“I know everyone in Roble,” Auntie Zanne said, ignoring the woman having a breakdown. “What are their names?”
Kara blew out a breath. “His daughter is Amelia.” She took the tissue from Auntie. “Do they know he’s dead?”
“No,” I said. “We only just found out who he was.”
Auntie was blinking her eyes and biting on that bottom lip. I could tell she was thinking. “I only know one child in Roble named Amelia,” she said. “And that’s Coach Williams and Taralynn’s daughter.” She glanced over at me. “Someone must have had a child recently.”
“I thought you’d know all about any child being born,” I mumbled.
“No, that’s her,” Mrs. Williamson said, blowing her nose into the tissue.
“Who’s her?” Auntie Zanne said, a confused look on her face.
“Taralynn. Amelia is Taralynn’s child,” Kara said.
Auntie sat down in the chair that had been offered to her earlier.
“Ray was her father,” Kara said. “And I guess she got another one on me. He was with her in the end. Not me.” She burst into another round of sobs.
“Ray was her father?” Auntie said, and I thought she was about to faint. She plopped down in the chair and stared off into space.
I felt odd man out, so I took a seat as well.
“You’re talking about Taralynn Williams?” I asked.
“Yes. The woman he never stopped loving even after marrying me. The woman who got pregnant with his child and then broke his heart when she married his brother.” She bit down on her lip. “Oh yeah, I know her.”
Auntie sat forward, her eyes big. “Wait,” she said. I saw her lips moving and her finger moving through the air like she was trying to add it all up. “So, Herman St. John -”
“That wasn’t his name,” I said.
“You know what I mean. He did know Taralynn. That’s why he had her business card. But the other part, that couldn’t be right,” she said.
“Ah,” I said and tried to hold my chuckle knowing it would have been inappropriate. “Something you didn’t know.”
“What’s not right?” Mrs. Williamson asked.
“About Taralynn. She’s married to Chip Williams. Our football coach. He couldn’t have been your husband’s brother.”
“Charleston Williams?” Kara said. “That was Ray’s brother.”
“No,” Auntie said.
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Williamson said.
“Coach Williams doesn’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“Well, he doesn’t now because Ray is...he’s...” Kara looked at me and I reached out and took her hand.
“They don’t have the same last name,” Auntie said.
“So?” Kara said sniffing.
“How could this be?” Auntie asked.
“Charleston changed his last name when he and Taralynn left Houston. I guess he thought that would help keep their secret.”
“The dead guy and Coach Williams were brothers?” Auntie was mumbling to herself still stunned.
Kara and I stared at her.
“Auntie.” I leaned toward her. “What is wrong with you? It’s okay that you don’t know everything that happens in East Texas.”
“Coach Williams has always said,” Auntie ignored me, “actually gone out of his way to let everyone know that he was an only child. That, he always told us, was the reason he had to find a wife that would spoil him because he was used to being the center of attention.”
“Well, Auntie,” I said, “looks like that wasn’t true.”
“It wasn’t,” Mrs. Williamson said and looked at me.
“He even said that’s why he was such a good football coach. He had to have everything.” Auntie shook her head. “Of course we just laughed, happy that he had that background and led our high school to victory time and time again.”
“He did have to have everything,” Widow Williamson said agreeing. “Including Taralynn and her child, and that just about killed Ray. Even after we got married, I knew he still grieved over that loss.”
“And Taralynn would always nod her head, smile and say something about he was the other child in the house,” Auntie said, still working out the news in her head.
“Is that what Taralynn said?” Mrs. Williamson said and turned up her nose. “I can’t picture her being good to anyone.”
“Oh yeah, she treats him good,” Auntie said and then looked at Ragland Williamson’s wife. “She spoils him and that girl of theirs.”
“If by ‘that girl’ you mean Amelia, she was Ray’s girl, not Charleston’s or Chip’s or whatever you call him.” She swiped at her face with the tissue. “They formulated their lie a long time ago and made a pact to keep it,” the wife said. “I think he only told me so he’d have someone to talk about his daughter with.”
“She doesn’t know about him?’’ Auntie said. “Amelia doesn’t know Coach Williams isn’t her father?”
“Not as far as I know,” she said. “It’s what Taralynn wanted and he would’ve have done anything to make sure she was happy. Even after all of these years.”
“He did what she wanted him to do?” Auntie asked. “Even after he was married to you?”
“Yeah,” she said and made a face like the thought of it left a bad taste in her mouth. “And I wasn’t jealous of her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Of course not,” Auntie said and gave me a look. “I wasn’t thinking that. But if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of things did she ask him to do?”
“Keep that secret. Let the lie about his brother being Amelia’s father go. And the lie about his feelings for her.”
“Why did they concoct that lie in the first place?” Auntie asked.
“Ray was in college when Taralynn got pregnant and wanted to finish school. I guess she couldn’t wait. Her reputation was too important. Charleston has just finished school. I don’t know how or why they did it, but the two of them got married and told everyone it was Charleston’s child. She made her choice, and I guess Ray’s brother didn’t care about the lies or keeping it all secret.”
We needed to switch gears. Although now we had another suspect with Coach Williams, a Roble scandal wasn’t going to give us all the answers we needed.
“When was the last time you spoke to your husband?”
“I don’t know. A couple of days ago,” she said.
“A couple? Like two?” I said. That couldn’t be true, I thought. We’d found him at the funeral home more than two days ago.
She hung her head and shook it slowly. “Maybe a week.”
“Which is it?” Auntie asked.
“I was mad at him.” Kara broke out in sobs again. “I didn’t want him to go down there and I wasn’t speaking to him. He’d tried to call me a couple of times, but I wouldn’t answer. Then I just figured he’d stopped trying. I never thought he had stopped because he was dead.”
“Do you know anyone named Herman St. John?” I asked.
“That’s the name he used while he was down there.”
“Why?” Auntie asked.
“I don’t know.” She dabbed at her nose with the rumpled tissue. “Probably so his brother wouldn’t know he was down there. Probably so he could see her,” she closed her eyes, “and no one would know.”
“Had he used an alias before?” Auntie asked.
“No,” she said.
“We spoke to Jackson Wyncote this morning—”
“You did?” she cut in before Auntie finished her sentence.
“Yes. He told us that your husband might be working for another lawyer now.”
“He was. Mr. Wyncote was his old boss. When you talked to him, did he know anything?”
“Know anything?” I said. “Uhm. No. Not about the murder. But that’s how we got your name
and address. Your husband didn’t have any ID on him when he was found.”
“Where was he found?” she asked.
“In a casket in my funeral home,” Auntie said.
“What?” she said. She sat back in her chair. “I don’t understand.”
“We don’t either,” I said. “But it looks like after he was killed, the person put him in a casket.”
“Oh, my Lord.” She covered her eyes with both her hands. “How did he die?” she asked without moving her hands.
“He was shot. In the back,” I said.
“The back? Oh no!” she moaned and bent forward burying her head in her lap.
Auntie and I looked at each other. “Do something!” Auntie mouthed.
“What?” I mouthed back. Auntie hunched her shoulders. She was no help.
I tentatively stuck out my hand, then drew it back and looked at Auntie Zanne. She nodded at me. I stuck my hand back out and laid it gently on her back and gave her a rub.
“It’s okay,” I said. Auntie nodded at me again, I guess saying I was doing the right thing. “I know this hurts, but we’re here to help.”
“You’re here to help?” Kara bounced up and screeched. “Where are the police? Why is a doctor and an old lady here telling me this?”
Auntie made a face at me like Kara’s outburst was my fault. “Say something!” she mouthed again.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say because the Roble sheriff was out of town.
“Mrs. Williamson, we’re here because we have the remains and we couldn’t tell you about them without telling you what happened. We only found out who he was, and we didn’t want to leave his body...uh...unclaimed.”
She looked at me and swiped the back of her hand across her nose. I reached over to Auntie for another tissue. She tried to hand me one, but I waved it away and pointed to the whole pack.
“Who killed him?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” I said and gave her the pack of tissues.
“Was it Taralynn?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” I said.
She sniffed and seemed to be thinking.
“It could have been someone here,” I suggested. “Someone following him. Maybe someone from an old case he worked on?”
“Are you sure Mr. Wyncote didn’t have some kind of idea?” Kara seemed interested in this conversation. “Ray used to work murder cases for him. Mr. Wyncote represented all kinds of dangerous people.”
“He did mention one case,” I said. Auntie hadn’t said more than a couple words since she found out about our dead man’s love child. “The last case your husband worked for him.”
“Oh yeah.” She nodded. “I remember. That case really bothered Ray.” She blew her nose into a tissue.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he knew that the guy Mr. Jackson was representing was innocent. He told me that his boss finally got a decent guy for a client, and he couldn’t do anything to help.”
“Mr. Jackson told us his client got convicted.”
“Yeah, he did. But Ray swore he knew who the real killer was. Is that who killed Ray?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” I said. I’d been telling her the whole time no one knew who the killer was, but that didn’t seem to sink in.
“Did your husband ever tell you that person’s name?” I asked.
“No. He only told me that he was from Stowell.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Well, isn’t Roble full of secrets,” I said as we drove I-69 back home after picking up the trophies. “And lies.”
I could see Auntie Zanne draw in a breath, but she didn’t use it to speak. She sat quietly, her hand patting her leg to some inaudible beat.
We didn’t stay much longer with widow Kara Williamson. Auntie had finally recovered, and we were able to make arrangements for the remains. I got all my questions answered, but nothing I found out trumped the information we learned about the sordid pasts of Ray, Coach Williams, and Taralynn.
“Josephine Gail knowing all that land might not be hers. Admitting that she knew who John Doe was when she called Pogue.” I glanced over at Auntie Zanne. “That beautiful child, Amelia, is right in the middle of a real-life soap opera. Two brothers in love with the same woman. One of them fathering a child and allowing the other one to raise her. Both of them lying about it. It’s all so unbelievable.”
I flicked on the blinker, looked out my side mirror and changed lanes. “You see,” I nodded, “that’s why I don’t like small towns.”
“Every town is full of secrets,” Auntie said. “And everybody lies. Seemed to me that it took you a while to find out about the personal life of that doctor of yours.”
That was a punch in the gut...
“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, darlin’, but life will deal you lots of bumps and sudden turns,” she said. She stared straight out of the window, never turning to look at me. “If you don’t have your radar on all the time, which is impossible to do, you gonna hit some hard roads more than once or twice in your life.”
This time I didn’t say anything.
“I just don’t know what we learned that would help solve this case,” Auntie Zanne said, then she turned and looked at me. “There’s a lot of people with motives though.”
“Pogue’ll be home tomorrow night, I said. “Late. But back on the job early Saturday morning. We can tell him what we know.”
“Isn’t it remarkable how Ragland Williamson’s wife looks so much like Taralynn?” she said, ignoring what I said about Pogue. “Like he was trying to replace her.”
“I noticed that. From the bench picture, it would be easy to think they were related. Maybe even sisters.”
“I know,” Auntie said. “And what about Coach Williams always saying he’s an only child? Making a big production number of it.” She hunched her shoulders. “Why? Why would he do that?”
“I guess to keep his secrets.”
“How would those secrets make Amelia feel?” I asked. “I would have hated not knowing my father.”
“I would have hated that my husband was still in love with another woman,” Auntie Zanne said.
“And that maybe he only chose to marry me because I looked like her.” I said.
“You know what that sounds like to me?” Auntie Zanne said.
“What?”
“Motive.”
“I think so too, Auntie,” I said. “Jealousy is something that would make people do things they’d never do.”
“It’s possible,” she said. “Kara, the poor wife, knew where he was. The name he was using. She could have done it and gone back home. Nobody the wiser.”
I nodded. “I know who else had a motive.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Chip and/or Taralynn.”
Auntie nodded. “Without a doubt,” she said. “Both of them had secrets to hide.”
“And fifteen years’ worth of lies to keep buried,” I said.
Auntie gave a snicker. “Who wouldn’t kill for that?”
We stayed quiet most of the way back, both of us lost in thought. I had a million questions in my head. Had we already met the killer? Had my Auntie Zanne’s questioning caused concern and were we now in danger? Was he, or she, in Roble, or had they come from Houston? In our last phone conversation, I had tried to reassure Pogue about all the chips falling in place and not to worry. But now I was thinking I might just end up eating my words.
I looked over at Auntie Zanne from time to time. She seemed to be resting her eyes, or as she liked to say, her eyelids. And it wasn’t until we got close to Nacogdoches that I heard a peep out of her.
“I want to pick up Rhett and the three of us deliver the pay to our musicians.”
“What?” I frowned. “Why?” I said. “No. I wa
s thinking about going to the mall and picking up some things for my room. I need bed linen. A clock. Some music.”
“You’ll get music tonight,” she said. “How did you plan on going shopping when we’ve got a sound check tonight?”
“Uhm,” I said, “because I wasn’t planning on going to the sound check.”
“You promised you’d bring pies to Amelia. Did you forget that, too? Because you’re always forgetting something.”
I glanced at the clock in the dashboard. It was a little after two. It’d be two thirty before we made it to Roble.
“What time is sound check?” I asked.
“Seven thirty.”
“Ugh!”
“Be nice.”
“And why does Rhett have to go?” I asked.
“Because he knows where everyone lives.”
“There is a thing called GPS, Auntie. You can find anyone’s address.”
“I didn’t say that he knew their addresses, I said he knew where they lived. They live out in the woods, no addresses out there.”
“Oh,” I said. “Couldn’t you find city musicians?”
“Amelia lives in the city,” she said. “Is that good enough for you?”
“I guess,” I said. “And why is it I have to go?”
“Because you’re my helper,” she said and gave me a polite funeral home smile.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Hey ya’ll,” Gus called out to us.
Auntie and I waved from the car as Rhett parked. Gus walked over toward us.
“Ain’t quit,” he chuckled and waved his cigarette smoke away. “I put it out as soon as I saw you coming.”
“Is that what you were doing sitting out on the porch?” I asked.
“I always smoke outside.”
Gus was our first stop. Seemed like he and Spoon lived one way from Roble, and Catfish the other. We decided to make Catfish our last stop because he was closer to home.
“Did you come out here to bring me more crawfish pies?” Gus asked. He was such a big guy, not fat, just large, and I could picture him eating a pound or two of the mudbugs all by himself.
Secrets, Lies, and Crawfish Pies Page 20
