Dead Right (38 page)

“Leave me alone!” she cried and swerved around the next corner, nearly crashing into Ray Harper, who was coming the other way.

Hunter wondered how he could show a man the pictures he had in his possession and ask, “Is this your daughter?”

He couldn’t imagine the pain of recognizing his own child in such a photograph. Or maybe he
could
imagine it. That was why he was having trouble approaching the door, why he was holding back.

But he had to talk to Ray, didn’t he? He had to figure out the role these girls played in what had happened.

Maybe Ray already knew what Barker had done to his daughter. It was possible that Rose Lee had gone to her father for help. That might’ve been what caused the fal ing out between Ray and Barker. It was even possible that Ray, and not Irene, had kil ed Barker.

For Madeline’s sake he hoped it was true. Hoped he was wrong about the Montgomerys. That the whole town had been wrong.

Unzipping his parka, Hunter took a deep breath and final y climbed the four rickety steps to Ray’s door, where he knocked loudly.

No response.

He banged on the cheap metal panel once again.

An old Buick was parked in the narrow carport beside the trailer. The sight of it had led him to believe Ray might be home, but when Hunter gave up knocking and went over to the vehicle, he could see that the front left side was up on blocks.

Just as he was about to get back in Madeline’s car to search elsewhere for Ray Harper, the neighbor, a tal thin woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, came out wearing a robe and slippers and carrying a bag of trash.

“Hey,” he cal ed. “You haven’t seen Ray this morning have you?”

“No.” She paused to remove her cigarette. “He usual y sleeps in.”

From the look of the woman’s mussed hair, she’d just rol ed out of bed herself. “What does he drive?”

She hesitated, studying him. “You’re the investigator fel a.”

“That’s right.”

Her face lit with interest. “You findin’ anything?”

“Apparently not this morning. Can you tel me what Ray drives?” he asked again.

She seemed a little crestfal en that he wasn’t more forthcoming, but she answered him. “A Dodge truck. If it’s not in Bubba’s carport, he’s probably gone to church.”

“
Bubba’s
carport?”

“Bubba Turk.” She motioned with the hand that held the cigarette. “Lives on the other side. Least he did. Poor guy had a heart attack and died this weekend.”

Madeline had mentioned Bubba’s death. It had real y upset her. “Why would Ray be using Bubba’s carport?” he asked.

She tilted her chin toward the broken-down Buick. “Until he gets rid of that piece of junk, he has no place else to park. The streets are already so crowded in here he final y arranged it so I’d quit complaining. But he
still
pul s up front half the time,” she said in disgust.

“Didn’t Bubba have his own car?”

Her lips twisted into a pained grimace. “You’ve never met Bubba, have you?”

He shook his head.

“Bubba weighed over 500 pounds and couldn’t fit behind the wheel. He didn’t even have a driver’s license.”

Five hundred pounds?
No wonder he’d had a heart attack. “Did he live alone?”

“Except for his cat and his spider. But his sister came around once or twice a week to see if he needed anything.”

“You don’t happen to have her contact information, do you?”

“Sorry. She lives in Iuka, though. I know that much. You could see if she’s listed.”

“What’s her name?”

“Helen Salazar.”

“Thanks,” Hunter said with a wave. “Appreciate it.”

A row of trees shielded his view of Bubba Turk’s carport.

A row of trees shielded his view of Bubba Turk’s carport.

He started to walk toward it, but the neighbor who’d helped him cal ed out before he’d gotten very far.

“Don’t go too close,” she warned.

“Why not?”

“Smel s awful. Who would’ve thought the stench would linger like that?” She grimaced as she shoved her garbage into the large outdoor container, then went back inside her mobile home.

It did smel bad, Hunter noticed as he reached the trailer.

He’d been under the impression that they’d found the body fairly soon after Bubba’s death and transported it to the funeral home. But he was beginning to wonder if the hearse had yet to show up. Only death smel ed like this.

The carport was empty, which meant Ray was gone.

Hunter tried to open Bubba’s mobile home to see what was causing the cloying stench, but the door was locked. It didn’t seem to be coming from inside the house, anyway. It seemed to be coming from—he walked around the place, trying to narrow it down—a smal shed behind the carport.

Holding his breath, Hunter opened the flimsy shed door.

There were no windows, and it was too dark to see. But he was fairly sure he’d discovered the source of the stench, especial y when he had to take a breath and the next inhalation nearly caused his stomach to revolt.

What had happened here?

Pul ing the chain on the bulb overhead, he leaned in and looked around. There, behind the door, was a black garbage bag. With the handle of a broom, he nudged the opening wide enough to see inside.

It was a dead cat.

22

“I
s Madeline with you?”

It was Clay. Hunter held his cel phone with his right hand while carrying the garbage bag with his left. He’d knotted the top, but that didn’t help much. The cat’s remains had begun to liquefy and it was al he could do not to gag.

“No. I haven’t seen her since this morning.” Since he’d left her bed. But he wasn’t about to share that detail with a protective older brother. Hunter felt guilty enough about their involvement. Despite what she’d done to instigate their physical encounters, he knew Madeline wasn’t the type to take intimacy lightly. “Why?”

“She knows.”

Hunter lifted the lid of Bubba’s garbage can. It was empty, so there was plenty of room. But what if no one remembered to put it out on garbage day? Then the smel would get worse. And he didn’t want Bubba’s relatives to be faced with something as nasty as this when they came back to clean out his trailer. Losing a loved one was bad enough.

“Knows what?” he asked, changing direction and heading for Ray’s garbage can instead.

“Everything.”

The gravity in Clay’s voice made Hunter stop, despite what he was holding.

“You mean she knows who kil ed her father?”

There was a long pause, but Clay final y answered.

“Yes.”

Hunter could hardly believe the secret was out. After twenty years…“What makes you think so?”

“She confronted my mother, then hung up. We’re at her house now, but she’s gone.”

Hunter set the cat on the ground and turned his face downwind. “What about her cel phone?”

“She doesn’t answer.”

“I’l check the office.”

“Grace has already been there. It’s locked up.”

“Where else would she go?”

“Kirk’s.”

A jab of hostility almost made Hunter say, “She wouldn’t go there.” But he bit his tongue. “Has anyone looked?”

“He’s out of town. No one’s home.”

“What about the quarry?”

“Why would she drive to the quarry?”

“If she’s upset, who knows? That’s where her father’s car was found, right?”

Clay sighed heavily. “I’l ask Kennedy to go up there, just in case.”

In even more of a hurry to finish his distasteful chore, Hunter grabbed the garbage bag again. He imagined Madeline coming to the painful realization she’d been trying to avoid for years, and he knew what it’d do to her. “I’l drive through town, ask around, see if I can spot her.”

“Sounds good.”

“Let me know what you find.”

“You do the same.” Clay hung up as Hunter opened Ray’s can. He was eager to be rid of the poor cat, but the can was too ful . He started to shove down the rest of the garbage to make room—and then he saw something that stole his breath.

Inside were stacks of typewritten pages that looked exactly like the ones he’d been reading himself. Single-spaced. Faded ink. A raised letter or two every few words.

As if they’d been typed on the same typewriter.

Setting the cat on the ground once again, Hunter reached in, removed several sheets and began to read.

They were Reverend Barker’s sermons.

The farm seemed to be deserted. Al ie’s car was gone; Clay’s truck was missing, too. Madeline supposed they were al out searching for her, rushing around trying to cover their tracks. They were good at that, weren’t they? They’d done it for twenty years.

She swiped at the tears rol ing down her cheeks as she turned into the long drive. She’d been so stupid, so blind.

Everyone in Stil water had been able to see what she couldn’t. She’d searched high and low, pointed her finger at Jed Fowler or Mike Metzger, anyone but the people who were real y to blame, while everyone else, including her aunt and uncle and cousins, watched in frustration, craving justice and receiving none.

How, exactly, had the Montgomerys managed it? Had Irene and Clay cal ed a family meeting whenever she left the house to discuss how they were going to handle her?

Did they take note of what she’d said or done that might expose them? Suggest ideas on how to counteract it?

White-hot anger, and the pain that went with deep betrayal, slashed through her, making the lump in her throat grow so large it hurt to swal ow. Was the love they’d offered her a lie, too? More pretense to keep her from suspecting?

God, she’d been a fool! Not only had she trusted everything they said, she’d hotly defended them against the rest of the town.
Her father’s town.
He’d brought them here.

He’d provided for them. He’d owned
this
farm.

And they’d kil ed him….

It was almost too incredible to believe. Yet she did believe. Now. Hunter was right. Clay was good at protecting, at shielding. He’d protected his mother from prosecution al these years, would’ve gone to jail himself rather than reveal the truth. But there was no need to protect Grace from Lee Barker. No, she couldn’t accept that. She
knew
her father. Clay must’ve planted that stuff in his trunk.

Maybe Grace even gave him a pair of her panties to include, in case the car was ever found. Her father would
never
harm a child. She would’ve known, would’ve sensed that something was wrong with him. The things in that suitcase had to be more lies, part of the coverup.

Parking behind the house so the truck Clay had lent her couldn’t be spotted from the road, she got out. She wasn’t sure what she was doing here—stil searching for her father, she supposed. This was the place where she’d been born and had spent the first eighteen years of her life. This was the last place she’d seen him. And she suspected he was stil here, that he had never actual y left.

What, exactly, had happened the night she went to Hanna Smith’s house for a slumber party? And what had gone on beneath the tranquil surface of those hot summer days right before? How did it—how could it—have come to murder?

Or had Irene planned her father’s death from the very beginning?

Madeline had no idea. She’d been so starved for attention that she’d readily and eagerly embraced them al .

She hadn’t been looking for hidden motivations or evil intent. She’d admired Clay, befriended Grace, helped raise Mol y and nearly worshipped the beautiful Irene, who was so much happier than her own mother had been. And she’d done it al with a sense of gratitude for the love she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Her boots crunched in the gravel as she crossed to the barn. The wide, sliding doors were locked, as usual. Clay was so cautious….

She grimaced bitterly at the thought, then stood at the window, staring into her father’s empty office—at the stripped wal s, the concrete floor.

Her soul felt just as bare.

“How did she do it?” she muttered as if Clay was present. “And where did you hide the body, big brother?”

The memory of Grace showing up here with a shovel eighteen months ago entered Madeline’s mind. When she was caught, Grace had said she’d been planning to see for herself if the accusations against Clay had any merit, but she already knew. Like Joe said, it was probably an attempt to move the body. Why not? Joe had been right about everything else.

But the police had searched. They’d dug up the entire backyard and found nothing.

“What did you do with him?” she whispered. Her father was here somewhere. He had to be. But where? Was he buried out near the creek? Beneath the cypress trees? In the barn?

She turned to face the house. Or was he in the cel ar?

Taking a shovel from the shed behind the chicken coop, she started for the back door. She didn’t bother to see if it was locked. Clay secured everything, trusted no one, and now she knew the real reason.

Using the handle of the shovel, she broke a window, then cleared away the glass. “I’l find him,” she promised. But as she was about to hoist herself through the opening, she heard the creak of footsteps on the porch behind her.

Was Clay home already? She whipped around, expecting to confront him. Instead she confronted the metal end of the shovel she’d just used to break the window. The last thing she noticed before she fel was the ringing in her left ear and the satisfaction on Ray Harper’s face.

Using a crowbar from Bubba’s shed, Hunter pried open Ray’s back door. It was broad daylight, and the neighbor was out again, obviously perturbed that he hadn’t moved on, but he didn’t care.

“Hey? What do you think you’re doing?” she cried when the door gave way. “You can’t do that!”

“I just did,” he said and tossed the crowbar aside.

She fol owed him when he went in, but hovered at the door. “I’m going to cal the police!”

“Please do,” he responded. “Tel them to pick up Ray Harper as soon as possible.”

The shril edge left her voice. “Why? What’d he do?”

“Just tel them I said he’s the one we’ve been looking for.”

He did no more than glance at her, but he saw her eyes go wide as she popped her gum. “Who kil ed the reverend?”