Pride v. Prejudice (30 page)

“Awesome,” Roderick said, chuckling. “She must have been online earlier, and didn't bother to sign off. She has no e-mails or spam.” He continued to click. “Her address book is limited to doctors, a car repair service, two discount shopping sites, Mount Zion Church, and a Chinese carryout. I didn't find any addresses for people who might be family or friends.”

“No luck here,” I said. “I suppose she was too haunted by her status as a fugitive to risk personal relationships. Too much tippling and she might spill her secret. What a sad life.” After a nanosecond of sympathy, I recovered nicely. “The one person she might have confided in is the choir director at the church. Misery loves company, when accompanied by whiskey. His name's Grady Nichols. He's the one who told me that Tricia went for a stroll through the blueberries the night of the murder. There was a lot more going on than he admitted.” I took a sip of the whiskey and shuddered. “Why does everything have to be so damn complicated? I am sick and tired of people with fake identities—like you, Sara, Tuck, and Tricia. Maybe William and Junie changed their names from Bonnie and Clyde, and Grady is Charles Manson's eldest son.”

“Don't freak out. Let's find out if Mount Zion has a Web page.” He mumbled under his breath as he hunched over the keyboard. “Mount Zion seems to be popular with the religious groups. What denomination?”

“Methodist, on County 102.”

“Got it!” he said. “In case you're interested, it was founded in the forties in an abandoned schoolhouse built in—”

“I'm not interested.”

“Grady Nichols. He believes that music is a spiritual path to heaven, and is filled with awe by the youthful enthusiasm of his choir. He coaches soccer in the middle school league and enjoys cooking, reading, and playing the piano at a senior center. Guys like him used to proselytize outside the student union. They were more worried about Armageddon than Vietnam.”

“Look him up in the online telephone directory. I need to know exactly what happened that night. I'm too frazzled to listen to his glib version, and I'm prepared to sit on him until he tells the truth.”

“You think he killed Tricia?”

“If I were sure, I'd make an anonymous call to the police. All I know is that something significant happened, and he underplayed it. The teenagers may have been drinking, smoking pot, and behaving like horny monkeys, but…” I leaned against the edge of the counter and replayed the conversation with Grady. “He told me that he saw them wading across the river and followed them. Unless he stopped to catch tadpoles, he should have been no more than a minute or two behind them. The ringleaders had to find their cache before the mischief started. Grady claimed they were already stoned when he caught them.”

“He was lying. The weed around here is crap. I've got his address. It'll take more time to get his telephone number, if he has a landline. Young people usually don't these days.”

“I don't intend to call and tell him I'm on my way,” I said, offended by his remark that implied Peter and I were on the verge of dotage. Cell phones were handy, but it was nice to call home. Tears welled in my eyes for the hundredth time. I swallowed and said, “We can't leave Tricia like this. Maybe the college boys wandered down to the pool or went inside. We saunter out to Luanne's car and drive to the nearest pay phone to call nine-one-one and report the body.”

Roderick stood up. “'Death's truer name is ‘Onward,' no discordance in the roll and march of that eternal harmony whereto the world beats time.'”

“Don't make me beat time on you or Tennyson,” I said. I went to the window and lifted a slat. I couldn't see outstretched legs or a cooler. “Onward, as in out to the balcony and down to the parking lot. Try to look as though you've been having tea. If you so much as stumble, I'll push you down the stairs and leap over your body on my way to the car. Good luck in the emergency room.”

“What's with this bitchiness? I'm trying to help, you know.”

“You're trying to keep yourself out of prison. I understand that you want to save Sarah, but you haven't made any noble gestures. That's okay. I'm going to exonerate Sarah before Wessell tears her into shreds and spits out her bones. Grady's the best lead now. You can go down to the pool and try to charm one of the sexy coeds. Maybe she'll let you stay with her until she wakes up one morning and realizes that you're her grandfather's age. Just give me Grady's address and we'll part ways in the parking lot. You've had many years to perfect the art of staying underground. The Missouri border's half an hour away.”

“I love Sarah. I'm not going anywhere.” He snorted as he realized what he'd said. “Except back to prison. Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm ninety-four? Let's shake the truth out of Grady Nichols. I'm right behind you, Claire.”

“Lucky me,” I said as I opened the apartment door and stepped onto the balcony. I was not greeted by bells and whistles, whoops, sirens, alarms, or more ominously, bullets. The college boys were gone. The party by the pool was beginning to break up as the participants picked up towels, coolers, and other possessions. None of them looked remotely like Deputy Norton. “Come on,” I said to Roderick, “and put on the sunglasses. Your photo may have made the local news.”

“I was wiping off our fingerprints.”

“I'm glad to hear prison wasn't a total waste of time. Let's go.”

We hurried down the steps and into Luanne's car. I drove out of the apartment and headed for the nearest cluster of fast-food restaurants and stores. There were no pay phones. A convenience store across the road lacked one, too. If I used my cell phone, the FBI would utilize GPS to pinpoint my location; I preferred for them to keep searching the woods behind Miss Poppoy's house. When they inevitably tracked us to Abbie's house, they would liven up the baby shower. The call I'd made to Luanne would be traced. Her flawless French might delay them, but they were as inexorable as a glacier.

“There are pay phones at the student union,” Roderick said, “or there used to be. Not many people around on a Sunday evening.”

I turned toward the campus and entered the labyrinth. The streets were mostly empty, as were the sidewalks. Parking places were plentiful, to my relief. The student union was old and tired, almost hidden by massive magnolia trees and overgrown shrubs. I parked as a couple came out the front door. They stopped when they saw the silver Jaguar, then resumed walking across the grass in the direction of the dorms.

“Wish me luck,” I said as I grabbed my purse. After a hesitation, I took the keys out of the ignition. “If I'm not back in five minutes, I suggest you relocate to an adjoining state. Hitchhiking may be hazardous to your health.”

“After all we've been through, you don't trust me?” he said in a wounded voice. “I risked my freedom to haul you away on a friggin' lawn mower. I identified Laura. I could have split at any time, but no—I stayed with you in case you needed help. Now you think I'd steal your friend's car?”

“It crossed my mind,” I said, too weary to snap at him. Hoping he hadn't taken a class in hot-wiring cars while in prison, I went into the student union and looked around. The information desk was unoccupied. I peered down hallways until I saw a glorious line of pay phones, none of them in use. I did not want to be overheard. It had been a long while since I'd used one, possibly predating Caron's birth. I read an instruction card and learned that I could call 911 without inserting a quarter. I took a tissue out of my purse and used it to pick up the receiver, and used my knuckle to punch the buttons.

“This is nine-one-one,” said a bored female voice. “What's your emergency?”

I opted for a French accent. “A woman was stabbed in the Skull Creek apartment complex, 221-B.
Je pense qu'elle est mort
.”

“Your name?”

I replaced the receiver, wiped the buttons with the tissue in case the FBI kept knuckle prints, and walked out of the building at a seemly rate. Roderick was slumped in the front seat, brooding over my lack of faith in him. “Done. What's Grady's address?”

“I wouldn't have stolen the car, Claire. We're in this together because we want to save Sarah from being wrongfully imprisoned. I've had nightmares since the day she was arrested.” He swiped at a tear. “She's my soul mate, the only woman I've ever loved.”

“I'm touched,” I said, untouched. “What's Grady's address?”

He told me without further ploys for sympathy. I recognized the name of the street and started the car. It purred with pleasure as I left the campus and turned on a side street. I missed the house number the first time, but caught my mistake and turned around. Roderick had gone into such a deep funk that I had to poke him after I'd pulled as far as possible into the driveway of a small frame house. We dragged two trash cans and a disabled bicycle behind the car, and then spread the grungy remains of a hammock across the trunk. The camouflage was imperfect but adequate.

“Your role is to rumble if he gets evasive,” I told him. “I may have to fabricate a story as we go along, so don't contradict me. Okay?”

“Whatever you say.”

I poked him more vigorously. “This is our only lead. If you want to save Sarah, you have to do your part. Grady won't be intimidated if you snuffle and whine.” I had never envisioned myself giving a pep talk to a convicted murderer. Caron and Inez might find it cool. Peter would not. I wonder if his mother would shake my hand through the bars when we were introduced.

Roderick followed me to the front door. I knocked, and then stepped back. I had no idea what to do if he wasn't home.

Grady opened the door.

 

16

Grady stared at us. “What do you want?” he said, his bow tie fluttering madly as he swallowed. Had it not been clipped on, it might have taken flight.

“To talk to you, obviously.” I veered around him into the living room, which was decorated in curbside salvage chic. “We're going to have a lengthy, uncomfortable conversation about what happened at Flat Rock. This time you're going to tell me the true story.”

Roderick shoved him aside with unnecessary vigor as he followed, rumbling like a petulant bear. He grinned at me, but I frowned and shook my head.

“I don't have anything else to say to you,” Grady said. “I screwed up as a chaperone, but nobody was hurt. There may have been some hangovers the next morning, and a couple of kids were scratching like flea-bitten hounds. The incident was Tricia's topic at the sunrise service the next morning, and she laid it on thick. ‘But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death…' Romans 6:23. Scared 'em shitless, so maybe some good came out of it.”

“Including Bianca?” I asked sweetly. “Was she shivering in her panties?”

“Who said anything about Bianca?”

I glanced at Roderick, who obligingly rumbled. “I know all about it,” I said. “Statutory rape, sexual assault, booze, drugs, endangering a minor—all serious stuff. When you get out of prison, you'll be on the sex offenders list for the rest of your life. That'll make it hard to get a job as a choir leader at the Church of the Almighty Millionaires.” I gestured at Roderick. “He can give you some hints how to find seasonal employment as a migrant farmworker. You should listen. Once you're on that notorious list, you won't be able to find a job or rent an apartment. You'll be run out of town wherever you go.”

“That's ridiculous!” he sputtered. “I told you what happened.”

“You gave me the sanitized version, in which you saved the teenagers from drunkenness and debauchery. You instigated it, Grady.” Roderick rumbled without a prompt. I narrowed my eyes and allowed my forehead to crease fleetingly. “You didn't plan on the level of participation, did you? You issued a discreet invitation to Bianca to join you on the opposite bank. At least I'd like to think you invited only one of the girls, but I may be wrong. Once the other kids figured out that Tricia had left, they waded across the river. Did they catch you in the midst of licentious behavior?”

This time Roderick's rumble sounded like the purr of a male lion gazing at his next meal. He seemed to have an extensive repertoire.

“No,” Grady insisted, his voice beginning to quiver. “I caught them and put a stop to it.”

“I'm more interested in figuring out where Tricia went and how long she was gone than I am in your sleazy sexual behavior,” I said mildly, “but if you continue to stick to your story, I'll call the city prosecutor in the morning. She's the mother of two teenaged girls, and rumored to be relentless when prosecuting sexual misconduct.”

Grady crumpled into a chair, sobbing. Roderick went into the kitchen and returned with a beer. Across the street, car doors banged and a voice called out for help with grocery bags. A motorcycle roared down the street. I contemplated how to organize an elegant luncheon at my house from a holding cell. My allotted phone call might need to be made to a caterer, if I could find one on short notice.

“Please don't turn me in,” Grady said in a raspy voice. “I'm begging you. The sex was consensual, I swear it. It was just so … god-awful. Most of the kids pulled off their clothes. Someone forced me to take a couple of hits of pot, and it turned into a bizarre reverie. I tried to make them stop or at least get away, but there were so many hands grasping me.” He gulped as if he were drowning in our ill-disguised contempt. “They wouldn't listen to me. I tried, I really did.”

“A love fest,” Roderick drawled. “Also known as a group grope or an orgy. They were teenagers. Jeez, don't you have any friends your own age?”