?”

  “Sure, I don’t mind.”

  Sam opened the book to the freshman class and pointed out the girl named Betty.

  “Do you remember her?”

  “Not at all. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. We’re moving up to the sophomore class. That was your class, right?”

  Delia nodded. “Okay, who’s next?”

  “This one.”

  “Oh, that’s Bobbie Bennett. I remember her just fine, but she wouldn’t have been Donny’s girlfriend. She was gay. She died before our senior year.”

  Sam’s hopes were dimming.

  “Okay, that’s fine. We’re eliminating them, which helps. These last two were in the junior class. Just think back and try to remember if you ever saw either one of them with Donny.” He pointed to the first girl. “Do you remember her?”

  “Yes. Betty Farris. I don’t remember who she dated, though. I’m so sorry, Sam.”

  He was trying to stay positive. Maybe Donny Collins didn’t have a girlfriend and the diary entry wasn’t about him. It didn’t matter. They would still find out who’d killed him when Trina woke up.

  “Okay, one more, and then I’ll let you get back to work. What about this one? Do you remember Beth Bradford?”

  “Of course I do. She’s Beth Powell now.”

  “Beth Powell? Is that someone I should remember?” Sam asked.

  “You went to school with her son, Randy.”

  Sam’s expression stilled. “Oh, no. Her grandson is the boy who was killed last night?”

  “Yes. Such a tragedy,” Delia said.

  “So do you remember anything about her personal life in high school?”

  Delia’s frown deepened. “She had a boyfriend. I remember her wearing his class ring, but I can’t say who it was. It might have been Donny Collins, but I can’t say. You’ll have to ask her.”

  Sam sighed. Once again life was slowing down an investigation. He couldn’t talk to Will Porter because his
wife was dying, and this was hardly the time to approach Beth Powell about anything, though he might have to break protocol and do it anyway. He didn’t give a shit about manners if it kept his sister alive.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t more help,” Delia said.

  “No, no, that’s not true. You were a lot of help. Investigating is often about eliminating people. Finally finding who you’re looking for is always at the end of the investigation.”

  “Okay, then,” Delia said, and pushed herself up from the sofa. “And thank you for helping me refill the pop machine,” she said.

  “Totally my pleasure, and thanks again.”

  Delia watched him leave, then went back to work. She didn’t know who was killing her friends, but she hoped they found him before anyone else had to die.

  Fourteen

  The killer was parked on a dirt road at the foot of the mountains surrounding Mystic. Moses Ledbetter lived up there somewhere. If he knew where, he would already have been knocking on his door. He was so pissed off he could barely focus.

  He stared up at the mountain and the long shadows already spilling down the side toward the flatland. It would be sundown soon, and he would have to go home.

  “Okay, old man. I’m going to call you one more time, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll fucking answer your phone,” he screamed, and pounded his fist against the steering wheel.

  Then he picked up the burner phone and, one more time, punched in the number he’d used to call Ledbetter before, then listened to it ring. And ring. And ring.

  “Son of a fucking bitch,” he said, and had started to hang up when he heard a voice.

  “Hello? Who’s calling?”

  The killer gasped.

  “Moses?”

  “No, this is his grandson.”

  “I need to talk to Moses,” he said.

  “Were you a friend of Grandad’s?” the man asked.

  “No, I hired him— Wait! What do you mean, were?”