Dead Even (23 page)

Mike tried to gather his thoughts, which were going in a hundred directions. “I don't know quite how to say this, but do you think there's a chance Howard killed your sister to keep her from taking action against Isaac? And that maybe Isaac accidently got caught?”

Ivory shook her head, slowly. “No. At least I don't think so. Howard loved Isabelle. I'm pretty sure of that. From everything I heard, he did his best to save both of them. Anyone will tell you that. When we finally got to the hospital, Howard just cried and cried. He was heartbroken, both for Isabelle and his boy.” Ivory hesitated, then continued almost reluctantly. “Howard is a good man. He even gave me part of the insurance money. He said Isabelle would have wanted me to have it.” She looked around. “That's how I was able to buy this nice home. And Howard still comes to see me once or twice a year. He always tells me if there's anything I need, all I have to do is ask.”

The insurance money.
Mike took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, staring at Ivory.
That was why they had received such a cool reception from the otherwise hot-blooded Ivory. She was afraid, even after all these years, that she might have to relinquish her share.

Something wasn't right, but Mike couldn't quite put his finger on it. He had come here hoping to find details about Simpson's past that would shed some light on the bizarre killings—a blueprint of a serial killer. But so far, Simpson's slate seemed clean.

“I'm going to need to talk with Isaac's friend, the Kramer boy. He wouldn't happen to still live around here, would he?”

“I can answer that.” Underwood spoke for the first time. “Bobby Kramer took off shortly after Isaac was killed. He came from a pretty bad family. Alcoholic father, prostitute mother. They reported him as a runaway about a month after the fire. The word is, though, that he sends them money every so often. At least I heard old man Kramer bragging about it, once.”

“Could we talk to them? The parents?”

Underwood nodded. “Certainly, if you think it will help. Don't be surprised, though, if they can't offer much information. They never paid much attention to their kids. Always left them pretty much on their own.”

The three officers stood to go. Ivory Dennison was quick to cross the room, taking both Mike and Butch by the arm as they walked to the door. On his side, Mike could feel the not so subtle tugging on his arm as Ivory forced it to rub gently against her well-endowed breast. She looked up at him. “If there is anything else I can help you with, Mike, don't hesitate to call—anything at all.”

He disentangled his arm from her grasp. “Yes, ma'am. And if you remember anything you think might help us, would you contact Sheriff Underwood?”

“Well, certainly I will,” Ivory answered him. “And what do I do if Howard calls or comes by? I don't want to be involved if he's broken the law, somehow.”

“He won't be coming by, Ivory,” Mike said. “Not for a long, long time.”

As he closed the car door, Mike said, “I have a feeling little Ivory is going to have a field day with the press when this story breaks.”

“Yeah,” Butch answered. “Five bucks says she makes the front cover of the
Enquirer!
”

Chapter TWENTY-ONE

Ted Schneider studied the coroner's reports spread out on the desk in front of him. Three mentioned slight chafing around the neck area, caused either by the victim's clothing, or perhaps a rope. Two victims had reddened areas around their midsection. Again the coroner had noted the marks, but not drawn any definite conclusion.

Had he used a rope to control the girls? The markings were light. He sure as hell wasn't trying to kill them. He rifled through Audra Delaney's folder until he found the hospital report. “Some slight bruising and scratch marks around the neck area. May have been choked.”

Or led around by a rope?

*   *   *

Bess hung up the telephone and grinned at Jason. “Interstate is open, and the officer said if you take the 183 bypass you won't have any trouble. Snowplows have the roads open and the hill should be prime for sleddin'.”

“Yippee!” Jason yelled. “Let's go, Miss Delaney.”

Audra looked at Bess. “You're sure you don't mind if I take your car? You could run me home and I could pick mine up.”

“No, no, child,” Bess answered her. “My old Dodge is a heap better navigatin' in the snow than that Datsun of yours. And I ain't goin' nowhere. You two just run along now and have a good time.”

Audra walked over to Bess and kissed her on the cheek. “All right then, if you're sure.” She turned to Jason. “We'll need to go by my place and pick up your things and get me some warmer clothing. Your house isn't too far from the overpass. I can drop you there when we're done.”

Jason looked up at her inquisitively. “What are you going to tell my mother?”

Audra sighed. “The truth, Jason. I'll have to tell her exactly what happened. I don't have any choice about that.”

He nodded his head, agreeing with her. “Yeah, I guess that would be the best. I don't think she will be mad at me, at least not much. Momma knows I can pretty much take care of myself.” He hesitated briefly. “Of course she won't like it that I lied to her. I haven't received a spanking in my whole life, but I just might have one coming up!”

“You don't look worried none about it,” Bess said.

Jason grinned at her. “No. Momma doesn't spank very hard. The older kids say they can hardly feel it, but they just hate it because Momma cries. That makes them behave more quickly than the spanking does.”

“Sounds to me like you have a pretty nice momma,” Bess said.

Jason's head bobbed up and down. “I do, Bess. Maybe we can come to visit you sometime.” He looked around the motel office. “Or maybe you could use some help around here. Momma keeps our house real clean. I'll bet if you asked her, she'd come to work for you.”

“Always thinkin', aren't you son?” Bess laughed.

Jason's eyes danced. “Yep. I can't seem to turn it off!”

Bess knelt down beside the boy and gave him a big hug. “Well, now. I think that was a mighty fine idea you had. I'm not gettin' any younger, you know. What I really need is a partner here. Someone I can trust to take a little of the load off me. I'll just give your momma a call. Maybe we can work somethin' out.”

Audra smiled, watching the two of them. Something told her the Miller kids were soon going to have a grandma they just wouldn't believe.

“We'd better get going, Jason,” Audra said. “We only have about three hours of light left.”

“Have fun,” Bess yelled after them from the door. “And just to be on the safe side, I'll have one of the road crew check on you now and then—make sure you aren't stuck in the snow someplace.”

“Okay,” Audra yelled back. “But nothing is going to ruin this beautiful day for me. I feel like I'm sixteen again. And free! Wonderfully, fantastically free!”

Bess chuckled as she watched them drive away. This was the woman she had known all along was buried somewhere underneath that frightened reserve. It did her soul good to watch the transformation.

*   *   *

Orrin Kramer ushered the three officers into his tiny house, brushing paper plates with dried food and empty bottles of Old Charter from broken-down chairs onto an already cluttered floor. “'Scuse the mess, but the old lady's had a bout with the flu,” he explained. “Been feelin' a might poorly myself, too.”

Mike looked at the man's eyes and red, bulbous nose. The network of purple veins told him it wasn't the flu causing his trouble.

Underwood introduced the two officers. “Orrin, we'd like to talk to you a little bit about your boy, Bobby. And is Alma here? We could use her too, if it isn't too much trouble.”

Kramer nodded. “Ma! Get yourself out here! I think we've got some word on Bobby!”

Alma Kramer hurried from the back room. She was a little woman, about sixty, with hair dyed deep black, and make up spread so thick on her wrinkled face Mike wondered if she used a putty knife to apply it.

She looked at the officers expectantly. “Bobby? You've heard from him?”

Underwood explained quickly. “No, ma'am. We were just needing some information about him. Has he contacted you lately?”

Alma sat down on the arm of the chair, next to her husband. “It's been about six months now. I don't know what we'd do without that boy. Twice a year he sends us money, regular as clockwork.”

“Where is he living now?” Mike asked.

Alma shrugged. “We don't rightly know. The money comes from all over, don't it honey?” She looked at her husband. “And he never says much just, ‘Hi—I'm doing fine.' Never more than that.”

Orrin Kramer's head weaved exaggeratedly up and down. “Best damn kid we had. None of the others even keep in touch. We could be dead and in our graves for all they care. But that Bobby, he was a good'un. Don't come much better, I'll tell you.”

“If you don't mind my asking, how much does he send you?” Butch asked.

Kramer cast bloodshot eyes on the young officer. “Well, now, if I tell you, you won't go blabbin' to the In
fer
nal Revenue will ya?” He laughed at the old joke.

“No sir,” Butch assured him. “That's out of our line. We'd just like to have an idea of how he's doing now.”

“Doin' right fine, thank you very much,” Kramer slurred. “Sends his old man five thousand dollars twice a year.” He patted his wife's knee. “And just like Ma said, it's regular as clockwork.”

Mike was finding it hard to believe that a child raised by the two people sitting across from him would feel obliged to even keep in touch, let alone send money home. He personally thought the other children had the right idea. “Would you happen to have the last letter he sent? It would have a postmark, and we could at least tell where he was then.”

Kramer eyed him suspiciously. “Now just why do you want to know where our Bobby is? He in some kind of trouble?”

“No, no,” Mike said quickly. “But he used to run around with the Simpson boy, and we are needing information about that fire—the one that happened about twenty years ago, where Isaac Simpson and his mother died. Did he ever say anything to you about that? Was he anywhere around when it happened?”

All three officers noticed the look that passed between the Kramers. “'Course he wasn't,” Orrin blustered. “He didn't have a thing to do with that fire. I always did say that damn Isaac Simpson would wind up killing someone someday.”

“He was a mean kid,” Alma added. “Always getting our Bobby in trouble. If you ask me, he probably set that fire and got caught in his own trap.”

Mike smiled encouragingly. “Yes. That's what we think. But we would like to talk with your boy about it, if we can locate him. Did you say you had a letter we could look at?”

“Didn't say nothin' of the kind,” Orrin Kramer answered. “Don't get no letters. Bobby always wires us the money. The last was from Oklahoma City, I believe, wasn't it, Ma?”

Alma nodded an agreement. “Yes, but it's always from a different place. His work must take him all over.”

“What kind of work does he do?” Underwood asked. “Any idea?”

Kramer shook his head. “Nah. Like Ma said, the wire never says much. Just that he's doin' fine.”

“How long has he been sending you these wires?” Mike asked.

“Why, ever since he left,” Kramer answered proudly. “Right after that fire.”

Underwood spoke. “You reported him missing about a month after the fire. Are you sure he didn't say anything to you about it? And please believe me, Bobby is in absolutely no trouble concerning that fire. All we are looking for is information about
Howard
Simpson, that's all.”

The Kramers again exchanged glances, then Alma nodded her head as if coming to a decision. “Well, we certainly wouldn't want to say anything that might get Bobby in trouble, but if you're certain this don't involve him none, I'll tell you the exact truth.”

The officers waited, expectantly.

“At the time, we were a little fearful that Bobby might have—uh—been around when that fire started. He and the Simpson boy were thick as thieves. We were going to question him right enough, but he hightailed it out of town that very day. Then we got a wire from him about a month later, sayin' he was okay and not to worry. And he even sent us a few hundred dollars. That was only a few days after we reported him missing.”

“Are you saying you never saw him after the fire?” Mike asked.

Alma nodded. “We waited a while before reporting him missing. We didn't want no one thinking he might have set that fire and run off.” She looked at her husband questioningly. He nodded. “Fact is, at first we weren't too sure it wasn't Bobby that died in that fire. We discussed it some, whether to ask around and see if they were certain it was Isaac, but then we got the wire so we knew our boy was all right.”

“But that was a month after the fire,” Mike blurted. “Do you mean to tell us you wondered if your own son was dead for a month without doing something about it?”

Kramer came unsteadily to his feet. “Now don't you go lookin' down your nose at us, mister hotshot detective. We had other kids to think about, you know. We figured he just got scared about the fire and took off. He probably knew he had a beatin' coming if he had been anywhere around that fire. We did all right by our little Bobby and no one can say different. He remembers his ma and pa, and that's a fact.”

Mike could feel his guts churning as he asked his next question. “How soon after Bobby left did he begin sending you five thousand dollars?”

Orrin Kramer picked up a half-empty bottle of Old Charter and took a long swig, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt when he was done. “Why, it wasn't long. He sent us five hundred right away, and then five thousand a few months later. We've been gettin' it ever since. He's been a good son. A mighty good son.”