Sheryl followed her out into the hall. “Allie?”
She didn’t stop.
“Allie!” Sheryl came up behind her and spun her around. “What the hell’s going on?”
Allie shook her head hopelessly. “I have to go home,” she said.
“Not until you tell me. What’s going on between you and Joe?” Her eyes widened. “Were you bullshitting me? Are you hooked on Joe?”
Allie met her eyes and said in all honesty, “No, Sheryl. There’s nothing romantic between Joe and me. There never was.” She turned to leave.
“Then, what? Allie? What?”
Her voice followed Allie down the hall. Allie didn’t stop at the elevator but headed toward the stairs. She was almost running when she got to the parking lot. Marc’s car, with its four new tires, was in front of her house when she arrived. He sat behind the wheel until she parked. Then, he climbed out of the car, as Allie headed toward the front door. “Allie.”
She turned.
“Are you all right?” He approached until he stood about a foot away, his eyes scanning her face.
She couldn’t look at him. “I—I need some time, Marc. Alone. It’s not you,” she said, finally looking up at him. He frowned, and she felt her guilt ratchet up a level. “It’s me. It’s all been too much. I have to spend some time… well, alone.”
“So, we’re talking more than an evening here, right?”
She nodded miserably.
They stood toe to toe, neither speaking. She could tell he wanted to argue. In the end, he reached out and touched her face. “OK. I don’t like it, but OK.”
She waited until she locked the door before she burst into tears. Spook came out from behind the sofa and stood at her feet, looking up. Allie sank on the floor and gathered the little dog into her arms, burying her face in his fur.
*
She spent most of the next week with Sheryl. Her lie to her mother had become a reality. The sheriff had approved a week’s leave. Sheryl thought it magnanimous, but since it constituted vacation Sheryl had coming to her, Allie wasn’t as impressed. Thirty miles was too far to travel three and four times a day, so Sheryl had moved in with her. The arrangement allowed Allie to be there for her friend without being at the hospital with her. She found myriad excuses not to accompany her. Sheryl needed time alone with Joe. Allie claimed a haircut appointment, a manicure, shopping to do. Sheryl believed none of them, but she was a good enough friend to pretend she did.
Sheryl had left for the hospital one afternoon when the phone rang. Allie had recently made the plunge into the twenty-first century and added caller ID to her basic phone package. That required purchasing a caller ID phone. What came next, satellite TV? She didn’t recognize the number.
“Allie? It’s Myrna. You know, from the Sun?”
“Hi, Myrna.”
“I wanted to know if you were still coming to work for us. We processed your papers, so you can start on Monday. That’s the fifteenth.”
Allie had forgotten all about the job. “I don’t know, Myrna. I assumed with what happened—”
“Allie, I really hope you come to work here,” Myrna blurted out. Then, she seemed to regroup. “The paper won’t fold because Rupert isn’t here. There’s a board. They’ll keep it running until we can get an editor-in-chief. Unless it would bring back too many memories. I wouldn’t blame you if you said no, but I sure hope you say yes,” she finished breathlessly.
Allie heard her take a drag off her cigarette, as she waited for Allie’s answer. She knew working at the newspaper would bring back memories, but so did living in her house and walking to the jetty, which she still did every day. It was something she lived with.
“Allie?”
“Can I think about it?” Allie asked, unwilling to make a decision.
“Sure. Sure. Take all the time you need. I’ll keep your paperwork. Give me a call when you decide. We’d sure like to have you here. Give it some thought, will you?”
“I will, Myrna.” As she hung up the phone, she realized she meant it.
*
Sheryl came home that afternoon looking upset. “Joe wants to know if you’ll come see him tonight.”
“I can’t. I—”
“He said it’s important, Allie.” She dropped down on the sofa. “He wouldn’t tell me why. He said you two needed to talk.”
What did she expect? Joe wasn’t the kind of guy to let things ride. She sat down beside Sheryl. “All right. What time should we go?”
“Not we,” Sheryl said, picking at the seam of her shorts. “He asked me if I’d go by and see his parents tonight.”
They sat in silence. Both knew he’d made the request to get rid of her. Sheryl was first to speak. “It’s about Cornelius, isn’t it? Something about what happened with him?”
“I don’t know,” Allie said honestly, although she suspected it was. “It could be that he needs money for his parents.”
Sheryl shook her head. “No, he’d never take money from you.”
Allie almost choked.
Sheryl looked at her out of the corner of her eyes. “He’s asked me to do some things.”
“What things?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said miserably. “He made me promise not to.”
Allie reached over and touched her arm. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll worm it out of you eventually.”
Sheryl ripped at a thread she’d worked loose in the seam. “I took his gun.” She looked at Allie, then back down. “He had it in his bedside table.”
“How did he smuggle a gun into the hospital?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone brought it to him. Anyway, I took it.”
Allie felt a heavy sickness in her stomach. “Why? Surely you don’t think… .” She left the thought incomplete.
“No. Yes.” She shook her head. “Hell, I don’t know. He’s not himself. He’s barely eating, and you know Joe. He’s a food hog. I offered to smuggle him in some beers or a bottle of booze, but he said no, there was no point. He won’t take his pain meds. He said once that he deserves to hurt. When I asked him what the hell he was talking about, he clammed up. It’s the way he looks. It’s—oh, hell, I don’t know. Everything.” She stopped and looked at Allie, her face bleak. “Anyway, I got scared. I waited until he fell asleep and took it. He’ll be furious when he finds it gone, but I don’t give a shit. I won’t lose him that way.”
Allie opened her arms, and Sheryl half fell into them, as tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I know I’ll lose him, but damned if I’ll make it easy for him.”
Allie stroked her hair. “We’ll keep a twenty-four-hour guard on him when he gets out of the hospital. You can both move in here with me. We’ll be the three musketeers all over again.”
After a few minutes, Sheryl pulled back and swiped at her face. “Jesus. I’m a mess.” She laughed, her eyes still brimming with tears. “Don’t tell Joe I fell apart on you, OK?”
Allie fought back tears of her own. “Scout’s honor.”
Chapter 25
Allie stalled as long as she could. Many of the visitors were on their way out when she arrived, so she had no trouble finding a parking space near the door. She felt like a death row inmate taking that last walk, dreading what lay ahead and yet knowing it was inevitable.
They’d moved Joe to the surgical floor. Room 311, Sheryl told her. Maybe because of the dim lighting in the room, Joe looked much better. He sat almost erect. No tubes ran into his arms, and although the pink skin at his hairline puckered around the sutures, giving him the look of a trussed turkey, the bandage was gone. It struck her again, how much he looked like the proverbial boy next door. Red-haired and wholesome.
He was watching the door when she arrived, and she would have bet he’d been watching it all through visiting hours. Suddenly, her waiting so long to arrive seemed petty. She thought she did it so they wouldn’t have much time to talk, but now she realized it also served as some kind of childish punishment. She’d believ
ed herself a better person than that.
“Hi, Joe.”
“Hi, Allie.” He shifted in the bed. “Thank you for coming.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Are we going to do small talk?”
“I thought we might. For a little while.”
He smiled. “OK, I feel shitty. It feels like someone ran a sword through me and forgot to pull it out.”
“What does the doctor say?”
“She says I should stop being such a big baby.”
Allie smiled, but she couldn’t sustain it.
Obviously, he’d had enough small talk. “I’m sorry, Allie. I had to tell you in person. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought Marcus Frederick did those women. That’s why I was watching him. I wouldn’t have let him get to you. I didn’t know—”
“You knew about Eve Cornelius.”
He drew in a sharp breath, and then winced. He avoided her eyes. “Yes, I knew about Eve Cornelius.”
“Didn’t you see the potential—”
“For what?” he broke in. “He hadn’t killed anyone. I didn’t think he had it in him. He seemed like such a gutless bastard.”
“I guess he wasn’t.”
Joe gritted his teeth. “Yes, he was. He was a murdering gutless bastard.”
She stared at the floor. It hurt too much to look him in the eyes. “If you had come forth with what you found out—”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference.”
Her head came up. “You don’t know that,” she snapped. A nurse looked in the door but continued walking when all seemed calm. “You don’t know that,” Allie said more softly. “It might have saved one woman. Maybe two. Maybe all. If suspicion had been cast on him, it might have made a difference.”
“And destroyed my parents,” he shot back.
So, there it was. The justification. It took a moment for Allie to speak. When she did, her voice vibrated with emotion. “So, you traded the comfort of your elderly parents for the lives of four young women. Young, Joe. They had children. Families. Their whole lives were ahead of them.”
“You’re assuming it would have stopped him.”
“We’ll never know now, will we?” Allie said bitterly.
Joe lay motionless, watching her for a long time.
Allie felt depression settle over her like a wool blanket. She turned to leave.
“I guess I don’t get absolution this time?”
She looked back. Joe’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile.
“Only if you can give it to yourself. This time it isn’t mine to give.”
Marc’s car was parked in front of her house when she got home. He climbed out of his car and approached her with unmistakable determination. “We need to talk.”
Allie had no fight left in her. She nodded and led the way inside. “Sit down,” she said, dropping her handbag on the bookcase and sitting in an easy chair.
Marc took a seat on the couch. He started to speak several times. Finally, he said, “Tell me what’s going on.”
Allie considered lying to him. The words were forming in her brain when she said, “Joe knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Joe knew about Eve Cornelius. He knew Rupert had her killed. Joe was blackmailing him.”
Marc looked stunned. “How do you know?”
Allie told him about what he and Rupert said before Marc got there.
“Did he know about the others?”
“No, he believed you killed them.”
“Jesus,” he said, rubbing his hands down his face. Then, he stiffened. “Odum could have prevented—”
“No.” She took a shuddering breath. “That was my first thought, too, but he couldn’t have.” She wasn’t sure why she was defending Joe, especially since the same thoughts had plagued her since the shooting, but the words kept rolling off her tongue. “He never could have proved Rupert did it. Everyone knew Joe hated Eve Cornelius because she ruined his parents’ lives. They wouldn’t have believed him. All it would have done is to destroy Joe. His job. His parents.”
Marc looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “You know that’s bullshit.”
Allie sat up straighter. “I do not know that’s bullshit.”
Marc continued staring at her until she looked away.
“Have you told this to the sheriff?”
“No.” Her voice was barely audible.
“Why?”
She didn’t have an answer for that. Marc stood.
“Where are you going?” Allie asked, as a finger of ice ran up her spine.
He stopped at the front door and turned around. “I’ll do what you should have done in the first place. Tell the sheriff. My God, Allie, what are you thinking? You can’t close your eyes to what he did. He let a murderer—”
“Rupert Cornelius didn’t kill Eve—”
“Rupert Cornelius would have been found guilty of murder, even if the only woman he killed—had killed,” he corrected, as Allie started to speak, “was his stepmother. Jesus, don’t tell me you can’t see that. Odum suppressed evidence of a crime and blackmailed the goddamn murderer by covering up for him, and now you’re trying to keep it from the police?”
He turned to leave.
“Marc, don’t—”
“I have to.”
“I’ll swear you’re a liar.”
That stopped him. He turned back to her, his face chiseled stone. Allie took a deep breath. “I will. I’m sorry, but I’ll tell them you made it up out of spite to pay him back for harassing you.” She stood up, grabbing the arm of the couch. “I won’t cover up for Joe, but I want him to have the chance to tell the sheriff himself. I’ve known Joe all my life. He’ll do the right thing. I know he will. Give him time.”
Marc’s face reflected the war going on inside him. Then, it went flat and cold. “I can see where your loyalties lie. The same place they always have. I always thought you had a thing for Odum—”
“I don’t—”
“…and I guess you still do. Enough to cover up for him. Tell you what. If you ever get your head on straight, give me a call.” He yanked the front door open and, without a backward glance, slammed it behind him.
When she could move, Allie walked over and flipped the deadbolt on the door. Part of her knew how Marc would react. If the situations were reversed, she would have behaved the same way, but she’d meant what she said. She knew Joe. Despite all that happened before, somehow, he’d do the right thing. She clung to that thought until two o’clock the next morning.
Chapter 26
Banging on the front door brought Allie out of a series of hideous nightmares. Her first thought was Feelie, but he always tried to come in the back. She pulled on shorts under her nightshirt and reached in the drawer for her aunt’s gun, only to realize it wasn’t there. The police hadn’t given it back.
She knew it was Sheryl before she saw her outline. She could hear her sobbing. She opened the door, and Sheryl fell into her arms.
“He’s dead, Allie. The son-of-a-bitch did it. He’s—he’s—d-dead.”
Allie’s stomach twisted into vicious knots that almost robbed her of her breath. “How? When?” Allie asked, leading Sheryl to the sofa. “What happened?”
“He drove his fucking truck off the fucking 528 bridge. He must have been doing a hundred to break through the guardrail.”
Allie couldn’t grasp it. “But—he’s in the hospital.”
“He skipped out,” Sheryl said, wiping her face with her arm. “They didn’t even miss him until bed check at midnight.” She pounded her fists on the couch. “I’m so goddamn furious that if I could get my hands on him, I’d kill him all over again. Didn’t the asshole know we’d stand by him? Didn’t he know that? I would. You would have. I know it.”
Allie tried to process his escape from the hospital. “How did his truck get to the hospital?”
“He got Sidney to bring it over for when he got out. Can you believe Sidney was stupid enou
gh to believe that?”
“When? When did he ask Sidney to bring it?”
Sheryl picked up on it immediately. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t anything you did. He called Sidney day before yesterday. I didn’t even know about it. I thought taking his gun…” Fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “I heard it on the scanner. I was coming back from his parents’ house. His dad had a bad night, so I stayed with his mom until he fell asleep. This will kill them, Allie. It will fucking kill them.”
Allie wasn’t at all sure she exaggerated.
“What he did wasn’t all that bad, was it, Allie? Was it that bad?”
Allie looked at Sheryl’s tear-ravaged face. She wanted to give her comfort, but they knew each other too well for Sheryl to buy a lie. Especially now. In the end, she told her the truth, as she saw it. “It was to him.”
*
Joe’s funeral was a beautiful affair. His parents lived to see their only child buried, but his father died two weeks later. His mother was made of sterner stuff.
Allie might have missed Lou’s funeral, but she attended Joe’s. It seemed as if every officer on the East Coast made the trip. They held it in All Saints Cathedral on A1A, and it saddened Allie that she hadn’t known Joe’s religion.
His insurance covered the necessities. Allie chipped in for a few extras. She knew Sheryl wouldn’t like it, so she didn’t tell her. Friends didn’t have to tell each other everything.
Sheryl stayed with her for another week after the funeral. She didn’t want to go home, and Allie didn’t want her so far away. As it was, she saw a for sale sign in the Feelie’s yard a few days after the Rupert Cornelius shoot-out, and Allie had decided that Sheryl would live there. If she made a big enough down payment, Sheryl’s mortgage payment wouldn’t be that high. Allie didn’t expect Sheryl to fight her so hard, though. It took two weeks to break her down, and then Sheryl insisted they sign a note and vowed she’d pay Allie back every cent. Allie agreed. Whenever. But all that was down the road.
Cord Arbutten gave the eulogy at the funeral. He spoke of Joe’s courage, his love for his family. As he spoke, Allie watched Mr. and Mrs. Odum’s faces. She saw grief, but there was also pride. Their boy remained a hero to the end. Cord talked about what an outstanding officer Joe was, how his devotion to duty set an example for scores of younger deputies. Allie knew that part was true.
Live Ringer Page 27
