A Thorn Among the Lilies (26 page)

C
HAPTER
58

“I
must say this could be one of the most stupid ideas you've ever had, and that's sayin' somethin',” I told Dewey when I got to his house and he had all these pine boards laid out in his front yard on the grass.

“Why? When we was little we used to do it with lemonade. Fifteen cents a cup, remember?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I also remember the only people who bought it were our folks and neighbors. Those were mercy buys, Dewey. Nobody really wanted any of our lemonade. But this is different. You're thirteen.”

“Twelve. I won't be thirteen for another three months. And I ain't sellin' lemonade.”

“No, what you're sellin's almost worse.”

“I'm sellin' them their future. Here. Hold this board up while I nail it to this one.”

I held the board even though I was seriously against this idea. Nobody was gonna pay—I didn't even know how much he planned on chargin'—but nobody was gonna pay a twelve-year-old kid to read their future at a lemonade stand on the side of the road. I doubt even our folks and neighbors would show up for this one.

“How much you plan on chargin' for this?”

“A dollar.”

“A
dollar?
Have you gone crazy?” I figured he'd gone crazy.

“You just wait and see. Folks wanna know 'bout their future. Okay, now hold this board here. Thanks.”

I kept holding up boards while he nailed them. In the end we had the weirdest looking lemonade stand. Well, it was only weird because the shelf was about three times as big as normal lemonade stands—Dewey needed it that big to lay his cards out. Then he threw a dark red cloth over the shelf so it looked like a table and, on the top of the stand, we nailed a board facing outward like a sign. On that sign, with purple paint, Dewey wrote: F
IND OUT
Y
OUR
F
UTURE.
I noticed he didn't post his price anywhere. He put three lawn chairs around the stand, one behind it for him to sit in and two in front. I guess he expected people to be coming in pairs.

About twenty minutes went by while I stood leaning against the stand and Dewey sat in the chair shuffling his tarot cards overhand. It was a quiet twenty minutes.

“Nobody's comin', you know,” I said.

“Give it a chance,” he replied.

Finally, Melissa Delwood and her little sister from down the road happened to walk up the sidewalk toward Hunter Road, probably on their way to Main Street. They stopped at the stand. “What you boys doin'?” Melissa asked. “Awfully cold for lemonade.”

Melissa was in the twelfth grade. I wasn't sure what grade her little sister was in, but she still went to school here in Alvin.

“We ain't sellin' lemonade,” said Dewey. “We're sellin' your future.”

“Whatcha mean?”

“I mean I can tell you what's gonna happen in your life with these tarot cards. And I'm real good at it, too.”

She looked to me. “Is he pullin' my leg?”

I shook my head, remaining stone-faced. “I wish he was.”

Melissa sat in one of the chairs on the other side of the stand. “How much does it cost?”

“A dollar,” Dewey said without missing a beat.

I thought for sure that would end the conversation there and then, but without even trying to negotiate a better price, Melissa reached into her purse, pulled out a dollar bill, and handed it to Dewey. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me my fortune.”

Dewey went through the cards and pulled out the Queen of Wands and laid it in the center of the table. I still had no idea how he was choosing these cards to represent everybody, and he wouldn't really tell me. He just made passing mention that there was a certain way to do it and that was it. I felt like buying a book on tarot card reading just so I didn't feel stupid while he did this stuff.

Dewey took the cards from Melissa after she shuffled them and laid them out on the table. Then he began reading Melissa's future.

“Melissa, you are very balanced. This is good,” Dewey said, and I knew he just said it because it sounded like something Madame Crystalle would say. “Throughout your entire life, however, you feel like you have been judged.”

“Hmm,” she said, like she was taking this all seriously.

“The biggest obstacle in your life is money and you have a boyfriend who is starting a business. You're hopeful that will work out, but really, deep inside, you don't think it will.”

A smile burst across her face. “Wow! You really know what you're doing,” she said. “Wait till I tell my friends!”

“But,” Dewey said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, the business will work out. The bad news is, your family and friends won't believe it until they see it.”

“That's so true,” she said.

I rolled my eyes.

“Your biggest influence is your mother and father, who have lots of money. You hope to one day be like them and not have to worry about it. You just want to find happiness and love, and not be brought down all the time by your lack of money.”

“I can't believe how good you are at this,” Melissa said.

And I guess she did tell her friends because, over the next two days, twelve more people showed up at Dewey's stand to get their fortune read. By all accounts, Dewey had managed to start an actual business. He made himself thirteen dollars that, to me and him, was near on a fortune.

“You gonna do this every weekend?” I asked him as he was putting his stand away.

“On the sunny days, I think. I doubt I'll get many customers in the rain.”

“This could be one of your best ideas of all time, you know,” I said, which was something I rarely did—actually compliment Dewey.

“I know,” he said very matter-of-factly. So matter-of-factly, in fact, that it made me want to slug him. “I knew it would work the minute I thought of it.”

“No, you didn't,” I said. “Ninety-nine percent of the stuff you think of never works.”

“But this one was different. I just knew it would work. You know why?”

“Why?” I realized too late I should never have asked this question.

“Because, Abe,” he said. “I'm psychic. Remember?”

And once again I wanted to slug him.

C
HAPTER
59

A
fter getting an emergency no-knock warrant from the courthouse, Leah and Chris hit Luanne Williams's home. Leah took the front, Chris the back, both coming through their respective doors with battering rams. Quickly, Leah swept the living room with her Glock. “Living room clear!” she announced.

“Kitchen clear!” Chris called from the other side of the wall.

“Hallway clear!” Leah shouted.

They went through the whole house making sure nobody was there. It was empty. No sign of Luanne, no sign of Scarlett. They did find something mighty disturbing, though: one of the three bedrooms had been converted into a shrine with pictures of the victims. They were all black and white, presumably made in the converted darkroom they found in one of the other bedrooms.

The images filled the walls, pinned at different angles. Shots of the victims before their eyes were sewn shut, shots of them with just their feet and arms bound and the tape over their mouths, shots of them with one eye stitched and one eye not. Those may have been the worst, because you could see the fear in the single eye left open. It looked wild and confused, like a caged animal.

Then there were the pictures of them dead, with the bullet hole in the right side of their head.

Pictures of Faith Abilene, of Mercy Jo, and even pictures of Scarlett Graham. There were pictures of Scarlett with her eyes sewn, but none of her with bullet holes in her head. This left Leah with a little hope.

“She's not keepin' the victims here,” Leah said. “It's not the right environment anyway. We're looking for mud, clay, and sawdust.”

“That could be anywhere,” Chris said.

“No, I have an idea.”

They walked back out to the kitchen. Chris happened to notice something hanging on the wall of the dining room. “Holy cow. Come look at this, Leah.”

It was a framed five-foot-tall white embroidered cross. The stitching was perfect.

“Well, we can attest to her talents.”

Leah picked up Luanne's phone and had the operator put her through to Mayor Robertson. She quickly explained what she thought was going on. He wanted more details, but she was frustrated, running out of time.

“Listen, Hubert, I'll tell you more when I can. What I need to know right now is that cabin you have in the woods? The one you're building the annex onto? Where exactly is it?”

“Should I ask why?” he said, sounding like he wasn't quite trusting her anymore.

“Does Luanne know about that cabin?”

“Of course she does.”

“Do you know anything 'bout her owning an old handgun? An original model Beretta Model 950 Jetfire?”

“I don't, but that's a pretty old gun. I know 'bout guns. I'm an avid collector myself. That gun would be worth quite a bit, especially if it still worked.”

“I have reason to believe it still works.”

“Her daddy collected guns. Just a few, mind you. Could've belonged to him.”

“Where's her daddy now?” Leah asked.

“Old folks' home,” the mayor said. “Got a case of Alzheimer's.”

“Does Luanne have a key to your cabin?” This was the big question.

“No, but I keep the key hidden at the cabin. Nobody in Alvin is dishonest enough to break into a cabin, and if they did I have nothin' up there worth takin'.”

“Where is the key?”

“It's beneath a little ceramic frog that sits by the door,” he said.

More frogs. What is it with frogs?
“When was the last time you were up there?”

“Oh.” He let out a big breath. “Let me see . . .” Leah was growing ever more frustrated. “I guess July?”

“Okay, I need directions to your cabin and I need them now.”

He told her how to get there. The cabin was about eighty miles north. Dan Truitt may be even closer to the cabin than she was. She quickly called the dispatcher at the Birmingham station and asked her to relay the address to Detective Truitt. “Tell him we'll meet him there. No cowboy stuff.”

The dispatcher just laughed. “Why don't I ask him not to breathe while I'm at it?”

Chris and Leah had arrived in the same squad car. “Let me drive,” Leah said as they hurried outside.

“Why?” Chris asked. “I always drive the squad car.”

“Because I drive faster than you.”

“You drive more reckless than me.”

“Right now speed is more important than safety.”

C
HAPTER
60

T
hey took off with the siren on, dodging Alvin traffic all the way north until they were out of the main city limits. Then things started to change. The eighty-mile drive to the mayor's cabin wasn't an easy one. Most of the roads were old mining roads, and some of the “roads” weren't roads at all, but trails the squad car barely fit down. Branches and leaves brushed the sides of the car, some scraping loudly as they passed.

“Awfully bumpy drive,” Chris said from the passenger seat.

“That sounded like you want me to slow down,” Leah said. “I ain't slowin' down. Besides this vest is diggin' into my side.”

Both of them had put on bulletproof vests before leaving the station. This wasn't something they normally did, but they didn't normally know ahead of time that their assailant was armed. And she was armed with a .22-caliber gun, not one that was very powerful. The vests could easily save their lives.

The car bounced into a hole in the trail and out again. Chris's head nearly hit the roof of the car, despite his seatbelt. “Jesus! Can you slow down just a bit?”

“She's had that woman six days, Chris. Her pattern is to kill on the sixth or seventh day. I'm not slowing down.”

“Great. We'll all be dead.” With one hand he gripped the seat, with the other he braced himself against the dashboard.

They turned left onto a logging road, which was wider and in much better condition than the trail they just cleared a swath through to get here. “Thank God,” Chris said.

“Thank me,” Leah said. “I'm the one gettin' us there.”

According to the directions Mayor Robertson had given to Leah, they had just passed the halfway point of the journey. Leah wondered how Detective Truitt was making out. She knew with little doubt that if Dan showed up before them he would just go in by himself. Guys like him consider themselves above the law, almost vigilantes. Leah didn't want that to happen. She needed to beat him there. That was one of the reasons she was driving so fast, but she kept that to herself.

Then everything went bad. Luckily Chris spotted it before Leah did, or she'd have run right into it. “Watch out!” he yelled. “Tree!” Straight ahead of them, a tree had fallen across the road.

Leah hit the brakes just as she made out that it was there. They stopped with only feet to spare.

“I'll get out and move it,” Chris said, but Leah had her doubts that he could. It was a pretty big tree. Looked like a Douglas fir from where she sat.

Chris exited the vehicle and tried dragging the tree by one of its branches. No go. Then he tried pushing on it. Still nothing. It didn't even budge. He came back to the car completely winded. “I have no idea what we're going to do. That thing won't move.”

Frustrated, Leah bit her lower lip. She hadn't come this far to give up now. She wondered if any of the trails they'd passed in the last ten minutes on this logging road looped around and came back to it on the other side of that trunk? It wasn't worth the gamble. They could wind up driving in circles. There was no way to get their bearings out here.

“What have we got in the trunk?” she asked.

“What?”

“In the trunk of the car. What do we have?”

“.12-gauge, CSI kit, camera, usual stuff.”

“What 'bout ramps?”

“What do you mean?”

“The ramps we use when checking the underside of our vehicles. We got them in the back still? I know they were there for a while. I'd left them there, forgetting to bring them back into the station.”

“I can check. I still don't see—”

“Please,” Leah said, “just check.”

He checked. Came back carrying two orange car ramps. “What do you wanna do with 'em?”

“Set 'em up on this side of the stump. Make sure they line up with my wheels.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Jump the log.”

“You're crazy. Who do you think you are? The Fonz? You'll destroy the car's suspension.”

“Chris, just set them up. We have little choice.”

Chris set them up. He got Leah to pull close so he knew they were lined up exactly with her wheels. “I'm stayin' outside of the car while you do this. Hope you don't mind.”

“Not at all,” she said. “I was hopin' for that, actually.”

She backed up about fifty feet to get a good run at the ramps, threw the squad car in D
RIVE
and floored it. The car lurched when it hit the ramps and she thought the ramp was going to turn sideways. But then she felt the front of the car go airborne and she was still headed straight. The front came down as the back followed through the air. The car hit the ground with a large thump and the suspension slammed against the ground, sounding out a huge complaint.

But she'd done it. They were on the right side of the tree.

Chris came over to the driver's side window. “I can't believe you just did that. Does the car still run?”

“I don't know. Put the ramps back in the trunk and let's find out.”

Chris did as Leah asked and the cruiser did still run. If there was any damage at all, it wasn't outwardly displaying it.

By comparison, the rest of the trip to the cabin went smoothly. They found it exactly where the mayor had said they would. Leah made sure to park the car a quarter mile down the road from it so as not to alert Luanne of their presence.

Before they could even get out of the car, another police cruiser pulled up behind them.

Chris looked at Leah expectantly.

“Detective Dan Truitt,” she explained. “He brought in the Faith Abilene case. I've been workin' with him ever since. I decided to call him and tell him that we'd found our suspect and he insisted on comin'. Looks like he made it just in time to join the party.”

Truitt came walking over.

“Dan Truitt,” he said to Chris.

“Chris Jackson,” Chris said. “Nice to meet you, Detective Truitt.”

“Just call me Dan, or Danny Boy, or—”

“Just call him Dan,” Leah said, cutting off Truitt. Now wasn't the time for his ridiculous repartee.

“So, I assume the cabin is a little ways up and we're back here so we won't tip our hand too fast?” Dan asked.

“Yeah.”

“You're both wearin' vests. I feel left out.”

“Should've brought one. We know she's armed.”

“With a .22. It's a girl's gun.”

“Still could kill you.”

“True. I could say the same thing about some women I dated. So what's the plan?”

“According to the mayor—I did mention this was his cabin, right?—there is no back door. But there's a side door leading to what right now is an unfinished annex in the process of being built. Currently it's just an open room with two walls missing. Basically, it's got a dirt floor that's covered in sawdust. I'm assumin' that's where Scarlett Graham is. I think one of us should hit that area, one should stand point, and one should kick in the front door.”

“I'll take the room with only two walls,” Dan said.

“Okay. Chris, why don't you stand point at the corner between the front door and the annex? I'll boot in the front. If things go bad, Chris, you come to help.”

“Which way?”

“Whichever way you hear things going bad. If I'm screamin' from the kitchen, come my way. If Dan's hollerin' from the annex, go his way. I don't think Luanne has any partners. She's workin' all this alone.”

“All right,” Dan said. “Everyone ready?”

Leah and Chris nodded.

“Let's move.”