Death Benefits

by Jennifer Becton

  “Interesting,” Vincent said as he scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  I faced forward, looking at the ceiling in thought. “Who killed Theo? And who burned the body in the car? And where did it come from?”

  “Kathy claims she has no idea who killed Theo. She claims they were in the death benefits fraud together, but that was it. He found the body they put in the car—she says she doesn’t know where—and they set up the whole thing together.”

  “So we still don’t know where the body came from? Or who she was.”

  “No.”

  “And we have no idea who the killer is.”

  “Unfortunately, no. But we’ll grill Kathy again Monday. Somewhere intimidating and official, not in a hospital. Maybe she’ll talk then.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. It was all I could think to say because my head was hurting and I was suddenly tired again. “You don’t have to stay,” I added as sleep began to overtake me.

  The last thing I heard before falling into my hour’s sleep was Vincent saying, “I’m staying.”

  Eighteen

  The man paced in front of his fireplace, rubbing his hands together convulsively.

  Things had not gone well for him that day.

  Theo Vanderbilt was dead; that much of his plan had been successful.

  But he had not anticipated the arrival of a SWAT team. He’d been lurking on a local high point on the ten-acre property, watching, waiting for the little woman to reappear, when he saw the black van pull into the driveway followed by a sheriff’s cruiser. Picking up his binoculars, he’d watched as two black-clad men burst out of the van and into the Vanderbilts’ house.

  He’d known then that he was not safe.

  If one group hit the house, there might be others searching the property. Without another thought, he’d turned and fled.

  Now that he was home, he could think again.

  How had they heard about Theo’s murder so fast?

  That bitch who’d seen him in the shed must have managed to get to a phone.

  Could she identify him?

  Feeling his nerves begin to jump at the idea of being picked out as the killer, he looked in the mirror above the mantel, trying to see what the woman had seen. He hadn’t yet washed the blood from his face, and it had crusted over, hard and dark, giving him an organic mask. He smiled at himself and felt the blood crack as his skin moved beneath it.

  In the dark and covered in Theo Vanderbilt’s blood, he wouldn’t have been recognizable to the woman.

  For now, his secret was still safe, but he had to be careful who saw him. He stared into his own eyes as he considered this. Who had seen him?

  Only one man.

  Fred Thomas.

  And now he had to die too.

  Nineteen

  I wish I could say that I awoke the next morning to a peaceful moment with Vincent when I was able to thank him for staying and tell him I was glad he was my partner, but that’s not the way it happened.

  I awoke to the shrill echo of my mother’s voice.

  “My baby!” she screeched—or at least that’s how it seemed inside my fragile head—as she rushed to the bedside. “Both my babies in the hospital at the same time.” I’m not sure if her voice was as loud as it sounded to me, but with my concussion, it sure felt like an ice pick to the brain.

  I opened my eyes just wide enough to find her leaning over me and to see Vincent pulling himself out of the recliner.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, rushing to reassure her that I was okay. “Don’t worry. This is just a formality. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine to me!” she said, her concern evident in her features. “I got worried when you didn’t check on Tricia last night, so I called Tripp this morning.”

  “You called Tripp? Why didn’t you just call me?” I asked as I rearranged my hospital gown.

  “I did,” my mother explained, “but you weren’t answering. It’s not like you to turn your phone off, so I figured something must be wrong.”

  Oh. I reached for my phone, which was lying on the rollaway table beside me. Dead. I guess the battery ran down during my electrocution and my night of exciting medical tests.

  “And then Tripp wouldn’t tell me anything useful. He just said you’d been hurt on the job and were in the hospital for observation. I practically had to beat the information out of that duty nurse downstairs! Now, tell me what happened to my girl.”

  “Tripp told you pretty much how it went,” I hedged.

  “He hardly said a word. What happened? Why are you here?” my mother demanded, glancing at Vincent for the first time since she’d entered the room, maybe hoping he’d pony up the information.

  I looked quickly between them, feeling more than a bit awkward to have Vincent and my mother together, and because the right moment had not arisen for me to introduce them, I decided now was as good a time as any.

  “I’ll tell you all about it, but first, I want you to meet my partner at the DOI.” I gestured toward Vincent. “Mom, this is Mark Vincent.”

  My mother studied him from top to bottom, assessing him boldly, and then extended her hand, palm down, across the hospital bed as if she were the queen of England and he was required to kiss her ring. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mark.”

  Vincent appeared totally unfazed by my mother’s superior airs, and I watched as he took her hand and nodded a curt greeting.

  “I’m Celia Jackson,” my mother continued, “and if you don’t mind my asking, where were you—her partner—when my daughter was hurt ‘on the job’?”

  “Mom—” I reprimanded, but before I could continue, Vincent spoke.

  “Your daughter saved another officer’s life, ma’am. She’s a hero, not a victim.”

  I looked up at Vincent and wanted to hug him. Just hug him. Of all the replies he could have made to my mother’s blame-laden remark, that was the best one.

  And it seemed to settle the tension in the room enough for me to explain that I’d been inadvertently tased and had hit my head hard when I’d fallen.

  The doctor, who arrived shortly thereafter, confirmed what I’d told my mother and also said I would be able to go home later that morning with the proviso that I take it easy and not operate heavy machinery for a few days.

  No forklift driving for me. Unfortunately, no driving my SUV either.

  When the doctor left, my mother leaned over me and kissed my forehead. “Oh, honey,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re going to be okay. You’ll stop by and see your sister before you leave, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said, and, hoping to remind her that I didn’t have transportation home and could really use a ride, I added, “I just don’t know how I’m going to get home. My Explorer is still in the MPD lot, and I probably shouldn’t be driving.”

  The words had barely left my mouth when my mother’s cell phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocketbook, fiddled with the buttons for a moment, and finally answered.

  “ICU,” she mouthed to me as she listened. Panic darted onto her face. Her eyes went wide and teary, and the phone shook in her hands.

  She had barely ended the call when she began to explain. “Those DTs started.”

  “What?” I asked. “How? Tricia was on the meds.”

  “She keeps ripping out the IV,” my mother said as she raked a hand through her bangs. “She must have done it again.”

  And long enough this time to allow her withdrawal symptoms to escalate. My mother looked frantically around the room as if one of us might provide some sort of explanation as to why Tricia might have done that. “I need to go,” she said, but she looked at me regretfully. “But what about you? What will you do?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Mom,” I said. “Vincent will take me to my car later. I’ll be fine.”

  We both looked at him for confirmation, and he nodded.

  My mom went back up to my sister’s room, and I sent Vincent out so I could change and he could chec
k in with Ted at the DOI. I had to wear my clothes from the previous day—actually from the two previous days—and that was highly unpleasant. I left the Kevlar I’d worn in the search of the Vanderbilts’ property in the plastic hospital bag and slung it over my arm. After doing the checkout paperwork, I managed to talk the nurses out of forcing me to leave the hospital in a wheelchair since I was heading right upstairs to check on my sister.

  That was a difficult task. Liability, I understood, and the duty nurses only let up when I showed them my badge.

  I stepped into the hallway to find Vincent just finishing his phone conversation with Ted.

  He watched me from the moment I stepped into the hall, his face blank. When he ended the call, he said, “Well, all hell’s broken loose over Theo Vanderbilt, and Kathy’s not being cooperative at all.”

  “Naturally,” I said as I led Vincent toward the bank of elevators. “She admitted to being complicit in the fraud yesterday before I got zapped. Why won’t she tell everything she knows about the body? She should know where it came from. She helped light it on fire.”

  “She claims that Theo found it—”

  “Found it?” I interrupted. “Found it where?”

  He shrugged. “She also says he staged the accident and lit the fire by himself, but she’s lying. Someone had to pick up Theo at the fire scene. There was another set of tire impressions there in the grass.”

  Vincent followed me into the elevator, and I debated asking him to wait in the lobby instead.

  Did I really want him to meet my sister? Moreover, did I want him to meet her while she was experiencing DTs?

  I pressed the button for the fifth floor.

  In that moment I had decided two things: one, I was going to let Vincent meet my sister, and two, I was going back to the DOI as soon as possible. I had to know what was going on out there in Cranford County.

  The scene in Tricia’s room was worse than I’d feared. My sister was crying and talking incoherently while a nurse I didn’t recognize stood on one side of the bed, presumably to watch her until whatever drugs she’d been prescribed finally took effect and she stopped thrashing.

  I looked at my mother, who stood on the other side of the bed, stroking Tricia’s hair. Though she had only been up here for about twenty minutes, she already looked stricken. Her blazer had been laid aside, and her hair showed evidence of her running her fingers through it repeatedly.

  “Julia, thank God,” my mom began, her hand resting on Tricia’s blond head as she looked at me. Then she noticed Vincent, and her face fell a bit. Clearly, she thought he was intruding. Still she said, “Well, hello again.” Her voice was heavy with Southern charm, as if a strong dose of etiquette might cause Vincent not to notice the insanity of the scene before him. “How kind of you to come up and visit with us.”

  Vincent gave a quick nod at my mother’s welcoming words, but he understood her tone and didn’t further insert himself into the situation. Instead, he retreated to the doorway and leaned casually against it.

  Tricia focused her wild eyes on me. “Sissy, help,” she begged. “They’re holding me hostage here! You’re a cop. Arrest them!”

  Yeah, Southern charm wasn’t going to help out here.

  “Mom,” I said as I approached Tricia’s bedside and tried to take hold of her left hand where the IV should have been. “Has the doctor been here?”

  “Yes, they gave her a shot and it calmed her down.”

  Tricia rolled from one side of the bed to the other, and though the room was cool, an anxious sweat had broken out on her forehead.

  Calmed her down? My sister looked like she could launch herself to the moon.

  The nurse supplied, “The doctor ordered a change in her medication, and your sister’s nurse will reinsert the IV with the new medicine in a few moments.”

  “Well, I wish she’d hurry,” my mother said. “At least Tricia’s not trying to get up anymore.” She looked at Vincent, who remained silent but observant. “But she’s obviously still in pain.”

  Though I didn’t look his way, I was sure Vincent wasn’t buying it. He knew this wasn’t pain. He might not know exactly what he was witnessing, but he would probably figure it out shortly.

  “I don’t want medicine,” Tricia said in a loud, clear voice. “I want to leave. I don’t know why I’m in here. And why it’s so itchy.”

  “Itchy?” I took her arm in my hand, looking for signs of a rash.

  Nothing.

  “Yes, I itch all over, like bugs crawling on me. And I don’t know what’s happening.”

  “You hurt your ankle, remember,” I said, trying to be gentle. “You can’t leave until you’re healed.”

  “Then bring me something to drink.” She looked around wildly. “I’ll even take some of that hand sanitizer over there. I’ve got to have something to make the room stop spinning.”

  “I can’t do that, Tricia. It will make you sicker.”

  Tricia began to rock back and forth, jiggling her injured foot where it rested in front of her. That had to hurt, but she didn’t seem to notice. I tried to still her.

  When my sister spoke again, her loud voice was hysterical. “No one ever listens to me. I tell you what to do, what I need to feel better, and you always refuse!”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “I’m only trying to help.”

  “Well, you’re not helping!” she shouted again.

  I cringed and stepped back. My head was killing me, and I literally could not bear her volume.

  “You won’t let me forget!” she accused. “You won’t ever let me forget what that man did to me. I just want to forget.”

  Here Tricia’s words descended into incoherence, and she sank more deeply into the bed, shaking. My mother had stopped trying to stroke her head and now held her shoulders to restrain her, but it didn’t seem either to stabilize her or bring her any measure of comfort.

  Finally, mercifully, Tricia’s regular nurse returned, hooked a new IV to the pole, and reinserted the needle into her hand, covering it with what must have been about a pound of tape.

  Almost instantly, Tricia began to calm down.

  “Valium,” the nurse explained, looking none too pleased at my mother and me. Obviously, we had not been watching Tricia properly. “We’ll keep a close watch on her. As long as we can keep that IV in her over the next few days, she should be fine. And then she’ll be out of here.”

  If the nurse seemed a bit pleased at the idea of Tricia’s departure, well, I couldn’t blame her. My sister created drama wherever she went, and this woman’s job was probably stressful enough already.

  My mother smiled and patted Tricia’s arm as it began to go limp beside her. “Yes, I’ll be glad to bring you home.”

  Soon Tricia was asleep, and I finally ventured a quick look at Vincent. He was still leaning calmly against the wall. Our eyes met, and I knew that this one incident had allowed Vincent a good look into my psyche. That part of me was no longer secret.

  Fall had happened overnight, it seemed. While I was in the hospital, the trees had shed their leaves, and this morning a cold rain fell from the sky in cords. The windshield wipers on Vincent’s old truck shrieked as they flew across the glass, providing brief glimpses at the world beyond as he drove me to my house. I’d been planning to try to convince him to take me to the MPD to pick up my SUV, but the foul weather and my lingering headache made me reconsider.

  I was supposed to be taking it easy, so for once, I’d follow doctor’s orders. At least for the weekend. On Monday, all bets were off.

  I glanced at Vincent. He had been silent since we left Tricia’s room, and now he was focused on the drive, his large hands wrapped firmly around the steering wheel. The open buttons on his cuffs had allowed his sleeves to fall back and expose his forearms. Occasionally, I got a peek at his “hold fast” tattoo.

  I looked forward again as the truck rolled to a stop. Between strokes of the windshield wipers, I caught quick flashes of my house, and then
Vincent shut off the engine, stilling the wipers mid-swipe.

  My house became completely obscured, and the clatter of the rain on the metal roof drowned out all other sound.

  Suddenly, nothing else existed.

  Not Tricia, not Theo and Kathy Vanderbilt, not my family. Nothing.

  There was only Vincent and me.

  It was an awful and intimate feeling, and I didn’t know whether to stay in the cab or throw myself from the truck and try to make it into my house without getting soaked and chilled through.

  Vincent hadn’t moved since he’d parked the truck. His hands still gripped the steering wheel even though we were now safely in my driveway, but instead of focusing on the road, he was studying me intently.

  I swallowed.

  This was not good at all. His time at the hospital with my family had been a mistake. I could not allow this false intimacy to build between us as it had between Tripp and me all those years ago.

  After Tricia’s rape had set off the downward spiral of my family, I had turned to Tripp for comfort. Only later did I realize I’d sought from him all the love my family had begun to withhold.

  It became clear, too, that Tripp, for his part, had fallen in love with his role as my savior more than he had with me. That’s why our romance hadn’t lasted.

  He loved me in spite of my weakness rather than for my strengths, and the difference was detrimental. When the dust settled and I began to recover, it was obvious that we had never truly known each other at all. I could not accept the idea of Tricia’s rape remaining unsolved and was willing to do anything to keep her case alive. Tripp was against my quest, and I couldn’t blame him.

  If I learned anything from my doomed relationship with Tripp, it’s that I don’t want someone to fall in love with me because I need a savior. I don’t need a savior. I don’t need to be fixed.

  Sitting there in Vincent’s truck, I adamantly told myself that if were going to be with any man—especially Vincent—it would not be out of my weakness.