Fighting for Anna

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  No-brainer. What a country bumpkin I’d already become. And truly, I should have been researching all this already, but there’d been no time since Gidget’s death.

  I quickly navigated out to I-10 and took the 99 Loop for variety. I kept the station tuned into The Bull for as long as I had signal. It crapped out in Carmine, so I pulled into the fancy gourmet grocery/Valero station. In my peripheral vision, I caught a dark tan Land Rover coasting down the side road through town, back toward me from the west. I’d developed a paranoia about being followed after the woman who murdered Adrian had stalked Sam and me and ultimately tried to kill us both. No one had believed me then, but I hadn’t let them talk me out of what I knew to be real.

  The hairs rose on the back of my neck. The Rover was driving the wrong direction, but having seen one like it three times now, I got that old familiar feeling. A bad one that got worse quickly, sending me into an emotional flashback. I was being tailed. That driver meant me ill. Maybe my family, too.

  The angel on my right shoulder was raised by my mother. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  And the little heathen on my left shoulder, the one I trusted implicitly, said, “Get a clue. The effing Rover is following you.”

  The SUV turned right toward JW’s, the steakhouse people flocked to from a four-county area. The vehicle disappeared from my view, but not before I got a vague impression of the driver. White male, darkish hair, pale face, medium-tall based on his head clearance. I couldn’t have picked him out in a lineup unless everyone else was his polar opposite, though. I pumped the gas and jammed the nozzle back in the pump when it was done. The heathen urged me to linger and confront him if he showed up, but the practical little angel said, “Don’t ask for trouble.”

  In the end, my stomach and bladder made the decision for me. Pit stop time. I paid for a package of summer sausage and cheddar cheese out of the refrigerated display and shoved it in my handbag. I made a beeline for the ladies’ room, which was decorated in country cute: beadboard paneling with a varnished cedar countertop and homey framed quotes. It was empty, and a growing sense of isolation came over me. I stood before the mirror, out of place. The woman staring back at me had big dark circles under her eyes. She looked tired. And old. I tried for the sake of my self-esteem to believe what people told me about my looks. That Eva Longoria had nothing on me. That if my life were a movie, Jennifer Lopez would play me. But the visual evidence was unmistakable to me. The wrong side of forty and not hiding it well. Frizzy hair. Flat, sad eyes. Short and curvy, but not in a wasp-waisted sort of way. More in a generous-tush way. Adrian had told me my curves are what he liked best about my body—he called my earthiness “sensual.” But he was wrong.

  I saw my abuela’s face in the mirror, and before my eyes Eva became Isabel and morphed into Tlazolteotl, bone earrings stretching her earlobes and a grotesque bone piercing hanging between her nostrils. A red snake draped her neck, and she held a broom in one hand, a bloody rope in the other. I backed up, blinking. The image wouldn’t go away. I reached for my butterfly, but in the mirror, my hand touched the nose bone. My Tlazol face sneered. My lips moved, and I heard a rough version of my own voice with an unrecognizable accent. “I am the eater of filth, the giver of life. I bring the moon, and my lust consumes me. I grant absolution for the sins of the flesh.” I whimpered, but the sound was only in my head.

  I clamped my eyes shut, screwing up my face with the effort of banishing my delusions. I was losing it. I should drive straight to a mental hospital from here and check myself in. They could give me something so I’d never see Tlazol again. I peeked an eye open. Tlazol grinned, her teeth black and bloody. Then she faded away, leaving in her place my familiar, scared face.

  I fled to the Jetta, turned it on, and threw it in gear. My tires squealed as I left the parking lot. All I cared about was escaping that wormhole into hell I’d stumbled into. I’d never, ever stop at that station again. I sped onto the highway, and an eighteen-wheeler honked and swerved. I pressed the accelerator to the floor. My speedometer hit ninety, ninety-five, one hundred. The Jetta started shaking. People coming the other direction down the highway flashed their lights at me, and I jerked my foot away from the pedal. As the speed dropped, I hit my cruise control at seventy-five. I flexed my fingers. They’d clutched the steering wheel in a death grip, and they were numb. I chomped down on a hangnail on one hand, pulled too hard, and it bled. I’d been holding my breath, too, and I was light-headed. I breathed in and out, slowly, careful not to hyperventilate.

  My phone rang and I let it go to voice mail. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone when I was in a tizzy. And I was in a tizzy. A full-blown one. It was terrifying how fast I’d gone there. I’d been strong and surging on my new information just a little while before. What was wrong with me? Was I going crazy? Was my emotional apocalypse tied to the heat that suffused my body over and over each day and through the night, depriving me of restful sleep? Was it from the pain that was always there, like discordant background noise, sapping my strength? I hadn’t felt this vulnerable since the Ironman last year when I’d totally lost it.

  As miles passed and the visions receded in the distance, I calmed down. It was over. I didn’t need a psych ward. My eyes kept darting to my rearview mirror, just to be sure. No Tlazol. See? You’re fine. The last few miles home to Gidget’s were a blur, though. I pulled up to the house and stumbled out of the car and through the gate. Gertrude put her paws on my shins, yapping a welcome. I crouched and hugged her. The butterfly locket rested in Gertrude’s fur. My tension meter was below 10 now, but I still needed to take control of myself. I needed to hear Adrian’s voice saying “Visualize your happy place. Breathe in. Breathe out.”

  I had only me, though, and when I visualized my happy place, I found myself back at our house in Meyerland with Adrian and the kids, before he died and they grew up enough not to need me anymore. It was vivid, bold, chaotic. Adrian was laughing, Annabelle and Sam were arguing, I was shouting for quiet and order. And it was beautiful.

  I started to sob. My wails rent the silence, and my tears soaked into Gertrude’s coarse fur locks. I released her, and my arms stretched in front of me. My palms grappled for purchase on the earth, finding only short grass and insubstantial weeds. I was so completely alone with my feelings, with what I was going through, with my entire life, dog or no dog. I pressed my forehead into the ground. Gertrude bathed me with sandpaper kisses as I sobbed until I had no more energy or tears left.

  The sounds of a vehicle approaching made me raise my head. The Lee County Tahoe. Tank and Junior. Their footsteps crunched gravel. The gate creaked open and clicked shut. I rose to my knees, then sat back on my heels and scrubbed at my eyes.

  It was Tank who spoke. “Michele Hanson, you’re under arrest for the murder of Anna Becker.”

  I didn’t move or say a word.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’d spent my fair share of time at the Houston Police Department after Adrian’s murder. But never because I was the one under arrest. Cooling my heels in a locked room waiting to be questioned for a crime I didn’t commit was a new one on me. The Lee County Sheriff’s Department looked much the same as the Houston city-version, just smaller and with fewer people. Same nondescript room with a big table and uncomfortable chairs around it. Barely any room to squeeze into a chair between the table and the walls, which were completely bare save for scuff marks from chairbacks, briefcases, and shoes. The smell was different, though. HPD had smelled like dirty mop water and burned coffee. LCSD smelled like partially eaten Hot Pockets left in the trash too long.

  I’d been nearly catatonic since the time Tank and Junior roused me from the ground at Gidget’s place. Tank had refused my request to use the bathroom and change my clothes. They’d told me I could go to the ladies’ room when we got to the LCSD building. But they started questioning me as soon as we arrived. I’d been silent except to say “lawyer,” “bathroom,” and “phone call.” Junior had squirmed, and Tan
k had informed me that in his experience, only guilty people needed lawyers. Then Tank had admired the way his short-sleeved uniform cut into his upper arm, and they’d left.

  Still no bathroom, and I was getting pissed off about it. That was a good thing. Anger meant adrenaline, and it was bringing me back to my senses. I picked at my cuticles savagely. The door opened, and a woman I’d noticed on our way in brought a phone to the table. She was wearing a sheriff’s department uniform like Tank’s and Junior’s. She had thirty years on them, though.

  She said, “Is there anything else you need, ma’am?”

  “Phone book,” I said. “Bathroom,” I added, for like the hundredth time.

  She nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

  A minute later she returned and set a phone book beside the phone.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Bathroom?”

  She nodded. “I’ll send someone.” She shut the door behind her so softly it didn’t make a click.

  I had an urge to just go where I was sitting, to show them all, but I didn’t want to be left in yellowed white linen pants. Instead I grabbed the phone book. It felt weird in my hands. I hadn’t used one in years. Because it was a rural directory, it contained both the white and yellow pages for several towns. Luckily, Round Top was one of them. I flipped to the yellow pages and then to A. I scanned until I found Attorneys, then the number I needed.

  “Eldon Smith,” Greyhound said.

  Answering his own phone instead of letting a secretary or service get it? “Greyhound, this is Michele Lopez Hanson.”

  “Michele? The caller ID said Lee County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Those yay-hoo deputies showed up at Gidget’s place and arrested me.”

  His voice rose. “For what?”

  “The murder of Gidget.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” He was almost shrill now.

  “Correct.” I pushed my bangs off my forehead. My hand continued across the top and down the back of my skull, grabbing my hair loosely until it got to the ends and slid off.

  “What do they claim to base it on?”

  “My fingerprints being all over everything in the house. And because I supposedly killed her to get my inheritance.”

  “Well, that’s a load of crap. I can vouch that you didn’t know a thing about it.”

  “I appreciate that, if and when the time comes that you need to do it. In the meantime, what I really need is somebody to help me get out of here.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “And to make them let me use the bathroom,” I added, but he’d already hung up.

  Luckily, they’d left me cuffless. I folded my arms on the table and put my cheek on one forearm like it was a pillow. I must have fallen asleep, because when the door banged opened and a loud male voice said, “Michele Hanson,” I jumped. Drool had pooled on my arm and was dribbling down my chin.

  “Here,” I yelped, like a school girl. I tried again. “I’m Michele Lopez Hanson.” I wiped drool off my face with the back of my hand.

  “I’m Sheriff Kenny Boudreaux.” A large man walked in, making the room feel immediately smaller. Sideburns and a handlebar moustache but no beard. Tired cowboy boots. A real ten-gallon hat. Not an old guy, but mature. Probably around my age.

  He was imposing, but I waited him out.

  “I understand you’ve elected not to speak to us until your attorney arrives?”

  “Correct.”

  “And your attorney is?”

  “Greyhound Smith.”

  He pulled at his chin. “Greyhound? A good man, an expensive lawyer.”

  “Gidget’s lawyer.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  Tank poked his head around the doorjamb. “Sheriff? Attorney Smith is here for Ms. Hanson.”

  The sheriff smirked. “Looks like the cavalry has arrived.”

  He held up one finger, then turned away and shut the door. I scrubbed away crust and spittle from my lips. It was like I was waking up from a three-day bender, like a real-life Tlazol. The door opened again. The first face I saw was the sheriff’s, then Greyhound appeared. He regarded me from behind serious horned-rimmed glasses. The weight pressing down on me lightened some.

  The sheriff grinned. “We can talk now that your lawyer is here.”

  Greyhound squeezed himself into a chair beside me. “No, first I’ll speak to my client. Alone.”

  The sheriff raised his eyebrows, lifted his hat, and scratched his head. “Ms. Hanson? That what you want?”

  “Yes, after I get to go to the ladies’ room.”

  The sheriff guffawed.

  Greyhound stood. “Come on, Michele.” He took my arm, and we pushed past the sheriff.

  The sheriff hollered out the door. “Mary Lee, I’m leaving the cuffs off her, so you need to supervise her in the ladies’ room, pronto.”

  The phone-book woman followed me into a white-tiled room with gloomy lighting.

  “I won’t make you leave the stall open if you promise not to do anything foolish.” She didn’t meet my eyes.

  “I promise.” I shut the door behind me, feeling warm toward Mary Lee for that little bit of dignity.

  When we exited the bathroom, Greyhound was waiting to take my arm again. He escorted me back into the conference room and shut the door behind us. We were alone. I returned to my same seat. Greyhound set a leather portfolio on the table in front of him and opened it to a yellow legal pad. He got out some number-two pencils and knocked them to the floor. He picked them up. The point had broken off one. The other was intact. He blew on it, then poised it for action.

  “Thank you, Greyhound.”

  “Of course. Fill me in.”

  I spoke fast, updating him on the search the day before and the missing items from Gidget’s, the unlocked back door, the grinding wheels at the safe, Lester’s deceit, Darlene’s revelations, Jimmy’s former betrothal to Gidget, the reverend who’d visited her, the mysterious baby daddy and his rich and powerful family, the grudge Lucy held. Plus that Tank and Junior knew full well I was living at Gidget’s, renting it pending probate. He already knew about the pipeline and the will contest.

  He took his glasses off and cleaned them with a cloth from a case. “You’ve been busy.”

  I nodded.

  “Lots of people with motives. They can’t like that you didn’t call them about the open door and safe-grinding when it happened.” He dropped his glasses as he tried to put them back on. The second time was a go.

  I shrugged.

  “All right. Let me bring them back in.”

  He opened the door to call for the sheriff, but the man was standing right there, with his minions.

  “Ready?” the sheriff boomed.

  Greyhound took his seat without answering.

  We hold this truth to be self-evident.

  The sheriff, Tank, and Junior crowded around the table.

  Greyhound didn’t give them time to get settled. “Kenny, I don’t know what kind of game you guys are playing, but everyone in this room knows this arrest is a total load of crap.”

  The sheriff steepled his fingers in front of his chest, elbows on the table. “None of us know any such thing.”

  Greyhound let out a horselaugh, his lips vibrating. “You’re just trying to appease your voters with an arrest of someone well known that isn’t local. It’ll run in the papers and they’ll lay off you for a while about Gidget’s murder, and then you’ll cross Michele off your list. Meanwhile, you’ll have ruined her reputation in the community.”

  The sheriff leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Her fingerprints are all over that kitchen. Someone slipped Ms. Becker poison orally. Ms. Hanson is the beneficiary of Ms. Becker’s will. She found her, conveniently. That’s motive, means, and opportunity. I don’t know how much more evidence you think we need.”

  Greyhound just shook his head at him. “Even if we set aside for a moment the fact that I am the one who informed Michele about her inhe
ritance, which she didn’t know about before I told her, which completely wipes out motive, and if we discard the fact that she was living in the house so of course her fingerprints are everywhere, and we ignore that you didn’t properly secure and process the crime scene in the first place—there are far better suspects. What about Jimmy Urban? He had motive, means, and opportunity, too. I’d imagine you’ll find the same for about ten people. Lucy Thompson holds a grudge. Gidget’s former partner was holding a will that put all her assets under his control. Word is there’s a baby daddy who paid Gidget to abort a child that she gave birth to, a rich and powerful man with a pocketbook and reputation to protect. I could go on. All of them are better suspects than Michele.”

  The sheriff shifted in his chair but didn’t answer. Tank and Junior studied their hands.

  Greyhound seized the moment. “Are you going to let Michele leave with me so she can forget any of this ever happened, or are you going to make a horse’s ass of yourself, Kenny?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, I suppose,” said the sheriff.

  Junior’s lips tightened, and he coughed.

  Greyhound snorted. “Nor the last. And you know I’ll sue you and the department to kingdom come.”

  “I’ll tell you what.” The sheriff leaned on his forearms. The man had a real problem sitting still and I wondered if he had ADHD like Sam. “We’ll let your client go and hold off filing any charges as long as she’ll agree not to leave Lee County and—”

  “Uh-uh. My offices are in Fayette County. You can’t deny her the right to come visit legal counsel.”

  I was shaking my head. “And my job, my employer’s offices are in Houston. I was there today. You’ll get me fired if I can’t go to my workplace. I own a home in Houston.”

  “Your rental is in Lee County.” The sheriff licked his lips.