Gone in a Flash

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘Name them,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ she said, frowning.

  ‘I want the names and addresses of these friends’ – and, yes, I used air quotes – ‘you’ll be staying with.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, walking to the door and opening it.

  As she left the room, Megan looked at me. ‘I wonder sometimes how differently my life would have turned out if the Lesters hadn’t lived next door,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, you and me both,’ came from the door, where Bess stood.

  ‘Girls—’

  They both turned their backs on me.

  I left Megan in her room, shutting the door behind me at her request. The doors to all three girls’ rooms were closed. The door to Graham’s room was open, and I peaked in. Graham was not in attendance. I stepped inside and sat on his bed, my head in my hands. How had the Graham/Alicia drama come back to the Lesters? Hell, it always did. Everything always came back to the Lesters.

  I always thought Willis and I had done the right thing, keeping an open and free discussion about Bess’s birth family going all these years. But maybe it had been a mistake. Then again, how could we have kept what happened a secret? The whole world – well, our world – knew about it. ‘Massacre on Sagebrush Trail’ had been the headline of the Codderville News Messenger. It had been in the paper for weeks, and in spite of our protests they had printed Bess’s name.

  We’d found the people responsible for the deaths of Bess’s entire family – the Lesters – her parents and her brother and sister. I’d found out who’d killed my best friend, Terry, Bess’s mom, and Willis had found out who killed his best friend, Roy, Bess’s dad. It had been the very worst and hardest time in my life, but strangely enough a few good things had come out of those black days. I had met Luna, who was in charge of the investigation, and who, in her own surly fashion, has remained my friend to this day; and I had become closer to my mother-in-law, Vera, when she showed up the day after the bodies had been discovered with a gallon of bleach, scrub brushes, and a mop and pail. But the brightest, most sparkling thing to come of it was Bess. She became our daughter, just as surely as Megan was and just as surely as Graham was our son. We’d adopted her when she was five, so she’d been with us for twelve years, legally ours for eleven. But she and Megan had always been best friends, then sisters. I started to cry. I was losing my babies. In so many ways.

  It had been a quiet ride. A very long, very quiet ride. Clarissa Mayfair liked to talk, but not around Davis DeWitt. DeWitt had three switches when it came to any response to a comment of hers: one, the scoff; two, the challenge; or three, the patronizing über-male bullshit. So she learned to just keep her mouth shut around him. She had decided long ago that this relationship wasn’t like in the movies. There was no chemistry, no sexual magic that was going to change the fact that they despised each other and have them hopping in bed three-quarters of the way through. Nope, she couldn’t stand the man. And because of that, she found nothing about him sexually appealing. Except for the fact that, like most men, DeWitt would screw anything, she doubted he found her sexually appealing either. One of these days the lieutenant was going to get serious about her weekly request for a change of partner.

  They drove straight to the home of James Unger. As DeWitt turned off the car and started to open his door, Mayfair said, ‘We need to check in with the Houston police. Did you call the loo?’

  ‘Fuck that. We’re just going to talk to her. We’re not going to arrest her.’

  ‘What if she’s sitting there with a picture of herself pushing her husband off the garage roof ?’ Mayfair said.

  DeWitt just looked at her, one eyebrow raised. Mayfair returned the look with a big, toothy, phony smile.

  They opened their doors simultaneously and headed to the front of the house. And it was a nice house. Upper-middle-class nice. Maybe five thousand square feet. Two-story white brick with black shutters, and a double front door painted bright red. They rang the bell. The door had slim, beveled glass windows on either side. When no one came to the door, each took a window to look through.

  ‘Overturned furniture,’ Mayfair said, her hand on her gun at her side.

  ‘Here, too,’ DeWitt answered, also touching his gun. ‘I’m gonna break down the door.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I’m gonna call the Houston PD.’ She pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911.

  DeWitt said, ‘The wife could be bleeding out in there,’ and applied his heel to the lock mechanism of the door. It actually worked, since the dead bolt had not been thrown. DeWitt stepped inside, gun drawn.

  Meanwhile, Mayfair was trying to explain to the 911 operator who she was, why she was in Houston, and what was going on at the home of James and Elizabeth Unger. She finally ended the call by saying, ‘For God’s sake, just send some detectives out here!’ And then followed her partner into the Unger home.

  VERA’S STORY

  FRIDAY

  I wouldn’t tell just anyone this, but Kelvin, Willis’s father, and I were sexually ahead of our time. That is to say, Kelvin had a way about him that had me actually liking that part of marriage. I remember my mama telling me on the morning of my wedding that all I had to do was lie there and try not to cry. That never became an issue. I’m only telling you this because I have to admit here that I was beginning to think of Gerald the way I often thought of Kelvin. But then I’d stop myself, knowing that I could never know two men in my life that would make that worth the trouble. And wouldn’t it be embarrassing if I seduced Gerald and he was bad in bed? Then I’d have to change churches and I’d been going to the Codderville First Baptist since before I could walk. But the more time I spent with him, the more times he slipped his hand into mine, the more I thought about it. I think, at heart, maybe I’m a trollop.

  But the job we had before us was not frivolous. We had a murder to solve, or a body to find, or, hopefully, both. So we found a small room off the lobby called the library, where nobody ever went, and sat in there to talk. There was a computer in there, and we looked at each other and both grinned.

  ‘This is gonna be a piece of cake!’ Gerald said.

  ‘We’ll just Google Rachael’s name, and then Brother Joe’s name. See what we come up with?’ I suggested.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said, and sat down in front of the computer. I was a little miffed about that. I mean, this was my investigation. He was my helper, not the other way around!

  I just sighed – loudly – and pulled up a chair next to his.

  He turned to look at me. ‘I’m sorry, Vera. Did you want to do this?’

  ‘No, no, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘You’re here now, let’s just do it.’

  He Googled Rachael’s name and came up with absolutely nothing. ‘Donley’s her married name, right?’ I said. ‘Maybe we can find something under her maiden name.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Gerald asked me.

  I shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. Linda’ – the church’s secretary – ‘comes in a half day on Saturday. She should have that.’

  ‘What would we give as a reason for asking?’ Gerald asked.

  ‘We’ll think on that. Now, do Brother Joe,’ I said.

  Gerald put in the name Joe Logan, got nothing, put in Joseph Logan, got nothing – and by ‘nothing’ I mean not our Joe Logan. Just lots of people who weren’t our Joe. Then we decided on Joe Logan, Baptist Preacher, got nothing at all, then tried Minister. Ditto.

  ‘Facebook!’ I said.

  ‘You think he has an account?’ Gerald asked.

  ‘I know he does. I’m friends with him,’ I said.

  Gerald shook his head. ‘I don’t have Facebook,’ he said. He stood up. ‘You do it.’

  We changed places and I pulled up my Facebook account. I hadn’t checked it for more than a week, but Brother Joe’s profile picture wasn’t hard to find. I double-clicked on it and pulled up his page. I’m not sure what I expected to find. A confes
sion? A declaration of undying love for Rachael Donley? There wasn’t much there. I was vacantly staring at the page when Gerald said, ‘What’s that?’ and pointed at something on the screen. It was the ‘where you’re from’ question, and in that space were the words: ‘Bethesda, MD.’

  ‘He said he never lived outside Texas,’ Gerald said.

  So I typed in ‘Joseph Logan, Bethesda, MD.’ Still nothing. You heard of channeling? Shirley MacLaine does it. I think I sorta channeled a TV cop show. I typed in ‘Joseph Logan, Deceased.’

  There were three, and one was from Bethesda, Maryland.

  ELEVEN

  SATURDAY

  The grandfather clock downstairs struck midnight, and Bess snuck out of her room. The arrangements were as they had been: Willis asleep in Alicia’s room; Alicia downstairs with E.J. She didn’t dare knock on Graham’s door; she just opened it and walked in. He was awake, but reading.

  ‘You ever heard of knocking?’ Graham said with an attitude.

  ‘Shove the attitude. All hell’s breaking loose here and you’re the one who can set it all straight,’ Bess said.

  ‘Oh? And how am I going to accomplish this magical thing?’

  ‘Start by not being a smart ass.’ Bess hit the covers over his feet and he moved them back, allowing her to sit on the end of his bed. ‘And finish by going back to Austin.’

  Graham threw his book on the bed. Bess noticed it wasn’t a school book. ‘I think it’s a little late for that,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve lost a week of classes. The first week. You can make that up—’

  ‘I’m not leaving Alicia—’

  ‘Just finish the semester, then come home. Everyone will have cooled down by then. I’m not saying I think either of you two are going to fall out of love, I’m just saying the rest of the family will have settled down and come to grips with it.’

  ‘No! I’m not leaving—’

  ‘Alicia told Mom she’s leaving the house, going to stay with “friends.” You and I both know she doesn’t have “friends” she can stay with. She’s going to go live on the streets—’

  Graham jumped up. ‘Not if I can help it! We’ll live in my car—’

  Bess grabbed his arm. ‘Graham! You need to get a grip! What are you going to do right now? It’s after midnight! Are you going to run downstairs and wake up Mom and Alicia and start the drama up all over again? Just listen to me!’

  Graham sank back on his bed. Bess sat next to him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re my big brother, and I will love you always, no matter what goes down with all of this … crap, for want of a better word. I’m just saying, right now you’ve put the entire family in a bind, Graham. Mom and Dad can’t even sleep together. All three of us girls are at each other’s throats. Alicia can’t think straight. If you were out of the equation for a while, things could get back on track, everybody could calm down. Please, just think about it, please?’

  ‘Yeah, OK, Bessie,’ he said, using her childhood nickname and pulling on a lock of her hair. He smiled slightly. ‘Let me think about it. Let me talk to Alicia.’

  Bess stood up and kissed the top of her brother’s head. ‘Thanks, bro,’ she said and left the room.

  It was seven a.m. and Mayfair and DeWitt sat in chairs facing Lieutenant Buddy Nixon, the head of homicide for the Houston police department. It had been three whole minutes and Lt Nixon hadn’t said a word. Mayfair and DeWitt were both twitching in their seats.

  The phone on Lt Nixon’s desk rang and he picked it up and identified himself. Then said, ‘Yes.’ Followed by, ‘Uh huh.’ With an ‘OK’ thrown in, and finally, ‘That’s doable.’ Lt Nixon punched a button on his phone and the voice of Austin police’s Lieutenant of Homicide, Jack Hornsby, filled the small room.

  ‘What the fuck did you two think you were doing?’ Lt Hornsby shouted. ‘I gave you permission to go talk to the widow! And, AS YOU KNOW, detectives, when one goes to another’s jurisdiction, one MUST CHECK IN. DID YOU CHECK IN?’

  ‘Loo—’ DeWitt started.

  ‘No, you did not! You went straight to the widow’s house, then you decided to bust the door in—’

  ‘Sir, I tried to tell him—’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Mayfair. Just shut the fuck up. Both of you fucked this up royally, and if it wouldn’t cost more than my budget allows to send two more detectives over there and get your asses back here to do paperwork for the rest of your lives, I’d do it. But I can’t. I have to deal with what I have, and unfortunately what I have is you two fuck-ups. So listen. Lieutenant Nixon will use you as he sees fit, and you will bring me anything he feels is germane to our investigation. DO. YOU. UNDERSTAND.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Mayfair said.

  ‘Yeah, Loo, right,’ DeWitt said.

  ‘Lieutenant Nixon?’ Lt Hornsby said.

  Lt Nixon turned his back on the two fuck-ups and took the call off speaker. Mayfair and DeWitt just sat there, not looking at each other, listening to this Houston top murder cop laughing with their own top murder cop, and they were pretty sure it was at their expense.

  I woke up and saw that it was only seven o’clock on a Saturday morning! I didn’t need to get up! Why did I wake up? I didn’t have to pee, which was my usual reason for getting out of bed these days. I think it all boiled down to an inability to toss and turn. With Alicia taking up nine-tenths of the bed, it was hard to do. I got up and moved into the family room. I grabbed an afghan out of its basket next to the sofa and laid down, covering myself. Then I thought maybe I should have peed while I was up. So I got up, went back into the bedroom, used the facilities, and came back out. Alicia had managed to expand her skinny self to cover the entire bed. I went back out to the family room and laid back down on the sofa. A light came on behind me. I jumped to a sitting position, my hands in a position for what I thought might be a karate chop. It was my husband.

  ‘What are you doing up?’ I asked him.

  ‘What are you doing up?’ he countered.

  ‘I have a teenager with colt legs in my bed.’

  ‘I think I’m getting to that age where I can no longer sleep in,’ Willis said with a sigh. ‘Not to mention my feet hang off Alicia’s bed.’ He came and sat down on the sofa next to me. I covered us both with the afghan.

  He touched my thigh under the covers. I looked at him and he looked at me, then we both looked around the room. It was definitely empty.

  VERA’S STORY

  SATURDAY

  I met Gerald for breakfast that morning, energized and ready to find us a killer. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get to the town of Bethesda in Maryland, but that was my plan.

  I ordered an egg, scrambled hard, a biscuit with cream gravy, and an orange juice, and asked Gerald, ‘So where’s this Bethesda place and how do we get there? Do we need to rent a car?’

  ‘Bethesda is a suburb of D.C. and we can get there by the metro,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Was I ready to go back down into the bowels of Hell? Well, it hadn’t really been that bad. ‘OK. So eat up and let’s go.’

  ‘Brother Joe wants me to rehearse with that lady from Louisiana after breakfast – you know, for our duet tonight – and right after that we have the rehearsal for all three choirs,’ Gerald said. ‘You think we can put this off until tomorrow?’

  ‘No, that’s OK,’ I said and sighed. ‘I’ll go by myself.’

  ‘Now, Vera—’

  ‘No, no, it’s OK. I do most things by myself nowadays. I’m used to it.’

  ‘I won’t hear of it! You can’t go down to the metro by yourself, you’ll get lost!’ he said.

  Well, that got my goat. ‘Are you calling me senile? Are you saying I can’t go from this hotel, two blocks to the metro station?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said, falling back in his seat. ‘I just don’t want you to go without me, that’s all. I think we work well together.’

  If I were a younger woman, I woulda blushed. But I’m made of sterner stuff these days. ‘When d
o you think our rehearsal will be over?’

  ‘Could be pretty late. And we go on at eight tonight. And another problem,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow’s Sunday, and if we need to get information from any state or local agency, they won’t be open until Monday.’

  ‘We leave Monday,’ I said, almost in tears. Was I just gonna go home and forget all about Rachael Donley? How could I possibly do that?

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve got a whole bunch of frequent flyer miles and I’ll get us two tickets to fly back whenever we finish up. What do you say? Will you stay in D.C. with me?’

  ‘We’re gonna need to find another hotel. This one is way too expensive,’ I said.

  Mr Jones woke up to the smell of breakfast. Mr Brown was not in his bed, so Mr Jones could only assume he’d lived through the night. Mr Jones got up and went into the bathroom, used the facilities, washed his face, then headed downstairs. He followed the smell of bacon to the kitchen. It was a huge room with restaurant-style appliances that could have fed an army. Instead, sitting at a table in the middle of the room were Mr Big, his henchman, and Mr Brown. The crying lady was doing the cooking.

  ‘Please! Mr Jones, join us! I hope you had a pleasant night?’ Mr Big asked in his heavily accented English.

  ‘Motherfu—’ Mr Brown started, but Mr Big interrupted. ‘God only knows what you did to provoke him, Stuart— I’m so sorry, Mr Brown.’

  As Mr Jones took a seat at the large round table, as far away from Mr Brown as he could get, he couldn’t help noticing the heavily bandaged right index finger. He decided to keep his smirk to himself.

  ‘So now we discuss the next phase of our journey. Our journey that ends, Mr Jones, in you receiving your share of the money,’ Mr Big said.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but I just signed on to get that thingamabob and get it to you. I really need to get my money now. I got mouths to feed, you know.’

  ‘Actually, you have back child support to pay. I believe you are what they call in this country a deadbeat dad?’ Mr Big said.