Thirty-Four and a Half Predicaments Bonus Chapters: Rose Gardner Mystery (2 page)

M
y hands gripped
the steering wheel, still in shock over my agreement with Mr. Deveraux. I was going to spy on my boss—the chief deputy sheriff—and report to the very recently fired assistant district attorney. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. What I’d agreed to was wrong.

But when I stepped back from the situation, it was easy to see something was rotten in Fenton County.

Everyone knew Mason Deveraux was the most decent, fair, non-prejudiced assistant district attorney Fenton County had seen since the Eisenhower era . . . not that I’d been around then. But my granddad was, and he’d been watching the courthouse with eager anticipation since Deveraux had come to town. He’d been a bailiff himself back in the day, so he knew how bad things had been. Since he still worked at the courthouse at the security check at the front door, he liked to think he kept an eye on things.

“Randy,” he’d said last October, “that Mason Deveraux is exactly what this county needs to get things straightened out. You mark my words. He’ll be the next district attorney, and he’ll wipe the corruption clean out of this town.”

While I’d joined the sheriff’s department to uphold justice, I’d come across more corruption than I’d thought possible. I was pretty skeptical about his proclamation. “Granddad, how would you know? You don’t see what goes on in the courtroom anymore.”

He’d shook his head. “I see the man multiple times a day, comin’ and goin’ from the courthouse. You can learn a lot about a man by the way he treats those he might consider beneath him. Mason Deveraux is a good man.”

Needless to say, I didn’t put much stock in it until I volunteered to keep watch on Mr. Deveraux and Rose Gardner when Daniel Crocker was on the loose. My granddad had been right—you can learn a lot from the way a man treats someone he might consider beneath him. But in this case, it was a
her.
Rose Gardner. She’d treated me and everyone else around her with respect and kindness. The more I got to know her and Mr. Deveraux, the more I knew my granddad was right. Mason Deveraux was the man to do the job, and Rose Gardner would encourage him to do it.

When Chief Deputy Simmons was hired, and then asked me to keep an eye on Rose and her property, I assumed he’d done it because of the trouble she’d gotten into with Gems and the threat on Mr. Deveraux’s life. I’d never in a million years suspected he might be on a fishing expedition, looking for evidence to arrest her or have Mr. Deveraux fired.

I didn’t know the details of what happened in the courthouse earlier that evening. I hadn’t even been there, but Deputy Luther Higgins had. Luther said Mr. Deveraux was set to present a case of misconduct on the district attorney, fully expecting Deputy Simmons to help him present evidence, only Deputy Simmons had sat there with his hands on the table and a scowl on his face. He’d remained like that until the special investigator let the DA dismiss Mr. Deveraux based on his own trumped-up charges of misconduct. As soon as the announcement was made, Deputy Simmons stood and walked out of the room without a backward glance.

Mason Deveraux had been blindsided.

As I drove into town, I picked up my phone and called Luther. “You still at the courthouse?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound happy about it. “Rumor has it they just arrested Deveraux’s girlfriend and Hoffstetter’s bringin’ her in for booking.”

“It’s true.”

“On what charges?” he asked in disbelief.

“Murdering her mother.”

“
What?
Everyone and his brother knows Daniel Crocker murdered her mother. She had nothin’ to do with it.”

I sighed. “I know.”

His voice lowered. “I knew Simmons was a pack of trouble.”

Now I knew that too.

Back in November, it had come to light that Chief Deputy Jeff Dimler had been in cahoots with Daniel Crocker, along with a handful of sheriff’s deputies. The deputies who hadn’t been part of the band of criminal brotherhood had felt betrayed by their boss. But not many of us felt any better after Joe Simmons was hired. Everyone in southern Arkansas knew his daddy was as crooked as Big Creek. Why would his son be any different? We’d heard rumors about things he’d gotten away with in the state police department up in Little Rock. Still, I’d given him the benefit of the doubt, especially after he’d shown a soft spot for Rose.

But now I saw him for what he really was—just another crooked official out for no one but himself.

Not only was I going to keep my job, but I was gonna get whatever information I could to help Mr. Deveraux bring him down. Just like I had with Chief Deputy Dimler and the men Daniel Crocker had turned in the sheriff’s department.

My phone vibrated and I saw I had a call from the devil himself. “Luther, let me know if you hear anything.”

“Yeah.”

I accepted the call, forcing myself to sound civil. “Miller here.”

“Deputy, I need you to go to the courthouse.” Chief Deputy Simmons was more official than usual, but his voice sounded strained. “You’re to keep an eye on Ms. Gardner during the booking procedure.”

My heart began to gallop. “What exactly am I watching for, sir?”

“You’re to make sure nothing happens that could bring excessive force charges against us,” he replied sharply. “Deveraux may not be in office, but he’s out for blood. We both know Hoffstetter has her panties in a wad where Rose Gardner is concerned, so let’s not give Deveraux any ammunition to use against us.”

“
That’s
why I’m watching?” I asked in disbelief. “To minimize trouble with Mr. Deveraux?”

“What the hell else would it be?” he growled. “Can you handle it or not?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, my hands squeezing the steering wheel and wishing it was his neck. “I can.”

“
Good
.” He hung up before I could respond.

I turned on my lights and siren, speeding to the courthouse and hoping Hoffstetter hadn’t gained too much ground ahead of me. But Abbie Lee must have been in one heck of a hurry to get things rolling, because by the time I got there, Rose was already getting fingerprinted.

As a deputy rolled Rose’s finger on an inkpad, Rose looked at me with unshed tears in her eyes. “Is Mason okay?”

Relief washed through my body, grateful she was talking to me. After seeing the look on her face when Abbie Lee was reading her rights, I wasn’t sure if she’d forgive me for being part of it. “Yeah. He’s fine.”

She sniffed as the deputy wiped off her fingertip with an alcohol pad. “I was worried he’d do something foolish on my behalf.”

He had, but I saw no reason to tell her that since Simmons let him go. “He’s fine. He’s more worried about
you
.”

She swallowed and offered me a weak smile. “If you see him, tell him I’m okay.”

Abbie Lee stood across the room and released a short laugh. “You may be okay now, but just you wait.”

Fear filled Rose’s eyes and my anger brewed.

I shot Abbie Lee a glare. “Don’t you need to get back to the sheriff’s office,
Deputy?
”

A smug grin spread across her face. “I’m processin’ my prisoner.”

“Chief Deputy Simmons called and told
me
to stay and watch, which means
you
can go.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. While he’d asked me to come, he hadn’t said a word about Abbie Lee. If I caught flak for it later, I could always claim to have misunderstood.

She put her hands on her ample hips. “Who’s gonna do her strip search?”

Rose cringed and her gaze jerked up to me, fear filling her eyes.

Not you
, was the first thing that came to my mind, but the deputy taking Rose’s prints spoke up before I could. “Keisha’s here. She’ll do it.”

Abbie Lee scowled. “I’ve been waiting for this day for months. I want to be here to see her get what’s comin’ to her.”

The other deputy looked over his shoulder with a glare. “All the more reason for you to
go
.”

Abbie Lee didn’t look convinced, but the processing deputy turned and gave her a death stare until the redheaded deputy’s face flushed with anger and she walked away. As soon as she was out of earshot, the deputy grumbled, “Thanks. I thought she’d never leave.”

Rose seemed to relax a little after Abbie Lee left the room, but still remained tense, not that I blamed her. She had to have been blindsided by this, and it was no coincidence that she was arrested within an hour of Mr. Deveraux losing his job. Something fishy was going on, and I was even more determined to help Mr. Deveraux get to the bottom of it.

After the deputy finished the fingerprinting, he led Rose over to the mug shot wall. She looked dazed as he snapped the photos.

“Would you like to make a phone call?” he asked when they finished.

Her eyes widened as though she was caught off guard, then she nodded. “Yeah.”

He took her to the phone, and I wasn’t surprised who she called.

“Mason?” Her voice broke. “No, I’m okay.” She glanced up at me and gave me a soft smile. “Deputy Miller is here . . . no, she left after he came. Are you okay?” I heard the worry in her voice. “You didn’t do anything to get into trouble, did you?” Her eyes sank closed with relief and she was quiet for several seconds before she opened her eyes. “Thanks for making sure Muffy’s taken care of. Will you call Violet? And Neely Kate?”

“Thirty seconds,” the processing deputy said.

Panic filled her eyes. “I don’t have much time . . . Yes, I promise not to say anything. I’ll wait for him . . . Yes.
I promise
.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Mason, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you helping me. Thank you.” She started crying. “I love you.”

The deputy took the phone and hung up. “Time to change into your jumpsuit and take you to the holding cell.”

She nodded and looked over at me.

I wanted to tell her she had people fighting for her. To hang on and we’d do everything we could to help her. But I couldn’t say a word; instead, I hoped I conveyed it all with the look in my eyes. Thankfully, she must have understood at least part of my message, because she gave me a smile before she disappeared into the county jail.

How in the world were we gonna get her out?

L
oss is a funny thing
. I was forever losing my car keys. Ronnie would say in his patient, exasperated tone, “Neely Kate, if you’d just put them in the bowl by the door . . .”

And he was right, of course.

Even when I couldn’t find them, I knew they were there somewhere—under a sofa cushion. In my coat pocket. On the kitchen counter. I knew it was just a matter of time before they were back in my hand again.

But my babies were never coming back.

I’d never seen them—other than the tiny little blip of Baby A on the sonogram screen. There was no tiny blip of Baby B. No heartbeat beating so furiously it sounded like a hummingbird trying to escape. He was hiding in my scarred fallopian tube, waiting for the end.

It made my heart ache to think I’d only found out about him after he was dead. Of my two babies, I mourned him the most. To exist and never be loved.

I knew all too well how that felt.

The River family is huge. My grannie had eight kids, who each in turn had multiple kids. My mother was the second to youngest. When she was seventeen, she took off with a guy in a band and never looked back.

“I’m too big for that little town, Neely Kate,” she’d say, her head leaned back on the threadbare sofa in our trailer, a Jack and Coke in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. “I ain’t never goin’ back.”

But that was a lie, just like all the others that fell out of her mouth. She dragged me back to Henryetta less than two months later.

I was twelve years old at the time, and had seen more than any kid should ever see. Momma often had her gentleman friends over as well as her other partying friends, yet I always felt alone. Every night when I went to bed, I would look through my broken window—the one I stuffed rags into in the winter to keep out the cold—and search the stars, finding the brightest one so I could make my secret wish.

I wanted a sister.

So I wouldn’t be alone.

I had no idea where we were going when she loaded me and two bags into a “borrowed” car that night. I knew better than to ask questions when Momma was in a “mood”. And she’d been in a mood ever since her latest boyfriend had dumped her.

We drove all night and I woke to find us parked in a dirt driveway in front of a dilapidated mess of a house. The sun peeking over the horizon filled the car with bright golden light. Momma glowed softly as she draped both arms over the steering wheel, looking younger than she’d looked in years, and stared at the house like she expected it to fly off like that house in the movie
Up
.

“Where are we?” I whispered, sensing something wasn’t right.

She didn’t answer, only shuddered like we were about to face a monster. She got out of the car, came around to the passenger side, and opened the door.

“Come on.” She spoke with the same brisk tone she used before I was about to get a beating. I knew better than to sass her, but at the moment, the unknown of that house seemed like a bigger threat than my mother’s temper.

“Where are we?” I asked again, my voice shaking with fear.

She sniffed and wiped under her eye with the back of her hand as she reached in and grabbed my bag out of the back.

She didn’t grab her own.

Panic clawed in my chest and I started to sob.

She was ditching me.

“No, Momma. I’ll be good.”

Grabbing my skinny arm, her fingers digging deep, she pulled me from the car. My sneakered feet dug into the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

“Please, Momma! I’ll be a good girl. Don’t leave me!”

A dog began to bark and Momma cursed under her breath. The screen door opened with an ominous screech.

I pulled loose and fell, hands and knees in the dirt. I scrambled to get up so I could run to the car, but Momma grabbed me again and jerked me to my feet.

“Quit yer bawlin’. This is for yer own good.”

Ordinarily, I would have listened, but I knew this was bad, a feeling that sunk so deep into my bones it made my arms and legs clumsy.

She dragged me up two short steps to a wooden porch that bowed in the middle. It was then I noticed the old woman standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her ample breasts. Pink foam curlers covered her gray head and she looked mad enough to spit tacks.

“Jenny Lynn,” she said. “What in the Sam Hill are you doin’?”

Momma’s grip on my arm tightened. “I can’t take care of her no more, Momma. Yer gonna have to do it now.”

My eyes flew open and a new rush of adrenaline kicked in. This was my grandmother.

The old woman put her hands on her hips. “Whatcha mean you can’t take care of her no more? She yours?”

My mouth parted. My grandmother didn’t even know I existed.

My momma turned to me, her jaw set and her eyes hard as she pointed her bony finger in my face. “You stay here with your grannie until I come back for you.”

I began to cry in earnest. “Momma, I won’t sass you no more, I promise,” I pleaded, my nose and throat clogged with snot. “I’ll steal the beer from the convenience store next time you ask me, just please don’t leave me, Momma.
Please
!”

She gave me one last look, indecision flashing in her eyes, before she spun around and walked to the car like she’d just dropped off a load of used clothes at the Goodwill. Then she drove off without a backward glance.

“What’s yer name?” my grandmother asked.

I jerked in surprise, just now realizing my mother had left me with a total stranger. “Neely . . . Kate . . .” I heaved out between sobs.

“Who’s yer daddy?”

“I . . . don’t know.” I had no idea who my father was, and Momma had never deemed it necessary to tell me.

“How old are ya?”

“Twelve.”

She gave a quick nod, her mouth pursed. “Old enough to work. Come on. We’re canning pickles today.”

My grandmother was a no-nonsense woman who made it clear she had no interest in raising another child, but she wasn’t unkind either. I had the firm impression we were both biding our time, waiting for Momma to come back and retrieve me.

We’re still waiting.

In the meantime, I met the multitude of aunts and uncles and cousins that comprised my family. Great-aunts and uncles and cousins-once-removed. I went from only having Momma to being surrounded by more family than I could count. They were curious about Jenny Lynn’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed bastard, and while they weren’t unkind, it was painfully clear I wasn’t one of them either. They were loud and boisterous and just plain wild. After being alone for so long, I struggled to get used to this new family of mine. I started to pretend to be like them, thinking if I faked it long enough, I’d finally believe it.

Grannie enrolled me in school and—other than being painfully behind in multiple subjects—I acclimated to school much better than to living with my crazy River relatives. I made friends and became popular, but I still felt like I was on the outside looking in. And even when I was a nearly a grown woman, I still looked out my window every night, asking the stars for my sister. It was stupid, I knew it, but I’d done it for so long, it seemed wrong to stop now. Besides, it was part of my routine, and if I kept my routine, maybe, just maybe, Momma would come back for me. Especially if I was a good girl.

By the time I’d graduated, my grannie and I had grown fond of each other. In fact, I was the granddaughter she went to when she needed help. And I loved her, yet something was still missing. Her love wasn’t enough.

After I was grown and had started working at a job I hated at the courthouse, I got engaged to the most wonderful man in the world—even if I knew I didn’t deserve him. He was sweet and kind, and everything I’d never dared hoped to have in a man. I couldn’t wait to get married and quit my miserable job. Then I got picked for jury duty a month before my wedding. I knew no one who worked for the courthouse would ever make a jury, but I was grateful for the few hours break from work. Never in a million years would I have guessed that that was where I’d finally meet the sister I’d been praying for my whole life.

Rose.

I think we can find all kinds of soul mates in this life. Sometimes they are our spouses, but sometimes they’re our friends. On that day, I immediately knew that Rose Gardner was mine. Both of us had family who didn’t really want us, and although I didn’t like to talk about that, even with her, it made us closer. It wasn’t long before we were best friends, just like I knew we’d be that first day she sat by me in the juror room, and I rambled on and on and on about a stupid donut.

Really, Neely Kate
.

I was so nervous that she’d bolt, that she’d leave me just like my momma did. But I should have known better, because when I looked deep into Rose’s eyes, I could see she was an old soul. She wasn’t flighty like my momma. She could be trusted.

I let her in more than I’d ever let
anyone
in, yet I still had a haystack full of secrets.

But here I was, grieving the babies I’d always wanted. Rose had tried to cheer me up by asking me to help her find out the truth about her birth mother’s death, but I’d stayed home today. I was wallowing in my own grief and the doctor’s news that there wouldn’t be any more. Ronnie was trying so hard to be warm and comforting. He’d taken the day off from work and he’d gone and stayed home from his usual poker game with the guys from his shop, too. It was so selfless, so Ronnie. But his presence was like the muskrat hair sweater my Aunt Thelma made me for Christmas one year—hot and itchy. Yet I wore it the entire day, dying to take it off and just
breathe
, but I couldn’t bear to hurt her feelings. That was how I was feeling now. And it only proved how much I didn’t deserve him.

My cell phone rang and I literally ran to my purse.

“Neely Kate, let it go to voice mail,” Ronnie called after me.

I knew I should. It was what a good wife would have done, but I was a terrible wife, no matter how hard I tried. I glanced over my shoulder. “I have a feeling this is important.” I was hoping it was Rose since I’d been dying to call her all afternoon and see if she’d made any headway on our case.

He shook his head, letting my premonition roll off his back. He was used to me saying things like that.

I glanced at the screen in surprise, wondering why Mason was calling me. Then I realized it was probably Rose after all. She was always forgetting to charge her phone. “Hey.”

“Neely Kate.” The way he said my name was enough to clue me in that something bad had happened.

“Oh, God. Is Rose okay?”

Ronnie sat up straighter on the sofa, worry in his eyes.

“No . . . I mean she’s not hurt, but she’s not okay.”

“What happened?”

“Joe . . .” His voice tightened. “He showed up at the farm and arrested her.”

“He did
what
?” I shouted. “What were the charges?” Had Joe found out she was the Lady in Black?

“Murdering her mother.”

“
What
? Everyone knows Daniel Crocker killed her momma! Why would he do that?”

“It’s a long story as to why. He was following orders from his father.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like I said, it’s a long story, and I promise to tell you all about it, but right now I’m trying to track down Carter Hale.”

“The defense attorney? Why don’t you just dismiss the charges?”

He paused. “I can’t. Joe made sure I lost my job tonight.” The anger in his voice wasn’t surprising. My own anger was ratcheting up faster than the broken swing drop ride at last year’s county fair.

“If you can’t find Carter, let me know,” I said. “In the meantime, I have an errand of my own to run.”

Mason sounded like he wanted to murder Joe Simmons, but I planned to get to the bastard first.