Rite of Wrongs (27 page)

S
IXTY

Saturday, 7:00 p.m.

“Sorry to track you down this way,” Sergeant Vince said once Miriam answered. “You weren’t picking up your cell.”

It was in her crossbody, which was in the floor of her Juke, which was hemmed in between three or four other cars in her parents’ extra-wide driveway. She’d promised her father she would not work during her mother’s party, though she’d had every intention of sneaking away at thirty-minute intervals to check for case-related texts and calls.

Holding Augie’s gaze, she asked, “What have you got?”

She waited for Vince’s response, listening to the sounds coming through the phone. Traffic whipped by in the background. A horn honked. Tires screeched. The noises were finally muted by the electronic whir of the sergeant putting up his window.

“Sameen Shahidi just went into her apartment.”

Miriam closed her eyes, breathed in, opened them slowly. Only then, with her heart still hammering, did she exhale. “Are you sure it was her?” She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she couldn’t imagine Vince being wrong about this.

He proved her faith well founded. “I’ve been staring at her face for days. It’s her.”

This time when she closed her eyes, she grinned and pumped her fist. Augie was regarding her curiously when she looked up, so she muted the phone and said, “It’s Sameen Shahidi,” before getting back to Vince. “I’ll have HPD send backup. Bring her to the station. Detective Stonebridge and I will meet you there.”

She handed the phone back to the officer with a quick thank-you, then made for the living room where Roger was holding court. He stopped talking when she walked in. Her father, as comfortably settled as if he were lost in a Ken Burns documentary, glanced her way. Melvin, too. She indicated to her partner that he’d be coming with her.

Then she sat on the edge of the ottoman in front of her father’s chair. “Dad, I gotta go, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. There’s a patrol unit out front. One officer at the car. One walking the grounds. Do not leave this house until you hear from me, okay? None of you. Erik, Esther, Mom, Roger. The kids. No one.”

Her father crossed one leg over the other. “Are you going to explain why to your mother?”

The man didn’t appear to have a care in the world, and Miriam wanted to strangle him—but only because she loved him so much, and he was taking this threat too lightly. The idea that she could lose him, or any of her family . . .

Shaking off the thought, she started to tell him she didn’t have time to explain to everyone what was happening; the idea of the questions she’d have to field had her blood pressure spiking, but Augie got there first. “I’ll do that before I leave. I’d stay, too, but I need to make a stop on my way home before it gets any later, and I think everything here’s under control.”

His offer surprised her, though it also bailed her out of this jam. Still, she asked, “Are you sure?”

He nodded, his expression curiously calm. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Unnerving her with his demeanor. She wasn’t used to Augie being serene. She was used to their butting heads, their setting off fireworks. She was used to Augie the cop, not Father Augustine Treece.

Yet both, it seemed, knew when to step in and save her.

“Go and do, Miriam,” her uncle told her, waving his hand to scoot her away. “Me and the priest will see to it that the in-laws and out-laws stay put until you give the all clear. We’ve got food here to feed us for days. It’s not like we’re going to starve.”

S
IXTY
-O
NE

Saturday, 7:30 p.m.

“Sameen Shahidi? I’m Detective Miriam Rome. You’ve been hard to find.”

Arms crossed, Miriam stood in the station’s interview room. Across the table sat the woman who was even more beautiful than her DMV photo promised. And thinner. Wearing a whole lot of stress in the circles beneath her eyes and very little makeup. Her hair was lank. Her clothes wrinkled. She didn’t appear to have been taking care of herself.

She dropped her gaze from Miriam’s and brought her left hand to her throat. “I had no idea you were looking for me.”

Right. “We stopped by your house. Several times. We talked to your neighbors. Several times. We tried your cell. Several times.”

“I’ve been out of town. I took a spur-of-the-moment vacation. I just got home tonight.” Sameen punctuated the trio of statements with a shrug, as if she’d given Miriam all that was pertinent, but she seemed to second-guess herself because she went on to add, “I hadn’t had a chance to check my phone messages yet.” Then she lowered her hands to her lap, hiding them beneath the table.

She wasn’t fast enough. Miriam caught a glimpse of her very jagged, chewed, and chipped nails.

Melvin pulled out the chair across from hers. The feet screeched over the concrete floor. “Why did no one at the pediatric clinic know you were on vacation?”

Her gaze still cast down, she said, “I didn’t tell anyone. I decided to quit.”

“Without telling anyone that, either? Because your office manager was equally curious as to your whereabouts.”

“It’s not against the law to quit without notice.” She sat straighter. She crossed her arms. She raised her chin. It was a good attempt at a brave front. “I needed a change.”

“Of scenery?” Melvin asked. “Of employer?”

Another shrug.

“So, quitting was also a spur-of-the-moment decision?”

She looked from Melvin to Miriam, then to the table again. Her lips trembled before she spoke. “On the Friday before I left, I inquired about a promotion given to a nurse who had been there half the time I had. Over the weekend, I made the decision not to return.”

Yeah. Miriam had wondered why the nurse’s position had remained static for so long. “That’s not going to look very good on your résumé.”

At that, Sameen grew animated. And loud. Gesturing with one hand, her fingers fluttering. “Is the clinic pressing some sort of charge against me? Do I need an attorney?”

“Do you
want
an attorney?” Melvin asked.

Her dark eyes focused on Melvin’s and broadcast no emotion but annoyance. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Not anything criminal. I did break my employment contract, but I would assume that’s a civil matter.”

This was so bizarre. All Miriam could do was shake her head and wonder if the woman was truly in the dark, or a very good actress. “You think you’re here because you quit your job?”

“I can’t think of any other reason.” She said it with a huff, as if inconvenienced.

Miriam splayed her hands on the table and leaned forward. “You didn’t think it might look suspicious that you quit the day Dr. Gardner’s wife was found dead?”

Sameen swallowed, but her voice still cracked when she spoke. “I’m here because of Gina?”

“So you knew her.” Miriam let Sameen stew for a long moment.

“Of course I knew her. Everyone at the clinic knew her.”

At least she was talking in the past tense.

“Why weren’t you at work the day she was killed?”

“I told you. I decided to quit and then I left for vacation. It was all very sudden,” she said, the last bit sounding like an afterthought. “As I said, I only returned home tonight. I planned to go by the office and tell them tomorrow.”

Miriam wasn’t so sure that was the truth. “Can anyone verify your whereabouts for the Monday of the murder?”

“Why would they need to? Wait.” Eyes wide, she looked from Miriam to Melvin, then as the door opened, to Ballard and Chris Judah as they entered the room. “You think I killed her?”

“Did you?” Miriam asked.

“I didn’t kill anyone.” She slammed her palms against the table in frustration, then gestured wildly. “Especially not Gina. Why would I kill her? She’s done everything for me. She put me through nursing school.”

The room seemed to pulse with a heartbeat of its own. Miriam swore the hair at her nape stood on end.

“Why would she do that?” It was Melvin who finally asked, his question rolling slowly into the room.

Sameen looked at every person in turn, then in a voice almost too tiny to hear, said, “Because she’s my sister.”

S
IXTY
-T
WO

Saturday, 7:45 p.m.

“Hello, Mother.”

Dot Lacey stared at the TV screen on the corner table in her apartment. It wasn’t as nice as the big TV in the common room, and she didn’t know why they called it an apartment when it was nothing but a big square with a separate toilet and tub, but at least she had a place to go and get away from Betty Lampley and her incessant talk of bowels.

She didn’t bother looking at the man who’d spoken, but continued to watch Monty Hall making deals. Those people in the audience wore the stupidest costumes. Like they had no pride or care for how they looked on the TV.

“What do you want?”

“I took Barbara out for dinner and thought I’d come by.”

Dot had expected so much more from Van. He’d been so handsome when she’d met him, and such a change after that ridiculous joke she’d married the first time. Look what had come out of his dick. An equally ridiculous son. Though Gordon was good to take care of her. Not like that stupid Edward—

“Mother?” The man leaned closer, looking at her with tiny beady eyes. “Are you all right?”

“What?”

“I asked if you were all right.”

Dot stared at the man who’d sat in her apartment’s one extra chair. Usually, Kurt sat there when he stopped to play cards. Or José when he checked her blood pressure. But this man wasn’t wearing scrubs like those two always did. She should know his name because he couldn’t be Van. He’d called her Mother.

Edward. That’s who he was. Probably with as worthless a dick as his father. Those two boys of his would never be men. And that wife . . . they deserved each other, both so flimsy and weak. “Yes. I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You seemed to drift away there for a minute,” he said, digging into his suit-coat pocket. “I have something to show you, but I need to know you’re here.”

“You’re sitting in my room, aren’t you?” She wished he’d never started coming to see her on Sundays. It was the one day of the week she could spend in her room with the quiet. “You haven’t yet told me what Pastor Young spoke about today.”

“It’s Saturday, Mother. Not Sunday. And Pastor Young is dead. He’s been dead for at least ten years.”

Dot’s heart flipped and fluttered. That couldn’t be. She watched the news. She would know. “What are you talking about?”

“Since you and Gordon came to live here?” He gave her a greasy-looking smile. “I haven’t been back to First Baptist even once, and let me tell you what a relief that has been.”

He wasn’t making sense. Then again, neither of her sons ever had. “Whose lessons have you been listening to, then? On Sundays?”

“I listen to podcasts while doing the lawn. And read lectures and essays online while Barb watches TV. Religion makes so much more sense now,” he said with a strangled sort of laugh that wasn’t like him. “For the first time in my life, I actually get what it’s all about. How your spiritual journey’s got to be personal to make sense.”

What line was he talking about reading on? And podcasts? What in the hell were those? She didn’t know what he was saying. Personal journeys? Was he going somewhere? She needed to call Kurt. He would help her understand.

The man, no, Edward . . . he was Edward, wasn’t he? Why wasn’t she sure? Why was she so confused? Where was José with her medication? Had she already taken it tonight?

Edward gave her a twisted sort of look, then flapped a photocopy of an old photograph at her. “Look at this Polaroid, Mother. I think you’ve seen this before, haven’t you? When Gina showed it to you in 1978?”

This time her heart nearly stopped. She refused to look. She did not want to see that past. She had her own to remember. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You and my father didn’t know she was upstairs when you argued, did you?” he asked, folding up the paper again. “Upstairs with the camera her parents had given her for her birthday.”

“They weren’t supposed to talk to her. They weren’t granted visitation. Where did you get that?” And where was her lap pillow? She looked around the room, feeling frantic. Frightened. She needed her lap pillow.

He sat back, acting all high and mighty with his legs crossed and his shoes so shiny. “Gina came to see me a few months ago. I was surprised to find out she’d been keeping tabs on you all this time. When I asked her why, she tossed me the copy of the photo. She wanted to be sure that after you died, I wouldn’t forget what you’d done.”

“You knew what I’d done.” She spat out the words, stupid boy. “You helped. You put the lock on the dog run every time I used it.”

“I’m not talking about the dog run. Or the shed.” He sat forward, his narrow face going mean like a weasel. “I’m talking about you shoving a fireplace poker into my father’s groin and puncturing his femoral artery. You standing there and watching him die. Gina told me all about it. She said you made her clean up the mess once you realized she’d seen you do it.”

It had been a lot of blood. It had taken that bitch too long to clean it. “So what?”

“She knew when you died, your suffering would be over. She said it was my turn. That I saw what you were doing to the fosters and never stopped you, and that I needed to know what kind of woman you were. Someone who would kill her own husband for his money. And someone who would pay a witness to keep her quiet.”

Oh. That. “I saw on the news that Gina was murdered, so she won’t be getting anything more.”

“She
is
dead. So’s Franklin. So’s Autumn. Carolyn and Darius will be soon. Once I’m finished here.”

Well. Maybe he wasn’t a useless worm, after all, though she knew the truth that he was.

He had never stood up to his family and demanded what was rightfully his, even when the two of them, with seven children to care for, had come so close to losing their home. She couldn’t be blamed for killing him. It was the only way to get her hands on what she needed.

Except if he was dead, how could he be here? She twisted her hands together to stop their shaking. “I don’t know what you’re so het up about. It wasn’t that much money.”

“It was a thousand dollars a month. For thirty-eight years.” He paused as if breathless, his face getting all red. “Do you know how much that is now with accrued interest?”

“I’ve still got more than she does.”

“I don’t care how much you have,” he said, and when he slammed his hands on her chair arms and got in her face, she saw he was Edward.

Edward. The worm. “You can have the money. Your brother certainly wouldn’t know what to do with it, and I’m not going to need much of it.”

“I don’t want the money. I’m not here because of the money.”

“Then why—”

He backhanded her, screaming. “Because you killed my father! You let me think he had disappeared. That he had abandoned us. And all five of those delinquents who lived with us knew! Everybody but me knew! And they profited. They benefited. Gina handed out the spoils as if it was candy for all of them to enjoy!”

She’d been stung by a wasp as a child. The fire from the sting to her nose had spread all the way to her ear. That’s what her face felt like now, but she ignored the pain—pain was nothing to her anymore—and gave Edward no pleasure. “Gordon didn’t know. And she didn’t see me the first time. Gordon’s father didn’t have a dime.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Before I married your father, I had to get rid of his,” she said, then frowned as a knock on the door kept Edward from responding.

“Momma? How come your light is still on? Can I come in? I have a surprise for you.”

“Of course you can come in, Gordon.” Dot spoke kindly to her oldest son while giving the other a look that told him exactly where he fell on her food chain.
Look at him there, holding that stupid piece of paper, acting like he’s so much better than that bunch of fosters.
“Edward’s going to have to unlock the door first.”

“Edward? What’s he doing here?”

“You can ask him yourself,” she said, staring at her youngest son, who was even more of a disappointment than his father. Edward had never given her anything. And here was Gordon, bringing her a surprise.

Gordon had been such a good boy. It was a shame about his father. But she’d grown so tired of being hungry, wearing the same shoes year after year, traipsing to town for bread and milk and bags of dry cereal. Then Orin, poor soul, made the mistake of introducing her to Van.

At least the two friends shared the same final resting place.

She shook her head at Edward. “Well? Don’t you want to see what your brother has brought me? Get up and unlock the door.”

Edward didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. Just like when he was younger and the worst of the brats, he did what she told him to do.

“Look, Momma,” Gordon said, ducking through the door, then stepping aside. “You have a visitor.”

It was the priest, the one who’d come before with the police. Edward closed the door behind him and locked it again.

“Mrs. Lacey,” Father Treece said, “I thought I’d stop and see how you were this evening. And I’ve been wanting to meet your sons. I ran into Gordon out front.” He turned then and held out his hand. “You must be Edward. I’m Father Augustine Treece of Saint Mark’s.”

That was when Edward, instead of shaking the man of God’s hand, pulled out his gun.