Death Benefits

by Jennifer Becton

I folded my arms in front of my chest and leaned against the wall. “So how did it happen?” I asked.

  Tripp shrugged. “There was outside pressure—a lot of sudden outside pressure—and I don’t know where it came from, but it was enough to change the attorney’s tune and make him offer the plea.”

  Outside pressure?

  That sounded suspiciously like Vincent’s doing, and on that thought, a strange suspension of emotions took over me. It was Vincent. I just knew it. I’d told him in the vaguest terms that I was still investigating Tricia’s rape, but he didn’t know any of the details. Maybe he had taken it upon himself to look into the matter. It was the kind of thing he would do, especially after meeting Tricia and beginning to understand my desire for justice.

  Any normal—non-criminal—woman would feel a hot flush at a man like Vincent strong-arming a suspect for cooperation. But not me. I felt only panic.

  This whole investigation was supposed to be personal, and now other people were being roped in. First Tripp. Now Vincent.

  And frankly, I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with that. At all.

  I was just skirting this side of evidence tampering, a felony charge, and I didn’t want to take anyone down with me. And whether knowingly or not, they were both now complicit. Sort of.

  “You okay?” Tripp asked as he watched me from his side of the hall.

  “Yeah,” I said. I propelled myself from the wall where I’d been leaning and gave him a big hug. “It’s just a lot to take in. That’s all.”

  “I understand. And you should know we’ve got Slidell flagged in our system. If he shows up anywhere for any crime—including jaywalking—we’ll be on him.”

  I let go of him and stepped back. “I really appreciate it, Tripp.”

  But I had no intention of waiting around until the jackass decided to jaywalk somewhere.

  I was going to find him myself.

  Tripp eyed me again, but he didn’t give me any more warnings about my investigation. Instead, he only said, “Well, I pulled an all-nighter, so I’m headed to bed.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Any chance you want to join me?”

  I laughed at his unexpected comment. “Um, no.”

  “Too bad,” he said, and then he was gone.

  Thirty-two

  I returned to Tricia’s room long enough to tell her where I was going, and immediately I rushed to Vincent’s room in the adjacent wing. I’d been dividing my time between Vincent and Tricia since the shooting, so he wouldn’t be surprised to find me at his bedside.

  “Hey,” he said as I entered the room. His voice was low, gravelly, sexy, and though I preferred to imagine that he’d been sleeping, his rough tone was more likely the result of his recent surgery. He’d been lucky, though. Calvin’s bullet had gone clean through his shoulder, and there had been no lasting damage to his lung. A bit of cleanup and a chest tube, and Vincent was already on the mend. He’d be released from the hospital soon.

  “I came to thank you,” I said, getting right to the point.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. Then he paused, eyeing me from his place on the bed. “What did I do to deserve this gratitude? Other than save your life, that is.”

  He didn’t know? Or was he trying to be clever and make me gush about his heroic deed in the shooting of Calvin Ivey?

  I pondered that for a nanosecond and came to the conclusion that Vincent’s MO wasn’t cutesiness or cleverness. He was pretty much up front and in your face.

  But just to be sure, I asked, “So you didn’t exert any pressure on anyone on my behalf?”

  “You mean other than pushing some lab tests and warrants up the line?” He tried to straighten himself in the bed, looking concerned now, much more awake. I watched his arm muscles work and then tore my eyes away.

  How did a man manage to make a hospital gown so sexy?

  “Yeah, you didn’t do anything else?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Should I have?”

  “No,” I said, probably a bit too quickly.

  “Are you in trouble?” Now he appeared extremely concerned.

  “No, I’m not in trouble,” I said, and then, after a moment’s thought, I added, “but I’d like to drop by your place after you’re discharged. After you’ve healed a bit. Just to talk.”

  He seemed to be trying to figure out what I had in mind. Well, if he could figure it out, then more power to him because I wasn’t quite sure yet what I was doing. I just knew that I needed to enter some facts into evidence and let Vincent choose what to do from there.

  “Uh, okay,” he said. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

  “Totally sure. You just get ready for my visit. I’ll let you off the hook on that surf-and-turf dinner if you cook.”

  “Deal.”

  When Tricia was finally released, I went with her to my mother’s house and helped get her settled in her old bedroom. I even stayed for dinner.

  But as night fell, I knew I had somewhere I needed to be.

  I hurried toward my neighborhood, but instead of turning into my own driveway, I turned into Helena’s. Only after I rang the bell and Helena showed up with baby Violet on her hip did I realize that I was wearing another of my new outfits, but after sitting around the hospital and doing various chores at my mother’s house, it was in a deplorably wrinkled condition.

  “What, no coffee this time?” she asked, and then she looked me over from top to bottom. “Girl, what have you done to those clothes?”

  “Oh, good grief,” I said with a laugh. If she only knew what I’d done to my new sweater! “It’s just a little wrinkled. Besides, no one’s going to see me.”

  She raised an eyebrow and looked around pointedly. “By my calculations, everyone on this street has seen you.”

  “Well,” I said spinning around, “let them have a good look.”

  Helena laughed and ushered me in.

  “Come on in and sit down. I’ve been dying to tell you all about my new job,” Helena began.

  But I waved a hand at her.

  I wasn’t good at this kind of thing, so I decided to speak as plainly as possible. “How did you know about the plea?”

  Helena’s face fell, but then the disappointment cleared. “Oh, that,” she said with a laugh, sliding Violet into her high chair and handing her a plastic spoon. “How did you know it was me? I didn’t want you to know a thing about it.”

  “I was confused at first, but once I thought about it for a moment, I realized it couldn’t be anyone else.” I paused and looked at her, wondering whether to thank her or warn her off.

  I decided to do both.

  The thank-you came first, but Helena shrugged it off.

  “It was nothing,” she said.

  Hardly, I thought.

  “Besides, I’m an assistant US attorney now. I might as well use the influence where I can, and this was done in the name of true justice. Can’t argue with that, can you?”

  No, I couldn’t. But I wanted to.

  “I really appreciate it,” I said. “I can’t tell you how much.”

  Now it was my moment to turn away and gather myself as Violet’s baby talk filled the room. At length, I turned back to Helena’s wide, curious eyes.

  “I just don’t want to get you into any trouble,” I said.

  Helena laughed. “I’m not going to get into trouble. Everyone throws their weight around now and then, and if it helps bring a rapist to justice, then so much the better.”

  A tear slipped down my cheek, and a look of pity swept Helena’s features. I opened my arms and gave her a long hug.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. “But listen,” I said, pulling back at the sound of Violet’s spoon banging the high-chair tray. “I don’t want you to stick your neck out for me.”

  “I wasn’t sticking my neck out,” Helena insisted. “I was helping a friend. I ran into Tripp downtown on Monday. He looked upset, and I asked him if he wanted to talk, so we had lunch. Turns out he was working on a plea related
to your sister’s case. He thought I knew.”

  I nodded. Tripp had told me as much already.

  “He said the defense attorney was the sticking point,” Helena said lightly, “and I just called and unstuck him.”

  I shook my head in amazement. “During your first week at your new job?”

  “Oh, no,” Helena assured me, grinning. “I waited until the second day at least.”

  “Hels,” I said on a sigh, “I can’t believe you did that. It was an awful risk.”

  She cocked her head sideways and considered my words. “You’re supposed to say thanks and then nail the bastard, not act like I did something to damage my career. Because, trust me, I didn’t do anything wrong. I just made sure they thought the US attorney’s office was interested.”

  “Thank you,” I said again. I looked at her, trying to convey my seriousness through my gaze alone. “I just don’t want you to waste your influence on me. Promise me.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t understand, but I promise.”

  Of course she didn’t understand. I hadn’t told her about my little evidence cache.

  My not-quite-legally attained cache.

  And now she was part of this too.

  She’d wandered into it unknowingly, and I’d sucked Tripp into it without giving him the full truth either. Of course, they still had plausible deniability—more or less in Tripp’s case—because they had no knowledge of my previous actions, and I didn’t want to confess now and turn it into a case of what they knew and when they knew it.

  Ignorance seemed to be their best defense.

  I shook my head at myself. This was getting out of hand. I may have implicated at least two innocent people already.

  I could not let that happen again.

  Thirty-three

  Almost two weeks later, I was sitting in my SUV outside Vincent’s place on Lake Montclair. I’d had plenty of time to think of what to say and how to explain myself.

  But as I walked to the front door and rang the bell, I forgot everything I’d planned.

  It was a good thing I’d brought props because, based on the way my tongue suddenly stuck to the roof of my mouth, I wasn’t going to say anything comprehensible any time soon.

  And when the door opened and Vincent stood before me, his large body taking up almost the entire opening, I just gaped.

  He was dressed in worn jeans and a t-shirt.

  And he was barefoot.

  A man shouldn’t look that delectable in ordinary weekend attire, but Vincent sure did, and that wasn’t making my reason for being there any easier.

  There was a good chance that I was about to lose my partner, my friend, my potential…I didn’t even want to think it. Vincent was, after all, the quintessential professional, and I was about to confess to violating key protocol.

  Like federal law.

  I’d done these things in the name of justice, but I was biased. I would do almost anything to see my sister’s rapist caught. I would dance around the edges of legality, and, for me, it was the right thing to do. The case would still be cold otherwise.

  But not everyone shared my personal bias for my sister. At least not in the same way I did.

  “Hello,” Vincent said, shaking me out of my contemplation.

  I looked up and into his eyes, and before I could change my mind, I thrust the pile of folders I’d been carrying into his abdomen, well away from his healing shoulder.

  Automatically, he reached for them.

  “What’s this?” he asked as I pulled my hand away, trying to ignore how firm his body felt under my fingertips.

  “Read it,” I managed. “Please.”

  “Is this about the Vanderbilt case?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But I did find out this week that Kathy Vanderbilt is after Americus Mutual again for Theo’s insurance money. Can you believe it? Even facing ten years in jail, she’s trying to get her respects.”

  He laughed, a low gravelly sound. “No,” he said, “Kathy wouldn’t let a little thing like being charged with attempted abduction, assault with a deadly weapon, and arson—not to mention attempted insurance fraud—stop her from getting her money. She’ll be the richest con in cell block C.”

  “She’s a pistol,” I said. Americus Mutual would fight Kathy, of course. She and Theo had attempted to defraud them, thus giving the company legal cause to nullify her husband’s policy, but that sort of paperwork takes time. And before Americus had gotten a chance even to begin processing the documents, Theo had truly turned up dead.

  And since he was murdered by someone other than his beneficiary, the policy was still binding. Therefore, Kathy still had legal grounds for claiming the full million.

  That would be an interesting legal battle, I was sure.

  I added, “We still haven’t learned why Calvin killed Fred Thomas. Our best guess is that he was named in the newspaper article as the first responder on the fire scene. I’m theorizing that Calvin feared Fred might be able to ID the body in the LTD, which would have led to exposure of the defunct crematory and his cache of bodies. Maybe Calvin was planning to kill Mike Symmes, the other fireman, next. And all because of a broken crematory.”

  Vincent shook his head. “Yeah, if he’d only told his father about the state of the crematory, like any sensible person, none of this would have happened. But Calvin was probably clinically insane.”

  “Frankly,” I said, “I get the feeling the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Andrew’s been telling us all about Morton and his ‘training regimen,’ what he made those boys do in order to learn to face down death. Morton terrified those boys.”

  “Well, psychopath or not, Calvin was a sloppy, disorganized murderer. He was leaving bodies—or at least blood—all over Cranford County. We’ll probably never know what he would have done if we hadn’t caught him so quickly.”

  “And get this,” I added. “More bodies have been found on Calvin’s property. It seems he installed a commercial septic tank in a clearing way back in the woods and has been stowing bodies there too. They’ve found more than 150 sets of remains so far, and they expect to find as many as 200 before they’re done.”

  “Good God,” Vincent said. “I knew there would be a lot of bodies, but I wasn’t expecting that many.”

  “Well, the good news is that no more bereaved families will suffer under the negligence of the Eternal Rest Funeral Home. Morton and Andrew Ivey have closed the business, and they’ve been charged with breach of contract, which was the only law on the books that applied to their situation, but I have a feeling Georgia will be enacting some new desecration of body laws and oversights for funeral homes.”

  “And Merle Cummings?” Vincent asked. “The final ME report said that she did die of natural causes and her body was released to her family’s care. Was she finally laid to rest?”

  “Yes. I spoke to Mrs. Twilley, who is just as feisty as ever after her encounter with Calvin Ivey. She now has her great-aunt’s remains on her mantel, and she apparently enjoys telling the story to every guest that enters the room.”

  Vincent laughed again, and I shook my head, partially in amazement at old Mrs. Twilley and partially to help me move on to the business at hand. “But that’s not what I’m here about,” I said.

  His eyebrows lowered as he looked at the folders for the first time. “Your sister’s file?”

  “Yeah,” I said, inhaling the scent of bacon that wafted toward me. Might as well have a last meal. “May I come in?”

  Vincent stepped aside to let me pass, but his nose was already in the file as he shut the door behind me and followed me into the kitchen.

  He sat down at the table, and I took the moment to distract myself by going to the stove and checking on breakfast. Grits simmered in a pot, and bacon was draining on paper towels.

  I picked up a piece and crunched into it.

  I glanced at Vincent. “Eggs?”

  “Fridge.”

  So I guess I was cooking them.


  I found a pan, butter, and four eggs and got to scrambling. By the time Vincent had finished his first pass through the files, I had breakfast on the table.

  “You know,” I said as I took the seat across from him, “this doesn’t count for our deal.”

  “Sure it does,” he said with a forkful of eggs held aloft. “I paid for this meal. And cooked most of it.”

  I smiled at him, but it felt hesitant and the expression died on my lips. “So?” I asked, gesturing at my sister’s file.

  “How did you get this file?” he asked, pointing at it with his now-empty fork.

  Panic skittered up my legs, and I froze for a moment.

  Was I really going to say it?

  Deep breath.

  “I stole it.”

  “Stole it?” he repeated, sounding totally neutral.

  “Yes, when I found out I was being laid off from the MPD, I knew I’d lose access to everything. The case was already cold, and I was sure it would never be solved. So yes, I stole it along with a copy of the fingerprint.” I paused again for another deep breath. “And a sliver of material containing the suspect’s fluids.”

  “I see,” he said.

  This was it, I thought. He was about to turn tail and flee.

  Well, by God, if that were going to happen, I would make the most of this opportunity to get everything off my chest.

  I had to do it sometime.

  “Look,” I said, using my fork to point at him. “I’m not saying I feel guilty for stealing this stuff. I did it only because I couldn’t let my sister’s rapist escape prosecution. I had to continue investigating.”

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said, setting the fork down more forcefully than I should have. “When I took this stuff, it was just me I was putting in danger. But now….”

  I trailed off and Vincent just watched me, waiting.

  “Now, Tripp is involved. And Lia Trent, who ran the fingerprint for me, and Helena. I asked for Tripp’s help with the plea, but I shouldn’t have. I should have waited. The rapist made one mistake. He’d make another. But no! I had to try to get that name immediately. And Helena ended up using her new position at the US attorney’s office to push the defendant to take the plea. I’m slowly sucking everyone into my mess.”