Saving Allegheny Green (5 page)

I opened the top file and stared down at the name. My worst fears confirmed.

Rockerfeller Hughes.

“I can’t take the case.” I handed the file back to Joyce.

“What do you mean?” She stared at me blankly. In the five years I’d worked for Joyce I’d never refused a case.

“I know the man,” I explained.

“Is he a relative?”

“No, but he’s my sister’s boyfriend.”

“So?” She pushed the file at me.

“Sissy is the one who shot him in the foot. It would be a conflict of interest for me to take care of him.”

“You didn’t shoot him. What’s the conflict?”

“Come on, Joyce, have a heart.”

“Ally, there’s no one else to send. Yvette’s swamped. She’s got twenty-five patients to see this week. You only have sixteen. Marcie’s out on maternity leave and Kayla’s on vacation. You lose by default.”

“You could do it,” I pointed out.

Joyce looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles. Joyce was far beyond pleasingly plump and she was loath to move her girth any more than necessary. “I have to run the office.”

“Felicity can handle things for the amount of time it would take you to give Hughes his antibiotics and change his dressing.” I waved toward the outer office where the secretary sat.

“Absolutely not. It’s your territory. In fact, your other patient lives in the same trailer park.” Joyce glowered.

I folded my arms over my chest. “You don’t understand. I despise the guy.”

“And you don’t understand. Take the case or you can find yourself another job.”

I shook my head. Surely, I had heard her wrong. She was willing to fire me if I didn’t go see Rockerfeller Hughes?

“I’ll switch with Yvette.”

“She’s gone to Zion Hill for the day. She won’t be back
until five. You can switch with her for the duration of his treatment but for today, he’s yours.” Joyce waved the file in my face. She bared her teeth and shook her jowls like a bulldog.

“Oh, fine.” I snatched the file from her hand. “But if I end up killing him, then you’re responsible.”

“Thank you, Ally.” Joyce’s voice was pure NutraSweet.

I stormed from the office wondering which god I had offended to get this crap assignment.

Sissy had come home last night with hickeys tracking up and down her neck. To my disgust she said that she and Rocky had made up and he’d promised her he was going to divorce Darlene.

I had fought the temptation to get a gun and finish Rocky off so I wouldn’t have to hear for the one millionth time what a wonderful person he was for not pressing charges against her. This from the sleazebag who’d turned Sissy on to drugs, encouraged her to quit her job to sing with his band and who, upon occasion, took the back of his hand to her face.

Trying my best not to think about my sister, I got in my car and looked at my other patient file and discovered I’d been given Tim Kehaul, as well. While Cloverleaf is not huge, it’s not
that
small. Population seven thousand or thereabouts. What were the odds of me getting two of Sissy’s boyfriends to make home health visits to?

Rocky lived in a trailer park in Andover Bend. A particularly redneck community where the average IQ score hovered somewhere around my shoe size. Most of the people who lived there supplemented their welfare checks and unemployment income by fishing and raising vegetables to sell at a community roadside stand.

The road into Andover Bend was a narrow, one-lane affair. After a couple of miles the asphalt petered out where the county turned the road over to the development. I passed several
shotgun shacks with dirty-faced kids playing in the yard. Dust billowed behind my tires.

I wondered if they’d dismissed Rocky from the hospital with a saline well instilled in his arm or if I’d have to start one myself. The idea of prodding Rocky with a large bore needle was not entirely unpleasant.

Rounding the curve, I blew past the nine-hole golf course which was better maintained than most of the residences. Tanned guys with bellies overlapping their belts and beers clutched in their hands, maneuvered golf carts around the fairways.

The clubhouse was next and the community swimming pool, filled with kids on colorful floatation devices and mamas at poolside reading, tanning and gossiping.

Then the road arched toward the river. The farther I went, the grungier the houses grew. The area flooded frequently and since no one could afford to build to code, they couldn’t buy flood insurance. Water-level stains ringed the buildings, some waist high. The vehicles, parked in the driveways and on patches of bare lawn, were almost exclusively pickup trucks. And aged ones at that.

I crossed a small bridge so low to the ground it almost touched the water. Here, the Brazos looked swampy and brackish. Not like the healthy branch that flowed past my place.

The posted speed limit was twenty-five miles per hour. I slowed. I was in no hurry to see Rockerfeller Hughes or go into his disgusting house but eventually I rolled to a stop outside a clump of about thirty trailers that had seen better days.

I decided to visit Tim first. Rocky could wait.

Tim’s trailer was the best in the bunch and that wasn’t saying much, but at least his grass was trimmed and there were no rusting vehicles in the yard. He even had curtains in the window, and his front porch steps looked sturdy and reliable.

I parked and turned my head to peer directly across the road at Rocky’s house. In contrast to Tim’s double-wide, Rocky owned a tiny repo job teetering precariously on cinder blocks right at the river’s edge.

His dilapidated truck was parked nose in against the house. The windows were screenless and there was no underpinning around the bottom of the trailer.

Beer cans and whiskey bottles were stacked like a shrine to alcohol consumption right next to a rusted burn barrel. There was one tree in the whole yard. An old oak with a half-dozen dead branches that needed pruning.

I’d never been inside Rocky’s trailer, although I had come to pick Sissy up here one night after she called me, crying. She’d been standing by the road when I’d arrived and kept her face turned away from me.

It wasn’t until we’d gotten home that I’d seen the bruise on her cheek. She’d been smart to hide the marks from me. I would have called the cops on Rocky right then and there and she knew it.

What was it about my little sister that made her such a loser magnet? Rocky wasn’t the first, well…rocky relationship she’d had.

She’d always been something of a wild child and from the age of fourteen had engaged in risky sexual behavior. I preached to her about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases until I was blue in the face. It took me a while to catch on that the more I preached the more promiscuous she became. Finally, I stopped commenting on her sex life. But I never stopped caring.

“Oh, Sissy,” I whispered. “When will you ever learn?”

I let the engine idle, pretending I wanted to hear the last of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” on the radio, when in reality I wanted to avoid getting out of my car.

I collected Tim’s file, along with the doctor’s orders and my bag of antibiotics and IV supplies. I made sure I had Betadine and alcohol preps.

When I could avoid it no longer, I climbed out of my trusty Honda and headed toward Tim’s trailer.

I knocked at the screen door.

And waited.

I knocked again and fidgeted, shifting my weight, tucking my supplies first under one arm, then the other.

Nothing.

I checked my watch. A little before noon. He should be awake, even if he was feeling bad.

Clearing my throat, I knocked again. “Tim,” I called out. “It’s Allegheny Green. Home health sent me out to check that knee and give you some antibiotics.”

No answer.

I opened the screen and knocked on the front door. It swung inward at my touch.

“Tim?” I stepped forward and stuck my head around the door.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

I took a deep breath. The place smelled funny but I saw no garbage in the trash can. The kitchen was clean, no dirty dishes or food in the sink.

“Tim?”

My voice echoed in the empty room.

With a staggering sense of dread, I moved farther into the house. I set my supplies on the bar and inched down the narrow hallway paneled in dark particle board. The first door on the right was a bathroom. No one in there.

That left the two bedrooms. With the closed doors.

“Tim?”

Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe. My chest tightened. I only knew one thing. I did not want to open that door.

I rapped on it gently with my knuckles. “Tim, it’s Ally Green.”

Not a sound. Not a peep. Not a whisper.

The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I reached for the knob.

Forget it. Leave. Go. Tell Joyce he wasn’t home.

But I didn’t move. I stayed. My hand growing sweaty on the knob.

My heart pounded in my ears.

What’s the matter, Ally? You’re not Aunt Tessa, you don’t have visions. Open the damned door.

And so I did.

The bedroom was even darker than the rest of the trailer. Pitch-black in fact. Like the bedroom of a night-shift worker who keeps foil on the windows. My fingers fumbled along the wall, searching for the switch.

Light flooded the dreary room with shocking intensity.

I blinked.

And then I screamed at what I saw.

Tim’s naked body dangling from the ceiling.

H
AND OVER MY MOUTH
, I stumbled through the house and out to my car, struggling not to toss my cookies. The bright, beautiful day was a shocking contrast to the dark tragedy I’d witnessed.

Taking several slow deep breaths, I lowered myself into the front seat, picked up my cell phone and dialed 911.

I waited.

The sun beat down. Sweat plastered my floral print uniform top to my back. I pushed my bangs from my forehead and waited. I closed my eyes but when I did, I saw Tim’s body slowly rotating from the end of the rope and I quickly opened them again.

I’m a nurse. I’ve seen a lot of grisly things. But I’d known Tim. He’d spent time at my house.

My stomach roiled. I got out of the car and paced the lawn with my hands folded across my chest. I glanced over at Rocky’s trailer, saw his bedroom curtain move and knew he’d been staring at me. Cocking my head, I studied the window and I wondered if he’d seen anything going on at Tim’s.

I’m not sure what I was thinking. I mean it was pretty clear Tim had hung himself. It wasn’t murder, but then why would Tim kill himself? Depression over getting arrested? Surely not. It hadn’t been that big a deal. Then again, I realized how little I knew about Tim and his inner life. What
seemed inconsequential to me might have been earth-shattering to him.

I nibbled a fingernail. Honestly, I was a little numb.

Feeling vulnerable to Rocky’s scrutiny, I got back in the car. Ten minutes later, when the patrol car rolled to a stop beside me, my knees were still quaking. I had rested my head against the steering wheel, steeling myself for what lay ahead. Therefore, I didn’t notice that the deputy walking around my car was no deputy.

Knuckles rapped against the window and I jumped like a skittish cat at Fourth of July fireworks.

Sheriff Conahegg pantomimed rolling the window down. I did better than that. I swung open the door and got out.

Damn, he looked handsome with that badge pinned to his chest, and that gun hanging on his hip. Nonsensically, he made me feel safe and I realized I was glad to see him.

I leaned against my car. He stood so close I could feel his body heat. His gray eyes held mine. Was it concern for me that widened his pupils? Was I reading more into his gaze than was there? Since when had I started trying to second-guess Conahegg’s emotions?

He touched my shoulder, a gesture of condolence. But it felt like so much more than that. His eyes—oh, those enigmatic eyes that gave away nothing—stayed fixed on my face. “I’m sorry,” he said, “that you had to find the body.”

“Hazard of the job,” I said, trying to make light of a very serious subject. If I didn’t stay detached from Tim’s suicide, I would have to fling myself into Conahegg’s arms and beg him to hold me close. “I’ve seen bodies before.”

“You’re pretty tough, Allegheny.” Admiration tinged his voice, slightly curved his lips.

I had the goofiest urge to smile. Conahegg was proud of me.

Two more cruisers glided to a stop, sirens cutting off in
midwhine. At the appearance of the other officers, Conahegg’s countenance changed. He straightened, stepped back, removed his hand from my shoulder.

And most telling of all, he dropped his gaze.

I felt robbed, cheated, relieved.

Talk about mixed messages. Talk about conflicting signals. I was sending them and receiving them.

“Did you spot any vehicles leaving the scene, Ms. Green?” Conahegg asked. His tone was distant, his words clipped.

“No.”

“Pass anybody on the road?”

I shook my head.

“Anyone on foot.”

“No again.”

He said nothing.

“Do you need for me to go back inside?” I asked, squaring my shoulders to gather my courage, struggling hard to be all business, too.

Conahegg’s mouth flattened in a noncommittal expression and he motioned his crew toward the trailer. “No. It’s best if you stay out here. But don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back to talk to you.”

“I’ve got another patient to see in half an hour.” I glanced at my watch.

“Call your office and get someone else to do it,” he snapped, making me wonder if I had imagined his earlier compassion.

Overall, he had the personality of a steamroller and he was obviously accustomed to having his edicts followed with unquestioned loyalty, but his badass attitude made me want to rebel.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “My patients always come first.”

“Tim Kehaul was your patient.”

“Tim Kehaul is dead. My responsibilities are to the living.”

“Stay put.” He raised a finger of warning. “Don’t make me take you into custody.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” I lifted my chin and wondered why in the hell I felt so jazzed. It was the same sort of adrenaline rush I got during a code blue. Nervousness born of inexplicable excitement that I didn’t know how to alleviate. What in the hell was wrong with me?

His eyes met mine, hard and unreadable. “Try me.”

I resisted the childish urge to stick my tongue out at him. His men circled the house. One of the deputies stepped up on the front porch and peeled back the screen door. It creaked loudly.

“Needs WD-40,” I said inanely.

“Sheriff’s Department,” the deputy hollered after knocking on the inner door, which was still standing open as I had left it. “We’re coming in.”

“There’s nobody inside the house except Tim,” I told him.

“Procedure,” Conahegg answered. “You never know for sure.”

I knew for sure, but who was I to argue with an ex-marine with a very big gun?

“Stand over here,” he commanded, ushering me off Tim’s property without actually touching me, until I was standing in the middle of the dirt road. Strange, but it seemed as if I could feel that muscular arm at my back, pushing me along like a broom at a piece of dust.

Why the man intrigued me while punching my buttons at the same time, I could not say. I only know I had never been so aroused and yet so irritated by anyone. I wanted to kiss him and kick him in the behind at the same time.

Jeez Louise, what’s wrong with you? Now’s not the time to get warm and fuzzy over Conahegg. There’s a dead body
inside that glorified tin can. A body who happens to be your sister’s ex-boyfriend.

Besides, Conahegg wasn’t my type. I preferred tender men who read poetry and studied art, not steel and iron types with piercing dark eyes that could drill a hole straight through you at a hundred paces. I wasn’t a glutton for punishment.

And yet, I couldn’t help but watch him stalk back toward the trailer house, his butt encased so finely in that formfitting uniform. When he disappeared inside, I finally looked away.

One of the deputies started roping yellow crime scene tape around the perimeter. I tugged my cell phone from my pocket, extended the antenna, punched in the numbers then broke the news to Joyce that she’d have to finish my visits for the day since I was apparently being detained by the sheriff for the duration of the afternoon. Joyce wasn’t too happy, but hey, it wasn’t my problem.

Minutes passed. The sun continued to beat down and I was awash in sweat. Nice. A fly kept buzzing around my head and no amount of swatting seemed to persuade him to find a more receptive landing place. I began to walk around to outdistance the fly and that’s when I noticed that several people had gathered outside their trailer houses, necks craned in my direction.

Great. I was a one-woman freak show. Uncomfortable with the perusal, I glanced away. But it didn’t do any good. One of the neighbors ambled over.

“How-de-do.” A middle-aged, overweight man with a face like a boiled ham came to stand beside me, his thumbs tucked under the straps of his triple XL overalls, a matchstick stuck in the corner of his wide mouth.

“Hello.” I gave him a tight smile.

“What’s a goin’ on?” He had a Jethro Bodine drawl and small curious eyes.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Is that little gay boy in trouble with the law again?” Matchstick inclined his head toward the patrol cars. “I heard he got arrested for runnin’ around nekked in the bushes up where the rich folks live in Brazos River Bend.”

So I was considered rich? I cast a quick glance at Matchstick’s patched overalls with the ketchup stain on the bib and figured, yeah, according to him, I probably was wealthy.

“Yes ma’am. There’s been some strange going-ons over there.”

“Like what?” I asked, deciding to use the Andover Bend grapevine to my advantage. Who knew? Matchstick might hold the key to Tim’s suicide.

Matchstick relished his role as keeper of the trailer park gossip. He rubbed one ear pensively, building the tension. “I don’t work you understand. Hurt my back at the gravel pit in ’97. Haven’t been able to even pick up my grandkids since. My wife, Lindy Sue, she has to support us. We can’t make it on my disability. She cooks at Heavenly Acres retirement center in Cloverleaf.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anyway, I got time on my hands and nothing much to do with it ’cept keep an eye on the neighborhood. I’m head of the community crime watch program,” he exclaimed proudly.

I scanned the dilapidated trailers and wondered what kind of pathetic criminals would steal from these poor folks.

“That young’un, Tim, he was a good boy even if he did like to ride the baloney pony,” Matchstick said. “If you know what I mean.”

Unfortunately I did and I really didn’t appreciate the image Matchstick’s words brought to mind.

“But he had all kinds a weirdos coming to visit. I kept an eye on ’em. Never can be too careful.”

“That’s true,” I murmured. “Did you see anything unusual in the last day or two?”

The man stopped to ponder my question. He removed the matchstick from his mouth and scratched his head with it. “Hmm, let me think.”

“I saw sumptin’.” The voice startled me.

I turned to find a woman about my age wearing a faded housedress and sponge rollers in her hair standing directly behind me and Matchstick. In an age of hot rollers and curling irons I didn’t know people still wore sponge rollers. A couple of toddlers were wrapped around her legs and from the looks of her distended belly, she had another bun in the oven.

“You did.”

She nodded. “They had a fight over there last night. Way late. I was up with my youngest.” She placed a hand on the head of the child to her right. “Marianne had a bad cough and couldn’t sleep. I brought her out on the porch so she wouldn’t wake Alfred, my husband. He hasta get up early to drive the school bus.”

“I didn’t hear nothing about no fight,” Matchstick grumbled, obviously unhappy to have my attention usurped by the woman.

“Who are you referring to?” I asked.

“Tim,” she said. “And that big blond guy.”

Big blond guy? Who was that?

“Do you know the man’s name?”

She shook her head. “No. He’s not very friendly. I tried to say
hi
a couple of times when I was out workin’ in the yard but he never said
hi
back. I wondered what Tim saw in him.”

“How do you know they were lovers?”

The woman blushed and glanced down at her kids. “I saw them,” she whispered.

“Saw them?”

“You know—they was holdin’ hands, kissin’. Other stuff, too.”

“Er…how did you see them?” I asked.

Her blush deepened. “I went over to borrow a cup of sugar one night. I was making strawberry pie and Tim had left his front door open. They was in the living room goin’ at it.”

I looked at Matchstick. “Do you know the blond guy?”

“Saw him once or twice. He looked like one of them professional wrestlers.”

“You never spoke to him?”

Matchstick shook his head. “He had one of them deformed ears like a boxer. What do they call? Some kind a vegetable.”

“Cauliflower?”

“Maybe.” Matchstick frowned. “Though it coulda been cabbage.”

Other neighbors came forward and began to offer their opinions and theories. But I didn’t learn anything more about Tim and his mysterious lover. The conversation degenerated into a dissertation of how best to cook cabbage. Matchstick smacked his lips and sucked on the match extra hard when he talked about how Lindy Sue fried cabbage with black pepper and onions.

After what seemed an eternity, Conahegg finally came back outside.

He shooed the neighbors away and told them he’d send deputies over to talk to them, then he hustled me aside. He shook his head over Tim’s untimely and undignified death, then surprised me by clamping a hand on my shoulder and asking, “Are you all right?”

I nodded. “Tim was a nice guy. Why would he want to kill himself? Do you think it had anything to do with getting arrested the other night?”

Conahegg gave me a strange look and removed his hand.

“And why would he hang himself in the nude? Surely he wouldn’t want to be found that way,” I continued.

“I don’t believe that it was intentional,” Conahegg said.

“Beg pardon?”

“Put two and two together, Ally.”

Suddenly the answer hit me. Rope. Neck. Naked.

I felt my hairline heat and knew I was blushing. “Oh,” I muttered. “Autoerotic asphyxiation.”

Conahegg nodded. “That’s my guess, but of course we investigate any unexplained deaths as homicides.”

I might be a country girl but I’m not naive. I’m a nurse for crying out loud. I went to college for four years. I learned about sexual perversions in abnormal psych class. At least in theory.

“Can I go?” I asked, thoroughly embarrassed that I’d been so slow to catch on. Conahegg must think me an unsophisticated hick.

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“Oh?”

“Why don’t I take your statement over a soft drink in an air-conditioned diner? The heat’s made you cranky.”

I wanted to say no. I didn’t really want to be alone with Conahegg, but the idea of a tall Dr. Pepper over crushed ice was too much temptation for this sweaty, small town girl.

“I’m buying,” he said.

That cinched the deal. “Okay. My car or yours?”

“Why don’t you follow me?”

And that’s how I ended up sitting across from Conahegg at the Dairy Queen several miles up the road from Andover Bend. The lunch hour had passed so we were the only ones sitting at the red plastic booths.