Christmas Mourning

by Margaret Maron

  She nodded.

  “Where did you toss it?”

  She pointed to the barrel nearest the outer door.

  By now Dwight realized what this meant and he said, “Wait a minute, Deb’rah. Let Ruth find it. No coaching. Stand over here, Jess, honey, so you can see. This probably won’t come to anything, but if it does result in somebody going to trial, y’all might be called as witnesses.”

  Both girls were wide-eyed as Ruth lifted out the bags that had been brought out from the kitchen waste container since Saturday. There on the bottom was a blue plastic bag from one of the local drugstores.

  “That’s the one,” Ruth said.

  She fished it out, unknotted the handles she had tied together, and held it open so we could peer inside.

  I saw crumpled napkins, greasy papers, a yellow box, three beer cans, a stained drink cup, and a dirty beer bottle.

  “What about that receipt?” I asked.

  She started to reach inside, but Dwight stopped her.

  “Whoever dumped this probably didn’t see a thing worth knowing. All the same, there’s no point in adding more prints before I can get my crime scene deputy to take a look.”

  He carefully reknotted the bag and herded the girls back inside, where he found a clean sheet of paper, smeared some graphite on Ruth’s fingertips, and rolled her prints to her awed astonishment.

  Jess tried to insist that she would have spent the evening there anyhow, but a deal’s a deal. I made her take the money we owed her for watching Cal and sent them home.

  “Don’t worry about the rest of the mess. We’ll take care of it,” I said, even though I knew it was all going to have to wait till the next day, tired as we both suddenly were. While I hung up the finery we’d tossed on the bed when Seth made us change clothes, Dwight printed out a search warrant form that would let him seize Charlie Barefoot’s phone and computer.

  I signed it, and twenty minutes after the girls left, we were both sound asleep.

  CHAPTER 27

  “There are many things that are unbelievable,” said Poirot. “Especially before breakfast, is it not?”

  —“The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding,” Agatha Christie

  MAJOR DWIGHT BRYANT—WEDNESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 24

  7:25 in the morning and Nelson Barefoot’s truck was still in the driveway when Dwight parked his truck in front of the Barefoot home. Charlie Barefoot’s white Hyundai was there, too.

  With the search warrant Deborah had signed for him the night before tucked in the inner breast pocket of his khaki windbreaker, he walked up to the front door and rang the bell.

  He and his detectives had come to a temporary dead end on the Wentworth murders, but while Deputy Raeford McLamb tried to dig up some more leads, Dwight hoped to wrap up their investigation of Mallory Johnson’s death and get it out of their way, clear the decks for an all-out push to find the Wentworth shooter.

  At first glance, Joy Medlin’s confession would seem to explain the wreck, but Mallory’s voice had not sounded slurred or disjointed to him. If a low-dose pill and a shot of vodka had been slipped into a soda ten or fifteen minutes before she left the party, as Joy claimed, it was possible that there had not been enough time for the concoction to take effect, even with the Benadryl.

  Instead, maybe it was the fault of an oncoming vehicle, although with such a long straight stretch of highway, wouldn’t there have been longer skid marks? And where was the other vehicle’s skid marks?

  Mallory’s fleeting “Dim your stupid—” shriek to an oncoming vehicle sounded as if someone had suddenly blinded her by flicking on their high beams. That “Get over!” would imply that the vehicle was in her lane, more than enough reason for her to brake and swerve.

  Although the other driver might have stopped, he (or she?) had not rushed to help. Instead, he had calmly restarted his engine and driven away. Not a hit-and-run, but just as culpable in the eyes of the law.

  Until he heard Mallory’s complete message, though, Dwight knew he was only second-guessing himself.

  The inner door opened and Mrs. Barefoot immediately smiled in recognition, then pushed open the glass storm door to invite him in.

  Easy to see where Jeff and now Charlie had gotten their height, Dwight thought. Tall and thin like them, she had iron gray hair tied back with a red ribbon. Her green sweatshirt, worn over black stretch pants, was imprinted with a colorful Christmas design of bells and balls and Rudolph with a wreath around his neck.

  “Dwight? My goodness! You’re up and out mighty early.”

  “Sorry,” he apologized, but before he could ask for her grandson, Mrs. Barefoot immediately ushered him past the formal living and dining rooms, back to the heart of the house: a large family room with a kitchen at one end, a dining table and six chairs in the middle, and a den at the other end with couches, recliners, and a large flat-screen television in a built-in niche over the fireplace. A tall thin artificial fir tree stood in the corner and presents were heaped around the bottom. Its lights were off but rays from the rising December sun caught the tinsel and sparkled on the shiny glass ornaments.

  His nose was assailed by the mingled odors of a full country breakfast—country-cured ham, red-eye gravy, hot black coffee, and made-from-scratch biscuits. A carton of eggs rested on the counter beside the stove ready to be scrambled. A jar of homemade fig preserves was already on the table.

  “I was just taking my biscuits out of the oven when I heard the bell,” she said, beaming at him. “Now you sit right down at that table and let me get you some coffee. This early, I bet you haven’t had a bite of breakfast.”

  “Actually, I did,” he said as she handed him a mug of steaming coffee. Deborah wasn’t due in court until 9:30, so she and Cal were still asleep when he left, but he wasn’t going to admit that his breakfast had been a bowl of cornflakes.

  “All the same, I bet you could find room for a ham biscuit,” she said cheerfully, brushing a smear of flour off Rudolph’s red nose.

  “I thought I heard voices,” said Nelson Barefoot from the doorway. “You caught me sleeping in, son.”

  He poured himself coffee and joined Dwight at the table. “Everything going okay?”

  “Yes, sir, and I don’t mean to interrupt y’all’s breakfast, but I need to speak to Charlie a minute.”

  The older man looked at him expectantly, but when Dwight didn’t elaborate, he said, “Well, he ought to be out in a minute. I heard him stirring around when I came down the hall.”

  Dwight stood to finish his coffee. “If he’s up, maybe I could go on back? That’ll let me get out of your way quicker.”

  Husband and wife exchanged glances, and although her eyes were troubled, she said, “Certainly, Dwight. It’s right down the hall.”

  She led the way and tapped on a door. “Charlie? You decent?”

  “Ma’am?” He opened the door, barefooted, unshaven, his hair looking like a bird’s nest, but dressed in jeans and an open-collar rugby shirt. He was clearly startled to see the big deputy behind his grandmother.

  “Major Bryant’s here to see you, honey. Don’t y’all talk too long now or the biscuits will get cold.”

  Charlie was clearly unhappy to see him, but he moved aside so that the deputy could come in. The room was basically tidy. The covers had been pulled up on the bed and books were piled haphazardly up on the desk, which also held a lamp and a laptop, but there were no piles of clothes or dirty dishes.

  “I’ll keep it short, Charlie,” Dwight said, reaching into his breast pocket. “This is a search warrant that allows me to take your cell phone and your computer in for examination.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I think you know why, Charlie. Did you really think we wouldn’t notice that you had cut out part of the message your sister left on your voice mail?”

  “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His eyes dropped and he glanced uneasily at his computer.

  Dwight held out his hand. “Your cell ph
one, please.”

  The youth gestured to his bedside table.

  “Is her message still on this?”

  Charlie nodded. “Look, if something got left off when I was trying to transfer it to my computer… I mean, I’m no geek. I don’t always know how to do things. I told you. I listened to it once, and after that, I only heard enough to know it was the disc. I couldn’t stand to keep hearing her die over and over.”

  “I can understand that, son. All the same, if we’re going to get to the bottom of what happened to her, we have to know all the facts.”

  “What’s to know?” His voice was suddenly angry. “Somebody spiked her Coke and she crashed. Is knowing anything else going to bring her back?”

  Dwight knew there was no answer to that. He flipped open the cell phone, located Charlie’s voice mail, and flipped through the entries till he came to 16 December 10:37 p.m., keyed PLAY, and held it to his ear.

  Charlie abruptly turned and walked over to the window to stare out into the backyard where cardinals and blue jays swooped in and out to the feeders and small finches jostled for their leavings.

  This message was longer than the one Dwight had heard before.

  “Charlie? Damn you, Charlie, why won’t you pick up? You can’t do this to us. To me. To Dad and Mom. Not here at Christmas. You don’t have one shred of proof. Gallie What’s-his-face said he dropped him off at six and his mother was mad at him for getting home so late? So what? That doesn’t prove a damn thing. Who remembers stuff like that anyhow? Besides—Omigod! Where did that—? Dim your stupid—Get over! I can’t see! I—oh, shit! No!”

  When it ended, he turned it off and said, “Who’s Gallie?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said, still staring, watching the birds outside his window. “That part didn’t make sense to me.”

  “He go to her school?”

  “If he does, I never heard her say.”

  He looked at the boy’s rigid back and said quietly, “We will find out, Charlie.”

  The boy turned to face him and it was Jeff’s face. Jeff’s eyes. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I hope you do.”

  Dwight put the cell phone in the pocket of his jacket.

  “You still going to take my computer? I need it for school.”

  Dwight hesitated. He now had Mallory’s complete last message on the phone. If he took the laptop in, Mayleen Richards could probably find evidence that Charlie had deliberately cut out a few words, but so what?

  “I guess not,” he said.

  “When can I get my phone back?”

  Dwight scribbled his number on a notepad. “Call me around noon. Is anything on here password-protected?”

  The boy nodded. Half reluctantly, half defiantly, he said, “It’s Avenger. With a capital A.”

  “Avenger?”

  Charlie shrugged. “They tell you to pick an unlikely word, and that one just popped into my head.”

  After leaving the Barefoot home, a little after eight, Dwight stopped to fill up his gas tank. Mrs. Barefoot had insisted that he take with him a ham biscuit as big as his fist, lightly moistened with red-eye gravy, and it was testing all his willpower not to unwrap that fragrant napkin sitting on the dashboard instead of waiting for his drive over to Dobbs. He closed the door on temptation and stood beside the truck. While the gas pumped, he dialed the Johnson number and was relieved that Sarah was the one to answer. He was even more relieved to hear that Malcolm had already left for work and that, yes, he could come over.

  One of the garage doors was open when he got there and Sarah waited for him with a large cardboard box that was filled with beautifully wrapped gifts. he instantly realized that these were presents meant for Mallory.

  “I’m glad you came, Dwight. Isn’t there a gift barrel for needy people at the courthouse?”

  He nodded.

  “Would you mind taking these in for me? I didn’t want to do it in front of Malcolm. I’ve put a sticky-note on each one to say what it is. Most of them are clothes. They say when you stop believing in Santa Claus, that’s when you start getting clothes for Christmas. She did love pretty things.”

  Her voice wobbled a little and her eyes grew brighter but she quickly gained control of herself and walked over to his truck. “Is there room on your front seat or do you want to put them in back? I can tape the top down if you think I ought to.”

  “No, they’ll fit.” He lifted the box and Sarah opened the truck door for him. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to wedge it in.

  She was dressed today in red slacks and a heavy black shawl sweater that seemed to envelop her slender frame. “Amazing how warm it is today after all that ice, isn’t it? Y’all lose any trees? Malcolm had the yard service here most of yesterday picking up all the broken limbs.”

  Dwight realized that she was chattering to delay whatever it was he wanted to say to her and that she was clearly not going to invite him inside. That was fine with him.

  “Charlie tells me that you and Malcolm heard Mallory’s last message.”

  She flinched, then nodded.

  “Or rather that you heard all of it, while Malcolm got an edited version.”

  “What are you talking about, Dwight?”

  “The version he gave Malcolm left out what she said about the Gallie kid.”

  “Gallie kid?”

  “Who is he, Sarah, and why didn’t Charlie want Malcolm to know what Mallory said?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t know any Gallie.”

  Dwight pulled out Charlie’s phone. “Want me to play it for you again, Sarah? Refresh your memory?”

  “No!” She pushed the phone away. “No.” Her voice trembled. “Please, no.”

  “Then I’ll have to ask Malcolm,” he said implacably.

  “No! Haven’t we been through enough? You don’t know what you’re messing with, Dwight. Do you want to wreck my whole life? Do you know how bad Charlie feels that he and Mallory were fighting when she died? Leave it alone, Dwight. Please. It’s none of your business!”

  And with that she whirled and ran into the garage, pushing the automatic switch as she passed. A moment later the garage door closed smoothly and silently.

  When Dwight walked into the squad room shortly after nine, there was an open box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts sitting atop one of the file cabinets and Mayleen was delicately licking sugar from her fingertips, but he shook his head when she pointed to the box. Mrs. Barefoot’s ham biscuit had been delicious and filling, but so salty that all he wanted at the moment was a big glass of water.

  He set the phone on Mayleen’s desk and told her Charlie’s password while she looked for a napkin to clean her fingers. “He claims that the editing was accidental, but I’m beginning to think that it doesn’t matter, so don’t waste much time on it.”

  “Why not, Major?” Dalton asked.

  “I know we were all hoping that whatever he cut out of Mallory Johnson’s message would throw more light on her wreck, but I’m afraid it doesn’t. Not that I can tell. See what y’all think.”

  He turned on the cell phone’s speaker and pulled up the relevant voice mail. Once again they heard “Silent Night” and Mallory Johnson’s voice.

  He played it through a second time, but switched it off before they had to listen to Mallory’s dying moans.

  “Who’s Gallie?” asked Dalton and McLamb together.

  “Who knows? I called my mother on the way over here, but if he was ever a student at West Colleton, she’s not familiar with the name. She’s going to call some of the other principals. See if they have a kid named Gallie. I’m pretty sure Charlie and his mother know who this Gallie is, but they don’t want to discuss it. Mrs. Johnson says it’s none of our business, and unless you can suggest how it has any bearing on the wreck, I don’t think we should pursue it. Just make us a complete copy of Mallory’s message, Richards, and see if there’s anything else from that night that might be relevant. I told Charlie he could have his ph
one back at noon.”

  “You say Avenger’s his password?” Richards asked.

  “Yeah.” He turned to Denning and handed him the bag of trash. “This might not be relevant either, but my niece picked it up around the site early Friday morning. It’s trash from the Cotton Grove Bojangles’ and she says there’s a receipt taped to the box that’s time-stamped about thirty or forty minutes before Mallory crashed.”

  Denning opened the bag, saw all the greasy papers, and beamed as if it were a stocking full of goodies. “I should be able to get some fine prints off this.”

  He carried it into his makeshift lab, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and carefully itemized each item:

  3 aluminum beer cans (Budweiser)

  1 Bojangles’ box

  4 greasy napkins

  1 receipt for an 8-piece chicken box—time-stamped 9:45 p.m. December 16

  1 muddy beer bottle (Pabst)

  1 crumpled form letter notifying the recipient of a sale on tires

  1 foam Hardee’s drink cup with plastic lid and straw

  1 empty cigarette package (Marlboro)

  2 red plastic straws

  1 sheet of rain stained notebook paper covered with third grade math problems

  Humming to himself, Denning took the paper with the fingerprints of Major Bryant’s niece and set to work.

  A large map of the county covered half of a wall in the squad room, and after quickly making an electronic copy of Mallory’s message, Mayleen Richards eyed the distance from the Bojangles’ at the edge of Cotton Grove to the site of Mallory Johnson’s crash where the trash had been found. “That’s no more than a thirty-minute drive, Major. It could well have been tossed by the person whose headlights blinded her. If you’re eating chicken and littering at the same time, you might forget to dim your lights and you might swerve across the center line.”