Final Justice

by Patricia Hagan

  Chapter 15

  Luke could tell Lucy was nervous by the way she glanced all around to see if anyone was watching as she crossed the street to where he was parked.

  "Don't look so scared," he said when she stood next to the open window on his side of the car. "We've been speaking to each other for years. No one will think anything about it."

  "We've never talked about anything like this." She shuddered. "I feel so awful. I want it over with, Luke."

  "After tonight, it will be. Are there any bodies at the funeral home now?"

  "No. It's been real quiet, praise the Lord."

  "Let's hope it stays that way. Now, like I told you on the phone, I want you to go to bed early and ignore anything you might hear later tonight. Understand?"

  "I wish you'd tell me what you plan to do."

  "It's best you don't know. Just do as I say, and everything will be fine."

  As she walked away, Luke wondered if it were his imagination or if she actually had a little spring to her step. Maybe she was thinking how decency was about to be restored to her family heritage. It was Tuesday afternoon, and he had just got back to town. He knew he was going to catch holy hell from Alma so he was in no hurry to go home.

  He stopped by the office. Kirby had left for the day, but Matt was still there and asked about the deep-sea fishing trip. That was the story Luke had made up for leaving so sudden, how his friend in Mobile had called to say he'd had a last minute cancellation on a planned outing and, if Luke could get down there fast, he could take the guy's place. Luke didn't care whether anybody believed it or not. He had to go, had to get everything ready to bring the hammer down.

  "Didn't catch a thing," Luke said. "So were things quiet while I was away?" He began to shuffle through the mail: wanted posters, law enforcement journals.

  "Afraid not. Rudy Veazey and Buck Haynie got drunk and had a fight at the grill, and Rudy laid Buck's head wide-open with a tire iron."

  "Did you lock him up?" Luke was quick to ask. He shuddered to think of Rudy going home to Emma Jean till he sobered up.

  "Yeah, but I had to let him go the next morning because Buck didn't press charges. You know how these rednecks are. They like to settle things their way. Maybe they'll wind up killing each other."

  "We'll never be that lucky."

  "That wife of Rudy's was sure scared. She was shaking like a dog caught pissin' on the rug. She calmed down, though, when she saw I was gonna lock him up. Guess she was afraid he'd continue the fight with her."

  Matt was heading for the door. Luke pretended to be focused on the mail as he casually asked, "Do you know where they'd been?"

  "Probably that honky-tonk in Talladega."

  "That's a breeding ground for trouble. A lot of affairs get started there, husbands dancing with other men's wives, flirting and making plans to meet on some back road."

  Matt laughed. "What do you care? You don't ever go there."

  "And I don't plan to, either," Luke retorted gruffly.

  "So what are you so fired up about?"

  "I'm not. It doesn't matter."

  But Luke knew it did matter, a lot, only he wasn't going to let Matt know that. Neither was he going to confide how it burned his guts to think that blasted dance was what got Rudy stirred up to beat Emma Jean so bad she'd lost her baby. That had been a blessing in disguise because she had no business having a baby by that jerk. Hell, she didn't have any business being married to him at all. Just like he didn't have any business being married to Alma, except for Tammy, who would grow up and leave home, and then what was he going to have? Not a damn thing.

  So he needed to hurry up and do what he had come back to do and get the hell out of Hampton, Alabama, once and for all before he wound up in bed with Emma Jean Veazey and then had to kill Rudy if he ever found out about it.

  "Luke, are you okay?"

  Luke shook his head to clear it from the demons tormenting. "Yeah, I'm fine. Take off."

  Luke waited till Ned arrived, then decided to go home and face Alma and get it over with. He had a few hours to kill, anyway, because he didn't want to go to the funeral home till late.

  With his hands gripping the steering wheel, he told himself not to drive by the laundromat but, at the last minute, yielded to temptation.

  She was coming out the back door, and he slowed at the sight of her. There were no other cars around, no customers. The "closed" sign hung at a front window.

  She saw him and froze.

  Their gazes locked in question.

  Time seemed to stand still, then she motioned he should follow her. She got in her car, drove to the corner, and turned in the opposite direction of the way she usually went to go home.

  He stayed a discreet distance behind till she got out of town and turned off on a little used road. He then hit the switch to send the blue light on the top of the patrol car swirling.

  Obediently, Emma Jean eased onto the shoulder of the road. He pulled in behind her and got out, trying to look very official should anybody pass by. It was taking a chance. If Rudy heard she'd been pulled over, he'd wonder what she was doing at this end of the county. But right then Luke didn't care because all he was thinking of was how they were going to have a minute alone together.

  By the time he got to her car, she had rolled down her window and was waiting to tease, "Oh, officer, I didn't realize how fast I was going. You aren't going to give me a ticket, are you?" She batted her eyelashes at him and giggled.

  Luke played along and pulled his ticket pad out of his hip pocket. "I'm afraid I might have to, miss, unless you'd like to pay it off now."

  "Pay it off?"

  "Yeah. You can do it here instead of at the magistrate's office. What do you say?"

  "Well, it depends. What's it going to cost me?"

  "This."

  He leaned down and touched his mouth to hers, parting her lips with his tongue to plunge deep. She responded with a fervent hunger of her own, reaching out to clutch his shoulders and pull him closer.

  Finally, breathlessly, he pulled away to swear, "Damn, you tear me up, woman."

  "That's what I want to do," she admitted with candor, "and I don't care how wrong it is, Luke. The way I see it, I've got a right to a little happiness."

  He saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes and knew she had not acted out of mere impulse. Like him, she'd given it a lot of thought. "Then why did you hang up on me the other day?"

  "Bert came back inside. I got to listening to you and wasn't watching, and if I'd said another word, he'd have heard me."

  "I thought maybe it was because of what I said."

  She blinked, not remembering.

  "About wanting to do something besides drink KoolAid."

  Her soft, warm laugh was like a caress. "I don't have a problem with that, sheriff. I don't have a problem at all."

  Glancing up and down the road to make sure no cars were coming, he opened her door. "Only God knows how bad I want you, girl." He began to move his lips over her face, her neck, licking the salty sweetness of her. She smelled of lint and dry cleaning fluid and soap and water softener, and he gloried in it.

  "And I want you, Luke, like I've never wanted a man before in my whole life. Tell me it's not wrong," she begged. "I mean, I know we're both married, but I can't help feeling like I do about you. You've been such a friend..."

  "I always will be."

  "Rudy goes to work at eleven tonight. Can you come by?"

  "Yeah, but it might be real late." He took out his handkerchief and rubbed her lipstick off his mouth. He'd have to throw it away.

  Emma Jean knew what he was thinking and took it from him. "I'll wash it at work tomorrow."

  He snatched it back. "No, you won't. Rudy might find it and see it's not his." He kissed her one last time. "I'll see you later on tonight. Keep an eye out for me because I'll kill my lights as soon as I turn off the road."

  She watched in the mirror as he returned to his car, loving the way his uniform pants cupped
his rear end. He probably had the cutest butt she'd ever seen on a man. She pressed her fingertips to her lips. He could kiss good, too.

  And she knew from eleven o'clock on, she'd be perched in a window like an owl in a tree, waiting for him to show up. She just hoped nothing happened to keep him away, or that he wouldn't change his mind. But he'd be there. Luke Ballard was a cockhound. That's what Wanda Potts had told her the day she brought her waitress uniforms in to wash, and Emma Jean had managed to bring up Luke's name without looking obvious because she wanted to know if he messed around any at the grill.

  "He's good looking, all right," Wanda had said dreamily, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth. "I've had my eye on him for a long time, but I guess he don't want to jump another man's claim."

  Emma Jean had given her a bewildered look.

  Wanda had laughed, "Oh, don't look so shocked, honey. It's no secret me and Matt Rumsey have had a thing going for years."

  "That long?"

  "Yeah. Sure." Wanda had exhaled and sucked the smoke back up her nostrils, French inhaling, it was called. "It works out good for both of us," she had continued. "We both got kids, and besides, the way I see it, if you divorce one man to marry another, you're just exchanging one set of problems for another. So why bother? We see each other now and then and have us a time, and it makes the bad times with my old man easier knowing somebody out there gives a damn about me, you know?"

  "But if Matt cares about you like you say, how come you want to go off with the sheriff?"

  Wanda had rolled her eyes and giggled. "What girl in her right mind wouldn't? Damn, Emma Jean, take a good look at him sometimes. He's so, so... I don't know." She had caressed herself, running her fingertips up and down her arms as she mulled the question. "Rough, I guess you'd call it. You know, like he could make love so strong it hurt, but you'd love every minute of it, 'cause he'd be so good at it."

  A dryer buzzer had sounded, and Emma Jean had emptied it and piled the clothes on the table for folding. Wanda had sauntered over to a chair and sat down and begun to leaf through an old magazine. No one else was around so Emma Jean had dared ask, "Do you know anybody he's been with?"

  "Sure he has. He's a cockhound."

  Emma Jean had repeated the unfamiliar word.

  Wanda had laughed. "Don't you get it? Cock, like a slang word for sex, and hound, like in bloodhound, always sniffing around looking for something.

  "But," she had gone on to say after taking one last draw on her cigarette and grinding it under her heel, "I think he's gotten choosy, 'cause I haven't heard of him messing around with anybody in a long time. Now that's not to say he don't still do it. He might just be extra careful these days."

  Maybe, Emma Jean mused as she watched his car disappear around a curve. But if things worked out like she hoped, he wouldn't be messing around with anybody but her, by golly.

  * * *

  It was after midnight, and Luke had been hiding inside Milburn Smith's azalea bushes watching the funeral home for the past two hours. The lights had gone out at ten-thirty, but he wasn't taking any chances on moving too fast. He wanted Hardy to fall sound asleep.

  Luke did not like the feeling that he was spying on other people, like Milburn's 14-year old daughter, Sharon. Girl Scout, honor roll, a member of the youth choir at First Baptist, she seemed like a little Pollyanna. But after what he'd just heard going on in the gazebo between her and Wiley Lansky, the preacher's son, Lolita had nothing on Sharon.

  Then there was Murline Pruitt, the Smiths' next door neighbor. She always rode to her Monday night bowling league with the town pharmacist, Dennis Blum, because he only lived a few doors down the street and picked her up, but from the way they were necking before Murline got out of the car, it was obvious they shared a whole lot more than a ride together.

  At last, he felt the time was right and darted across the street, keeping to the shadows. He found the same window unlocked and slipped inside. Carefully making his way in the darkness from memory, he proceeded to the casket display room. Only after closing the door behind him did he switch on his flashlight.

  Down in Mobile, Jim Burkhalter had introduced him to an undertaker who had told him what to look for—a steel coffin with a short metal tube protruding from each corner. Spotting one just inside the door, he opened both the top and bottom lids. From the small satchel he'd brought with him, he took the confession Jim had typed and a pen for signing, but, perhaps most important of all, was the Dictaphone Jim had loaned him. Quickly, he set it up.

  Stepping back into the hallway, he shone the light around till it fell on a fern stand with a rather ugly vase on top. He gave it a light shove and the vase toppled to the floor and broke with a loud clatter.

  From above came the sound of feet hitting the floor, followed by Hardy's sleepy growl, "What the hell? I'll bet you forgot to put the damn cat out again. So help me, Lucy, this time I'm going to kick him so far he won't be able to find his way back."

  Luke switched off his flashlight and got in position beneath the stairs. Hardy turned on the lights and came clomping down, muttering to himself all the way. As he reached the bottom, Luke's hand snaked out to close about his neck. From his Green Beret days, Luke knew exactly how hard and how long to press on the carotid artery to cut off oxygen to the brain to render a man first immobile, then unconscious, without causing brain damage... or death.

  Hardy went limp. Luke slipped his hands under his armpits and dragged him into the display room. He was heavy, but with a great heave, Luke was able to get him up and into the coffin without turning it over. Staring down at Hardy's face, Luke resisted the impulse to hit him. No matter that the snotty little creep could be his daddy. He slammed the lid down. Through the .18 gauge steel, Luke thought he heard Hardy moan softly. It was almost time for him to wake up.

  Then there was no doubt. Hardy did moan. Loud. And when he realized he was lying flat on his back in a dark, close place, and it began to dawn exactly what that dark, close place was, he started shouting, "Hey, what the hell is going on? This isn't funny. Let me out, damn it..."

  Luke took the crank from his pocket that Jim's undertaker friend had given him and fitted it into the metal tube on the corner closest to him and began to turn. The undertaker had given him a demonstration of what would happen, how turning the crank would send the two horizontal metal rods beneath the rubber gasket on the front side of the coffin to meet each other. When they were in place, a vertical rod would automatically move down from the lid to lock between.

  The sound was ominous.

  Kah-lank. Kah-lank. Kah-lank.

  Hardy fell silent and went stiff with terror.

  Kah-lank. Kah-lank. Kah-lank.

  Hardy knew what it meant, he was in a sealer, and comprehending this, his cries were swallowed by hysterical gasps. Had he been placed in any other coffin but a sealer, he knew he could have lasted maybe twenty-four hours or longer with air seeping in around the seams, but with each turn of the crank, each maddening kah-lank, death loomed ever closer. "Why are you doing this to me? Who are you? Please... let me out..."

  Luke stopped cranking and plugged in the Dictaphone, then placed it on top of the coffin right over Hardy's head. Hardy's confession might not be audible, having to come through the steel and all, but he had to try. Besides, Hardy wouldn't know if it wasn't because the tape would be locked in a safe deposit box, and only Luke would have the key.

  "Please, don't do this..." Hardy was sobbing now, punctuating each agonized word with a futile pound of his fists against the lid. "I'll give you whatever you want. Please, I can't breathe..."

  "Stop screaming and save what air you've got."

  Hardy fell silent as he tried to place the familiar voice amidst the panic that held him in a smothering cocoon.

  "Just what are you willing to do to get out of there, Hardy?"

  The voice, so familiar. But who—?

  "Answer me, Hardy. You don't have much time, and you know it."

  It
couldn't be, or could it? "Luke Ballard?" he asked with a flare of hope. "Is that you? Let me out. Quick. Somebody played a terrible trick on me, and..."

  "It's no trick, Hardy. I put you in there."

  Rage overcame fear. "Luke? Come on. Open up. This isn't funny, damn you."

  "Neither is robbing corpses of their coffins."

  Hardy felt his guts wrench. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Oh, yes, you do, and you're going to tell me all about it."

  "The only thing I'm going to tell you is that if you don't get me out of here, I'll have your badge. You can count on it."

  "But you can't count on anything, Hardy, because according to what I've been told about this kind of coffin, you've only got maybe another twenty-five minutes or so of air left, depending on how panicked you are. And from what I'm hearing, you're real panicked, Hardy, and you might not even have that much left. So I suggest you cut your bullshit and admit what you've been doing."

  Hardy's mind started whirling. Somehow Luke had found out about the body dumping, but he was bluffing about letting him die. He was just trying to scare him, that's all, and up till then he had done a real fine job. But no way was he going to let himself be bluffed into making a confession that would send him to prison. "You're crazy. Now stop kidding around and open this coffin."

  "I saw what you and your half-wit helpers did to Minerva Plummer."

  "Well, if you think you saw something, what do you need me for?"

  "I want to hear about all of them."

  "People in hell are going to want ice water, too, you bastard. Oops..." Hardy gave an exaggerated giggle...poor choice of words. Sorry."

  Luke brought both his fists slamming down on the lid—hard. God, how he ached to shout the truth about how he knew all about that long ago night of hell inflicted on his mother and how it was the reason for what he was doing, but he couldn't. Hardy would tip off Burch and Buddy. Most of all, though, he didn't want any of them to think he had any inkling that one of them was his father. He didn't want to give them the pleasure, by damn.