The ZZ Top giant didn’t fall, only gave a woofing scream… grabbed his dead arm… then staggered a couple of steps while his crazy eyes searched for someone to blame.
Me, that’s who his eyes found, and I was ready when he came at me. Holding the rope, I jumped away, then tossed the whole coil high toward the stars. The hopper was the size of a bathtub and impossible to miss.
I didn’t miss… nor did I stop running even when Spooner screamed, “Somebody help me!” his voice piercing the percussion thump of his own body being tractored over sheet metal, then spun higher by an auger toward the feed chute above him. Alice Condor’s pleas for mercy were stuck in my mind, but my real fear was that Levi Thurloe was on my tail. If he caught me, the man I had protected from bullies in childhood might have spared my life a second time, possibly would have even murmured, You’re nice, but I wasn’t taking that chance. I had been lied to enough for one night.
Even minutes later, when I flagged down the sheriff’s cruiser bouncing toward me, I wasn’t convinced I was safe. My suffocating fear didn’t provide a clean breath until I recognized one of the two deputies who jumped out to reassure me. One was a man wearing a uniform, his gun belt shiny as plastic. The other deputy-a person I knew and trusted-was dressed in hospital scrubs and still groggy from drugs.
It was Birdy Tupplemeyer-a sight so shocking but also welcome that it dulled my guilt later when police told me the name of the woman I had left behind, wrapped in plastic.
31
From Venezuela, Marion Ford had written, Sorry, delayed. I miss you. When I get back, interested in buying a place together? We’ll need more room.
Ten days after opening the note, I was aboard my tidy floating home, dressing to see Ford for the first time since his return, when I heard the ting of an incoming text. It was from Joeclass="underline"
Found the shark mask, I know who it was. NOW will you talk to me?
I had been ignoring the man, true, but I had also spent my nights worrying about the identity of the person who had attacked me at the old Helms place. It wasn’t paranoia, or the aftershock of minor needle wounds to my throat and abdomen that caused me to be afraid. My reasons were all based on mistrust, but my mistrust was grounded in fact.
Harris Spooner had survived the shredding machine by the grace of his own body weight and the limits of even good anchor line, so now he was only chained to a hospital bed, which was the fuel of nightmares. Walkin’ Levi had also been added to my fears when he was transferred to a psych ward for “observation.” Mica Helms was safely behind bars, but there was a fourth suspect, too, who police had yet to find, let alone arrest: Delmont Chatham, collector of antique fishing gear.
The special prosecutor’s text message, however, was a bait too powerful to resist. I called him.
“It wasn’t Spooner,” I said when Joel answered. “I was right about not killing his own dog, wasn’t I?”
He replied, “How are you feeling?” sounding like he cared.
“Busy,” I said, “but a little nervous at night. That’s why I’d like to skip the small talk. Where’d you find the sun mask?”
“It wasn’t Harris,” Joel said. “You were right about Levi Thurloe, too. The guy’s got the IQ of a butterfly, but his face does brighten a little when your name’s mentioned. He says he-”
“Levi likes me,” I interrupted, “which is flattering, I’m touched. But I’d prefer you answer my question, then explain why you haven’t arrested Delmont Chatham. That’s who it has to be. A drug addict who collects antiques just doesn’t disappear into thin air.” I had come close to saying arrested your Great-uncle Delmont but monitored my irritation.
Joel didn’t like my tone. “It might take a few days, but Delmont will show up. On the other hand, you’ve got nothing to worry about because the person who attacked you is dead. Her body was right beside you in the van.”
I was walking through my little boat’s galley but stopped when I heard that. He was referring to Crystal Helms, the childhood friend I had left behind in life and also in death.
I didn’t want to believe it. “If that’s where you found the sun mask, Mica could have planted it in her apartment-no, wait, you said Crystal lived in a trailer. A woman drug addict, that would make it even easier for someone to-”
“It was Crystal,” Joel said. “I know you grew up together, but-well, I’ll put it this way: children don’t recognize the signs of trauma in other kids. You believe that, don’t you?”
“Keep talking,” I said.
“Hannah, I’m telling you it was Crystal Helms. I had her medical files subpoenaed. Yesterday, I got a warrant and we searched her trailer. We found the mask, the one made by Patagonia, just like you described it. There were bloodstains. We got the results this morning. Remember when I didn’t want to discuss what seemed like an unrelated murder? It was an elderly man named Clayton Edwards. Crystal used a knife, then robbed him. But what ties her to the attack on you are bloodstains from the dog she killed.”
I felt a shudder while thinking, Then put his head in the freezer, but didn’t say it.
There was more to come.
Joel said, “Crystal had issues early on. She despised her mother and idolized her father. When Dwight Helms was murdered, Crystal told more than one prison counselor that she went off the deep end. Which could have been just an excuse-even the dumbest con is a genius at making excuses-but not in Crystal’s case. She had a thing for freezers. To her, it was a place homemakers used to preserve trophies. I’m not going to tell you what we found in her freezer, aside from one of her mother’s wigs. All I say is, thank god she’d been out of prison for only a few weeks.”
I asked Joel to repeat some of what he’d told me, then said, “It’s hard to grasp the idea of a daughter killing her own mother. Are you absolutely sure?”
The man hesitated for just an instant yet sounded confident when he explained, “No other reason for Crystal to be there wearing a mask. Rosanna had called Harney Chatham and asked him to come to the house but then canceled. The phone records mesh with what the old man told me. It’s a guess but, the day you were attacked, I think her brother, or Spooner, knew Crystal was having another spell and went looking for her. Brought the dogs along, too. Fortunately for you, they came by boat.”
We talked for a while longer. Joel wanted to use this opening to charm me and he did it by giving me credit for recent positive events and there were several. Courts had frozen all assets of Fisherfolk Inc. A local law firm, Carta, Smith, Taminoshan and Volz, had filed a class action suit seeking redress for commercial fishermen who had been bilked. An unknown party had fronted a multimillion-dollar offer for the twelve cottages of Munchkinville with guarantees to residents that were generous but vague-a car salesman’s finesse that Joel, as smart as he was, didn’t connect with his biological father. Something else Joel didn’t know was that same unknown party had entrusted me with monitoring financial emergencies in our community of aging fisherfolk.
After that, recent positive events became more iffy. Alice Candor might soon be indicted, but her team of attorneys had kept her out of jail thus far. The rehab clinics that she and her husband owned were under investigation, but the investigation would take months, even years.
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up,” Joel said. “The governor’s office is getting involved and, well… let’s just say the governor has a personal interest in who controls state medical contracts. The good news is, like I said, we found the shark mask. Mystery solved. How about we celebrate over dinner?”