Dead Man's Bones (34 page)

Ruby was staring at me, a slow acceptance dawning on her face. “And from all reports,” she said in a low voice, “Andy was a serious addict by the time he got out of those army hospitals. Maybe Jane thought there was no hope for him.”

“It’s possible. I can imagine her telling Florence that Andy would be dead soon anyway, at the rate he was going.”

“So they ordered Gabe to kill him,” Ruby whispered.

I nodded. “And I think we can guess why Gabe took Andy out to the cave.”

“To dispose of the body there?”

“It was as safe a grave as any, and safer than most. Anywhere else, and he’d run the risk that the body would be found.” I paused. “There’s something more, too. After Gabe took this photo, he turned Andy face-down and bashed in the back of his head with a rock. If somebody found the body, it would look like a caving accident.”

“And he took the photo,” Ruby said softly, “to prove that Andy was dead. How awful, China.”

“Maybe he took two photos,” I said. “One to give the Obermanns, to prove that Andy was dead, so he could get his money. And this one to keep—just in case.”

“Maybe he took more.” There was an edge in Ruby’s vice. “We can’t know how many times he might have given them the ‘last’ photo—and how many times they paid up.”

“Right. But I suspect that at some point, Gabe became afraid of the Obermanns. Perhaps that’s why he refused their offer of a room in their house.”

“And Hank knew all this,” Ruby said wonderingly. “Or guessed it. From the photo, maybe.”

“I think he knew it,” I said. “I think his father told him before he died. And Hank foolishly decided it was his turn to get something out of the Obermann sisters. Ten thousand somethings, actually.” I shook my head. “Sounds like there’s enough guilt here to go around, with some left over.” The only real victim was Andy, whose crime, if that’s what it was, was a desperate longing for the relief that the drugs brought him. And perhaps Florence, who had been under her sister’s control for most of her life.

Ruby put her hand on my arm. “China,” she said in a frightened voice, “Juan said that maybe Hank was tricked. I think he was right!”

The gun cabinet, locked on Thursday afternoon, when McQuaid was there, unlocked on Friday night, when Jane needed to use it. “I agree,” I said grimly. “They invited Hank to come to the house, at a time when they knew there would be somebody at the theater, celebrating at the cast party. Somebody who could hear the shots and come running. Hank thought they were going to pay him off. But what they really had in mind—”

“What Jane had in mind,” Ruby said firmly. “I can’t believe that Florence would have agreed to murder Hank. Or Andy, either, for that matter.”

“Why not?” I asked. “We know that Jane bullied Florence. Why couldn’t she have bullied her into a conspiracy to murder Andy, especially if Andy was half-dead already? And to murder Hank, who might reveal their part in Andy’s murder?” Then I thought of the look—half-frightened, half-defiant—on Florence’s face the afternoon before, at the hospital. “But maybe Florence was tired of being bullied,” I said thoughtfully. “Maybe she was ready to tell what she knew about the past, about Andy. About Hank.”

Ruby stared at me. “That’s right, China! Remember what she said when Jane was throwing us out of the room? We’d been talking about Andy, and she asked us to come back and see her. She said she wanted to talk.”

“And Jane heard her,” I said. I thought of Helen Berger’s suspicions. “And may have killed her for it.”

“Killed her?” Ruby asked faintly. “What makes you say that?” Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, China, I knew there was something wrong! A little voice kept telling me—”

“In this case, your little voice may have something. That call from Helen Berger tonight—Juan interrupted us before I could tell you why she phoned. Helen says that Doctor Mackey didn’t put anything into Florence’s chart about a heart condition—and Mackey was Florence’s personal physician. The doctor has ordered an autopsy, and Helen suspects that Florence might have died from some sort of plant poisoning. She’s an expert on herbal poisons, you know.”

And as I said the words, I was thinking of Friday night. After the shot had been reported, Sheila and I had hurried to the Obermann house up a dark path lined with oleander bushes. Oleander, a deadly plant poison, responsible for a rash of recent suicides and murders in Sri Lanka, where the shrub is native, plentiful, and readily available. Oleander, which had been featured as a murder weapon in a movie that had been reviewed not long ago in the
Enterprise
. Which can cause gastric inflammation and cardiac irregularities. Which can kill, especially the very young and the very old.

I reined myself in. There is a substantial evidentiary gap between noticing oleander bushes in a backyard and proving the owner guilty of murder. Without a confession or eyewitness testimony, it’s notoriously difficult to make a poisoning charge stick.

“I think we’d better get moving,” I said, returning the photo to its envelope. I opened the pantry, found a box of plastic zipper-top bags, chose one, and slid the envelope into it. The picture was evidence. I didn’t want to be accused of contaminating it. Finding it, yes—and maybe even a tad bit illegally. But not contaminating it.

Ruby was rummaging under the sink. I turned just as she dragged something out.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m taking out the garbage,” she said. “There’s no point in leaving it to stink up the house, is there?”

“Leave it,” I said. “If the cops come back here—and they might—they’ll want to search the garbage.”

Ruby looked down at the bag, a curious expression on her face. “You don’t think there’s anything interesting in there, do you?”

“Not interesting enough for me to go through it,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “We need to leave Sheila and her boys something to do. Come on, Ruby. We still have to get Juan some clothes.”

Juan’s room was even messier than Brian’s, and it took a few minutes to find reasonably clean shirts, jeans, underwear, and a pair of running shoes. While Ruby was doing that, I took a quick look through the small desk in Hank’s room.

In the drawer, I found what I was looking for: Hank’s checkbook. He had been meticulous about keeping the check register, with checks, cash withdrawals, and deposits duly noted. If the Obermann sisters had given him money to persuade him to keep his story to himself, he hadn’t noted it in the register.

Ruby came to the door with a large paper bag in her arms. “Ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” I said, and closed the drawer. The cops would want to look at that checkbook, too.

When we walked out of the house, we took two things that didn’t belong to us, the Polaroid photograph of Andy Obermann’s corpse and the bag of Juan’s clothes. We left Hank Dixon’s garbage behind.

“Okay, Sherlock,” Ruby said, getting behind the wheel. “Now what?”

I’d been thinking about that. “The corpse in the photo belongs to Blackie,” I said. “It’s his case and his jurisdiction, and normally I’d turn the photo over to him. But if we’re right about who killed Andy Obermann and why, that puts the matter into a whole different light. One of Andy’s murderers is still alive and at large.” It didn’t matter who pulled the trigger—if the Obermann sisters had paid for the job, they were as guilty as the man who fired the gun. “And she may have murdered again,” I added.

“Murdered again
twice,
” Ruby muttered, starting the car. “Hank . . . and Florence.”

“And that’s Sheila’s case,” I said, taking my cell phone out of my purse and punching in her number. “What’s more, a hot case takes precedence over a cold one. Let’s go talk to Sheila.”

Sheila didn’t answer the phone until the third ring, and when she did, her voice sounded groggy. “The lights have been off for a couple of hours,” she said. “I’ve had a helluva day. I decided to go to bed early.”

“Well, you’ll have to get up again, Smart Cookie. Ruby and I have uncovered some important evidence in the Hank Dixon shooting. We’re bringing it over.”

“Evidence? What evidence? What are you talking about?”

“Seeing is believing,” I said. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t go back to bed.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sheila muttered, and banged down the phone.

After I finished talking to Sheila, I phoned to check on Brian and make sure that everything was all right at home. McQuaid picked up the call.

“Where the dickens are you?” he asked, sounding aggrieved. “I thought you were going to be home this evening.”

“Ruby came over, and we decided to go out,” I said evasively. The explanation was long and convoluted. I needed to be looking into his face when I told him what had happened—otherwise, he’d never believe me. “We’re going over to Sheila’s,” I said. “Don’t expect me home right away.”

“Girl talk, I suppose,” he said, and chuckled in an irritatingly patronizing way. “What are you and Ruby up to now? Trying to get Sheila and Blackie together again?”

“Not . . . exactly,” I said. The two of them would have to collaborate to assemble all the pieces of this complex puzzle, past and present. If they were going to reconcile, they’d have every opportunity. But that was beside the point. And there was that troubling business of Sheila’s relationship to Colin. Even under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t have attempted to play peacemaker between Sheila and Blackie. With Colin involved (and he was involved, I was sure of it), it was definitely hands-off.

“Well, enjoy yourselves,” McQuaid said, and added, “Brian said you helped him bury his lizard.”

“With full military honors. It was an impressive ceremony. How come you never manage to be present at these occasions?”

There was a smile in McQuaid’s voice. “Just unlucky, I guess. See you later, babe.”

I made kissy noises into the phone and clicked it off as we pulled into Sheila’s driveway.

When Sheila was appointed chief of police, she bought a modest frame house on the west side of town—a move that I see now, in hindsight, as indicative of her reservations about her engagement to Blackie. The house was built in the thirties, in one of Pecan Springs’ first subdivisions, before developers discovered that people would actually buy houses built from lot line to lot line, with lawns the size of a paper napkin. Sheila has a large fenced yard, with an enormous old pecan tree out front. A couple of the tree’s smaller limbs had come unhitched and were lying in the drive, and the grass was littered with pecans, but the storm didn’t seem to have caused much damage.

The power had been restored, too, and Sheila had turned the porch light on for us. Barefoot and wearing a pair of lace-trimmed red silk pajamas, she opened the front door to Ruby’s ring.

I raised my eyebrows. “Woo-woo,” I said, glancing at her attire. “The chief’s sexy sleepwear.”

“They’re almost too pretty to sleep in,” Ruby said.

Sheila looked down at herself and colored. “Oh, these,” she said, as if she’d forgotten she had them on. “They were a birthday present. I thought I’d try to get some use out of them.” She knuckled her eyes, smearing her mascara, and yawned sleepily. “This had better be good, you guys, and I do mean
good
. I was dead to the world, and I meant to stay that way until the alarm clock went off.”

I sniffed. She was wearing perfume—ylang-ylang and rose, I’d bet. I suppressed a quick quip about women who slept in their makeup and perfume and handed her the plastic bag with the envelope in it. “This’ll wake you up, Smart Cookie.”

She held the bag at arm’s length. “And what the hell is
this
?” From the tone of her voice, you’d have thought she was already smelling Hank’s garbage.

Ruby flapped her blue sleeves. “It’s a photo of a corpse,” she announced triumphantly. “Listen, Sheila, China and I have just solved three murders. The story is so incredible that you’ll never guess it, not in a gazillion years.”

Sheila looked her up and down, eyeing the blue batik top and mermaid earrings. “Is that your official crime-solving getup?” she asked grumpily. She turned to me, her hands on her hips, her head tilted to one side. Not only was she wearing mascara, but lipstick and blusher. “And you’ve only solved three murders? Well, heck. I figured you’d cleared my entire cold case file.”

“I’m really sorry we got you up,” I soothed. “We’ll explain the whole thing, but we’d better have some coffee.”

It took a couple of cups of hot coffee (and more important, a plate of double-chocolate brownies) to get all three of us through the explanation and the subsequent questions and answers. But by the end of the story, Sheila was definitely awake and listening.