Heat Lightning
Page 18
“Evil,” Coby echoed, but his mouth was full and the word didn’t come out clearly.
“It’s unbelievable,” Vickie Ann said. “Everybody is in shock. The Missionary Society has taken her name off the membership rolls. She killed my mama and Daddy Jim! How can somebody be as horrible as she was?”
“She killed the other guy too. Ronan Trent,” Coby said.
Vickie Ann nodded. “I don’t think I’ll ever get over this. Ever,” she said mournfully.
“Don’t dwell on it, Vickie,” Coby said. “At least she got caught.”
“Finally!”
“And I got out of jail.”
“Yes.” Vickie Ann took a cookie from the plate. “I’ve been thinking, Daddy,” she said.
“Well good, Vickie.” Coby looked at his watch. “Man, I got to get out of here. I’m already a couple of days late in paying our partners that three hundred to start up our business. If I don’t get it to them they might get mad, and we’ll lose the opportunity.”
Vickie Ann said, “But Daddy, I was thinking. I’m tired of being here. I want to come live with you, all right?”
Coby was standing up. “I got to be honest,” he said. “Right now, it wouldn’t be a good idea. I’m going to be working night and day to get our business off the ground. And—”
“But I want to help! I want to be there too!”
“And you will be,” Coby said. “Just as soon as the time is right, OK? I’ll let you know when.”
“But Daddy—”
“I got to go, Vickie. Cheer up. Don’t you like the nice present I brought you?” He gestured toward a carved wooden box sitting on the table beside the cookie plate.
Vickie Ann brightened. “It’s beautiful. I love it. Will you be back soon?”
“I’ll be in touch,” Coby said, and then he was out the door.
Vickie Ann stood at the window and watched Coby walk through the back yard past the garage and disappear down the alley. She was not too disappointed. Coby was going to be working hard, starting the business. She would miss him, but she was pretty sure he would be back before long.
– 51 –
“Now that Patsy started talking, she never shuts up,” Aaron said. He was standing in Clara’s kitchen, slicing tuna salad sandwiches in half and putting them on two plates.
Clara was slicing lemons for iced tea. “It started that night,” she said. “I think she’d reached the breaking point. She knew she wasn’t going to get away. But she fully intended to kill me, I’m sure about that.”
“Oh yes,” Aaron said. “She hated you. You married her dream lover.”
They took the food out to an umbrella-shaded table on Clara’s back porch. It would be a midafternoon lunch, but Aaron had been busy all morning and had gotten a late start for Luna Bay.
Clara looked out at the water in the distance. She still felt unsteady, but relief had begun to seep in. She said, “I don’t believe there was ever anything real between Patsy and Ronan. I think she sat at his table in the canteen, and after they exchanged a few words Alice happened to stop by and join them. Ronan got a look at Alice, and that was that. But in those few minutes when they were alone together Patsy constructed an entire romance. As she saw it, Alice had taken her man away.”
“That’s pretty much how she’s telling it,” Aaron said. “Maybe that’s how she got away with killing Alice for so long— by doing everything the opposite of what you’d expect. She didn’t run away from Alice’s murder. She insisted on going and finding the body.”
“She embraced it,” Clara said. “She spied on them when they made love. Maybe she knew Ronan had given Alice a ring. She spied on them, killed Alice and took the ring, and then was crazy enough to wear it herself.”
As they ate, Clara noticed that although the weather was warm there was a hint of autumn in the breeze. Aaron said, “Something’s bothering me.”
Clara squinted at him, shading her eyes. “What is it?”
“Things were quiet for forty years. Until I reopened the case,” Aaron said. “That’s what started things up again. If I hadn’t done that, Ronan might still be alive, Jim Tuttle might still be alive—”
Clara put her hand on his arm. “You can’t look at it that way,” she said. “You were trying to find the truth about the murder of Alice Rhodes, and eventually you did. What happened was Patsy’s fault, not yours.”
“I don’t know,” Aaron said. “It going to take me a while to work it all out in my head.”
“Me too,” Clara said. Across the water, the hazy line of Loggerhead Point seemed to float on the horizon. She went on, “I think Patsy panicked when the case was reopened. She wanted the blame to be put on Ronan, but she also wanted to warn him. She got the idea that she could save him, and they would be together at last. But if he wouldn’t cooperate, he had to die. Otherwise, he might figure out what really happened to Alice.”
“And Jim was a threat as well,” Aaron said. “He was convinced that Ronan wasn’t the killer, and he kept saying so. Patsy was afraid somebody would eventually listen to him.”
“So she drove around searching and found him wandering near Luton’s Landing Road. She picked him up and drove him to Luton’s Landing.”
“Right. She claims he pulled the gun on her and she took it away from him, and he lost his balance and fell into the canal,” Aaron said. “We know she took his gun. That’s the revolver she used to threaten you.”
“And maybe she was going to use it on me at Loggerhead Point,” Clara said.
“Maybe. But she also had a bottle of water mixed with ketamine in her bag,” Aaron said. “Ketamine is an animal tranquilizer, and she stole some when she was working at the animal shelter. She may have had some idea of making you drink it and then smothering you like she did Ronan. But by that time she wasn’t thinking straight.”
After sitting a while longer, they took a walk down the path through the dunes to the beach. Aaron put his arm around Clara’s shoulders. “Are you going to be all right?” he said.
“I hope so,” Clara said. “Eventually. I need to figure out what’s next. What about you?”
“I’m going to retire,” Aaron said. “And then I’ll figure out what’s next, too. But I know I want you to be part of what’s next.”
“Of course,” Clara said. “We’re connected. That won’t change.”
The shadows were lengthening, and they turned back toward the house. Aaron said, “My daughter told me she’s planning to get married. She asked me to come to Denver and meet the man.”
“Good idea,” Clara said. “I didn’t even get to meet her.”
“She was just here for the funeral, and then she had to get back.”
“What’s her name?”
“Lily Trulock Malone,” Aaron said. “Named after my grandmother, Lily Trulock.”
“And what does she do?”
“She’s a rookie cop.”
Clara smiled. “Investigating runs in the family.”
“I guess it does.”
They continued to Clara’s place and went inside to clean up the kitchen as the shadows lengthened toward dusk.
THE END
Dedication
To Julie Smith, my editor and friend.
Acknowledgments
“Misleading DNA Evidence” by Peter Gill (Academic Press, 2014) was a useful and informative aid in writing this book.
I received invaluable help from Sally Arteseros, Roger Brunswick, Chris Buchanan, Nick Collins, Matthew Nadelson, Joseph Perez, Diane Scharff, and Connie Williams. My thanks to all.
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Also by Michaela Thompson
THE FAULT TREE
PAPER PHOENIX
VENETIAN MASK
MAGIC MIRROR
A TEMPORARY GHOST
RIPTIDE
HURRICANE SEASON
About the Author
MICHAELA THOMPSON is the author of seven previous mystery novels, originally published under the name Mickey Friedman. She grew up on the Gulf Coast in the Northwest Florida Panhandle, the locale described in Hurricane Season, Riptide, and Heat Lightning, and still spends a significant amount of time there. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and a freelance journalist, and has contributed mystery short stories to a number of anthologies. She lives in New York City.