Drip Dead (25 page)

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Authors: Christy Evans

BOOK: Drip Dead
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I looked around me, admiring the green of the trees. I could hear birds calling in the warm afternoon sun, and the air smelled of freshly cut grass.
“This place isn’t perfect,” I admitted. “There are things I miss about living in the city. I haven’t been to a live theater in three years, unless you count the high school production of
Les Miz
. I haven’t had decent sushi, or been able to call out for Chinese. There’s no shopping to speak of, and no public transit.”
Buddha nuzzled his head against my hand and I scratched his ears.
“But I can walk my dogs, and have time for my friends, and I’m doing work I enjoy. So, yeah. I’m staying here if Barry will keep me on.”
Sue laughed. “I don’t think there’s any question on that score. He’s not about to cross Paula
and
Megan. Not to mention losing his computer guru.”
We turned the next corner and headed for home. The dogs strained at their leashes, knowing treats and a nap lay ahead.
“Speaking of computers,” Sue said, the caution in her voice warning me that break time was over, “have you found anything in Gregory’s e-mail?”
I shook my head. “I got the file open, but I haven’t had time to figure out what all is in there. I hope I can figure out some of that tonight.”
“I thought you were going to see your Mom tonight.”
“I am. But Dave Young’s already warned me that I’ll probably only be able to stay twenty minutes or so when I visit her, so I should have plenty of time to spend with the computer.”
When I unlocked the house the phone was ringing. I tossed Buddha’s leash to Sue and ran to the kitchen just in time for the answering machine to click on.
“Georgiana? Dave Young here. Just wanted to verify it’s all set for you to visit your mother this evening.”
I snatched up the phone. “Dave? So glad you called! How’s Mom doing? Is there anything she needs, anything I can take her?” My voice cracked, surprising me. I thought I had adjusted to the fact Mom was in jail.
Apparently not.
“Hi, Georgiana. She’s holding up okay. Unhappy, and a little scared, though she isn’t likely to admit it.” Obviously Dave had caught on to Mom pretty quickly, in spite of her efforts to maintain a stoic façade.
“She’s bored, sitting in that cell all day, though. If you could take her something to read, or puzzle books. Something to keep her mind occupied for a few days would be a good idea.
“Anything but murder mysteries.” He laughed, but there was nothing humorous in the sound.
“How is the case going?” I asked. “Have you heard anything?”
“Nothing,” he answered. “But we’re working on it. I expect to get some more information from the prosecutor’s office in the next few days, and we’ll see what they actually have.”
He cleared his throat and continued in a somber tone. “Georgiana, when you visit your mother tonight, please be careful what you talk about. Being in jail means your mother loses a lot of privacy.” He paused, then repeated, “A lot of privacy.”
I considered his words. “Are you telling me someone might be listening to what we say?”
“The only conversations that are completely protected are the ones with her lawyer, her doctor, and her priest. I’m not saying they will listen in on your conversation. But they can. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks for the reminder. I’ll be careful.”
I hung up just as Sue came in the kitchen trailed by two Airedales intent on their post-walk snack. She grabbed a couple green treats from the cupboard and made them both sit before she rewarded them.
I swear my dogs behaved better for her than they did for me.
“Now what?” Sue asked.
I glanced up at the kitchen clock. “Now we eat something before I go see my mother.”
“Something” turned out to be canned soup and sandwiches. For all her teasing, Sue wasn’t much more of a cook than I was. I wondered aloud if all single women lived on packaged meals and takeout, which earned me a dirty look from Sue.
“I’m just saying, when you’re cooking for one, it doesn’t seem worth the time and effort to make three-course meals.”
Sue put our plates on the table and sat down across from me. “Is that what we’ve become, Georgie? Those dreaded single women your mother warned us about all those years?”
“Well, we’re definitely women, and we’re single, so I guess we fit that definition. But I wouldn’t say dreaded.” I took a bite of my sandwich. “I don’t happen to agree with my mother on that one, as you well know.”
“Besides”—I shrugged—“you have Fred. And there’s Wade and whatever this thing is we have, which I have decided is definitely a thing, even if I’m not precisely sure where it’s going. So we aren’t exactly the ‘dreaded’ single women my mother kept warning us about.”
Sue looked amused. “So you’re admitting that you and Wade are a thing now? About time!”
I felt a blush climbing my face. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Even though Mom approves?”
I laughed. “I guess Mom can be right sometimes. It’s complicated.”
“Everyone’s relationships are complicated. Like mine and Fred’s. He keeps arresting my friends, or my friends’ mothers. And then it’s all weird between him and me, and me and my friends, and him and my friends.” Sue sighed. “Now,
that’s
complicated.”
“By ‘my friends’ I guess you mean me.” I chuckled. “I guess I better watch myself or I’ll end up sinking your romance.”
I thought for a minute. “To be fair, I don’t think he actually arrested me. And I get the feeling it was Vernon, the prosecutor, who wanted my mom arrested. I guess Fred didn’t have a lot of choice.” I shrugged. “It could be worse. At least she’s still in Pine Ridge.”
“I didn’t tell you this, but I know there was an argument with Vernon about that. He wanted to move her to Portland, but Fred wouldn’t let him. I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to hear it, but it was right there in my kitchen. What was I supposed to do?”
Sue’s wide-eyed look of innocence was so fake it made me laugh. “In your kitchen, huh?” I chuckled.
“Okay, Fred’s one of the good guys.” I sobered. “But I still have to go see my mother, and Dave Young told me to be careful what we say because someone could be listening.”
“Yeah, like Douglas Vernon. Be careful.”
I nodded and went back to my sandwich.
Forty minutes later we left the dogs napping, and Sue drove me to the sheriff’s office. Even though I’d driven the van to Gregory’s house, Sue said it would look better if I didn’t drive myself to see my mom.
Deputy Carruthers was manning the front desk. He glanced up when we arrived and caught my eye. “Man, Ms. Neverall, I was really bummed to hear about your car. You’re gonna need a really good body man. Working with glass is an art. When you’re ready, I have a guy up in Sandy who does custom work. I’ll have him call you.”
His concern for my car was sweet. Carruthers had offered to help me with the Beetle, and had turned out to be a pretty fair shade tree mechanic. I knew I could trust his recommendations.
“Thank you, Deputy. I’ll be certain to call you when I’m ready.” I smiled, and waited for him to buzz me through the security door.
Once I was inside, Carruthers checked me over with a metal-detector wand like the ones at airport security. He asked for my purse, and told me I could have it back on my way out. He did let me keep the books I’d brought Mom, after he checked those thoroughly, too.
“Procedure,” he said with an uncomfortable grimace.
It wasn’t like we were fast friends, but we’d formed a bond over my aging Beetle. I liked Carruthers, and I respected his encyclopedic knowledge of early VWs. Going through the security procedure with me was awkward. But it was part of his job.
I was escorted to an interview room to wait for my mother.
Mom had only been in jail a few days, and made a single court appearance, but the strain was evident in her posture and her pinched expression when another deputy brought her in.
She started toward me, like maybe she wanted to give me a hug. Her escort put a hand on her arm, and guided her to a chair, sending a clear signal that there was no physical contact.
We sat opposite each other across a bare, wooden table. The silence stretched. Neither of us knew quite what to say.
“How’s your wrist?” Mom asked.
“Just a sprain. The doctor said to take it easy for a couple days and see Dr. Cox for a follow-up.”
“Sheriff Mitchell told me you had an accident. I’m glad it wasn’t any worse.”
With the topic of my accident exhausted we lapsed back into silence. We were both aware, thanks to Dave Young, that we could be overheard. It put a definite crimp in the conversation.
“I brought you some books.” I set the stack of paper-backs on the table. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I tried to get a few different things. Just let me know if you want something in particular.”
“Thank you.”
Silence.
This was getting increasingly uncomfortable. I wanted to see Mom, to see for myself that she was okay, but I didn’t know what to say to her. There were things I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t. Not when Vernon could be listening.
I decided there was one thing I could ask, something that didn’t really have anything to do with Gregory. I hoped.
“Mom? There is one thing I don’t understand. Where did that hatch in the hallway come from? I don’t remember it being there when I lived in the house.”
“Oh, that.” She seemed relieved to have something to talk about. “About the time you went off to that school, your father thought he was going to put in an air conditioner. For some reason he decided it should go under the house.” She shook her head at the memory. “He was a lot of things, but practical wasn’t one of them.”
There was a hint of affection in her voice, something I hadn’t heard from her in a long time. Maybe she was finally moving past the bitterness and resentment. Maybe.
“Anyway, he had that hole cut in the floor, so that he could bring in this whatever-it-was that wouldn’t fit through the outside access hole.
“Then he wanted to get it hooked into the heating ducts so it would cool the whole house. That’s when he found out it would never work.”
“He wanted to put the thing
under
the house?”
“I know,” she replied. “Besides that, he found out that the piece he cut out would fall through into the crawl space and he had to go down there and haul it back up. That was when he hired a carpenter to come and put hinges on it.”
Mom shook her head. “I just covered it up with a rug and I’d really forgotten all about it until—” She stopped suddenly, refusing to take the thought any further.
“This is ridiculous!” she burst out. “Do you
know
what they said, Georgie?”
I stared, not knowing what to say.
“They said he was stabbed, with a knife from my kitchen! My knife! That horrible man”—I assumed she meant Vernon—“said there was a knife missing and that I must have thrown it away somewhere after I stabbed him.”
She leaned forward, bracing her arms against the edge of the table. “Those were my Global knives, Georgie. I wouldn’t
do
that to my knives!”
I remembered the knives in her kitchen, carefully arrayed in the stainless-steel block on the countertop. I couldn’t remember seeing the block when I was in the house, another of the clues the house had been searched.
“I know that, Mom,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone. “I know you didn’t do this. It’s impossible.”
There, the one topic we’d been avoiding was out in the open. We were talking about it, and the world didn’t end.
We could get through this.
There were questions I wouldn’t ask, however. I didn’t dare tip my hand to Vernon. He was intent on convicting my mother and I was intent on getting her released.
I kept my plans to myself.
We retreated to careful conversation about the weather and the dogs and when I could go back to work, and my twenty minutes flew by. Before I knew it, Carruthers was in the doorway, signaling that the visit was over.
“You can come back tomorrow after she has dinner,” he said as he escorted me down the hall toward the front door.
He paused a few feet from the door to the lobby. He glanced around as though checking he wouldn’t be overheard, and spoke softly. “She’ll be okay, Ms. Neverall. She’s strong.
“Same time tomorrow,” he said in a flat tone as he opened the door and returned my purse. “Please call if you will be delayed.”
I walked through the door and back into the normal world, the world where people were free to come and go as they pleased, and to reach out for a hug when they needed one.
Which is precisely what Wade offered.
I stood close to him and let him wrap his arms around me. The warmth of his chest against my cheek was pure comfort, and I soaked it in.
Wade kept his arm around my shoulders as he guided me toward the door and out to his car.
“I thought Sue was going to wait for me,” I said, finally realizing the switch in escorts.
“I called her, told her it was my turn to take care of you for a while.” He shrugged. “I figured maybe you could use a beer, or something stronger. How about Tiny’s?”
I shook my head. “I have stuff to do at home, Wade. But I have a couple microbrews in the refrigerator. Change in plans?”
“Sure.”
We were back at my place before I was able to talk about what I had seen. “She was all over the place. Quiet and subdued one minute, ranting and raving the next, and then quiet again.
“I know she’s stressed out, but she wasn’t the Mom I was used to. I felt bad for her, but I have to admit, it creeped me out.”
“We’ll get her through this,” Wade promised. “She’s got a lot of people on her side. You, me, Sue, Dave Young. We’re a good team.”
The mention of Mom’s lawyer reminded me of something. “Can you get hold of Dave?” I asked. “There were a couple things I wanted to ask Mom, but I didn’t want to ask her myself.” I repeated Dave’s warning about privacy.

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