Steeled for Murder (19 page)

Someone knocked on the door.

Reggie back again? The police? At least I didn’t have a can of beer this time. I shifted Beth to one arm and went to open it.

In front of me stood a short teenager with a hint of red hair peeking from below his hat and a million freckles plastered all over his face. He was dressed in camouflage fatigues and combat boots. Next to him were two black plastic garbage bags. A jeep stood in front of the snowed-over van. It had made two deep ruts in the snow.

We stared at each other for a minute, surprised. He blinked first.

“Where’s Tiffany?” he asked.

“She’s sick,” I said cautiously.

“You’re not Mitch.” He was certainly observant.

“True, that.”

“I need to see Tiffany.”

“I’m afraid she’s not here. She’s real sick. She’s in the hospital.”

“Well, who in God’s name are you?” he asked.

“A friend.” Not completely accurate, but better than saying I was a convicted murderer on parole and now suspected of killing Tiffany’s husband. “Somebody had to stay with the kids. Who are you?”

“Carl Miller. Tiffany’s brother.” He looked past me, into the room. “I told her I’d bring some stuff for the kids for Christmas.”

Sam leaped up from the sofa. “Uncle Carl!” he cried. “You came. Mom said you would.”

Carl looked down at Sam and smiled. “Been a while, Trooper.” He rubbed Sam’s head. “You look a lot like my nephew Sam. Only bigger.”

Sam grinned. “I am Sam.”

The infamous Uncle Carl. Was this my release at hand? He didn’t look old enough to take care of four kids. But then, he didn’t look old enough to be a Marine, either. “You best come in so we can close that door,” I said. “Don’t want the baby to get cold.”

Carl turned and picked up his two bags. He stepped inside and saw the tree. “I think these go over there.” He handed Sam the bags.

Sam opened one. It was full of brightly wrapped packages.

Delighted, Sam dragged it over to the tree and started removing packages. “Look what Uncle Carl brought,” he called to the twins. He peered at the label of one before he placed it under the tree and took another one. The younger boys hurried over to join him.

“Now,” Carl said, squaring himself and looking up at me. “You want to go over this again about Tiffany being sick? And where’s Mitch?”

He didn’t know about Mitch? Yikes. “I’m not sure I’m the person who should be telling you this,” I said, “but Mitch is dead. Didn’t Tiffany tell you?”

“Dead?” His face paled. “Dead? I haven’t talked to Tiffany in over a week. But dead? What happened?”

To me, Carl sounded genuinely shocked, but what did I know? Montgomery would be able to tell whether he was telling the truth just by looking at him.

What would I do if I had a sister and I didn’t like the way her husband was treating her and the kids? Hard to tell, since I’d never had a sister. I think I would try to talk her into leaving him, but if she wouldn’t, would I feel like I should do something to get rid of him? Like killing him?

I found it a bit alarming how easily that “solution” came to mind. I didn’t think it would have occurred to me before I’d spent all that time in prison. Maybe Belkins had a point.

Carl had military training. He was just back from a war zone in Iraq. No way of knowing what he’d seen. Or done. Killing an abusive brother-in-law might not seem like such a big deal to him at this point.

I found it hard to know what to tell him. “He died at work,” I said.

“Some kind of industrial accident?”

I shrugged. “I’m not clear on the details. They think maybe somebody killed him.”

Carl took off his camouflage jacket and stuffed his hat in the pocket. He ran his thin hand over the reddish stubble on his head. The old boot camp joke came to mind: You get a haircut? No, but I’m hoping it will grow into one.

He sat in one of the kitchen chairs, shaking his head. “Dead. Who’d have thought it?”

I finished feeding Beth her bottle and laid her in her playpen. The boys were all gathered around the Christmas tree, picking up packages and shaking them.

“Tomorrow,” Sam was telling the twins. “Christmas morning. Then we can open them.”

Carl stared at the boys. “When did this happen?” he asked.

“Tuesday night. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It was in the paper and on the news.”

“My mom’s kind of depressed. She was afraid she was going to spend Christmas alone. Even though she has two kids and four grandkids.” Carl looked at his gnawed fingernails. “I took her on a little vacation. To Ocean City.”

His mother? Tiffany’s mother, too? A grandmother. These kids could use a grandmother.

I hoped she was the kind of grandmother who couldn’t get enough of her grandbabies. Not the crabby kind who thought they should always be sitting quietly or sleeping.

“Ocean City?” I asked. “This time of year?”

“Yeah, I know.” Carl shifted in his chair. “But she loves the ocean. It’s kind of neat to walk along the shore in the winter. The waves churning up on the beach. The boardwalk’s deserted. And I got a deal on the hotel rooms.”

“I imagine you did.”

“Mom deserves a break. She worried about me all the time I was overseas. And she worries about Tiffany and the kids all the time. But if she tries to say something, Tiff gets mad and says leave her alone, Mitch’ll take care of them. So Mom doesn’t call much. And Tiff doesn’t call at all.” He sat quietly for a minute.

Nothing for me to say.

“But come Christmas time,” Carl continued, “she gets all choked up. About the grandkids, especially.” He gestured toward the presents. “She bought most of that stuff. Been picking it up a little at a time, all year. And she wrapped all of it up, so the kids could have something.”

“Maybe she could come for Christmas,” I suggested. Then I wouldn’t have to stay.

Carl looked thoughtful. “I bet she’d love that,” he said. “She’d cook dinner and clean up.” He looked around the room. “The place looks better than it did when I was here last.”

“We been working on it.”

Carl nodded. “I came to see Tiffany Monday, while Mitch was at work. We’ve never been real thrilled with Mitch, Mom and me.” He looked from the kids to me. “I mean, I know it’s up to Tiffany who she marries. And I know she had Sam. She was worried that with one kid already and no child support, she’d never find a husband. Then she started seeing Mitch and got pregnant with the twins. You’d think she’d be more careful the second time…” Carl’s voice trailed off.

I closed the cookbook and put it away. Looked like maybe I could skip the cookie making. Grandmothers should be better equipped to make cookies than I ever would be.

Carl stirred himself. “Tiff’s at the hospital in town? Let me call and see how she’s doing. Then I’ll call Mom and tell her.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Mitch is dead. Tiffany is in the hospital.”

“The phone isn’t working,” I pointed out.

“I know. Tiff told me. Mitch pulled out the wires. I have my cell phone.”

Oh, yeah. Just because I didn’t have a cell phone didn’t mean that everybody else didn’t. I didn’t have anybody to call anyhow.

“Do you know the hospital’s number?” he asked, flipping open his phone. “Is there a phone book around here?”

I went into the pantry and found the phone book. I looked up “hospitals” in the yellow pages. By the time I found it, he was talking into his cell phone.

“Mom?” Carl said into the phone. “Listen, Tiffany’s in the hospital. And this guy—what did you say your name was?” He glanced at me.

“Just a friend.” Probably do no good to keep my name out of it, but I wouldn’t tell him if I could manage not to. Less he knew about me, the less he could tell the cops, who were sure to be asking.

“A friend, I guess, he’s here taking care of the kids. And he says Mitch is dead.” He listened for a few minutes. Beneath his freckles, his pale face went paler still. He turned to me. “Did Tiffany kill Mitch?”

Now that one hadn’t occurred to me. Had Tiffany finally gotten her fill of the abuse and snuck into the plant? And killed him? In her negligee?

But I replied, “I don’t think so. It happened at work.”

“Did Mitch do something to Tiffany? Is that why she’s in the hospital?” Carl asked.

“Not that I know of,” I said. “She was real sick when I got here. Fever. I didn’t see any bruises or anything like that.”

“Okay.” Carl turned back to the phone. “Mom, I don’t know what happened. To Mitch, either. Maybe Tiffany can tell us when we see her.”

He listened for a little while.

“Yeah. Huh. Okay. Yeah.” He hung up.

“Mom’s gonna meet me at the hospital,” he said. “Can you stay awhile longer with the kids?”

“Look.” I wasn’t going to let this opportunity to get out of the babysitting detail evaporate. “I stayed with them ‘cause there was nobody else. But I got to get home myself. You think your mom can take care of them? Or can you?”

“Mom says she’ll do it,” Carl said. “She sounded thrilled. I don’t think she’s even seen the baby yet. I can drive her back here after we see Tiffany.”

“I got to get back to town,” I insisted. “How about we pack up the kids and take them to the hospital? You and your mom can go see Tiffany and then bring the kids back here.”

I could see Carl wavering.

“Tiffany told them you’d take them to McDonald’s.” I didn’t tell him that I’d already done that. “They’re really looking forward to it. I can just go home from the hospital.”

Carl shrugged. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he said. “But I can’t fit everybody into the Jeep.”

I wasn’t about to let my chance to get a ride to town evaporate. “We can shovel a path for the van over to the tracks the jeep made,” I urged. “It’s downhill to the road. I heard a snowplow go by. You made it up here. The roads can’t be that bad.”

Carl looked doubtful. “I suppose.”

I reached for my jacket. “Let’s see if we can move the van,” I said. “Sam’ll keep an eye on the little ones until we get done.” I eyed a pair of thick gloves and a scarf draped over the hook under where my jacket had been. Probably Mitch’s. He wouldn’t be needing them. I grabbed them.

Between the trees, the snow wasn’t so deep. Carl found some snow shovels, and we set to work. We soon had the van sitting in the tracks the Jeep had made, the engine running. We should be able to make it down to the road. Getting it back up the driveway might be more of a problem, but it wouldn’t be mine. Besides, they could leave the van parked down by the road and walk up.

Back in the house, Sam gathered up jackets and hats for the twins while I packed the diaper bag. Carl studied the squat Christmas tree with most of its ornaments on the bottom third and frowned. At least it had presents underneath it now. The kids were thrilled. That was the important thing.

I snatched my sweater and shirt from the drying rack. I’d given them low priority; the diapers and the kids’ clothes were closer to the heat. They were still damp. I rolled them up and stuffed them into a plastic grocery bag from the pantry.

I grabbed Tiffany’s purse. “You might need this,” I said. “It has her medical card and stuff.”

Carl took it and looked at me suspiciously. He rummaged inside. Narrowing his eyes, he pulled out the wallet and jerked it open. The small bunch of twenties fell out to the floor. He picked them up and looked at me, relief evident on his face. “How long you been babysitting?” he asked.

I shrugged. “A little over a day, I guess,” I said.

“You think sixty dollars’ll do?” he asked, holding out three twenties. “It’s not a lot, but…”

Sixty dollars. Maybe not a lot of money, but it would make a big difference to me. Might mean I could actually eat the first week back to work, before I got a paycheck. In a way, I hated to take Tiffany’s money; she and the kids probably needed it. But with Uncle Carl and Grandma on the scene, maybe things wouldn’t be so tight.

“Sixty dollars is fine,” I said, pocketing the money.

I was happy to let Carl drive the van. Presumably he had a license. And since it was his sister’s vehicle, the question of unauthorized use was much less likely to come up if we were stopped.

We parked in the visitor’s lot at the hospital this time. Herding the boys and carrying the baby and diaper bag, we went in the front entrance instead of the emergency room.

“I got to get going.” I looked around the waiting room, half expecting to see a cop approaching, handcuffs in one hand and the other resting on the butt of his service gun.

“My mom should be here in a few minutes,” Carl said. “Can’t you stay with the kids for a few minutes until she gets here?”

He had just paid me a fair amount for babysitting. I didn’t see so much as a security guard. And I had to get a grip. “I guess,” I said.

Carl went over to the reception desk and got in the short line.

In the comfortable main waiting room, I settled down with the kids on an overstuffed couch in a corner where they could see the TV and where I could sit sideways, shielded by a big plant but still keep an eye on the room. The whole area was a lot calmer than the emergency waiting room. No big double doors constantly swinging open, no ambulances or police cars screaming up to the curb.