Witches' Bane (25 page)

She straightened her shoulders as if she were steeling herself against something too awful to think about. “Can they prove in court that he killed my sister?”

“I think so,” I said without hesitation, “and I think the sheriff will too, when he sees the evidence.” That was a little misleading, because Rita herself was the best evidence I had. “This won’t be easy, Rita. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“If they can prove C. W. did it, I don’t have any choice,” she said. Her face tightened, her shoulders firmed as she pulled strength from some hidden place deep inside her. “He’s working tonight. Around six, I’m supposed to go to the office to help him find some papers for the board meeting next week. It would be a good time to ...” She swallowed. ‘To do it.”

I glanced at the clock. It was nearly five. If I could arrange backup, a face-to-face confrontation might very well put the quickest end to this bloody business. C. W. was no doubt feeling pretty secure, and Rita would be the last one he’d expect to accuse him. If she hit him hard with what she knew, it might just jolt a confession out of him. On the other hand, Perry Mason theatrics are always risky. C.W. might simply laugh off her charges, and we’d be nowhere. Or he might panic and somebody would get hurt. Blackie would have to be there, and I’d feel a hell of a lot better if McQuaid was part of the backup.

“Confrontation wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but it just might work.” I looked around for the phone. “Let’s call the sheriff. He has to be in on this, and it’s going to take a while to sell him on the idea.” That was an understatement. I had the feeling it would be a damn sight harder to persuade Blackie of C. W.’s guilt than it had been to convince Rita. I’d appealed to her emotions with a story that was mostly speculation. The sheriff would demand hard facts, and all I had was Rita’s testimony that Jerri planned to meet C. W. the night she was killed.

Rita shook her head nervously. “No. No sheriff.”

“But what we’re doing could be dangerous. It’s crazy to go storming out there without the sheriff’s—”

“If you call the sheriff, the whole thing’s off.” Her eyes narrowed, her voice became fierce and determined. Suddenly she reminded me of Jerri. She was a woman of
tsuyoki,
of unexpectedly great
ki
that had risen up out of some inner reserve of energy to fuel her for this ordeal. “This is just you and me, China. If you’re not willing to do it my way, forget it.” The corners of her mouth tipped in a tight smile, and she played her top card. “You can forget what I told you, too. About Jerri talking to him on the phone. I’ll swear I never said it, and you won’t have any way to tie him to her murder.”

She had me. “But why not the sheriff? I can understand why you want to confront Rand, but why does it have to be solo?”

Her face wrenched painfully. “Because I
love
him.” She twisted her hands. “Haven’t you ever loved somebody who hurt you? Can’t you understand how I feel?”

I could. When I was a child, I thought that good triumphed over evil naturally, without anybody doing anything to make it happen. When I got a little older, I thought the legal system took care of justice. But then I learned that the system has big cracks, and we depend on it at our peril. Each of us is obliged to create our own justice, in small ways and large ways, every day of our lives. The man Rita loved had murdered her sister, and she felt responsible for seeing him brought to trial. I was pretty sure she wasn’t telling me the whole truth, and I didn’t like climbing out on a shaky limb without a safety net. But she didn’t have a choice, and neither did I. I had to play it her way.

“We can take a tape recorder,” I said. “That will allow us to substantiate the confession, if we get one. But it’s not quite five yet, and I have things to do before we go out there. How about if I pick you up in about fifty minutes?”

She shook her head. “No. If I sit around here, I’ll lose my nerve. I’m coming with you. Wait until I change.”

She disappeared into the bedroom, leaving the door open. In a few minutes she was out again, wearing a pair of dark jeans and a navy-blue sweatshirt. She had pulled her hair back into an untidy ponytail, secured with a rubber band. She went to the kitchen and came out carrying a shoulder bag. “I’m ready.”

Outside, the chilly twilight had deepened to a hazy dusk. We drove to the shop in silence. Rita rolled down the window a couple of inches and lit a cigarette. Normally I’d object to that, but I felt I had to handle her carefully. I kept my eyes on the streets as I negotiated the square, but my mind was already out at Lake Winds. I considered rehearsing her, the way I usually rehearsed a witness I planned to put on the stand. But she’d probably be more effective if she just spilled out her accusation in her own way.

Anyway, I had questions of my own to resolve. Should I be on the scene, or should I stay out of sight and let her confront him? If I hung back, she’d have to take the risk of facing a suspected killer alone. Not just any killer, either. The man she loved. The man who might have murdered her sister. This wasn’t going to be a piece of cake.

I stole an uneasy glance at Rita’s profile. She was smoking with quick, jerky motions. Would she hold up? Could I count on her to pull this off? And what was she holding back?

Somehow, that was the question that worried me more than the others. Going into this blind, without backup, was risky. Going into it with somebody who was holding out on me was downright dangerous. For two cents, I’d pull up in front of the sheriff’s office, haul her out of the car, and march her in for a little talk with Blackie. But if she made good on her promise to deny what she’d said about Jerri’s plan to meet C. W., I was out of ammunition. Without her corroboration, Blackie wouldn’t buy my conjectures. Like it or not, confronting C. W. was the only choice. But my stomach was twisted into a cold knot. Courtrooms I can handle, but I’m no Kinsey Millhone. Where I’m concerned, “C” is for Coward. My palms were already sweaty, and we hadn’t even started yet.

Laurel had closed the shop and left. I checked the cash register, looked through the phone messages for something from Ruby, and turned to Rita. “I have to look things over next door. Ruby’s still out. My tape recorder’s there, too.”

Rita nodded nervously. I checked the Cave’s front door, then went to the counter. The week before, I’d loaned my minirecorder to Ruby. Luckily, I found it in the first place I looked, along with a couple of tapes and the thimble-sized auxiliary mike. I checked the batteries, loaded a tape, and hurriedly scribbled a note to Ruby. I stuck it on the cash register, where we usually leave messages. The phone was at my elbow, but Rita had come to the connecting door, where she stood leaning against the jamb, watching me. I ignored the phone. There was no one to call, anyway. Blackie’d give me the big hoo-hah, and McQuaid was somewhere between here and San Antonio.

“I guess that pretty much takes care of it.” I went past Rita, into my shop. There was one more thing in my mind— the nine-millimeter Berreta that was hidden in the secret cubby behind my laundry hamper, a sad, unsavory reminder of a tragic event in my former life. I’d sworn off guns four years ago, and I wasn’t going to perjure myself now, no matter how uneasy I was feeling. Better to leave the weapon where it was.

“Ready?” I reached for my brown jacket.

Rita looked outside. The dusk had turned to dark, and the wind had risen, whipping the trees. “We’ll be early, but I guess it doesn’t matter.”

We got back in the car. I put the key in the ignition and turned on the lights. As we drove away, I had the anxious feeling that I’d overlooked something—something that just might get me in a hell of a lot of trouble.

CHAPTER 19

We didn’t speak. I was thinking, hard. Mostly, I was thinking about what lay ahead. But Rita’s sudden urgency about confronting C.W. still bothered me. Did she know something more incriminating than anything I knew? If she did, what was it?

I thought back over the evidence against C.W., which I had to admit was pretty flimsy. In the case of Sybil’s murder, everything incriminated Jerri—the choice of weapon and method; the bloodstained clothing; and the cult-killing cover-up, including the voodoo dolls, the theft of the knife, and the anonymous tip about a human sacrifice, in a woman’s voice. She and C.W. had been very careful. Nothing pointed to him, except the bogus note, which was obviously damage control. If he was innocent of Sybil’s death, he didn’t need the note.

But in the hands of a clever prosecutor the note could be as devastating as Andrew’s Satanic bible. And there was plenty to tie Rand to Jerri’s death. The flowers and the card carelessly left behind in the bedroom in C7, and probably fingerprints too, were evidence of their relationship. Hank could testify that C.W. knew about the potential auto fire danger, Peaches to his frequent phone calls to the gym, and Rita to the fact that Jerri planned to meet him just before her death.

I sorted through the facts again, one at a time, frowning. Something, some recollection, was trying to elbow its way through the busy, clamoring crowd of thoughts. I relaxed, stopped chasing it, and there it was, vividly, as if it were wearing neon. The day before yesterday, in the office at Lake Winds. Rita, flustered and anxious, arms full of the papers she’d retrieved from the floor, insisting that Sybil’s death had to have been the work of Santeros.

“They’re the ones who’ve been slaughtering animals, aren’t they? And there was that tip some woman phoned in to Chief Harris.”

But Bubba had kept his promise—there hadn’t been a word about human sacrifice in the
Enterprise.
Not even the ol’ boys at the Doughnut Queen had gotten wind of it. How did Rita know about the tip?

Rita turned. “We can park behind the office. That way he won’t see the car.” Her voice was taut with compressed energy, like a spring squeezed down and tied.

I skirted the parking lot and swung the Datsun down a lane. It was almost full dark, except for the lights that spilled golden puddles on the black asphalt. Three months ago, it would have been daylight at this hour. People would be heading for the tennis courts, the marina, the pro shop, the restaurant. But this was a midweek night in November. The parking lot was empty, the restaurant and pro shop closed, the tennis courts deserted. Somehow, I hadn’t expected the place to be so empty. There was a chunk of ice in the pit of my stomach.

I stopped the car behind C.W.’s office and turned off the ignition.

“Let’s wait inside,” Rita said. She got out.

I got out too, and stuck the tape recorder in my jacket pocket, wishing—almost—that I’d brought the Beretta. The chunk of ice in my stomach felt colder, heavier. We walked around the building, under the shadow of the trees. The questions were flying around inside my head like black bats in a cave. I wasn’t sure whether I should duck or grab one and hang on.

How did Rita know about the phone-in tip? Who told her that the caller had been a woman? Jerri? If Jerri had told her that much, what
else
had she told her, and when? Or was it C.W.?

We were at the door, under the security light. I stood to one side while Rita took her keys out of her bag and unlocked the door. Inside, she flicked on the lights and walked across the room to her desk. I glanced around quickly. There were three doors. The door to the kitchen, behind Rita’s desk. The door to C.W.’s office, beside it. The front door.

Rita gestured off-handedly at LouEllen’s desk. “You could sit down. It might be a little while.”

I sat down and put the tape recorder beside the typewriter. More black bats. If C.W. had told Rita, when did he tell her? After he killed Jerri? I shivered. Or before?

Rita sat down and put her purse on the desk in front of her. She pulled out a cigarette package. I glanced at it. Salem Menthol.

And then another black bat flung itself through my head. A burned patch beside the road. A worn-out Nike, a crumpled Coors can, a McDonald’s bag, a Salem pack.

Another bat, another memory, bigger and nastier. Peaches, pulling fat pink curlers out of her hair. “Kissy face, sweet as pie, but watch out. She’d scratch your eyes out behind your back.”

Surreptitiously, I slid my hand to the recorder and flicked it on. “It wasn’t Jerri who plotted with C.W. to kill his wife,” I said conversationally.
“You
killed Sybil. And you helped him murder Jerri.”

Rita’s shoulders firmed. ‘For C.W.” Her voice was fierce, tight-strung. “It was me. Just
me.”
She reached into the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a vicious-looking small-caliber revolver with a long barrel and wooden grips. She pointed it at me. “I wondered if you’d finally figure it out. Was it something I said?”

I sat back slowly. “Chief Harris didn’t publicize the tip, so you couldn’t have known about it unless the tipster told you—or unless
you
were the tipster.” I managed a half grin. “And smoking may be the death of you. You dropped a Salem pack beside the road, where you started the fire in Jerri’s car.” I paused, the sickness of it chill and sour inside me. “So Jerri wasn’t the only daughter trained to be a butcher.”

“No.” Her mouth was twisted, bitter. “Not Jerri. I was the one Dad trained. She was always too good to get her hands bloody. She worked up front because she was good with customers. Especially the men, always laughing and flirting. She played in the band, she was a cheerleader, she had dates, she was popular. She was always dumping the dirty work on me so she could run off and have a good time.”

“But I don’t see—”

She cut me off. “At first I was scared to shoot the cows and pigs. I’d throw up when I had to cut their throats to bleed them. But after a while it didn’t bother me. I got good at butchering. Even Daddy said I was good.” She glanced fondly at the revolver. “This is his gun. He let me use it to do the killing. He left it to me. He left me the knives, too.”

“The ones Jerri had on her wall?”

“The ones I put there. For you to find. You and the sheriff.” Her smile faded. “Daddy said I was good, but he always perked up when she was around. When she was there, it was like I was invisible. It didn’t matter what I did, it was like I didn’t exist.”

I stood up and started to turn. “I’m walking out of here.”

“Then do it backwards, please.” Rita raised the gun and pointed it at me. It didn’t waver. “I really don’t want to shoot you in the back. It’ll spoil my explanation to the police.” She pulled back the hammer.

I sat back down. “What about C.W.?”

She released the hammer gently. “I lied when I said he was coming at six. He won’t be here until seven thirty. By that time we’ll be finished. Or rather,
you’ll
be finished.” She smiled at her little joke.

I was sweating in spite of the ice frozen in the pit of my stomach. Mealy mouthed Rita wasn’t sweet as pie anymore. She was definitely in charge, and the gun gave her a new authority. She wanted to talk, maybe to brag about what she’d accomplished. I might as well give her a chance.

“So why
did
you kill Sybil?’

She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Don’t you know? Because she was going to kill him.”

“How do you know?”

“I told you,” she said testily. “Don’t you remember?” She bit her lip. “Really, it was so terrible, I don’t see how he stood it. She kept threatening him with those awful poison plants, and she’d put horrible stuff in his salad, leaves and berries and things, which he never would eat. Once in the middle of the night she tried to stab him, and another time she almost hit him with the car. He was so scared, I got scared, too. I was afraid she was going to kill him. I couldn’t face life without him. I just couldn’t.” The grin she gave me now was little-girl proud, and so pathetic that I would have wept if I hadn’t been so scared. “Don’t you see? I was the only one who could help. I had to do something to protect him, and I did. I saved his life.”

“But didn’t the whole thing strike you as odd?” I asked. “C.W. is a big, strong man. If he was afraid of his wife, why didn’t
he
handle it? Or if he couldn’t, why didn’t he go to the sheriff?”

She put down the gun, took out a cigarette, and lit it with a match. I tensed, estimating the distance between us. Six feet, maybe eight. Before I got the gun, she’d get me. I forced myself to relax.

“Because Sybil was blackmailing him,” she said, waving out the match. “He’d forgotten to report some income, you see. If he went to the sheriff, she’d tell the IRS, and they’d put him in jail.”

I felt like gagging. “Did he say
why
she wanted to kill him?”

“She wanted to marry that photographer. The one they arrested for her murder.” She looked concerned. “Are they going to let him out of jail, now that they think Jerri did it?”

“You’ll have to ask the sheriff,” I said. “If Sybil wanted to marry Andrew, why didn’t she simply divorce C.W.?”

“Because of the money, of course.” Rita spoke with the patient tone of a first-grade teacher talking to a slow learner. “A lot of it was hers, but a big part was his, too. She wanted all of it. If they were divorced, she wouldn’t get it. She had to have him dead.”

I thought what an awful mess of lies C.W. had dished out to her, and how easily, unquestioningly she had accepted them,
still
accepted them. “Did C.W. ask you to kill his wife?’

Her answer was so quick and so horrified that it had the ring of truth—the truth as
she
saw it, anyway. “Of course not! He’d never do such a thing!”

I rephrased my question and offered it more gently. “Did he tell you he’d be better off if she was dead?”

She tossed her head. “Well, sure. I mean, that was clear, wasn’t it? A couple of times he said it was the only way out, but he’d be a fool to do it. He was right, too. He’d be the first they’d suspect. Really, it was all my idea.”

I persisted. “Did he say
when
it had to be done?”

“No, not really. But I couldn’t put it off. I had to do it right away.”

“Why?”

“Because she told him she was going to make a new will the next week. The money would all go to some old aunt up in the Panhandle.” She frowned darkly and shook her head. “That Sybil, what a
cheat.
She’d already
made
the will!”

The whole thing was becoming horrifyingly, sickeningly clear. C.W. had all but written out a set of instructions for his wife’s murder and handed them to the one person who would do anything he wanted, no matter how terrible, as long as she thought she was doing it for him.

“Were you and C.W. lovers?” I asked gently.

She blushed. “Not if you mean did we go to bed together. It went a lot deeper than just ... physical stuff. He loved me, I mean, really
loved
me. He told me so, lots of times. Sometimes when we were here all alone, he’d kiss me.” The lines of her face softened and her hand went to her mouth, as if she were remembering the touch of his lips. “He said he wished he’d married somebody who was loyal and faithful and cared for him like I did.”

I changed tack. “You set Sybil’s murder up as a cult killing. Why did you decide to shift the blame to Jerri?”

“Well, that photographer got to be a problem. I didn’t mean for him to get arrested.” Her mouth tightened. “And I was fed up with Jerri’s lies, bragging about how she was going to marry C.W., how he was going to give her a lot of money. She was always a liar. She took what she wanted, without thinking of anybody’s feelings. And I was the good little girl who always gave in.” Her voice rose in acid mimicry. “Oh, let her have it,’ Mama would say. ‘You don’t need it, do you?’ It didn’t matter whether I needed it or wanted it, or whether it was
mine,
Jerri got it. Even C.W.— she tried to take
him.
But I fixed her. It’s the last time she’ll grab something that doesn’t belong to her.”

“So you sent her over the cliff?”

She nodded, intent on her story. “It happened pretty much the way you said it did, except that it wasn’t C.W. Honest, it was
me.
I set the car on fire and put it in drive, and it went over.”

“How did you know how to start the fire? Did your dad teach you auto mechanics too?”

She laughed, pleased with herself. “No, it was Hank. I went to pick up C.W.’s car after it was repaired. Hank told me about the automatic fuel cutoff, and what could happen if it didn’t work.”

“Or if the car didn’t have one.”

“Right. Jerri’s Mustang was pretty old, so I knew it didn’t. When it had gone over, I saw the fire and knew that was the end. I walked up the road, got my car where I’d left it that afternoon, and drove home. I got the shoes and the sweat suit I’d worn when I killed Sybil, and the knives and the other voodoo doll I’d made, just in case, and took them over to Jerri’s. You know the rest.”

I regarded her thoughtfully. “Now that we’ve got the story straight, what’s next?”

“That’s easy.” She stood up and motioned with the gun. “You need to walk over there by the door, then turn and face me. This is only a twenty-two, so it has to be fairly close range. I’ll make it quick.” Her voice became apologetic. “I’m sorry, China, honest. But I can’t let you accuse C.W. of something he didn’t do. It’s better if everybody thinks Jerri did it.”

Her polite, gravely composed earnestness made the whole thing almost absurdly surreal. Two women in an ordinary office, the one with the gun giving the other one instructions on how to submit to being murdered. It was like a scene in a movie. It was happening to somebody else, not to me.

I didn’t get up. “But there’ll be another dead body. Won’t I be rather difficult to account for?”

“Not at all. I’ll tell the police I was working late when I saw the doorknob turning. I was nervous because of Sybil’s murder. I was afraid I was about to be assaulted. I took out my gun and pulled the trigger before I could see that it was a friend coming through the door.”