Dead Weight (17 page)

Why? Rosalee escapes from the hospital. The killer has no idea where or how. He waits. How does he find out where Berta/Rosalee is? Because he does. He goes to the house she’s living in – Kerry’s flip house – and crashes an electric space heater through the bathroom window into the garden tub. But how stupid is this killer? I pondered. Not to figure out that the cord on the space heater was too short to reach into the tub from outside? I needed to get back over to Kerry’s flip house and check out the outside plugs.

Did the killer know where Berta was now? How could he? OK, the police knew, my family knew, Kerry’s family – of course – knew, and Tom and Trisha knew, and I guess Tom’s secretary and anyone of them may have told. Way too many people. Should we hide her somewhere better? And by ‘we,’ I meant just Luna and me and no one else. Eliminate all the chances of someone telling someone. She’d only been at Ken’s for under a week, but there’d been no attempts on her life. And Kerry’s funeral was tomorrow – Saturday. Should she go? The church and cemetery would be crowded. Not only was Kerry a popular woman who belonged to just about anything one could belong to or volunteer for, and sold homes to at least half the people living in Black Cat Ridge, but there was also the murder factor. I’ve noticed, since my penchant for finding dead bodies started, that a murder victim’s funeral was much more popular than your ordinary died-in-bed scenario.

All this basically meant that it was pretty much a given that the killer would be in attendance at the funeral. So should she go? Would she be safer at the funeral than left alone in Ken’s house? Probably. If she were left alone, all the killer had to do was show up at the funeral and see that Berta/Rosalee was not there, leave and, by process of elimination, end up at Ken and Kerry Killian’s house and
voila
! One dead Berta. Or Rosalee.

I heard Trisha’s garage door opening and looked out the living-room window to see the rear end of Trisha’s Lexus move into the garage. Two minutes later the door from the garage to the breakfast room opened and Trisha came in.

‘Megan, how’d the— Oh, E.J.! What are you doing here?’ Trisha said, confusion on her face.

‘I came over to see you, but you weren’t here. I thought I’d just hang out ’til you got home,’ I said.

‘Come on in the bedroom while I change clothes,’ she said. ‘Megan, you OK for a few more minutes?’

‘Sure, no problem,’ my daughter said, turning the page on her magazine while Trisha’s two girls stared at the TV. I noticed they hadn’t even said ‘hi’ to their mother. The few times I’d been gone when my kids were this age, when I got home they came running at me, throwing their arms around my legs and bursting into tears. Which of course made me go out less and less, until I became the brain-dead mother of small children they apparently longed for.

I sat down on Trisha’s bed – an ornate gilded affair with a royal purple duvet and gold and royal purple throw pillows. The bedside tables and dresser were also gilded. I had to wonder where in the world one would go to buy something this awful, but I said nothing. What could one say?

‘So what’s up?’ Trisha asked.

‘Oh, I was just over at Ken’s house, talking to him and Berta, Rosalee, whatever, and I swear to God, both of them are in this two-person Kerry Killian Fan Club! It’s really weird. And anyway, we saw all these pictures that Kerry had from high school, with Rosalee in them, and some other kids, but all they wanted to talk about was Kerry! I just need to bounce this stuff off somebody, and,’ I said grinning, ‘I, of course, thought of you.’

‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.’

‘Maybe a little of both?’ I said, trying to help. Since I was being honest, I thought she might too. ‘So, where are you really going when you tell Megan you’re going to the hairdresser?’

‘What?’ she said, her head whipping around. Then she laughed self-consciously. ‘I should have known I couldn’t get that by you,’ she said, and paused. ‘OK, here’s the truth. My big brother’s in rehab.’

‘OK,’ I said, slightly confused.

Trisha sat down on the bed next to me. ‘I didn’t want to confuse Megan. I thought the hairdresser thing would be easier for her to process than going into the entire saga of my brother and his drug and alcohol problems.’

‘Oh, right, you mentioned he had problems, because of your dad—’

She stood up. ‘Right. Dad was a drunk and he started taking my brother to bars with him when he was, I don’t know, twelve? Something like that. I’m not sure at what age he started drinking, but it wasn’t much after that.’

‘I’m so sorry, Trisha,’ I said, feeling slightly guilty about my assumption at one point that she was having an affair with my husband. A good imagination is good for a writer, but sometimes it can wreak havoc in a real person’s life.

‘Seems like it’s a no-brainer to go from alcohol to drugs. Kind of a combo thing. Do a little weed, wash it down with bourbon, snort a little coke, and do a shot of Jim Beam. The other day, drinking with you and Luna, that’s the first booze I’ve had since my wedding. I stay away from the stuff.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. Besides, you had your own issues that day. Now, let’s forget about that and talk about why you came over. Something about Kerry Killian being perfect?’

‘It’s just that I found out some stuff and Ken and Berta didn’t want to talk about anything, except the wonderfulness of Kerry.’

‘So what did you find out?’ she asked.

‘Let’s see. There were four kids. Kerry and Rosalee and two boys, one Kerry’s boyfriend – Ken said the break-up was really bad between them – and the other was this red-headed guy Rosalee hung out with, but not necessarily her boyfriend.’

‘Did Berta have any clue who the redhead was?’

‘Not even a hint. Doesn’t even find red-headed men attractive. Oh, and there were two other kids – younger. One was Kerry’s younger brother, Mark, and the other was a dark-haired girl about his age. Maybe his girlfriend. But they were young. Like twelve, thirteen, something like that.’

‘If we had pictures of those kids—’ Trisha started.

‘Ah ha! We do! Kerry’s yearbooks! Maybe we can find out if these boys were in her class in school.’ I jumped up. ‘Let’s go back over to Ken’s!’ I felt like an idiot for not looking for the boys while I’d been there earlier. But I’d been doing a lot of idiotic things of late – like kicking my husband out of the house.

As we went from the bedroom back into the living room, we found the girls were back to playing with Barbies. All three of them.

‘Megan, a little longer?’ Trisha asked. ‘I’ll pay you for this interlude, too, since I didn’t come out of my room.’

‘Sure. Y’all have fun!’ Megan said, not taking her eyes of the sparkly dress she’d put on her Barbie doll. All my girls like things that sparkle, glitter or are otherwise shiny. They’re like monkeys and cats.

We made it back over to Ken’s house, with a stop at Thundercloud for subs, chips, and sodas. We were welcomed in, probably more to do with the food than just our general fellowship.

Ken and Berta were busily sorting pictures for a collage of Kerry’s life to put on a giant poster board for the funeral.

‘What’s this?’ I asked.

‘A collage of Kerry’s life,’ Ken said, tears in his eyes. ‘From baby to mother of teenage boys.’

I looked at the pictures spread out on the dining-room table in chronological order. A pretty blonde baby, a little girl in pigtails, blonde hair getting darker and darker as she aged, until she hit high school and adopted the dark brown ponytail and Betty Page bangs, her wedding (the ponytail had been pulled into a bun), the birth of the twins, and her first house sold.

I put an arm around Ken’s shoulders and hugged him. ‘This is great, Ken,’ I said. ‘Kerry would love it.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, I think she would. Her mom sent these early pictures.’

‘She was adorable,’ I said, looking at the baby pics.

Ken smiled. ‘What’s that old song, “You must have been a beautiful baby?’’ He wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘Anyway, I thought you’d bailed on us. Why are you back?’

‘Trisha suggested we look up the boys in the yearbooks,’ I told Ken and Berta.

Ken frowned. ‘I’m not sure, but I think Kerry said her boyfriend didn’t go to high school with her. Maybe the other boy didn’t either. Was there another high school in Codderville back then? I know there are two now, Codderville High and the new one, Crestview High, but that was built, like, five years ago.’

We all looked at each other and shrugged. The only one who would know what schools had been around back then would be Berta but, of course, she didn’t. My husband had gone to Codderville High and would know of any other schools back then, but I didn’t think this would be an ideal time to ask him. Instead, I picked up Ken’s phone and dialed my mother-in-law’s number. Hopefully Willis would be at his office. Vera picked up on the second ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Vera. Hey, it’s E.J.’

‘Hello, dear, Willis isn’t here right now.’

‘I’m actually calling for you, Vera.’

‘Oh. Well, certainly. What can I do for you?’

‘Is there or was there at any time another high school in Codderville?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Bishop Byne. The Catholic school. Kinder through to twelfth grade. They shut it down about ten years ago. No word on what they’re going to do with the buildings.’

‘Do you know anyone who has yearbooks from the nineties?’

‘Well, now, Mrs Ramirez down the street had five children and they all went to Bishop Byne. I’m sure one of them must have gone during the nineties. Let me call her. What specific year are you looking for?’ she asked.

‘Between ’ninety-three and ’ninety-six,’ I said.

‘I’ll call you back,’ Vera said and rang off. That was one thing about my mother-in-law: unlike her son she loved my little capers, and she loved being involved. The first time I realized there was a possibility I could learn to love the old bat was right after the Lesters were killed and she came over to my house with mops and buckets and all things cleanable to clean up the mess left by the killers of the Lester family. She told me then she was raised learning to clean up poop, pee, vomit and blood. And it was my turn to learn. And, unfortunately, learn I did.

Ken, Berta, Trisha and I spent this downtime going through the yearbooks we had, looking for the red-headed boy. Even though the pictures were in color, we didn’t find any redheads of the male variety, either the same year as the girls or on one year either side. The red-headed boy, as well as Kerry’s boyfriend, must have gone to Bishop Byne.

We were interrupted several times by the door chimes, heralding another arrival of food for the reception after the funeral. Ken was opening his home for it, so all the food stuff was being brought to the house. Kerry being Kerry, there was an extra refrigerator in the laundry room that did duty as the boys’ fridge – filled with sodas, juices, and snacks. This was cleaned out and we were able to fit all the stuff for the next day in.

After a large foil pan of home-made lasagna was fitted in, Ken came up behind us and peered inside. ‘Do you think I need to call a caterer? Or maybe just get the grocery store to send over some trays?’ he asked.

Berta, Trisha and I turned to look at him askance. ‘Do you see this fridge?’ I asked. ‘Do you see that there’s not a cubic inch left for anything?’

‘So you’re saying no? I don’t need to get extra?’

We all nodded. Berta patted him on the arm and said, ‘There will be plenty.’

We took a break, and Trisha called Megan to tell her what to fix the girls for lunch.

Sitting around Kerry’s black lacquered kitchen table, Ken said, ‘What’s your theory, E.J.? Regarding these two boys, I mean.’

I shrugged. ‘No theory, Ken. Just a vague idea. They seemed to hang around a lot, all these kids. Finding either of the boys, or Mark, Kerry’s brother, would just tell us more about Rosalee and what was going on between her and her mother,’ I said, not looking at Berta when I said it.

‘I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that,’ Berta said, head down. ‘I just can’t imagine doing such a thing, but,’ she said, looking up, ‘maybe she was abusive or something?’

I nodded and touched her hand. ‘That’s very possible,’ I said. ‘You could have been defending yourself.’

‘By burning her alive?’ Berta said, and burst into tears.

‘Wait now,’ Trisha said, grabbing Berta’s other hand. ‘Did you ever read
The Burning Bed
? They made a movie out of it with Farrah Fawcett. Remember? She burned up her husband but got off because he battered her!’

‘Got off?’ Berta said. ‘I don’t care about getting off! I care that I may have killed my own mother!’ The sobs became harder and Ken took her in his arms. Trisha and I shared a look.

I decided to get things into perspective. ‘Tomorrow is Kerry’s funeral. Berta, I think it would be safer for you to go than to stay here alone.’

‘Of course I’m going!’ Berta said. ‘Kerry was my oldest friend – that I’m aware of anyway – and I will be there for Ken and her boys come hell or high water!’

Ken grinned at her. ‘See, I told you you were a Texan! Come hell or high water!’

Berta grinned back at him and I thought about asking for the restroom so I could puke in private. But my phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I said.

‘Mrs Ramirez said she and her husband couldn’t afford to buy yearbooks for their kids. But she did say she knew the school nurse who was there from the seventies until the school closed ten years ago: Carolyn Gable, and she goes to the senior center I drive the bus for. I’ve known her for years – just didn’t know she worked at Bishop Byne.’

Not unlike Kerry Killian, my mother-in-law was big on giving back to her community. At seventy-six, she still drove the bus at the senior center, volunteered to serve lunch there twice a week, and had a weekly volunteer stint at the Codderville Memorial Hospital. She also coordinated a phone tree for volunteers at the animal shelter. I tried never to mention how tired I was or how busy. It just sounded foolish.

‘So can you get ahold—’

‘Already have,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t have yearbooks, but she does have a memory like a steel trap. She said she’ll be gone most of the weekend, but she’ll meet us at the senior center on Monday at three o’clock. She does the lunch and they should be all cleaned up by then. You up for it?’