Dead Weight (7 page)

‘Why would someone be trying to kill you?’ I asked. Berta was the least likely-looking murder victim I could imagine. Short and pudgy, she had dark hair and brown eyes and was totally bland. I thought.

‘Well, you see, that’s the whole problem. Someone’s been trying to kill me for nine or so months now.’

Trisha and I exchanged a look. Maybe we had a paranoid on our hands here. ‘That’s a long time,’ I said.

Berta nodded her head vigorously.

My plan was to sneak Berta into my house to my office under the stairs where I had a nice easy chair she could sleep in, not to be accosted by my husband as I walked in the door of my own home. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened.

By the time we left Berta’s house, the deluge had begun. Rain that heavy wasn’t necessarily a good thing during drought conditions. It hadn’t rained in so long that the ground was hard as a rock and what we really needed was long, soaking rain, not the kind of heavy rain that would just cause run-off. It was in situations like this that we got flash floods – creeks and rivers overflowing, low-water crossings getting so deep a car could be swept away. Two or three times a year citizens would be lost when they tried to ford a low-water crossing, not knowing it was running deep and fast.

The three of us ran to the minivan with Berta still clinging to her laptop, which was shielded from the downpour by her body. We were drenched by the time we got to it. The lightning was still ripping the sky and the thunder was right on top of it, meaning the lightning was close. The tires of my car sang on the wet pavement as we made our way through Black Cat Ridge.

I pulled into Trisha’s driveway to get her as close to her house as possible, then pulled the minivan into my drive. As my vehicle was older than Willis’s new truck, he got the one side of the garage that was clean enough to park in, and I got the driveway. Berta and I jumped out of the minivan and headed to the back door of my house, which lead to the kitchen, both of us dripping water on my semi-clean floor.

Willis was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him. Elena Luna sat next to him, a steaming cup in front of her. God, having a serious sense of humor, took that moment to unleash a very close lightning bolt that managed to knock out the lights. Berta and I stood there in the darkness as the immediate crash of thunder shook the house. Willis and Luna also sat there in the darkness – even with the drama of the storm that fact was not lost on me. No one said anything.

I finally managed to get my wits about me and felt my way to my junk drawer where I had emergency candles and matches. There were also little holders in there that I’d found at the dollar store, and I used a lit candle to find them. I stuck the candles in the holders, lit them all, and placed them around the kitchen, the last one in the middle of the table. All this was done in total silence. Except of course, for the raging of the storm. All the other raging was being kept bottled up, for the moment anyway.

I took a chair and indicated with a nod of my head to Berta that she do likewise. We sat at the other end of the table from Willis and Luna. Three of us just stared at each other. Berta looked at the table top.

Nodding her head at Berta, Luna said, ‘Who’s this?’

‘Berta Harris,’ I said.

‘The one who’s funeral you went to?’ Luna said.

‘Memorial service,’ I said. ‘She was cremated – well, pretended to be cremated rather than in a coffin, which would be buried, which would make it a funeral.’

Luna shot me a look so I stopped talking. Then she said, ‘This is the one you asked Kerry Killian about and she told you to stay out of it?’ Luna said.

‘Right,’ I said.

Berta’s head shot up. ‘You asked Kerry about me?’ she whispered, her voice shaking.

I turned to look at her. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘When?’

‘Right after your memorial. The afternoon before she died.’

‘You mean,’ Berta whispered, ‘before she was murdered.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘What is it?’ Luna asked Berta.

Berta shook her head and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. ‘I didn’t tell Kerry about the memorial service. I did all that myself. She put a For Sale sign in my yard to make it look like I’d moved. She thought that would be enough. But I knew they wouldn’t leave me alone until they thought I was dead.’

‘Who is “they?”’ Luna asked.

But I interrupted. ‘How did you do all that? Your memorial service?’

Luna shot me another look, but Berta perked up a bit and began to talk. ‘Oh, it was easy! I called the church and told them about my friend who died here but was from out of town and wanted a memorial service here as well. And they said sure and I sent them a check. And then I just ordered flowers and had handouts made. Then I emailed all the groups, except one who I had to call. I disguised my voice.’

‘Why did they have conflicting stories of how you died?’ I asked.

Berta had the grace to blush. ‘Well, I got kind of bored with the whole thing and so I got a little inventive.’

‘I’ll say,’ I said, laughing. ‘Being dragged by a car—’

‘Enough!’ Luna fairly shouted. ‘You said someone tried to kill you. Who was it?’

Berta lifted her head again where it had drifted back to stare at the table top, and looked at Luna. ‘I don’t know,’ she said succinctly.

‘You don’t know?’ Luna repeated.

‘No, I don’t know.’

‘Why don’t you know?’ Luna asked.

‘Why don’t I know?’ Berta repeated. She looked totally confused. Then she said, with a little aggression, ‘Because I don’t! Jeez!’

The powers that be took that moment to turn the lights back on. We all blinked at the bright light. And, for the first time, I noticed Willis was staring straight at me.

‘What?’ I said. OK, also a little aggressively.

‘You just do whatever you want whenever you want to do it, don’t you?’ he said. ‘It doesn’t mean a thing to you what I say or what I want.’

‘You’re not the boss of me,’ I said.

‘OK,’ Luna said, ‘you kids need to let the grown-ups talk now.’

I glared at her.

‘Why do you think someone is trying to kill you?’ Luna asked Berta.

‘Did you
see
my bathroom?’ Berta asked, more aggressively.

‘Besides that. Did you steal something from someone? Witness a crime? Sleep with someone’s husband? Threaten to tell a lover’s wife on him? What did
you
do that would make someone
else
try to kill you?’

Berta shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

Luna sighed. ‘Did you steal something?’ she asked slowly.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Witness a crime?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Sleep with someone’s husband?’

‘I don’t know.’

Luna literally threw up her arms. ‘What the hell does that mean? How can you not know if you stole something, or witnessed something?’

There was a taut silence that was finally broken when Berta said, ‘Because I don’t know anything. I don’t even know my own name.’

The story went something like this: Berta woke up in Codderville Memorial Hospital last October. A nurse saw she was awake and sent for the doctor. The doctor was dealing with an emergency and it took him over an hour to get to her. During that hour Berta managed to find out where she was and realized that she knew only one thing about herself – that she was in deep doo-doo. She didn’t know from whence the doo-doo was coming, only that it was. And she knew she couldn’t trust anyone. So when the doctor told her that she didn’t have any I.D. on her and they needed to know her name, she noted the following: the doctor’s name was Robert Simms and he was wearing a Harris tweed jacket.
Voila
, Berta Harris. She made up an out-of-town address and said she couldn’t remember her social security number. They told her she’d been found unconscious on the side of the road. She had two broken fingers, bruises and abrasions, and a cut on the back of her head that needed four stitches. Dr Simms told her she needed to stay at least one more night, possibly two.

After he left, she (known to us as ‘Berta’) got gingerly out of bed and headed to the closet, only to discover there were no clothes hanging here. Nothing, not even dirty underwear. All she had was the hospital gown, opened to the back, with only her butt to show the world. It was at this point, Berta said, that she fell to the floor and began to bawl. She was discovered only moments later by a hospital volunteer. You guessed it, Kerry ‘I’ll Volunteer for Anything’ Killian.

As Kerry got Berta back in bed, Berta tearfully told her the truth as she then knew it. That is: she’d woken up with no knowledge of herself or her surroundings, only knowing that she was in trouble. Berta said Kerry believed her right off the bat, and helped her leave the hospital by smuggling in some scrubs and a pair of slippers, then sticking Berta in her car until her shift was over, then driving her back to Black Cat Ridge.

As a realtor, Kerry had access to houses before they went on the market, and she had actually bought one to flip. It was to this house that she took Berta – the house we had been in earlier. The two decided the first thing to do was to hide Berta for a month or so, during which time she should change her appearance: dye her hair, get contacts in another color, and gain weight. (Which answered another question.)

Meanwhile, Berta read up on amnesia, and discovered that it was often caused by the combination of a bump on the head and a severe emotional trauma. The stitches proved the bump on the head, and she started hitting twelve-step programs like AA and Gamblers Anonymous, and other groups like MADD and Weigh In, to discover her emotional trauma.

‘So far, I haven’t come up with it,’ Berta said. ‘And then, there I was, just soaking in the tub, and that electric space heater came flying through the window.’ She hiccupped a sob. ‘They found me.’

‘Who found you?’ Luna demanded.

Berta’s tears dried up immediately. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’ she demanded rather loudly.

‘Hey!’ Willis said, just as loudly. ‘The kids are asleep!’

‘Great!’ Berta blasted back. ‘At least you know you have kids! I could have some out there some place starving because Mama forgot to bring home the bacon!’ Then she burst into serious tears.

I put my arm around her shoulders and muttered variations of ‘There, there’ in her ear, while simultaneously shooting daggers with my eyes at both Willis and Luna.

‘So the boy who died by a drunk driver—’ I whispered in Berta’s ear.

‘Made him up,’ she whispered back.

Willis sighed heavily. ‘Well, at least we got some rain,’ he said lamely.

‘Oh, that’s your big concern!’ I hissed at him. ‘A friend murdered, another friend in serious trouble here, and you’re still going on about the stupid drought?’

‘Stupid? Do you have any idea of the repercussions of a twenty-year drought?’ he yelled at me.

‘It’s been less than a year!’ I yelled back.

‘It’s just the beginning! They’re predicting a possible twenty-year drought!’

‘Who’s predicting?’

‘I don’t know!’ he yelled. ‘Somebody!’

‘Somebody?’ I yelled back. ‘OK, well I’m predicting a possibility of snow by morning!’

‘E.J.—’ he started.

‘Jesus, will the two of you put a sock in it?’ Luna said. ‘Ms Harris.’

Berta wiped her face with her hands while I went in search of a box of Kleenex. Finding one on the kitchen counter, I brought it back and sat down. Berta wiped her face, blew her nose, and then looked up at Luna. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘I think you need to come with me to the station—’

Berta jumped up and headed for the back door, yelling ‘Nooooooooooo—’ as she went.

I caught her with the door knob in her hand. ‘Berta, wait,’ I said.

Luna was already standing. She came around to where Berta and I stood by the door. ‘OK,’ Luna said, ‘no station. I can see you’re frightened of that. And I can understand. Police stations are scary places—’

‘My God, haven’t you been listening?’ Berta whispered. ‘I can’t come out of hiding! I certainly can’t go into Codderville! That’s where all this started. The people who are after me are in Codderville—’

‘But you were in Black Cat Ridge when your bathroom window was broken,’ Luna said softly.

Berta sank into the nearest chair. ‘Oh my goodness. Yes, yes, I was.’

‘We need to get you somewhere safe,’ Luna said.

‘New York City?’ Berta suggested. ‘Lots of people there.’

‘I was thinking more like lock-up. We could keep you safe, make you comfortable—’

‘Hey!’ I interjected. ‘I’ve been in your lock-up. There’s nothing comfortable about that place!’

‘Pugh—’ Luna started.

‘She should just stay here,’ Willis said, surprising everyone, I think even himself.

‘Willis! I thought you were on my side!’ Luna said.

‘Come on, Elena,’ my husband said. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone having to stay in your lock-up. Ms Harris hasn’t done anything that I can see. Are you arresting her for something?’

We all turned to stare at Luna.

‘No, of course not,’ she said, not all that convincingly.

‘What do you think she’s done?’ I demanded.

There was a long pause. ‘We have questions about Mrs Killian’s death,’ Luna finally said.

Berta grabbed my arm. ‘I don’t know anything about that!’ she said. ‘I heard about it on the TV at this bar I went to when I couldn’t get ahold of her.’ She teared up again. ‘My God, she was helping me! She was my only friend! Why would I kill her?’

‘I thought possibly we could discuss that,’ Luna said.

‘Give me one reason, one shred of evidence to indicate Berta had anything to do with Kerry’s death!’ I demanded.

‘I believe we can start with the fact that we have no idea who this woman is!’ Luna said. ‘We have no idea where she came from, and we only have her word about her relationship with Kerry Killian!’

‘Why would I lie?’ Berta demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ Luna said. ‘But I intend to find out.’ And then she began to read Berta her rights.

FIVE

W
illis made an emergency call to Tom McClure, Trisha’s husband, who was a criminal attorney. Since it was the middle of the night, he of course woke him up. I had to wonder if Trisha had actually gone to sleep yet, but I let that slide.