Murder Most Thorny (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 2)

by Loulou Harrington

  Sophia stepped forward and wrapped the younger woman in her arms. “I wish I could tell you that it will get better, dear. But it probably won’t. Once these things begin, they usually continue, sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but almost always in the same direction.”

  “It’s just so sad,” Winnie whispered. “He should have the right to grow old slowly, with dignity. It’s not fair.”

  “Who said life was fair, girl?” a gravelly voice demanded from inside the house just before the screened door swung open. “You should have figured that one out when your maw died and you was just a little mite. Fair’s got nothing to do with it. Coffee’s on. Ya’ll better come on in.”

  With that, he disappeared back into the house, letting the screened door slam shut behind him. Winnie’s round eyes looked stricken. “Do you think he heard us?”

  “I don’t think it matters,” Vivian said. “I don’t think he could have heard anything he hasn’t already thought of all by himself. I started checking myself for incipient senility years ago. There’s nothing I could do to stop it, but I really don’t want to be caught by surprise.”

  Winnie gasped, and Vivian shook her head, stopping any protests before they could begin. “If we live long enough, deterioration is inevitable. It’s just a matter of when, and I, for one, would prefer to die quietly in my sleep before it happens. The point is, dear, don’t think that your father hasn’t given it some thought, because I assure you, he has.”

  An instinct, far in the back of Jesse’s brain, flashed to life with a quiet whisper. Only half formed, it teased at the edges of her mind. Something Vivian had said triggered it.

  “Jesse?” Sophia asked. “Are you coming in?”

  When she looked up in surprise, her mother, Vivian and Winnie all stood on different steps, looking down at Jesse quizzically.

  “Yeah, in a minute, I just…” She looked away again, staring into the near distance, not really seeing anything. “I need to think about something,” she answered vaguely. “I’ll be right there.”

  “She’s got that look,” Sophia said. “Let’s leave her alone.”

  What had Vivian said? Something about inevitability and making her own choices. Jesse could understand what Vivian meant. An independent woman, someone who had always been in control, someone who had spent a lifetime being the person who looked after others, not the other way around. It was probably the way Jesse herself would feel in a few years’ time.

  But it wasn’t Vivian that Jesse’s thoughts had focused on. It was another person who was stubbornly independent, who had spent a lifetime watching over someone else, perhaps too much, a person who was the type to break before he bent. Someone whose anger had burned all the compromise out of him long ago. Who could now see the end of his life advancing, and not on his own terms.

  What might someone like that do to put things right while he still had the chance? To arrange things according to his own likes, on his own terms, before his time ran out? Could it be that simple?

  Jesse’s heart began a slow thud of anticipation, and somehow she knew. Deep inside of her, the knowledge took hold, growing in strength. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the knowledge. It was nothing but a feeling. There was no proof. There was not one piece of evidence that meant anything, at least, not one she was aware of. But the longer her heart pounded, the more sure she was.

  “Native Americans call those ‘far-seeing eyes,’” Moss Harkness said quietly from no more than a few feet away.

  Jesse shrieked, every muscle in her body jerked, and the slow, deep throb of her heart kicked into high gear. Almost lightheaded from the reaction, she whirled and found herself facing the man she had just been thinking about.

  “What?” she asked

  “Far-seeing eyes,” he repeated. “You were a million miles away and thinking really hard about something. I saw that look in my wife’s eyes just before she died. Like she’d just figured out the meaning of life, and death wasn’t anything to fear anymore. She was a good woman. God was waitin’ to take her in his arms, and she knew it.”

  He nodded and his lips puckered while his eyes glazed with a film of tears. “I was never sad for her. She was ready. It was me I was sorry for, me and the child she was leaving behind. I was grateful to God for taking her in, but I was so angry at Him for taking her from me.”

  “I lost someone when I was young,” Jesse said, feeling that she should say something if only to maintain the fragile thread of their connection. “I know how easy it can be to feel that way.”

  “But you don’t. Feel that way, I mean. You’re not an angry person.”

  “No. I had his mother. We grieved together. She taught me how to love and to move on without losing the memory or the love. I was lucky.”

  “Vivian Windsor.” Moss Harkness nodded. “She was kind to my Winnie. So was your mom. I held on too tight. I knew it. I just couldn’t help myself. If I’d given her more freedom, maybe she’d have found somebody better. Somebody who deserved her. I always felt like it was my fault she got stuck with that no count loser.”

  “Winnie would never feel that way, sir.”

  “Course, she wouldn’t,” he barked, the anger that was never far from the surface rising to the top. “She still loved the SOB. Right up until he breathed his last worthless breath, she still loved him.” The anger melted away again with spooky quickness. “She said she would never go back to him, though. She said she couldn’t ever trust him. But I couldn’t be sure. Without me around to watch over her, she might have given in. And she wouldn’t have had me to help her pick up the pieces after he shattered her life one more time. So I just decided there wasn’t gonna be no ‘one more time,’ by damn. I took care of that.”

  Jesse tried to say something, but her voice wouldn’t work. She tried to breathe, but that damned fist was squeezing her chest again. Finally, she managed to take in enough air to squeak, “Really?”

  “She don’t have to know, does she?” he asked sadly. “I don’t want her to be mad at me.”

  Tears ached in Jesse’s throat. Death was sad. Murder was sadder. And the reason it happened was frequently the saddest of all.

  “She won’t be mad at you,” she whispered when she was able to breathe again. “She loves you. But if she finds out, I won’t be the one who told her. You have my word.”

  “You think you could drive me in to meet the sheriff? I don’t want him arresting me in front of my daughter.”

  Again, Jesse’s heart twisted, and she nodded, then cleared her throat. “Sure. You have anything you need to get?”

  “Naw, I’m not taking anything with me. How long you think I’ll get for shooting a skunk between the eyes?” He asked as they walked to Sophia’s convertible.

  The keys were in the ignition where Jesse had left them. “Well, there’s a lot of mitigating circumstances involved.” She concentrated on remaining cool, calm and collected, reminding herself that until possibly that very moment, she had never really liked the man very much. “And, you are getting older, so it probably won’t be nearly as much as it might have been otherwise.”

  He buckled himself in, smiling as they turned around and headed back down the drive to find the sheriff. “That’s good. And I’d probably be in a nursing home before too long, anyway. So this way, the state can pick up the tab for my medical care when I start losing all my marbles, and I won’t be a burden to Winnie. Yeah,” he said, nodding, “this is going to work out okay.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Just before they reached the state highway that would take them into the nearest town, a sheriff’s car from the local county met them coming from the other direction. The car flashed its lights, then pulled in at a right angle to the back of Jesse’s car as she came to a stop. Ahead of her, the overgrown pickup belonging to Sheriff Joe Tyler pulled over into her lane and came to a halt almost grill to grill with her.

  “Are you okay?” she asked the silent man sitting beside her.

  �
�Kind of makes a fella question what he did, you know?” he answered calmly. “But all told, I’d do it again. A man buries his own mama in his backyard and then leaves her there to rot, don’t deserve a lot of consideration, you know?”

  “You knew about that?” Jesse was shocked. He had kept Roy Lee’s secret even while despising him. She would just never understand the way a man’s mind worked. Almost any woman would have shouted it from the rooftops if for no other reason than the “ick” factor involved.

  “Don’t know how Winnie didn’t,” he answered. “All that thick green grass right underneath a rack of wood that had no business being there at all, never mind it was the middle of the dadblamed summer. How someone raised in the country couldn’t figure out there was something dead and rotting under there, I never understood. And then with their mom going missing at the same time and never showing up again—it didn’t take no genius.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Wasn’t none of my business. Until the divorce was final and the property divided, that land was as much Roy Lee’s as it was anybody’s. But he deserved killing. I knew right then, he deserved killing.”

  In a warped sort of way, his explanation made sense. She could almost find herself sympathizing with him, and she knew she had a long, midnight talk with her mom over a glass of wine in her not-too-distant future just to help her come to grips with it all.

  Lost in thought, Jesse was startled by the sudden pounding on her window. Looking up, she was doubly startled by the six uniformed officers who circled her car with their guns drawn. She hoped there wasn’t some misunderstanding in progress.

  “Did you call them?” she asked the man who continued to sit quietly in the seat next to her.

  “Yep. Didn’t expect so much commotion, though.”

  “Well, don’t let them upset you. Their adrenaline gets a little high at times like this.” As she spoke, she held up her hands so everyone could see they were empty. Then she unbuckled her seatbelt, followed by his seatbelt, and then slowly moved toward the door lock that was still locked. “Just sit there until they tell you to move,” she suggested. “And if they reach in and yank you out, don’t fight it.”

  He nodded. “Adrenaline. Yep, I been there.”

  When her door flew open and the sheriff’s hand encircled her arm, pulling her out of her seat, through the open door and against the car, Jesse tried to follow her own advice. His body pressed hers against the side of the car while his left hand pointed a drawn pistol at Moss Harkness, who remained seated and unmoving.

  “Don’t move,” Joe Tyler ordered.

  “Not moving,” the older man said.

  Twisting around from her shoulders up, Jesse watched as the passenger door was jerked open and a gun was aimed at Winnie’s dad from the other side. He turned his head, but that was the only reaction he showed.

  “Stop that,” Joe ordered and gave her arm a shake, bringing her attention back to the tense man holding her captive. “Are you alright?” His voice was rough, but low enough that only she could hear what he said.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” She held her voice to a whisper, not quite sure why, but as long as he was keeping it private, so would she.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve had at least one gun pointed at you today that I know of, and left a dangerous man duct-taped to a chair. Then you were in a locked car with a man who is, if I’m not mistaken, about to confess to murder.”

  His body continued to hold her immobile, so tight against hers she was having trouble taking a deep breath. To make it worse, she didn’t have the slightest desire to shove him away.

  “Well, this one called you,” she pointed out breathlessly. “And he’s not armed.”

  “That doesn’t tell me why you’re here.”

  “He asked me to drive him. Vivian and my mom are with Winnie at his house. They don’t know I took the car, but he didn’t want Winnie to see this.”

  On the last few words, her voice developed a catch and had begun to warble.

  “Are you going to cry?” Joe asked in what sounded like horror. But instead of moving away, he leaned closer, and his free hand touched her arm just above the elbow.

  “No!” The sniff that followed her denial wasn’t reassuring to either of them. “Just don’t be too mean to him. He suffers from dementia, and he’s doing okay right now, but he could become confused.”

  “I’ve met this guy,” Joe argued in a voice that was just for her. “And he can be a real horse’s ass.”

  “He does have his moments,” Jesse agreed. “But right now, he’s being very agreeable. And you might want to question him before that mood is ruined.”

  He released his pent-up breath in a long, unhappy sigh. “Okay, I get it. Elderly, mood swings, fluctuating grip on reality, your friend’s dad. So, I’ll be nice. But in return, you’re going to stay here, out of the way. And once I have him in my truck, you get into your car and go back where you came from. Agreed?”

  “Yes. You won’t know I’m here. Just be nice,” she warned him again.

  “I said, I’ll be nice,” he answered through gritted teeth. He moved back a step, then stopped and leaned in again, so close that the side of his face brushed her hair, and Jesse suddenly had trouble drawing any breath at all. His words were a raspy whisper an inch from her ear. “And don’t ever do that to me again.”

  Jesse nodded, unable to form a coherent thought as he wheeled and walked away. Grateful for the car at her back, she leaned against it, waiting for her legs to regain their strength and for the butterflies to stop flailing inside her.

  She didn’t know what had just happened. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had just happened. And she was absolutely positive she wasn’t going to think about it right now.

  Instead, she watched Joe Tyler take charge while she waited for her rubbery knees to return to normal. Everyone else moved back, and with polite authority, Sheriff Tyler, as she preferred to think of him at the moment, handcuffed his suspect. Calmly and politely, the sheriff assisted the elder man into the back seat of the intimidating one-ton, extended-cab pickup that would transport them to the Waite County Sheriff’s office.

  The other officers holstered their guns, reentered their respective vehicles and, with impressive precision, they disassembled the blockade they had formed around her car while Jesse had sat oblivious to the activity around them, mesmerized by Moss Harkness’s confession.

  One by one, the sheriff’s department cars from two different counties plus the highway patrol peeled away, heading off in opposite directions. The sheriff’s truck quickly passed the vehicles ahead of him and disappeared into the distance.

  Alone, Jesse eased herself into the driver’s seat, buckled up, and started back to find the others. She had no idea what she would say when she got there. She didn’t want to betray her promise to Winnie’s father that she wouldn’t be the one to tell Winnie the truth. But he had just been arrested for murder and pretty soon everyone was going to know. Somebody needed to tell Winnie something before she found out about it on the six o’clock news.

  Still not sure how she would handle the problem when she reached her destination, Jesse consoled herself that at least it gave her something to think about other than the up-close-and-personal moment she had just shared with Joe Tyler. When he had leaned in to whisper in her ear, she had been almost positive he was about to kiss her.

  The memory brought on a short, nervous burst of laughter, and she shook her head to chase the image away. Naw, that was just crazy talk.

  ∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙

  Distracted by all the things she would rather not think about, the drive passed in a blur, and before Jesse knew it, she was walking around the side of the old farm house, drawn by the sound of voices mingled with laughter. What could easily be mistaken for a party guided her steadily toward the rear of the house.

  Slowing as she neared the corner, Jesse listened to the conversation that see
med to float on the air.

  “Just don’t ever think any of this was your fault, hon,” Sophia said adamantly. “You can’t control what a bunch of crazy men are going to do.”

  “I know.” Winnie’s voice was sad, but resigned. “I tried years ago to stop what I knew was coming between the two of them. But Roy Lee wanted respect handed to him. He didn’t want to do anything to earn it. And Daddy was just mad at the world, and Roy Lee gave him a target to aim at. I thought it would get better after we got divorced, but for some weird reason, it got worse instead of better. Daddy got to where he couldn’t even stand to hear Roy Lee’s name.”

  “That is somewhat puzzling,” Vivian said. Then in what was clearly a change of subject… “Anybody want some more of this? I’m pretty sure it’s moonshine, and we don’t want to leave any evidence of it, in case they come around to search the house.”

  Jesse rounded the corner in time to see Vivian, sitting in a plastic lawn chair, brandishing a bottle aloft.

  “Sure. Why not?” Winnie reached down to retrieve an old Tupperware pitcher, flipped up the cap on the spout and poured a red liquid into each of the three small juice glasses that were almost empty.

  Vivian added a generous dollop of moonshine to the, now, almost full glasses, which they each extended until the rims clinked together. “To friendship,” Vivian said.

  “To fellowship,” Sophia added.

  “To survival.” With that, Winnie drained her glass, while Sophia and Vivian each took a more decorous long drink that left almost three of the six ounces remaining.

  Jesse was close enough to see that the little tumblers had orange, lemon and lime slices decorating their clear sides.