Bones and Roses (17 page)

“Here we are.” I'm roused from my dark reverie at the sound of Douglas' voice.

I look out the window, relieved to see we've arrived at my house. Only then does it occur to me I was so preoccupied I'd neglected to give him my address. “How do you know where I live?”

He doesn't answer. He only says, smiling his patented smile, “Good night, Tish. Sleep tight.”

I'm hurrying up the front walk when I hear a familiar voice call my name. I lurch to a halt, my eyes darting to my porch where a shadowy figure is seated on the wooden chest that holds my gardening supplies and that doubles as a bench. A fresh surge of adrenaline has me wide awake where a moment ago I was so wiped out I couldn't have walked a straight line in a field sobriety test.

“What the hell are
you
doing here?” I cry.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Stan rises and steps down from the porch, walking to meet me, the clicking of his boot heels like a movie sound effect—the part in an old Western when the sheriff and outlaw face off against each other. High noon at the OK Corral. Except it's the dead of night and neither of us is armed. He doesn't even look particularly threatening, unlike earlier tonight when he was channeling Dirty Harry. He looks old and tired, the lines bracketing his mouth deep as fissures in a rock face.

He stops a few feet from me, raising his hand in the universal I-come-in-peace gesture. “We need to talk.” His voice rumbles from his chest.

I stare at him as if we were standing eye-to-eye even though he's a half foot taller. “Let me get this straight. First you threaten me, then have me thrown in jail—which, by the way, totally could've been avoided if you'd been straight with me to begin with instead of forcing me to go to extremes—and now here you are on my doorstep. Wanting to talk. At one-freaking-thirty in the morning.”

He sighs wearily. “I can explain.”

“By all means. This I got to hear.” I remain rooted to the spot, arms crossed over my chest.

“Not out here. Can we talk inside?” He gestures toward the house.

“Right. So you can strangle me after you almost shot me dead. Twice.”

“If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't be wasting my breath talking to you. I could take you out with one shot.” I hear the exasperation in his voice, but it quickly gives way to a conciliatory tone. “What I said before, I wasn't lying. It wasn't me shooting at you the other day.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“You can decide for yourself after you've heard me out.”

I don't know if it's the heaviness in his voice or remembering the look on his face earlier tonight when we were talking about my mom, but I sense he means no harm. Also, I'm curious. I've come too far and risked too much to pass up the opportunity to hear what he has to say. I incline my head in a nod of acquiescence and he falls in behind me as I move past him to climb the porch steps. I unlock the door and he follows me inside. My cat materializes from the shadows, meowing piteously. Stan scoops him up, cradling him in the crook of his arm and rubbing him behind his ears where he likes to be scratched. “Nice kitty. Big fella, aren't you? Hercules closes his eyes and starts to purr, kneading the front of Stan's jacket with his paws.

“Traitor,” I mutter under my breath. To Stan I say, “Do you want some coffee?”

“If it's no trouble,” he says, shyly almost. He lowers my cat to the floor and politely removes his cowboy hat as he straightens. “Nice place you got here,” he remarks, glancing around him.

“Thanks.” Of all the bizarre twists and turns of tonight, this is the most bizarre: my exchanging pleasantries with a guy who, hours ago, was pointing a rifle at me. “Make yourself at home. Be with you in a minute.” I totter down the hall to my bedroom. I can't spend another minute in my damp clothes even if it means leaving Stan to ransack my house or come after me with an ax.

I return, wearing sweats and my Ugg slippers, to find him seated at the kitchen table, the coffeemaker gurgling and two mugs set out. He's even fed my cat. He nods towards Hercules, who has his head buried in his food bowl, explaining, “He was meowing. Figured he was hungry.”

“He's always hungry.” I slide into the chair across from Stan, fixing him with my steeliest gaze. “Okay, so tell me. Why are you here? What's so important all of a sudden it couldn't wait, after you put me through the seven circles of Hell trying to pry information out of you?”

He releases a breath. “It's a long story and not a pretty one, so bear with me. But I swear everything you're about to hear is the God's honest truth.” He raises his right hand as though his left hand were resting on a bible. “You were right about one thing: Your mom's death was no accident.”

His words have the effect of several hundred volts of electricity slamming through my body. I'd known all along, in my gut, but it's still a shock hearing it from his lips. “You … you killed her?”

He shakes his head, grim-faced. “I never laid a hand on her. I wasn't lying about that, either.”

“Then who did?”

“I'll get to that in a minute. First, you should know I loved her. We were going to make a life together. I'm sorry if that's tough to hear, on account of your dad and all, but that's just how it was. I'm not saying she didn't love him, too—she did in her own way. I had a devil of a time convincing her to leave him. She worried about her kids most of all. But I promised her we'd work it out.” His face constricts momentarily with some inner torment. “I had a job and a nice three-bedroom lined up in Bakersfield. The plan was to come back for you and your brother once we were settled.”

“Except she never did,” I say in a dull voice.

“No,” he says softly, looking down at his fists, curled loosely on the table, before dragging his bloodshot eyes up to meet mine. “She would have, though. Don't ever doubt that.” My throat grows tight. It's as if all the tears I held in through the years are backed up, pressing behind my eyes like a dam about to burst. A torrent of questions roils in my mind as I listen to him go on. “That morning, I dropped her off at my place after I'd come to fetch her. She was gonna pack up the rest of my things so we could head out for Bakersfield soon as I got home from work. I'd have kept on driving, left everything I owned behind—I wish to God I had—but I was owed a week's pay and we needed the money. When I got home that afternoon …” His voice cracks and he pauses to collect himself. “I found her in the basement, lying at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Dead?” I force the word past numb lips. I can't bear to think of her suffering at the end while the life drained out of her.

“Yeah.” Again, that flash of agony on his face. “And like I said, it weren't no accident.”

“Are you sure she couldn't have tripped and fallen?”

“Sure as I am that a rattler bites when you step on it. She wasn't the first. He'd killed two others.”

A chill travels down my spine. “You said ‘he.' Do you mean Douglas Trousdale?”

He gives me a baffled look, then shakes his head. “Him? Nah. Maybe he knew about it, or was involved in some way, but he took orders from his old man. Leon was the one running the show.”

I stare at him, aghast. “Are you saying it was
Leon
? That's impossible.”

“Believe it.”

“No way,” I insist. “You must be mistaken. He … he was a vegetarian. He wouldn't kill a chicken much less another human being.” It's a lame defense, I realize as I'm voicing it. That's when it dawns on me: I didn't know the man. I only know his reputation, as a guru who preached the gospel of mind-body awareness. What if the Christ-like figure I recall from childhood wasn't so saintly after all?

Stan nods, wearing a look of disgust. “Yeah, he had everyone fooled with that hippie-dippy act of his. Everyone except your mom, and even she bought into it at first. Until she found out he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. He had her killed because she'd found out about the others.”

“Hector and Martina.” I breathe their names.

He looks surprised. “You know about them?”

I nod my head. “Someone mentioned Mom had disappeared around the same time they died, so I did some research. People get killed in freak accidents, sure. But two people from the same place of business? Both dying in freak accidents within three months of each other? That raised a red flag.”

“You're your mother's daughter all right.” His mouth slants in a mirthless smile.

“What I don't get is
why
.”

“She wondered the same thing after she'd stumbled on a letter from the insurance company. It was something to do with a payout on a life policy for Hector Martinez. She couldn't understand why Leon was the beneficiary, and not the dead guy's family. When she looked into it, she learned something that knocked her for a loop: he had
all
his employees insured. They were worth more dead than alive—two hundred thousand apiece, twice that if it was an accidental death, on account of the double indemnity clause. He'd already collected on the Vuković girl.”

“Wait. Are you serious? I've never heard of such a thing.”

“You'd be surprised. Lots of companies do it. Big corporations, too. What I call ‘stealing pennies off a dead man's eyes' they call ‘standard practice',” he says, his voice thick with contempt.

“You're saying they were killed for the money?”

“Sure looks that way. Seems Leon got in over his head building the new wing. It was nowhere near done and cost overruns were through the roof. The bank wouldn't extend his loan and he was having trouble meeting the payments. So he figures why not cash in on a couple of those policies.”

“My God. That's … that's diabolical.”

“That was the exact word she used. The tip-off for her was when I told her about the cost overruns on the new wing. She did some more digging and the other pieces fell into place. It was that more than anything that finally convinced her to quit her job and leave town. She was scared of what would happen if Leon were to find out she was on to him.”

“Why didn't she go to the police?”

“He was a powerful man, and all she had was circumstantial evidence. She knew they'd never go after him. He'd come after her instead. She didn't want you and your brother growing up without a mom.” Sadly, that had come to pass, but I can't dwell on that now. I have to focus on the here and now. If that was Douglas, or his hired gun, who was sending me a message warning me to back off, it means he'll stop at nothing to keep his father's secrets from becoming a public scandal. I hug myself, shivering, at the thought. “But the son of a bitch got her in the end. He wasn't taking any chances. I'd have been next—I knew too much—if I hadn't taken a powder.”

“You ran because you were scared for your life?”

He stiffens, clearly affronted at the suggestion that he hadn't been man enough to go head to head with Leon. “It wasn't
me
I was worried about. I couldn't let him take the one thing she had left to give.”

I feel the blood drain from my face as comprehension dawns. “The insurance money.”

He nods. “It was the icing on the cake,” he says grimly.

“So you got rid of the body to make it look like she'd run away with you.” Thus condemning her family—me and my brother, and our dad until he'd passed away—to a lifetime of never knowing. I'm angry about that, but at the same time I have to admit it was a courageous move.

“Also because I knew the cops would try to pin it on me.”

“You had an alibi. You were at work all day.”

“Yeah, except I didn't come straight home. I'd stopped to see about a job this fella had called about—a light fixture he needed to have installed. I figured I could knock it out in an hour and pick up some extra cash for the trip. I waited for him, but he never showed. I know now it was set up.”

He rises to fetch the coffee—not because he wants any, I sense, but only because it's something to do—and I notice his hand is trembling as he fills the mugs he'd set out. “They coulda thrown me in jail. Hell, shot me dead on the spot. I was so broke up, I didn't care what happened to me.” His Texas drawl has become more pronounced with each passing minute. “But I guess my will to survive was stronger than my wish to die,” he says, regretfully almost, as he hands me my mug.

“Did someone help you dispose of the body?” My cat starts to meow at my feet, winding in and out between my ankles as if he senses my agitation. I scoop him up, hugging him to my chest. I must have been holding him a little too tightly because he leaps from my arms back onto the floor.

Stan looks startled by the question. “No. What makes you think that?”

“If no one else knew about it, or even knew she was dead, who arranged for me to find her?”

He grimaces. “That would be me. And don't think I haven't regretted it.”

“
You?
” I stare at him. “I don't get it. Why put yourself at risk? And why now, after all these years?”

For the longest time he doesn't answer. He just sits staring into middle space while he sips his coffee. Then he slowly brings his gaze back to me. “It all started when I moved back here. I figured enough time had passed. The old man was gone and the rest was history—or so I thought.” He looks to the window, his pale reflection staring back from the darkened glass. “I don't believe in ghosts or any of that mumbo jumbo about communicating with spirits, but I could
feel
her. Everywhere I went, she was right there beside me. It was like she was sending me a message, only I didn't know what it was. Then one day it hit me: She wanted me to make it right with you and your brother. Let you know she hadn't run out on you. I didn't know if I'd be doing you any favors, but I figured a hard truth was better than unanswered questions.” He makes a wry face. “I didn't count on you being so doggone persistent. You were s'posed to let the cops handle it.”

I ignore the look of mild reproach he gives me. “You weren't worried the trail would lead back to you?”

He shrugs. “No DA in his right mind would try a case on evidence thin as that.”

“Turns out you were right.” I recall my dispiriting conversation with Spence.

“Except you wouldn't let go. I did everything I could to shake you, but you were on me like a tick on a hound.” I detect a note of grudging admiration. “Ever thought about taking up bull riding?”

I smile thinly. “Something to consider if I decide to give up sleuthing,” I reply in jest.

The crinkle of amusement fades from around his eyes. “You'd be better off. With bulls, it ain't personal.”