After Dark (29 page)

    "Will, sweet boy, how did you
know?" Edith asked.

    "Mrs. Russell called and told
us what happened."

    "It's been a nightmare,"
Edith said. "That awful Jackie Cummings killing herself right there
in Mary Martha's room. And my poor baby waking up and finding her dead
body or perhaps even seeing… She wasn't supposed to awaken. She had been
given a sleeping pill and-"

    Johnny Mack couldn't help but notice
the way Buddy's hand tightened on Miss Edith's shoulder and how she suddenly
stopped talking.

    "Is Aunt Mary Martha going
to be all right?" Will repeated his question.

    "The doctors pumped her stomach,"
Buddy said. "They think she'll be just fine." He released his tenacious
hold on Edith's shoulder, then reached out and urged Will to stand.
"Your grandmother… that is, Miss Edith is tired. Why don't you persuade
her to take a break and get some coffee?"

    "I don't want to leave my
baby." Edith gripped her daughter's hand tightly.

    "I'll stay here with
her," Buddy said. "You've tired yourself out and you aren't thinking
clearly. Why don't you go with Will?"

    "Come on, Grandmother,"
Will said. "Buddy's right. You do need a break. You look exhausted."

    When Will helped Miss Edith to
stand and then walked her out of the room, Lane and Johnny Mack stepped aside
to allow them into the corridor. James eased away from the wall and followed.
When he passed Johnny Mack, he nodded, but didn't speak.

    "Why don't you go with
Will," Johnny Mack suggested to Lane. "I want to ask Buddy a few
questions about what happened."

    Lane gripped Johnny Mack's arm, her
eyes questioning him, but all she said was, "We'll take Miss Edith to
the lounge. Join us when you finish your conversation with
Buddy."

    "I'll be there shortly."

    The minute he and Buddy were alone
in Mary Martha's room, Buddy all but snarled at him. "What the hell do
you want, Cahill?"

    "The answers to a few questions."

    "What makes you think I'll answer
any questions you have?"

    Johnny Mack sat down in the large
chair that converted into a cot and was standard equipment in all the
hospital rooms. He leaned back, crossed his right leg over his left knee
and relaxed. "One suicide and one attempted suicide in the same
house. Even in the same room. On the same night. Strange, don't you
think?"

    "Nothing strange about it.
Jackie Cummings killed herself, and when Mary Martha saw her dead body,
she went berserk and for reasons we'll never know took an overdose of her
sleeping pills."

    "Now, why would she do
that?"

    "Who knows why Mary Martha does
what she does?" Buddy hovered over the peaceful, serene figure
lying in the bed. "She hasn't been herself since Kent was murdered."

    "She sure did take his death
hard, didn't she?"

    Buddy's angry gaze pierced Johnny
Mack. "He was her brother. She loved him."

    "Hmm… that she did. Loved him
almost as much as she hated him."

    Buddy clenched and unclenched
his fists. "Whatever you think you know, leave it be. For everybody's
sake."

    "For Lane's sake?"

    "There's no jury that'll find
Lane guilty," Buddy said, his voice pleading. "She'll never be
convicted."

    "If you're so sure of that,
then why do you suppose Wes Stevens took his evidence to a grand jury and
was able to persuade them to hand down an indictment?"

    "You'll have to ask Wes that
question." Sweat popped out above Buddy's upper lip.

    Aware of Buddy's nervousness,
Johnny Mack rose from the chair and faced the police chief, then smiled
at him. "I just might do that."

    "Do whatever you want, you always
did. But I'm warning you that if you spread any dirty lies about Mary Martha,
I'll-"

    Johnny Mack nailed Buddy with a warning
glare. "I've never hurt Mary Martha, and I can promise you that I'm
not out to hurt her now. But then, I figure you already know that. Somewhere
along the way, you found out that I wasn't the evil brother, didn't
you?"

    Buddy did not respond, but the look
of sheer horror in his eyes told Johnny Mack all he needed to know. Buddy
was privy to the secret, just as he was. Breaking eye contact, Johnny Mack
turned and walked out, then stopped and glanced back into the room as
Buddy sat beside Mary Martha's bed. The look of adoration and longing
on Buddy's face almost stopped Johnny Mack from asking one last question.
Almost.

    "By the way, how did Jackie
Cummings kill herself?"

    "What?" Buddy's head snapped
up, his eyes round with shock.

    "How did-"

    "Shot herself in the head."

    "Strange that no one heard the
shot."

    "She used a silencer on the
gun."

    ''Damn nice of her not to want to
disturb the household, wasn't it?"

    Before Buddy could reply, Johnny
Mack headed down the hall. There was a great deal more to this situation
than met the eye. He would bet his last million on it. Two women, a nurse
and her patient, both attempt suicide on the same night. Why? And was there
any connection between what happened and Kent's murder? Somewhere
there were answers to his questions. All he had to do was find them.

    Lane wished that James and Will would
return with the coffee soon. She hated being alone with Edith, alone
with Kent's mother, the woman who had condemned her for his murder.

    "Thank you for allowing Will
to come here this morning.'' Edith offered Lane a forced, closed-mouth
smile. "I feel certain that he'll be the first person she wants to
see when she awakens."

    Edith sat perched on the edge of
a green vinyl chair positioned in the corner of the waiting area. With
her ankles crossed and her hands folded in her lap, she gave the appearance
of being a genteel lady. Lane knew better. Edith Noble Graham Ware
might have been born into a wealthy, blue-blooded old Southern family
and reared as a lady of impeccable breeding, but in truth Kent's mother
was a ruthless business woman, a power-hungry grand dame and a first-class
bitch.

    "Why would you think I'd try
to keep Will away, knowing how much he and Mary Martha love each other?"
Lane ceased her nervous pacing.

    "Considering the circumstances…
I couldn't have blamed you if you hated me enough to-"

    "I think that for the time being,
for Will's sake, we need to forget our personal differences."

    For the first time since she had
known Edith, and that had been since her infancy, Lane thought the woman was
beginning to look old. Despite her surgically maintained smooth face,
her slender, petite figure and her dyed hair, Miss Edith didn't appear
youthful and vibrant anymore.

    Of course, the woman had lost her
son only weeks ago, and today she had come very close to losing her daughter.
Grief and worry had a way of aging a person.

    Whatever the reason, something
had certainly taken the luster from Edith's time-has-stood-still image.

    "Even though I'm quite grateful
to you for allowing Will to come here today, I find it impossible to
put aside our differences." Edith rose from the chair and, with a regal
strut, crossed the room to confront Lane. "I blame you for what happened
to Mary Martha. She's been distraught since Kent's death. If your actions
hadn't taken her brother away from her, she wouldn't have been half out of
her mind and swallowed that overdose of sleeping pills."

    "I realize that you're terribly
upset, but you can't honestly blame me for the actions of a woman who has
been mentally unstable all her life!"

    "I can and I do blame you! And
until Kent's death, my daughter hadn't had a bad spell in quite some time.
My children were very close to each other. Mary Martha loved Kent dearly,
as he loved her."

    Lane opened her mouth to speak,
but from somewhere behind her, Johnny Mack growled a startling comment.

    "Mary Martha hated Kent as
much as she loved him, and you, Miss Edith, know that as well as I do!"
Johnny Mack stood just inside the waiting room doorway.

    "I have no idea what you're
talking about." Edith hissed the words, then turned her back to Johnny
Mack, dismissing him.

    "You know exactly what I'm talking
about."

    He gave Lane no more than a glance
as he zeroed in on Edith. When he came up behind her, she refused to face
him.

    "I know the secret," he
whispered.

    Lane eased closer, wanting to hear
what he was saying to Miss Edith. Had he said that he knew the secret? What
secret?

    Edith shivered ever so slightly,
but stood her ground, unmoving and unresponsive. Lane had seen Edith
this way more than once-whenever she heard something she didn't want to
hear, she did her best to ignore it, just as she was trying to do now.

    "I know the dirty, ugly little
secret," Johnny Mack said. "Mary Martha told me all about it years
ago. That night Kent caught me with her when I'd taken her home. You know,
after I'd found her wandering around not far from the country club. She
was tipsy and talkative."

    Edith's shoulders tensed. Lane
waited, holding her breath, wondering what secret Johnny Mack was talking
about.

    "She begged me to make love
to her that night, but I refused." Johnny Mack shot Lane a quick glance,
a silent plea for understanding. "I told her that if the rumors were
true, she might be my half sister."

    "The rumors were true,"
Edith said, her voice deadly quiet. "You knew as well as I did that
John was your father. Why do you think I-" She cut herself off abruptly,
as if she had caught herself about to confess to some personal secret
sin.

    Surely, Johnny Mack's true parentage
wasn't considered a well-kept secret. The whole town had heard those old
rumors. No, whatever the secret was, Lane decided, it wasn't something
that was common knowledge.

    Johnny Mack persisted. "Do
you know what Mary Martha said when I told her that I couldn't make love
to her because we might be brother and sister?"

    Edith whirled around, hands clenched
in front of her, red nails bared to attack. "No one will believe you.
Do you hear me? Whatever filthy lies you tell, no one will believe
you."

    "Won't they? Doesn't what I
know explain why Mary Martha has been plagued with mental and emotional
problems all her life?"

    "She's simply delicate, the
way my mother was delicate," Edith countered, tilting her nose in
the air.

    "That may be true, but-"

    "I refuse to listen to whatever
story you've dreamed up."

    Johnny Mack pushed, refusing to
be silenced. Lane held her breath, waiting, wondering, halfway afraid
of what truth he was about to reveal.

    "Mary Martha told me that it
was all right if she and I had sex, that it didn't matter if I was her brother.
That she and Kent had been-"

    Edith screeched, then slapped her
hands over her ears and keened loudly. Lane looked to Johnny Mack for help.
My God! My God! Was he implying that… No! It couldn't be true. No matter
how much she had hated Kent, no matter how badly he had treated her, had he
actually been capable of… No. Please, no.

    "Do something for her!"
Lane demanded.

    Johnny Mack grabbed Edith and shook
her soundly, then pried her hands from her ears and held her in place in
front of him. "Kent had been sexually abusing Mary Martha since
she was eleven years old."

    "Nooooo…" Sobbing uncontrollably,
Edith crumpled, falling helplessly against Johnny Mack's chest

    Lane gasped. Her knees gave way
as her legs turned to rubber. She eased down into the nearest chair. Clasping
her trembling hands together, she forced herself to breathe in and out
slowly, calmly. And all the while Johnny Mack's words replayed inside her
head. Over and over again, like a litany from some sordid TV movie of
the week.

    Kent had been sexually abusing
Mary Martha since she was eleven years old.

    Buddy Lawler stormed out of his office.
"What the hell's going on out here?"

    Before any of his men could explain
the ruckus, Buddy saw Glenn Manis being forcefully restrained by Sergeant
T. C. Bedlow and Officer Mike Davis. This was a complication he had
been expecting. After all, Glenn and Jackie had been an item for nearly
a year now, so it was only natural that Glenn would be making some inquiries.
But if he didn't handle this situation just right, Glenn could wind up being
a major pain in the ass.

    Buddy ambled over to Glenn and smiled.
"What's the matter with you, boy? You done gone loco or something?"

    "I ain't loco," Glenn said,
struggling to free himself. "And neither was Jackie."