Dying Declaration (22 page)

“Go get ’em, Tiger,” Charles urged. “It’ll be fun.”

By now one of the guys had also asked Stinky, and the shy little girl reluctantly followed him out to the dance floor.

Charles turned his attention away from the dancers and over his shoulder to Nikki.

“That’s great,” he chuckled. “They’ll be talking about this for years.”

Nikki just nodded and smiled. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her head, and she seemed to have that same mischievous look in her eyes that Charles noticed that day in his classroom. She also seemed to be looking over his shoulder.

He turned quickly, and there she was. A Festhaus dancer, with her hand gracefully extended, in a curtsy position, inviting Charles to dance.

What’s she thinking?!
he wondered.
Can’t she tell I’m not exactly from German stock? I don’t know a polka from a fox-trot.

Charles began shaking his head no.

“Go on,” urged the loudmouthed Hispanic woman who had gotten him into this fine mess in the first place. “Like you told Tiger—it’ll be fun.”

Before Charles knew it, all four of them were out there, getting twirled this way and that by the German dancers. It didn’t take him long to figure out the polka. Still, it wasn’t exactly rap, and despite his natural sense of rhythm, he felt silly as he stumbled around the dance floor, especially when he noticed Nikki whirling this way and that, mastering the polka like she was born in a German tavern, and laughing all the time.

It had to be the longest polka in recorded history, and Charles was immensely relieved when the last note finally sounded. He thanked the dancer who had called him out, then located the kids and headed off the dance floor.

Unfortunately, the orchestra was not finished, and before he reached his seat, he heard the mellow notes of a sad folk ballad—“Edelweiss”—and he saw the dancers start going after more prey for a slow dance. He had almost safely reached his seat when he felt a tug at his elbow.

“C’mon, handsome. One more dance?” It was Nikki, and the tug became a persistent pull.

She turned to Tiger and Stinky. “If you guys finish your pizza during this next song, we can get some ice cream.”

The kids let go of Charles’s hands and sprinted toward their seats.

He turned to Nikki, took her hand gently in his, and extended his other hand to place it gently on her shoulder. There was a good twelve inches between them.

“I don’t bite,” she said. She snuggled up closer, placing her arm around his waist, and laying her head against his chest. Her hair nearly touched his face, and even after a full day in the park, it smelled great. She immediately fell into step as they joined the other dancers and patrons, slowly—and gracefully—making their way around the dance floor.

“You’re a good dancer,” she said softly.

“So are you.”

He relaxed just a little and started enjoying himself. It was just one silly dance. Nothing more. He noticed the tired and jealous faces of the dads at the picnic tables as they all seemed to be looking at him, wondering how he rated a dance with the prettiest girl in the joint. He pulled her closer, and she didn’t seem to mind.

She made a good dance partner and would make an interesting friend. Life was good. And Charles Arnold couldn’t believe, would never have imagined early this morning, that before the sun had set on this marvelous day, he’d be dancing with Nikki Moreno,
spinning her gently around on the Festhaus floor in front of hundreds of witnesses.

He had started today by mourning for a family he never had. But somewhere along the way he had discovered the joys of simple pleasures: a theme park through the eyes of a child, a friendship with a woman who made him smile. Tonight, he would say a prayer of thanks.

He couldn’t believe his good fortune. He couldn’t believe he was doing
this
.

34

UNABLE TO GET
the disappointed face of Buster out of his mind, Thomas knelt to pray on the cinder block floor of his jail cell. Earlier that evening Thomas, Buster, and the ES had gathered in the same windowless room where they held last week’s Bible study. This time there was not as much grumbling about coming, though the men still ragged on Thomas about his King James Bible. Thomas didn’t care. At least they were showing up.

They waited fifteen minutes for Charles. After ten minutes the complaining started in earnest. Thomas kept making excuses—“Maybe his car broke down”—pleading with the men to stay, but he could tell Buster was getting frustrated. The man was not used to being stood up. After fifteen minutes Buster thrust out his jaw. “Some preacher,” he said. The men murmured their agreement.
“Let’s blow this rathole,” Buster said, and they called for a guard to open the door.

Now, three hours later, Thomas knelt for his nightly prayer. He always came back to the cell early while the other men were still lounging in the common area, playing cards, or watching television. This was the only way to get some solitude. As he did every night, he started by asking for forgiveness for what he had done to Joshie. Then he prayed for his own family and asked God to forgive Charles for not showing up tonight. Next he turned his thoughts toward his cellmate.

“Show Buster how much You love him, God. Somehow, help him figure out what it means to be saved and all. You know I ain’t real good at talkin’ ’bout this stuff, so if there’s any way that Charles can hook back up with Buster, I’d be eternally grateful.
. . .” Thomas paused, sensing he was not alone. He realized that he had been mumbling his prayers out loud, just like he did at home, and he felt a little embarrassed. This wasn’t exactly the Lord’s prayer—“Thy Kingdom come” and all that great-sounding stuff. If somebody was listening, he probably wouldn’t be too impressed. Better wrap it up quick and with a bit of a flourish.

“Forgive my trespasses, God, as I forgive those who trespass against me. Amen.”

He rose from his knees and turned in time to see the back of Buster as the man disappeared around the corner.

The Blue Ridge Parkway winds for miles through the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains in the western part of Virginia. It takes nearly three hours from Virginia Beach just to get there. But anybody who has traveled the parkway can tell you that the breathtaking scenery is worth every minute of the drive.

It was for this reason, and because of his love for mountains and all they symbolize, that Dr. Sean Armistead proposed to a young lady named Erica Wilson at one of the most beautiful lookout spots on the entire parkway more than twelve years ago. He was a third-year med student then; she was a gifted high school teacher. Their future together was limitless.

Sean took her to Lookout Peak, one of the highest spots on the parkway, where on a clear day you could see almost forever. The rolling mountains and yawning valleys all merged on the horizon, endless miles of green in the summer or blazing colors in the fall.

The lookout itself was just a small rest area along the side of the road with a few coin-operated telescopes on metal stands and some sturdy wire guardrails to keep cars from plunging more than a hundred feet from the road into the wooded valley. It was nothing special as far as rest stops go; it didn’t even have a bathroom facility. But for Sean and Erica, it was the spot where he had popped the question and the spot where she said yes, and so it was the single most important spot on the face of the earth. During the first few years of their marriage, they would make annual pilgrimages here to renew their vows and contemplate how lucky they were to have each other.

A few hours after Busch Gardens had shut down for the night and the Virginia Beach inmates were all locked down, just a few minutes before midnight, a white Lexus crashed through the guardrails at Lookout Peak, bounced off the rocky overhang, and plunged the hundred or so feet to the woods below. The car flipped and bounced several times on the way down, and eventually landed deep in the woods, nearly buried by the foliage and trees. There was a brief burst of fire, a literal explosion of flames, but the woods themselves never caught, and the flames eventually burned themselves out.

There were no tourists driving the parkway at this time of night. And had it not been for the broken guardrail and the suicide note printed on the victim’s home printer and left on her dresser, the body and the Lexus might not have been discovered for weeks.

Erica Armistead had come full circle. Her life and her marriage had now ended in tragedy at the same spot where, just a dozen years before, she had become engaged to the only man she had ever loved.

35

BRANDON WAS
a young buck no more than twenty-six or -seven with long blond hair, a broad Roman nose, and straight white teeth. He was six-two, 195 pounds, with washboard abs and not an ounce of flab on his entire body. He was always smiling and exhorting,
egging people on with intense steel blue eyes and those straight white teeth. Right now, he was exhorting the Barracuda. And right now, the Barracuda hated his guts.

It was Sunday morning at the gym, and Brandon, the trainer for the who’s who crowd at Virginia Beach, was working her over. They had been doing ab work for an eternity. Or rather
she
had been doing ab work while
he
prodded her on. Her stomach had caught fire about ten reps ago and begged for mercy. But Brandon, smiling all the while, seemed to be just getting started. And loving it.

“Come on,” the young hunk said, “four more this set.” Brandon was towering over Crawford as she lay on her back. She would lift her legs straight up to a ninety-degree angle from the floor; then he would push on her ankles and throw her legs back down. She would squeeze and tighten her stomach muscles so her legs didn’t bounce off the floor, then use those same tired muscles to bring the legs back up in the air, where a grinning Brandon would push them back down again.

“Twenty-seven . . . twenty-eight . . . twenty-nine . . . thirty. . . . You’re looking great. Let’s squeeze out ten more,”
the smiling sadist said.

Are you kidding?! I’m dying down here, you jerk. What’s with you today? I can’t believe I’m paying you for this.

“Thirty-five . . . thirty-six . . . thirty-seven—” Crawford grunted and groaned, sweating like a pig, swinging her legs back up as Brandon clicked off the numbers—“thirty-eight . . . thirty-nine . . . forty.”

“Aaaaah,” she moaned as she let her legs flop on the floor, then curled them to her chest in a fetal position, rolling side to side. “Are you trying to kill me today?”

“If it doesn’t kill us, it only makes us stronger,” Brandon said, stealing a sideways glance at himself in the wall of mirrors.

Crawford slowly rose to her feet, sucked in her gut, and checked out her own image. She wore spandex shorts and a sports bra that exposed her midriff. The muscles in her back, arms, and legs were coming along nicely. But despite the last half hour of complete torture, there was still a tiny roll of cellulite peeking out over the top of her spandex shorts, mocking her plans to wear a bikini this summer. She glanced in envy at the woman on the leg curl machine, all arms and legs, skin and bones.
Who made the decision that anorexic is in? Why do you have to able to count your ribs—look like a skinny little boy—to make it as a model? And where are the women’s libbers when these idiots on Madison Avenue dictate these impossible body prototypes?

The Barracuda was convinced that the Greeks and Romans had it right. They preferred their women and their goddesses, whom they immortalized in sculpture, with a little extra meat on their bones.

But Brandon apparently felt differently. He had been staring at his stopwatch. “One more set of abs—this time we’ll use the ball,” he announced with a broad smile. “Got to feel the burn.”

Crawford took a swig from her water bottle and looked at him defiantly. But she obediently grabbed one of the large red rubber balls and sat on it. Her iron will could always get her through one more set.

She started a new round of torture. Keeping her feet on the floor, she arched her back over the ball, then did a sit-up while balancing herself—isolating her tired ab muscles:
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . .
The fire was back in her stomach, Brandon was grinning, and she hated him with a renewed and burning passion.

And then . . . relief! She heard the blessed first ring of her cell phone when she was on her fourteenth rep. It was too good to be true! She stopped immediately and grabbed the phone lying next to her, as if someone’s life might be in danger if she didn’t answer before the second ring. She punched a button and answered breathlessly, in a manner that feigned frustration at this interruption of her workout routine.

“What?” she huffed.

“Becca, you’ve got to come over right away,” the stressed voice of Sean Armistead said. “The police are already here.”

Crawford caught her breath and looked at a frowning Brandon. “Is it an emergency?” she asked for the sake of the eavesdropping slab of beef standing next to her.

The Barracuda already knew the answer.

Rebecca Crawford arrived at the Armistead estate in Woodard’s Mill clad in jeans and an old button-down shirt she had thrown over top of her workout clothes. She parked right behind the two Chesapeake police cars in the driveway—one marked and one unmarked. She entered without knocking. From the front foyer she could see Sean in his study, slumped on the couch and zoned out, his puffy red eyes staring straight ahead. The Barracuda resisted the urge to go in and comfort him, take him in her arms and reassure him that it would be okay. She introduced herself to Inspector Giovanni, the Chesapeake cop who was very obviously in charge.

The Barracuda flashed her commonwealth’s attorney credentials, explained that she was a friend of the Armisteads, and asked for a status report. The inspector glanced over his shoulder at Armistead, then took Crawford by the elbow down the hallway and into the kitchen. In hushed tones, he explained what they knew about the apparent suicide of Erica Armistead and summarized the statement he had taken from Sean Armistead.

“He’s been very cooperative,” Giovanni said. “He let us look around the house. Even let us check a few things on the computer.”

“Is his story checking out?” the Barracuda asked with as much detachment as she could muster.

The inspector made a clucking sound and silently nodded his head for a few seconds. “Pretty much,” he said. “Pretty much.”

His hesitation was not lost on the Barracuda.

“Mind if I have a word with him?”

“Knock yourself out.” He shrugged.

Crawford walked slowly back to the study and softly took a seat in a wing-backed chair next to the small couch where Armistead stared into space. Sean did not acknowledge her. As she glanced around and gathered her thoughts, she noticed how dark the study seemed, even on a morning when the sun was shining brightly. Sean had closed the plantation shutters to block the sunlight,
and the dark mahogany bookshelves and maroon leather furniture seemed to absorb what little light filtered in from the foyer. There was one dim reading light illuminating a corner of the room, keeping the two occupants from being in total darkness.

She sat there silently for a few minutes, torn between reaching out and touching him or just plain slapping him for his stupidity. The emotions in the room were raw, just below the surface, waiting to explode. She could understand his sorrow, but this was no time for zoning out. They both had to be thinking sharp. Why in the world did he let the police look at a “few things”
on his computer? The husband is always a suspect when the wife dies “accidentally,” even in the best of marriages.

Before speaking, the Barracuda got up and closed the French doors separating the study from the foyer.

“How’re you doing, Sean?”

He slowly shook his head. “Not so good,” he replied without looking up. “I can’t stop thinking about her.”

The Barracuda nodded grimly and sat back down next to Sean. She leaned toward him, her elbows on her knees, getting as close as she could without actually touching him. She knew the cops could look through the windowpanes on the French doors at any minute, and she was not taking any chances.

“I know it’s hard,” she whispered, “but you’ve got to pull yourself together. I’m here for you.” At this, she reached out and took both of Sean’s hands in hers, squeezing them strongly before she let go and checked over her shoulder to make sure no one was looking in. No one was, so she also reached out and gently rubbed his back.

This show of affection drew no response from the doctor other than a slight increase in the stream of tears trickling down both cheeks. Crawford withdrew her hands and checked again for the police. No on lookers. She leaned forward again, her mouth inches from Sean’s ear.

Enough solemnities. The Barracuda decided to get right down to business. “What did they look at on the computer?”

It was as if she hadn’t spoken, as if she hadn’t penetrated the trance.

She grabbed his knee and shook it, firmly but gently. “Sean,” she insisted, “what did they look at on the computer?”

“Oh, they were just looking at the documents file to see if she had written anything with more details than the suicide note they found. . . . They were just . . . um . . . I really don’t know.”

“Did you watch them the entire time they were on the computer?”

“Yeah, of course.” He now turned to look at Crawford. His voice took on an edge. “I’m not an idiot.”

The sharpness of the response and the gauntness of his eyes shocked the Barracuda. But she was enough of a pro not to show it. Without the least hint of flinching or wavering, she returned his gaze and sharpened her own tone.

“It’s not a good idea to let them snoop around on that computer. You’ve got financial dealings to protect.”

“They’ll never figure that out,” Sean said wearily. “I’ve got that protected in so many different ways—”

“Sean . . .”
The Barracuda’s interruption was intense, stopping his ramblings midsentence. “Listen to me. You cannot, you
must
not, ever let them look on your computer again. And when they leave, I want you to get a hard drive, just like your current one, pay cash for it, and reload every program, every document, and every transaction that’s on your present computer into your new one over the next few days
except
—”

Sean’s stare had returned to the floor. “Listen to me, Sean.”

He nodded.

“
Except
for any transactions showing money going to me. I don’t even want it on your hard drive, okay?”

Sean nodded, still looking down.

The Barracuda paused and took a deep breath. It was time to deliver the bombshell.

She softened her voice, speaking barely above a whisper, knowing that the words themselves would have enough sting without a blunt delivery increasing their impact.

“Sean, they know that you were having an affair, and they know that Erica discovered it just a few days before she died.”

Sean’s head jerked up and he rocked back in his seat, rubbing his face in disbelief. “How?”

“I don’t know how,” Crawford replied ever so quietly, “but they know. They told me about it. They obviously don’t know your affair was with me.”

“They didn’t say anything to me,” Sean replied.

“Shh,” the Barracuda cautioned. She glanced back over her shoulder. “It’s the oldest police trick in the book. They withhold some vital information to see if you ’fess up, see if you try to hide anything. If you don’t come clean, they figure there are hidden motives.”

Sean cursed bitterly. The Barracuda could see the sadness turning to fear.

“Here’s what we do, Sean. I call the police back in here like I’ve just cajoled a confession out of you about this affair. You tell them that you were sleeping around with somebody. Make up a name that’s as believable as possible, but make it somebody with a Virginia Beach address. I’ll tell Inspector Giovanni that I’ll check her out myself, or if he won’t buy that, I’ll get one of my detectives at the beach to check it out. Either way, we’ll confirm the affair. Are you with me on this?”

Sean nodded.

“But, Sean, you’ve got to be so incredibly careful. Don’t give them anymore than you absolutely have to. I’ll sit in here with you during the interview. And, Sean . . .”

Their eyes locked intently on each other.

“If my name ever,
ever
, slips out in connection with this affair, then I can’t help you with this mess and you’re on your own. You understand that,
don’t you?”

Though Sean nodded his head, his blank stare revealed that he wasn’t understanding much of anything. He was in shock, on autopilot,
marching to the orders of the one person thinking clearly.

“I love you, Sean,” Crawford said. Then she touched him gently on the shoulder and rose from her seat to retrieve the lieutenant.

She found Giovanni in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, talking in hushed tones to the uniformed cops.

“Thanks for giving me a few minutes alone,” the Barracuda said. “I think it did some good. There are a few things Dr. Armistead neglected to tell you.”