Cold Heart

by Karen Pullen

  “No!” she said. “Me do it!” And she ripped the sticky tabs open and pulled her diaper off. I laughed. Temple had her hands full with this one—a free-thinking nudist wanderer. I looked at the diaper lying on the patio, nagged by a sense of déjà vu—the diaper Merle had found in the woods below. Had Paige seen her father’s body? Wandered away, to be scooped up by—whom? Without hard evidence, I suspected a Good Samaritan, but it wasn’t “good” to keep the toddler for two days.

  “Where’s Temple?” I asked.

  “She’s lying down,” Fern said. “Go see her, she needs company.”

  Temple lay curled in her bed, covered by a sheet. The baby slept beside her, a neat lump like a loaf of bread. The room smelled muggy and stale, shoes were strewn everywhere. Temple’s eyes followed me as I came into the room, then she closed them. Her dark lashes looked sticky, and drool had crusted beside her mouth.

  “Hey,” I said gently. “I know you’re awake.”

  “Hi, Stella. Sorry. What time is it?”

  “Around ten. Were you up all night?”

  “A few times. I got enough sleep. I just don’t feel like doing anything right now.”

  “We have a break in the case. The stolen items—pictures and figurines? They’ve been found.”

  She sat up slowly. Her hair stuck flat to her head. Her body was lost in the baggy t-shirt she wore. It must have been her husband’s. “Was there a picture of my parents? Very 80’s—leg warmers and big hair?” Her face crumpled as she started to cry. “I don’t have anyone anymore!”

  I didn’t know what to say. It wouldn’t help to remind her she had two beautiful children and money in the bank she might even be able to keep. “You’ve been through a lot, Temple. It’s no wonder you’re down. Come outside and see the swing set. It’s really nice.”

  “God, I need a shower first.” She hiccupped a final sob.

  “Sorry. I’m a mess.”

  “Take your shower. Where are the diapers? Paige needs one.”

  “There’s a stash in her room. First door on the left.”

  Outside, Paige refused my diaper offer so I left it on a deck chair and sat down to help Fern assemble a rope ladder. “Temple seems depressed,” I said.

  “It comes and goes,” Fern said. “She can be fine one minute and the next she’s worried sick over nothing. This morning she giggled for a half hour watching Paige play with her shoes. She said Kent used to get angry about it, but it was such fun to watch the baby walk around in her Kenneth Cole’s. An hour later she was weeping because her shoes were everywhere.”

  As I wrestled with the thick rope I wondered if Temple’s emotional roller coaster was due to post-birth hormones, her husband’s murder, or some other trauma. Guilt? Might her husband still be alive if she’d stayed home that afternoon? Temple’s involvement in his death had not been ruled out. A wave of frustration washed over me—how little I knew for certain. The few clues pointed in random, senseless directions. I couldn’t connect the dots—the involvement of Lincoln Teller and June Devon; the probable murder weapon, practically handed to me in a public place; the shooting of an old friend as I stood next to her. The more I looked, the blurrier the picture got.

  Temple came out onto the deck holding the baby. Still pale, she looked much better in apple-green cropped pants, matching sandals, and a colorful camp shirt. On her, that outfit was bright and charming. On me, topped by my willful, gravity-defying curls, it would frighten small children.

  “This is amazing,” Temple said. “What a wonderful swing set. Miss Paige, what are you doing with a bare bottom?” She sat down on a deck chair, motioning Paige to come to her.

  The toddler put her hands on her hips. “No!”

  “She looks like you when she does that,” Bryce said to Temple. “That posture.”

  “Maybe this will get her to cooperate,” said Fern. “Look, Paige, cookie!” Fern took one from her pocket and tossed it to Temple, who shook her head in mock dismay.

  “For the past week Paige has lived off these cookies,” she said. “Fern says they’re healthy.”

  “They are! Oatmeal, nuts, raisins—good for you,” said Fern.

  “Sugar, white flour, butter—those aren’t!” Temple held the cookie up anyway, and Paige climbed back up the stairs and dutifully lay down on the deck so Temple could put on the diaper.

  Wesley dumped a bag of rubber chips at the foot of the slide. “Heard June Devon was arrested,” he said.

  “She’s out on bail.” I gave Fern an I know you know look, but she had tipped her head down, hiding her face behind the big hat.

  Temple looked at me. “She’s Nikki’s aunt, isn’t she? Why was she arrested?”

  I told her, and she shook her head. “She had my things? My pictures? Why?”

  “Excellent question. She’s got a lawyer, and won’t say.”

  Temple frowned. “I haven’t seen Nikki since the funeral. Hope she’s all right. Finding Kent’s body must have been awful.” Inwardly I cringed. Obviously, Temple didn’t know Nikki had been her husband’s lover. And I wasn’t about to tell her, either.

  “Ask Bryce how Nikki is,” said Wesley. “She’s over at his place all the time.”

  Bryce glared at him. “If you want me here, keep out of my business.” The father-son dynamic I’d observed after the dance—accusations and anger—was still in place. Did they ever joke around, swap stories, go fishing?

  The construction went quickly. To define the play area, the two men built a low retaining wall out of landscape timbers and filled it with more rubber chips. Finally, Fern inserted decorative flags in the corners of the platform, and the men attached a bright blue canvas tarp for shade. Paige scampered up the ladder, slid down the slide, and landed feet-first on the bouncy surface.

  I asked Temple if I could hold John. He was sleepy, his eyes half-open, unfocused. It was only natural to hold him close and kiss his velvety cheek, and after a few minutes he closed his eyes. I hummed my mother’s favorite lullaby:

  Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly

  Lavender’s green

  When I am King, dilly dilly

  You shall be Queen

  Who told you so, dilly dilly

  Who told you so?

  It was my own heart, dilly dilly

  That told me so

  I wouldn’t want to raise a fatherless child like my mother and grandmother had done. So holding a baby was like being a diabetic in a bakery—wonderful smells of éclairs, flans, and cheesecake but you shouldn’t have any. As he rested on my shoulder, I checked for maternal feelings. They were there, low-level, but no greater than usual, so I found a rocker out of the sun and sat down. The baby slept, exhaling warm puffs at my neck. I shooed aside the guilt pangs—I needed to be working my case—but here I sat, rocking, watching a family project. Just a half hour, I promised myself. The pounding in my head stopped, replaced by a sporadic vibration like a tuning fork. It felt wonderful to do nothing.

  Then my cell phone chimed. “Can we meet?” Anselmo asked. “I’ve got the forensic report from the Devon residence.”

  Anselmo and I sat in his cruiser. He held a report in a plain black cover. “Mrs. Devon is a meticulous housekeeper,” he said. “She’s so clean, she even washes fingerprints off doors and walls and cabinets.”

  “That’s unusual,” I said. “Not many people are so thorough.”

  “She vacuums well, too. But she couldn’t get under the dresser where we found a cup with Paige’s prints all over it.” He grinned. “Furthermore, Paige put her tiny fingers everywhere. Inside a silver hoop earring we found in a jewelry box. On a brass doorstop. Inside a glass bottle filled with dried grasses,” Anselmo said. “In the normal course of events, would there be any reason for the child to be at that house?”

  “I don’t think so. June told me she knew Sunny and Wesley—the grandparents—but not Temple and Kent. This evidence puts the child at June’s.” A memory startled me—Fern had stayed at June’s for both of those day
s. I remembered Fern’s not-so-innocent question—What if someone took that child and then decided to return her. Would that someone be arrested? Maybe Fern could convince June to talk. June had plenty to tell and it was time for her to fess up.

  CHAPTER 23

  Monday afternoon

  “Abduction? I didn’t abduct anyone,” June hissed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Smudges of paint decorated her hands and the front of her black Obama/Biden t-shirt. The conure clung to her shoulder. It fluffed its wings and beeped three times like a microwave timer. I smiled but ever-cool Anselmo didn’t react.

  “The evidence is overwhelming: Paige Mercer was here,” he said. He didn’t need to convince June she was guilty, only the district attorney. But he wanted her to know we had enough to get her to talk. “Kidnapping is a serious crime, Mrs. Devon. We’re talking twenty years to life.”

  “Are you trying to frighten me?” She didn’t look frightened. She looked furious, her face flushed as she nervously drummed her paint-stained fingers on the table. “No jury would convict me. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what you’ve done, then?” I asked.

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  Anselmo and I looked at each other. He nodded to me. “You’re not in custody but you always have the right to one,” I said.

  But she barged ahead anyway. “The child was at risk. No one cared about her.”

  I feared saying the wrong words would silence her, so I spoke carefully. “Paige was in danger?”

  “She could have wandered into the lake and drowned. She could have been lost in the woods. She was nearly naked, all scratched up and covered with bug bites. I even found a couple of ticks in her hair, poor little thing.” June spoke earnestly, apparently convinced she had done the right thing.

  “Where did you find her?” Anselmo asked. He and I had talked about Paige’s free spirit, that she might have wandered around the neighborhood. Her mother was not at home. Her father? We didn’t know whether he was alive when Paige went missing. June could help us there.

  “I’ll show you.” June rose from the table. We followed her into her screened porch. “Over there.” She pointed across the lake to Kent Mercer’s house, the blue umbrella. “At the edge of the lake. I was bird-watching and I saw her through the binoculars. Scared me, you know? A baby all alone. She was crying, nothing on but a t-shirt.” She opened the screen door and went out onto the deck. “Erwin? Where are you?!” She turned to us. “He gets out sometimes.”

  “I didn’t think he could walk,” I said.

  “He’s desperate to walk. He’s got a cane and he makes his legs go somehow. But usually he falls down and I have to find him.” She scanned the area below the house, a narrow treeless acre overgrown with tall grasses, sloping down to a shrubby area skirting the lake. A path led to a cleared sandy spot where June’s rowboat was anchored.

  I spotted Erwin, lying by the path, almost to the lake’s edge, nearly hidden in the tall grass. He had propped himself up and was pointing a rifle at us.

  “Hey! Get down!” I shoved June to the floor, knocking her glasses off. The conure flapped to the floor and screamed excitedly. June swung at me and I grabbed her arm. “Whoa, easy,” I said. “He’s got a gun.” She was tough and it took most of my strength to hold her down.

  Anselmo had crouched low when I yelled, and sidled over to a window. “He’s sitting up. He means business.”

  “June, what’s he doing with that rifle?” I asked her. I relaxed a bit, but she popped up and tried to slug me. I caught her arm. “Hey, calm down. I’m not doing anything to you.”

  “You pushed me!”

  “I’ll let go if you stay down.”

  She nodded. I let go and she relaxed onto the floor and folded her arms over her chest. “He’d never shoot anyone. He’s upset because I was in jail. And because you’re here.” The bird hopped onto her shoulder and beeped again.

  “Any ideas?” Anselmo asked. “Before I call for backup?” He crawled next to me, so close I could smell cloves. Is that soap? What kind? I wanted to ask but the moment wasn’t right.

  “He’ll let me bring him back up here. He tires easily. Give him a few minutes.”

  “While we’re waiting, tell me a little more about Paige. You took the ticks out of her hair,” I said. “How’d you get over there?”

  “I don’t want to talk any more. I’m claiming my right to remain silent.” June closed her eyes.

  “You’re not in custody yet. You took your boat and picked up the baby. Then what?”

  Silence.

  Anselmo peered out the window. “He’s on the move,” he said. “Not aiming at us any more, just using the gun to help him walk. He’s got a cane, too.”

  “Is that your rifle?” I asked June.

  “Erwin’s. It’s for protection, living out here in the middle of nowhere. Well, I guess it’s mine now. He couldn’t hit anything with it, his coordination’s gone.” She sat up. “I’ll get him.” She went out the back door and I heard her speak as she approached him on the path. “Sweetheart, you’re amazing! Walking all the way down here by yourself? Dr. Newell would be so pleased! Here, let me give you a hand. Take my arm. I’ll hold the rifle. I’d completely forgotten we had that rifle.”

  “She’s got the gun now, Stella. You can sit up,” said Anselmo.

  I laughed, embarrassed. “Guns make me nervous these days.”

  “Good. You’ll live longer for it.”

  “I need a hand with him,” called June. “This hill is too much.” But as Anselmo started toward her, she said, “Not you, he doesn’t like men.”

  I peeked out the door. June had the rifle in one hand, her arm around Erwin. They were standing about halfway up to the house, waiting for assistance. Was it irrational to want to slink away and get into my car? I didn’t know how much June wanted to stop our investigation, and Erwin was somewhere south of Mad Max.

  “Put the gun down,” I called back.

  “Sure,” she said, and flung it aside. Anselmo and I flinched simultaneously; even though loaded guns aren’t supposed to discharge when dropped, it happens.

  I helped Erwin back into the house. Though gaunt, he was still a large man, and it was a struggle to support him as he tried to walk. He was barefoot, and his clothes and feet were muddy. He glared at Anselmo as we made our way through the porch. June took him into their bedroom.

  Anselmo went outside and picked up the rifle with gloved hands. “A Remington .25-06 caliber.”

  “Let’s take it to the lab,” I said. “June can’t object, or we’ll add resisting arrest and assault with a deadly weapon to her family’s list of crimes. He was pointing it at us in a threatening manner.”

  June came out of the bedroom and Anselmo asked her where she usually kept the gun.

  “In the bedroom closet. Back in the corner. It’s been there forever,” she said.

  “Wasn’t here yesterday,” Anselmo said. “I searched that closet myself.”

  “Of course it was!”

  “Wasn’t,” he said. “I’m taking it for a ballistics test.”

  June shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “You brought Paige back here,” I said to June, “and kept her for two days. That’s the only explanation for her fingerprints and hair everywhere. Why? Why didn’t you tell the police you had the baby? You sent that text, didn’t you.”

  June pressed her lips together firmly.

  The doorbell chimed. Ursula Budd came in, one of her tilted green eyes sporting a black bruise. Forestalling any questions, she said, “Tripped over the cat and fell down the stairs.” She looked at Anselmo and me. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re gonna put me in jail again, Ursula. Lock me up for the heinous crime of taking care of a little girl no one cared about,” said June.

  I envisioned June standing in front of a gaggle of press, wearing a starched shirtwaist dress and string of pearls, confessing she was only trying to save the sweet wee
child from drowning or worse; no one on the planet was a bit concerned about the baby’s welfare; anyone could see she was a kindly grandmotherly person, sole caretaker of a bedridden husband who depended on her a hundred percent. She’d get a lot of support, and Anselmo would have to explain over and over that she broke the law, that’s why she was being persecuted—er, prosecuted. I didn’t envy him.

  “Not jail,” Anselmo said. “Questioning.”

  Ursula patted June’s shoulder. “I can stay a bit. You’ll be back soon, won’t you?”

  “You bet. I’ll call Erwin’s sister, Zoë. As soon as I ask her to watch after Erwin, she’ll pop me out of jail in a New York minute.” She slumped down on the worn brown sofa. The bird tilted its head and made kissing noises, very cute. “Baby wants some kisses,” said June. “Sweetie wants some kisses.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Monday late afternoon

  Anselmo took June to the sheriff’s office, again, and I went home to listen once more to the recordings Kent Mercer had made. Merle and I lay on the floor, my head on a pillow, his on my legs. The conversations droned away, gumming up my concentration as I tried to listen for new or different voices. I carefully made notes of the participants, the subjects, and the length of the conversations, pretending it was important work, but relieved when my cell rang.

  “Hello, Agent Lavender?” The woman’s voice was low, precise, and familiar. “This is Zoë Schubert. I need to speak to you in private. It’s very important; don’t mention it to anyone.”

  “Certainly,” I said, intrigued. Nikki Truly’s mother, who’d always seemed to regard me as an unnecessary nuisance, actually wanted something.

  “Can you meet me across from the Silver Hills entrance? In the grocery store parking lot? I’ll be in a beige Acura in the far corner.”

  “I can be there in thirty minutes.”

  The Acura smelled so new I expected to hear “moo” as I eased onto the orthopedically-optimized leather seat. Zoë turned down the speaker volume on a samba jazz CD, but kept the engine running to maintain the car’s interior temperature at exactly seventy-four degrees, according to the dashboard display next to the digitized GPS road map. She wore a soft-coral linen dress, her frothy blond hair was expensively disarrayed, and she smelled amazing—cinnamon, vanilla, honey. Edible. Zoë had come a long way from Salt Flat, Texas.