Cold Woods Page 24

  Her mother was lying.

  The detective kept his eyes on her, as though he wanted confirmation he was right, and her mother was guilty. But she wasn’t. Trisha wished he’d leave her alone. His pitying stare was enough to make her want to slap him. She knew what that would get her, though—a night in jail for assaulting a police officer. She’d been there, done that, kicking the shins of some cop repeatedly during one of her drunken outbursts. It wasn’t until she’d swung at him that he’d added the assault charge on top of disturbing the peace. Later, Sid’s lawyer had gotten the assault charge dropped.

  The detective continued to stare. Maybe she should do it: one quick crack across his cheek, and mother and daughter locked up in the county jail together. Then Trisha could ask her what she thought she was doing by confessing.

  “Your mother said Lester choked her the night before. She thought he was going to kill her. Does that sound right to you?”

  “Yes. I remember seeing bruises. On her neck. Where his hands had wrapped around her throat.” She had to be careful what she said, since she didn’t know exactly what her mother had told him.

  “What happened next?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your mother claims he came after her again the next day. She said it was self-defense. Do you think it was?”

  “He used to beat her up,” she said. “So yeah, I’m certain it was self-defense. Don’t you think it was?”

  “That’s not up to me to decide, but I’ll let the DA know.”

  “What happens next?” Trisha asked. A drop of blood trickled down her arm where she’d dug too deep into her skin on the underside of her wrist.

  “Your mother is being processed now, and then she’ll have to wait in lockup for the arraignment.”

  “Will she get bail?”

  “She’s lived here a long time. I don’t think she’ll be considered a flight risk. There’s a good chance the judge will see it that way, too, but that’s up to the court.”

  Trisha’s eyes flickered to the door. How long had she been here? “Can I see her?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the detective said.

  She could tell by his expression she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him. “Am I free to go?” she asked.

  Trisha didn’t see Carlyn or Dannie when she left the police station. A different trooper drove her back to Second Street. He didn’t talk much to Trisha, but he kept glancing at her in his rearview mirror.

  Once Trisha was home, she shrugged off her winter coat, then went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a six-pack. She carried it with her to the living room, where the box of Christmas decorations lay on the floor. She plopped on the tattered couch, opened a can of beer.

  The front door banged open. If Trisha was anyone else, she might’ve jumped. Maybe she did. She licked the droplet of blood from her wrist.

  “What happened?” Linda asked. She wasn’t wearing a coat. She pulled her cardigan tight across her chest. “I saw you get out of a cop’s car. Where’s your mother?” she asked, noticing the six-pack on the floor at Trisha’s feet.

  “They arrested her.”

  “For what?” Linda asked.

  “For cracking open Lester’s head with a bat.” It was so unbelievable, and saying it out loud didn’t make it any more real.

  Linda opened her mouth, then closed it. She opened and closed it three more times without saying a word, her jaw clicking in the silence; then she dropped onto the couch next to Trisha.

  “I was just as shocked as you are,” Trisha said and reached down, pulled another can from the pack, and handed it to her.

  Linda took the beer and gulped it. She lowered the can, turned her gaze to Trisha. “I can’t believe it,” she said.

  There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Trisha hollered.

  Carlyn stepped inside. “I thought I might find you here,” she said to her mother. “I stopped at the house first. Dannie is looking for you. She has something of Evelyn’s she thought you might want.” She took off her coat and tossed it on the chair. She wore a black cotton dress, tights, and boots. “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?” She nudged what was left of the six-pack with her toe. “They wouldn’t tell me a thing when I left the police station.”

  “Sharon was arrested,” Linda said.

  Trisha locked onto Carlyn’s face, met her eyes. What? Carlyn seemed to be asking her. Trisha pulled the sleeve of her sweater down over her wrist to stop herself from picking at it. She drank from the can instead, emptied it before reaching for another.

  Carlyn didn’t sit but rather stood by the chair, arms folded. Trisha held Carlyn’s gaze, the two of them exchanging an entire conversation without speaking. Carlyn asking, Why are you looking at me that way? Trisha replying, Don’t you have something you want to confess?

  Linda patted Trisha’s leg. Reflexively, Trisha moved away.

  “You let me know if you hear anything about your mom,” Linda said. “I’ll go see what Dannie has for me.” She got up, looked back and forth between them, then left them alone.

  “What’s going on?” Carlyn asked. “Did your mother really do it?”

  Trisha almost laughed. “You should know.”

  “Why? How should I know?” Carlyn looked genuinely confused.

  “My mother didn’t do it,” Trisha said. “But what I can’t figure out is why she’d confess to it?” Say it, Carlyn, she urged silently. Say it was you. There was nothing more she wanted than for Carlyn to admit that she’d done it for Trisha. If she admitted it, then they could figure out what to do about Trisha’s mother. The statement Trisha had given the detective about Lester choking her mother was true, but would it be enough to prove self-defense?

  “I always thought you were the one who did it,” Carlyn said. “Are you telling me you didn’t?”

  “I never hit him with the bat. The whiskey bottle, sure. But someone killed him with the bat. The detective was pretty clear about that.”

  “And your mom confessed to it? Why?” Carlyn asked.

  “Self-defense. Why else?” This is your chance, Carlyn, to tell the truth.

  “I’m speechless,” Carlyn said and picked up her coat. “After all this time.”

  Carlyn wasn’t acting like she felt guilty about letting Trisha’s mother take the blame. “Where are you going?” Trisha asked.

  “I have clients.” Carlyn checked her phone. “I’m running late.” She hesitated at the door, reached in her pocket, pulled out a pink lighter. “I kept this. It was yours when we were kids. I know this probably sounds silly, but it was all I had of you after you’d gone. I guess it made me feel as though there was a small part of you that was still with me.” She handed it to her. “I wanted you to know,” she said and left, pulling the door closed behind her.

  PART THREE

  THE BURIAL

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Parker sat at his desk at the station. Geena sat across from him. Other than the occasional phone ringing, it was quiet. The guys on the night shift walked in, slapped him on the back, shook Geena’s hand, congratulated them on a job well done. Lieutenant Sayres called, pleased to have another case closed. The lieutenant let them know they’d arrested the guy in the Angel case. The burn victim’s boyfriend, Boonie, had been formally charged earlier that day.

  “Well, that’s it for me,” Geena said and stood, picked up her phone.

  “Heading to Benny’s?” Parker asked. He couldn’t join her, or rather he wouldn’t. He didn’t trust himself not to have a drink, not after the other night. He didn’t want Becca to ever have to pick him up again, drive him home because he was too drunk to drive himself. She hadn’t said it, but he’d felt her disappointment in him.

  “I’m going to drop by headquarters,” Geena said. “I want to check up on an old case I worked with Albert. See you tomorrow.” She headed out, didn’t stick around long enough for Parker to ask which case it was, although he suspected it was the rape a
nd murder of a girl last spring. It seemed to Parker that she’d let it get to her. It wasn’t the first time he suspected something had gone wrong in her last case with Albert.

  He finished his final report. He knew he should feel satisfied that he’d done his job, but the rush he sometimes got after making an arrest never hit his system. Instead, his stomach had fisted in a tight knot, and there was a dull throb behind his left eye.

  He stared at the video of Trisha frozen on the screen. He played it again, watched it a dozen more times. He struggled with the feeling that he’d missed something.

  He decided he’d send Trisha’s file to the victim’s unit first thing in the morning. He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, but he doubted he’d get much sleep. He turned off his computer, headed home. The streets had been salted. Another storm was coming. They were calling for another three to four inches of snow.

  Parker pulled into his driveway, cut the lights. Darkness enveloped him the second he stepped out of the car. He picked his way along the walk through the slivers of moonlight. At one point, he stopped, peered off the back deck. Chunks of frozen ice moved slowly downriver, but other than the water lapping against the dock, the night was still.

  Parker was up at five a.m. He hadn’t slept, tossing and turning, finally flipping through the TV channels for much of the night for something to do. He dressed in thermal underwear and slipped on jeans, tugged on his heavy winter coat. He poured hot coffee into a thermos, picked up not one but two mugs off the countertop, grabbed his fishing gear.

  He dropped his line in the river and sat in the chair on the dock. His breath swirled in white wisps in front of his face. So far the snow had held off, but it was coming. He could smell it in the air. For the first time in ages, it wasn’t about fishing. It felt like a sham: waiting for someone who might never show up.

  His head was cold. He’d forgotten his knit hat in the cabin. He’d stay out here as long as he could stand it. It wasn’t until he heard footsteps coming down the stairs to the dock that he felt the first inkling of warmth.

  Becca sat on the chair next to him. She shoved her hands between her thighs. “This is nuts,” she said.

  He smiled, agreed.

  “I can’t stay long,” she said. “I have an early surgery scheduled with a Great Dane who has an appetite for socks.”

  He nodded. Sometimes he was shocked when he thought about how Becca spent her days, how she could cut into people’s pets. She did it out of love for animals, of course. But there had to be something more behind the ability to take a knife to the flesh of another living thing: something in her personality, her genetic makeup that allowed her to take such actions. He filled a mug full of hot coffee and handed it to her, glanced at her small hands, her long fingers, imagined them holding a scalpel.

  “I’m sorry about the other night,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that.”

  “It’s okay.” She gazed at the river. “What made you start drinking, anyway?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen again.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long time, and Parker hoped she’d let it go.

  “Does it have something to do with those bones they found by the trail? I read about it in the paper.”

  “It was my case,” he said. “I made an arrest yesterday.” His drinking hadn’t been about Lester or the women involved. He’d drunk to forget his last case, and the man who’d blown his brains out in front of him. But he wouldn’t tell her any of this. It was his burden to carry.

  He sipped from the mug.

  She turned toward him. He got the feeling she was expecting something from him.

  “Would you go to dinner with me tonight?” he asked.

  “You mean like a date?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Don’t you think we’re past that?”

  “No, I don’t think we’re past that at all. If I recall, I’ve never taken you out before. Not properly.” He’d driven her around in the old pickup truck he’d owned in high school more times than he could count. Every memory he had of his teen years, she’d been by his side. But he’d never dated her. Maybe that was what they needed to get their relationship going. “What do you say? Should I pick you up at seven?”

  “Okay,” she said, smiling back at him.

  A comfortable silence settled between them, a companionable quiet they’d often shared when they were kids. He checked the line in the river, then laid the fishing pole on the dock.

  After some time had passed, Becca got up to leave. “Whatever is going on with you, don’t shut me out, okay?” she said and touched his shoulder before turning to go.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Twenty-four hours after Trisha’s mother was arrested, Trisha sat in the back of the courtroom waiting for her mother to appear for her preliminary arraignment. Trisha hadn’t been able to talk with her since Detective Reed had locked her up. Her mother’s one and only phone call had been to Linda. Trisha felt slighted, but given her absence in her mother’s life all these years, she supposed Linda was the one her mother had come to rely on.

  Trisha watched a parade of prisoners being shuffled in and out of a side door by an armed guard. The charges ranged from petty theft to armed robbery. It was late morning. Trisha’s mother was the only prisoner who’d been charged with murder. Finally, her mother appeared from behind the closed door, stood before the judge, a court-appointed attorney coming to stand by her side.

  After some discussion, much of which Trisha didn’t understand, bail was denied.

  The system couldn’t help her mother all those years ago. Trisha should’ve known it wouldn’t help her now. “Mom,” she called, rushed to the front of the room, leaned over the railing that was meant to keep spectators separated from prisoners and officers of the court.

  “It’s okay,” Sharon said. “Don’t worry about me. You just take care of yourself.”

  I will, Mom. She waited to leave until her mother had disappeared behind the door. Then she turned, walked out of the courthouse, pulled her hood up to fend off the cold, shoved her hands into her pockets.

  “Trisha.” Detective Reed strode after her.

  She stopped walking, allowed him to catch up. They stood on the steps. He was clean shaven. The dark circles under his eyes made it look as though he hadn’t slept. “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to bother you with this, but there’s the matter of your stepfather’s remains. They’re expected to be released today to his next of kin. And that happens to be you.”

  “I’m not a blood relative.”

  “No, but I’m afraid you’re all that’s left.”

  “You must be joking.”

  He shook his head.

  “Keep them. I don’t want them. I don’t want any part of him.”

  “The state can retain them, if you’re not willing to claim them.”

  “I’m not.”

  He nodded.

  She turned to go.

  “One more thing,” he said.

  She stopped.

  “Will you be staying in town if this goes to trial?” he asked.

  “My husband is coming for me today,” she said. “I’m flying back to Vegas with him tonight.” After Trisha had returned from the police station yesterday, she’d thought more about what she was going to do when Sid came for her. She’d finalized her plan, but she wasn’t going to tell the detective that.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

  She looked at him curiously. “May I ask you something?”

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “The injury to Lester’s head. Was it on the left or the right side?”

  “The left. Why?”

  “No reason.” She touched the pink lighter tucked deep inside her pocket. She knew Carlyn was left handed. If she’d swung the bat, the injury would’ve been on the right side of Lester’s head. Carlyn couldn’t have been th
e one to kill him, which meant that maybe Trisha’s mother was telling the truth after all. Maybe she really was guilty. Maybe she’d found the bat at Linda’s house. Maybe she had finally found the courage to fight back.

  Maybe Trisha was more like her mother than she believed.

  Trisha held the gun in her hand, her fingers wrapped neatly around the grip, as though it had been custom made for her. Sid would appreciate the exactness, the precise fit in her hand. He loathed anything that was sloppy, careless, less than perfect.

  She sat on the mattress on the floor in her old bedroom, her suitcase by her feet. Her clothes were packed, or at least her Vegas clothes were. She’d left the cheap sweaters and winter coat she’d purchased hanging in the closet. The boots with the fur lining were downstairs, kicked off inside the door when she’d returned from the courthouse.

  Her head ached. Her tongue was coated with the thick aftertaste of piss-water beer. But her hair was washed, styled sleek and straight. She scratched at her neck where the collar of the green cashmere sweater rubbed against her skin. She was wearing designer jeans, the brand she no longer remembered. And her shoes, red $700 stilettos, a gift from Sid not two months ago. She was festive, dressed for the holiday, Christmas right around the corner; but more importantly, Sid loved her in green.

  He wouldn’t suspect a thing.

  Her plan was coming together, but so much of it depended on him.

  She tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans and wheeled the suitcase into the hall, carried it down the stairs. The bruise by her ribs was fading, but it still hurt. She set the suitcase near the tattered couch, stuffed the gun under the cushion.

  She’d have to contain him to the living room. She couldn’t stray too far from the couch. Her plan hinged on this one detail. She walked in a full circle. What if she offered him a drink, had it set up right here on the end table, the one with scars on the wood, burns from cigarettes, rings from beer cans? She’d bought vodka on the way home from the courthouse, thinking she’d save it for later, once it was all over, but if her plan didn’t work, there would be no later. It was now or never. She found a bucket and filled it with ice, placed the bottle inside. She grabbed two orange-juice glasses—they would have to do—and set everything on the end table.