Rite of Wrongs (11 page)

Unfortunately, her agitation was what closed cases. She couldn’t have him slowing her down. Not just yet. She wasn’t done with this head of steam.

“We need those foster-care records,” she said as he climbed behind the wheel. “We need to find Autumn and Darius and Corky.”

“Corky. Sheesh.” Melvin turned the key and ratcheted the AC to high, aiming his vent directly toward his face. “You know, there wasn’t even such a thing as Child Protective Services when that bunch would’ve been in the system. Records from the sixties are going to be on microfiche. And that’s if we’re lucky and they’re not on paper in boxes in some musty courthouse basement.”

Melvin’s observations mirrored her recent ones. “I’m okay with digging through paperwork. Better paper than blood.”

He settled his hand over the gearshift knob, keeping his foot on the brake. “You know next Monday’s only five days away.”

How in the hell was she going to find what she needed between now and then? “I really don’t want to think about it.”

“We’ve got a pattern going here,” he said, putting the SUV into reverse and whipping out of the parking spot. “And Monday’s a big part of it.”

“Like I said.” She closed her eyes. “Did he seem, I don’t know, less than enthusiastic about the church thing?”

“Which part of the church thing?” Melvin asked with a huff. “Having to go as a kid? Or going now to share with his mother?”

“The mother part. Her insistence. And what did he say?” She opened her eyes and looked up at the SUV’s roof, blinking Edward’s words into focus. “Her being adamant to the point of wanting to know more about Sunday service and less about his week?”

“You think the Scriptures at the scenes are related somehow to her devotion?” he asked, glancing into the mirrors as he changed lanes.

“I think it’s a big coincidence if they’re not.”

“And Edward? You going to make sure he was actually at those sales meetings?”

Pulling down the sun visor, she leaned her seat back. “I’ll call the event coordinator once we’re back at the shop. And, yeah. I’m going to need more information before I rule him out.”

“I?”
Melvin barked out the word as they idled at a traffic light. “I take a long overdue vacation, and suddenly you’re all about
I
?”

“Self-preservation,” she said, a smile creeping over her face. “I had to use the singular pronoun to keep Ballard from getting any ideas.”

“Well, Melvin is back. M and M are on the case. We’re a team.” The light changed, and he gunned the engine. “So you’d best put a stop to that
I
shit right now.”

T
WENTY
-O
NE

Wednesday, 1:30 p.m.

On their way back to the station after lunch, a spur-of-the-moment decision had Miriam directing Melvin to Copper Acres. She wanted to see if any of the things Dorothy Lacey’s son had revealed would jog Jeff Gardner’s memory.

“You sure you want to bother the man?” Melvin asked, slowing for the turn onto Pennywise Lane. “He’s probably busy dealing with well-meaning friends and neighbors who would leave him alone if they understood the definition of well meaning.”

She pointed to the address up ahead. “Aren’t you a cynic?”

“Besides, he’s got those three kids at home—”

“I’m not going to waterboard the man,” she said, releasing her seatbelt before the SUV had even stopped. “I just want to ask him a couple of things. You can wait here. I won’t be but a minute.”

Melvin snorted. “I know your minutes. I’ll come with and play silent partner.”

They parked in front of the house. The garage was closed, though Dr. Gardner’s Mercedes was in the driveway pulled close. The grass had been recently mowed, the sprinklers recently run. Everything smelled green and damp as Miriam and Melvin navigated the pebbled front walk.

A flutter of memory—the crime scene, the kids—made Miriam blow out a steadying breath. At least this time she wouldn’t be walking inside to face a pool of blood.

With Bongo barking in the backyard, she knocked softly, then stepped back from the door. Dr. Gardner opened it moments later, his face blank as if he’d never seen her before.

“Hello, Dr. Gardner. Detective Miriam Rome—”

“I know who you are,” he said, obviously none too happy to find her there. He was dressed in khakis and a yellow button-down shirt and brown-leather sandals. He’d had a haircut since she’d last seen him.

She wondered if he’d done that for the funeral. “This is my partner, Detective Melvin Stonebridge. I’m sorry to stop by unannounced, but do you mind if I ask you a quick question or two?”

He gestured behind him with a lift of his chin. “Theodore’s napping, and I don’t want the girls upset.”

She raised one hand, took a step back. “Of course. I don’t need to come in. Or more than five minutes of your time.”

It took him a moment to decide, then he nodded and stepped out, pulling the door closed without latching it. “Make it fast.”

“Thank you,” she said, opening her notebook and clicking her pen. “Do the names Edward Lacey or Dorothy Lacey ring a bell?”

Dr. Gardner rubbed at his forehead as if the ache there would never go away. “No, I’m sorry. Should they?”

“Dorothy Lacey was Gina’s foster mother. Edward is Dorothy’s son. There were four other foster children in the home at the same time as Gina. I was hoping she might have mentioned them to you. One of them was named Corky,” she said, holding on to the rest of her cards for now.

No bobbing of his Adam’s apple. No change in his pupils. No tic in his jaw. “As I told you before, Detective, Gina didn’t talk about her childhood. It was probably the only part of herself she kept to herself. The only thing we didn’t share.”

“You didn’t find that strange? If she was open about everything else?”

“It was painful for her. Of course, I was curious, but I respected her wish to keep the past in the past,” he said, going quiet when Eloise cracked open the door and stepped outside. The girl wrapped her arms around her father’s hips because she wasn’t tall enough to reach his waist.

Her face was pale, her skin nearly translucent, her blue eyes overly large, like an anime or manga character. Sailor Moon, maybe. Miriam didn’t remember her looking so fragile at the station, so unreal, as if she wasn’t human at all.

Melvin stepped forward then and offered his hand. “Thank you, Dr. Gardner.”

“Have you made any progress?” the doctor asked as they shook. “Have you learned anything you can tell me?”

Miriam started to ask him if he’d watched the news, if he’d heard about the murder of Franklin Weeks, but something had her keeping that connection to herself. Something more than his daughter’s wide, blank eyes. “I’ll call as soon as I have more.”

Miriam turned away, putting on her sunglasses. The door latched softly behind her as she walked with Melvin to the SUV. She was only an aunt; she couldn’t truly understand the hopelessness a parent must feel dealing with a child’s sorrow.

Dr. Gardner having three such damaged dolls . . .

Her chest tight, her throat aching, Miriam tried not to think of Haven, Lori, and the rest of her nieces and nephews as she climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the vehicle’s door. She tried not to, but all their young faces filled her vision, their innocence and their joy, their smiles that came so readily.

She wondered when Eloise Gardner would smile again.

“Do you believe him?” Melvin asked after navigating out of the subdivision.

Miriam stared up through the passenger window at the canopy of trees, blinking the unexpected dampness from her eyes. “I haven’t decided.”

“What reason does he have to lie?”

“You mean, if he wasn’t the one who killed his wife?”

Melvin let that settle for one heartbeat, then another. “You think he killed Franklin, too?”

She wasn’t sure what she thought. Not yet. “I’m trying to work out that wrench.”

They traveled in silence for the next several minutes, Miriam turning over both Dorothy’s and Edward’s revelations. Obviously, the murders were related. And obviously the Laceys were connected, too, though
how
remained to be sussed out.

She was certain the family would’ve known the suspect in the past, or at least the suspect had known them, and well enough to use the Scriptures to make his point—whatever the hell it was—about parents and kids. But that was
all
she was certain about. And more than a week into the investigation, it wasn’t enough.

At last, Melvin flipped the blinker and slowed as they approached the station. He nodded toward the expanding file she’d had with her all day. “You find anything useful in her diary?”

There was still a ton to go through. “No revelations so far. Just personal stuff. Outings with her husband. Decorating the nursery for Eloise’s birth. Thoughts about becoming a mother.”

“You want some help looking at it?”

“I’ll want a second eye,” she said, which she knew Melvin understood to mean maybe later. She easily could rule out what wasn’t relevant, and she would want to digest anything iffy before airing what might be dirty laundry. Should she run across something obvious, however, Melvin would be the first to know. The same with whatever she might not be sure of.

At the moment, unfortunately, there was very little of that.

Once back in the squad room, Melvin stopped to talk to Danny Garcia while Miriam headed straight for her cubicle. She tossed her crossbody at her desk so hard, it hit her stapler and both went flying. She shoved the diary file at her in-box, then picked up the mess.

A thought had been niggling at her since Edward Lacey had mentioned his mother fostering three children besides Gina Gardner and Franklin Weeks:
I suppose it was no different from growing up with blood siblings.

Two of those not-related-by-blood siblings were dead. Killed by the same person. Similar messages left at the scenes of the crimes. This did not bode well for the other three, though she couldn’t help but think about Edward. If he wasn’t the one throwing rocks and slitting throats, how safe was he? He said he hadn’t kept in touch with any of the five he’d grown up with.

And that had her wondering:
What if the foster siblings had kept in touch with one another?

With the thought on her mind, she pulled up a browser window. Once Facebook loaded, she searched out Gina Gardner’s name. There were only a gazillion or so. Even narrowing her search to Texas, then Union Park, didn’t give her what she was looking for.

Next she searched for the Paisley Cricket, figuring Franklin and Alejandro would have a business page for advertising the bistro, and they did. But nothing posted there gave her more than she already had. She clicked away with no desire to visit for lunch.

Obviously identifying then locating the other three was going to require more than searching out the Facebook friends of her murder victims. She reached for the expanding folder, dumped out the rubber-banded copy of the diary, and opened her notebook to the insert she was using for her reading notes.

Deciding this time to work backward through the dead woman’s life, Miriam flipped to the final entry. Gina had written it the night before she’d died.

Finalized details for Imogene’s piano lessons today. That takes care of everyone’s summer activities. Who knew children were no longer allowed to stay home and play in the backyard, or read books in a blanket fort, or ride bikes for hours without carrying a cell phone to show their location?

I do love being able to give them every opportunity, but sometimes I think times were so much simpler when summer meant being free from school and doing nothing but hanging out until it was time to go back the next year. Then again, I hardly had other options. No piano lessons for me.

If I wanted to go to the library, I had to get there on my own. And it wasn’t like I had a lot of friends except for the Tatters. I’ve never told Jeff that’s what we called ourselves, or anything about that time. Me, Autumn, Corky, Darius, and Frank. A play on Dorothy’s last name. Tatting was a way to make lace. And all of our lives were in complete shreds.

Hmm. So Gina hadn’t trusted her husband with her past, but she wrote about it openly? And left her journal on her nightstand where he could easily flip through it?

Was he truly that trustworthy? Or was he lying?

She thought about Eloise clinging to her father, about Bongo barking as Melvin had walked with her to the front door. She picked up her phone and dialed the crime lab.

“Sosa.”

“Karen, it’s Miriam Rome.” She clicked her pen on, clicked it off. “I know it’s probably too soon, but have you processed the blue tarp from the Franklin Weeks scene yet?”

“Hello, Detective. How nice to hear from you. I’m fine, thank you, though this weather is killing my sinuses. And, no. Not yet. We’ve got a bit of a pileup in here.”

“When you get to it, you’ll check for dog blood on this one, too, right?”

“Of course, Detective.”

Miriam exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry you’re having trouble with your sinuses. If I’d figured out how to deal with mine, I’d share the secret. I just snort my way through. Pop a lot of Sudafed and ibuprofen. I can’t deal with the antihistamines. They all put me to sleep, no matter their nondrowsy claims.”

Karen was quiet for a minute, and Miriam had just started frowning when the other woman laughed. “Why, Miriam Rome, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so many words at one time that weren’t about a case.”

Guilty as charged.

They chatted about their allergies for another couple of minutes, Karen recommending an herbal tea she particularly loved, then Miriam got back to work. Pulling up the desktop folder with the photos she’d taken at both the Gardner and the Weeks crime scenes, she began clicking through the pictures.

She’d looked at them before, and it wasn’t like the images weren’t seared into the backs of her eyeballs, but after a few days and having input more data, she hoped something might jump out now that hadn’t earlier. The first thing that did was realizing both Gina and Frank had good taste. Expensive taste.

The Gardner house and the condo Frank and Alex shared were showroom worthy. Jeff Gardner’s income obviously accounted for his family’s home, but Miriam found herself wondering if the bistro brought in that much cash. Maybe Alex came from money, because neither man worked another job.

Ballard was going through both victims’ financials. She rolled her chair into the aisle to ask him what he’d found, only to look up and see her deputy chief standing at the end of the row of cubicles and gesturing for her to come to his office.

She shoved the diary back into its folder with a groan. Maybe one of these days she’d get a chance to finish what she started.