Hush My Mouth (19 page)

“Yeah.” Rudy grunted as he unlatched the door and climbed out. I slipped out of the backseat and walked around the rear of the car.

On the ground glinting in the sunlight were a few pebbles of safety glass. Nothing but bits, forced loose by the rush of air pushed ahead of the speeding bullet. Very few glints. Just like the crime-scene photos. I bent over and picked up three of them, arranging them in the palm of my hand.

Rudy watched me over the roof of the car. I took one more look at the shattered window, held in place as the safety glass designers had hoped, in a crazy quilt of pebbles rather than in shattered, scarring shards.

“Ready to go?” Rudy asked.

I nodded.

He took a step back and closed the passenger door.

Then it happened. The driver’s window crumbled before my eyes. Myriad tiny bits pinged, falling endlessly. With the crazed
glass gone, I could see the foam head, the left side facing me blown into shreds by the bullet’s exit.

I stood spellbound. The glass continued to tinkle as bits sifted down. Inside the car. Except for a few stray pieces that bounced off the window jamb, the glass had fallen inside the car. Just like the crime-scene photos.

Rudy came around the front of the car and stood near the front tire, studying our handiwork.

“It happened when somebody closed the door,” I said, feeling deflated, disappointed. I’d hoped we’d learn something I could offer Fran. What, I wasn’t sure. The glass falling inside the car wasn’t sinister. It hadn’t happened because of some mysterious shot from outside the car, as I’d secretly suspected. It had happened when someone closed the door.

“When who closed the door?” Rudy said. “That’s the question.”

I jerked my head up. Reality struck like a blow. “Those pictures were taken when the investigators first arrived on scene. The window was already shattered by the time the first officer arrived.”

“Had to be.”

We both stared at the open car window and the foam head, reordering our earlier versions.

“So somebody else was there,” I said. “With her. Somebody got out and closed the door.”

Rudy pursed his lips. “There’s a chance somebody else found her and didn’t report it.”

“They opened the door, looked in, closed it, and drove away without reporting it? Any strange fingerprints on the door?”

“Just smudges,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced by his theory.

We looked at each other without speaking. I crossed behind the Honda to my car. Rudy climbed in beside me.

In silence, we drove a distance between the stacks of cars before I could turn around. As I returned to where the Honda sat, Pun stepped out into the road waving the foam head like a South American tribesman with an enemy’s shrunken head on a stick. The mannequin was huge compared to Pun’s head—and had almost as much hair.

“Take this with you. Jeez. I have enough trouble keeping good help around here without you leaving stuff like this behind. Scare the shit outta somebody.”

“Sorry,” I called through the window as Pun jammed the head in at Rudy.

“Least you could’a done was shoot some rats while you’uz out here. Make yourself useful.”

“Thanks, Pun.” I waved and pulled slowly away before he could launch into another diatribe.

Once on the highway, I had to pull off again in front of a long-boarded gas station. I was shaking.

“Somebody was there. With her.” I turned to Rudy.

His face was somber. “It’s possible.”

“She couldn’t hold that gun in that position, Rudy.”

“Okay, probable, then. Still not certain.”

“She didn’t kill herself, Rudy.”

The certainty of it washed over me. I gripped the steering wheel. I’d never had a response like this, shaking as if from fear or exertion.

“You okay?” Rudy asked after a moment. “You aren’t going to throw up, are you?”

I shook my head. “Can I see the crime-scene photos again? All of them? And do you have—can you find the file on Wenda Sims?”

“They’re still looking,” he said.

I shifted into first gear, eased the clutch out, and pulled onto
the road. Disappointment was not mixing well with my adrenaline overload.

“I’ve got a call in to Vince Ingum,” Rudy said. The one who worked Wenda Sims’s case. Retired to Myrtle Beach, old sumbitch. If he hasn’t fallen off a deep-sea fishing boat, he’ll probably call me back today or tomorrow.”

I underestimate Rudy sometimes. He’d been busy.

We drove back to town in silence. I dropped Rudy off and went back to the office, still trying to process the implications of what we’d witnessed.

Shamanique stuck her arm straight out as I walked in, waving a phone message slip. She didn’t take her eyes off her computer screen.

It took me a moment to digest the note. “This all Rowly said?” He’d called from Atlanta.

“Yes’m. He wanted to make sure you knew about that.”

“He got this from the cousin?”

“That’s what he said.”

An unnecessary cross-examination on my part. I was reading directly from Shamanique’s note. Her handwriting was neat, she’d time-dated the message. I was simply having trouble taking it in.

I pulled the pocket doors to my office closed and slumped into one of the armchairs in the window, staring at the note.

Gran bought life insurance on Neanna
—
$200,000. N. signed it over to Fran. Paid in full for one year, starting last May. N. made Fran her beneficiary. Call me
.

Two hundred thousand dollars. Why hadn’t Fran told me how much? And that the policy was recent? People had been killed for a heck of a lot less. Crazy possibilities swirled in my head. Was Fran’s “money is no object” attitude an act? A ruse to draw me off the trail?

Who really says, “Money is no object”? Nobody. Not even people with lots of it. Especially people with lots of it. Could she afford to be generous with the investigation because she was counting on the insurance money? Was she using it like a broken branch to obscure footprints on the trail? Or to ease her conscience for being around to collect it?

Who buys a $200,000 life insurance policy on a young woman who’s bouncing around in dead-end jobs? Why?

I dialed Rowly’s number and got him on the second ring.

“Hey, it’s Avery. A good time to talk?”

“Sure. How’d’ya do?”

“Got your message about the insurance. Anything else you can tell me?”

“Yeah. Miz Sidalee Evans—the grandmother’s cousin—told me about the policy. She thought the whole thing was a sin and a disgrace. She had sermons on several topics, but I won’t preach ‘em at ‘chu.”

“Thanks.” Rowly and his rural Georgia accent always raised a smile.

“One important thing. Said Neanna was pure furious when she found out about it. Neanna said that’s about what she’d expect, her own Gran wagering on when she would kick off. Said she’d see what she could do to oblige her. Guess you know about Neanna’s mom Marie and her aunt Wenda—Gran’s only two children?”

“Yeah.”

“Miz Sidalee thought buying the insurance was right creepy. Said the grandmother couldn’t afford the premiums, even if it was for term insurance.”

“She bought term life insurance on Neanna?”

“Yep.”

My early-warning system—a knot in my stomach—twisted
on me. Why term life insurance? It didn’t accumulate any cash surrender value or act as an investment Neanna could use later. It simply insured her life, as long as the premiums were paid. It served no other purpose.

“Anything else I need to know?” As if that wasn’t too much already.

“Nope. Thought you’d want to know about that quick as possible. I’ve been invited to tea with Miz Sidalee this afternoon, so I’ll fill you in on that.”

“Thanks, Rowly. Got to mull on this a bit.”

Life insurance on a young woman from a family plagued by young deaths. While she was young, the term-life premiums would be low—lower than whole life insurance. Only as she got older would the premiums increase. If she got older.

Gran died first, leaving the policy behind, paid up for a year starting in May. Neanna made Fran the beneficiary. Then she’s dead. Made to look like a suicide.

Why was Fran stirring up questions about the death? Why hadn’t she just collected her check and accepted the obvious?

I reached for the phone and hit redial.

“Rowly. Me again. When was the policy first taken out?”

“Don’t know exactly. Why?”

“Can you find out? And find out how the suicide exclusion reads?”

“Know where you’re headed. I’ll get back to you.”

I stared at my neat desktop. Shamanique must have been in here straightening things. She hadn’t moved any of my stacks—thank goodness. My whole filing system depended on positional memory. The office was definitely neater, though, and I appreciated her initiative.

I tried to conjure up an image, an impression of Fran. She’d seemed earnest, sincerely saddened by her “sister’s” death. On the
other hand, I’d been fooled before. Sociopaths make great liars. I’d had no warning signals, no reason to doubt her. Did the size of the insurance policy give me a reason now?

I hit redial again.

“Rowly, one last question. Any information on Fran French’s family? In particular, does she have money?”

“Hoo-wee, I reckon. Her dad and granddad developed half of northeast Atlanta. She seems to have a knack, too. Owns her own sports marketing firm, you know.”

“And it’s successful?”

“I should say so. I can see if there are any cracks, though.”

“Thanks. Just checking my perceptions. Through bugging you for a while. I promise.”

I replaced the receiver. That explained Fran’s understated elegance, her self-assured expectation that she’d get what she asked for. But some people who once had money are good at pretending they still do. I’d let the jury stay out a while longer on that, until I heard back from Rowly.

Talking to Fran on the phone would serve no purpose. I needed to eyeball her when I asked my questions. I’d check with her, see when she’d be back in Dacus.

I slid open the doors to my office.

“Shamanique, any word from Edna about Mr. Mart?”

She turned in her chair to face me, her chin down, her head cocked. I saw that flash of family resemblance.

“I wouldn’t be bothering her with questions, if I was you.”

I stared without reply.

“She don’t like folks bird-dogging her while she’s working. She said she’d let you know.”

I nodded. Not much else to say.

When Shamanique turned back to her computer screen, I noticed a familiar font and screen color. The South Carolina
case reports search system. At least one of us was gainfully employed.

Back in my office, I slid a file folder from the stack on the front corner. Inside was the copy of the photo I’d found in the liner of Neanna’s car.

The tiny blood spots had photocopied as sprinkles of black dots. I sat in the sunlight, studying it.

Something about it didn’t look like the recent crime-scene photos Rudy had shown me of Neanna’s death. The tone was washed out, not the stark light and shadows exposed by the police photographer’s flashbulb, so it had more depth, particularly in the shadows. Could the crime-scene photographer have used a different flash technique? Did film and digital photos look different? The newer photos had all been in color. Were they all black and white in 1985?

All that still begged the question how Gran had gotten this photo.

Who could’ve taken it? As soon as that question arose, one answer followed. Who routinely snapped photos of the worst moments in people’s lives?

I slid the photo back in the folder and clamped it tight under my arm as I headed out the door.

Thursday Afternoon

I untucked my pants legs from the hiking boots I’d worn to the salvage yard but didn’t waste time going upstairs to change into walking shoes. I sure needed a longer walk than the two blocks to the newspaper office. Too sedentary of late, but the two blocks would have to do for now.

Alice Vann, the real power behind the Dacus
Clarion
, greeted me at the chest-high desk where she took orders for restaurant menu printing jobs, accepted copy for ads, and complaints from people who didn’t have anything better to do.

“Walter’s in back, either setting up a circular or yakking with one of his fishing buddies.” She rolled her eyes. Walter, the editor, and Alice had been married to each other and to the newspaper for longer than I’d been alive.

I’d debated with myself on the way over, to make sure I
wasn’t violating any confidences in showing the photo to Walter. He was, after all, a newspaperman, even if he spent most of this time printing menus and sales flyers. I couldn’t think of any prohibitions against showing the picture, and I knew he’d be discreet.

Alice flipped up the countertop to allow me access to the inner sanctum. The familiar nose-tingling chemical smells grew more pronounced in the large rear workroom.

Dad, wiping his hands on a rag and heading for the door as I entered, stopped short.

“Hey, hon. What brings you in?”

“Hey. Needed to ask Walter a question. Got a breakdown?”

“Naw.” He wiped around each cuticle. “Just time for a little adjustment on the paper feed.”