Chapter Thirteen

She and the chief re-entered the main station via the side door that led to the jail anteroom, and a pervasive smell of damp concrete mixed with the stinging odor of cleaning liquids enveloped them. No one could fail to recognize what this place harbored. Wire reinforced glass separated the officer on duty from a small concrete-floored area with dingy green paint on the walls. A grill in the glass allowed the officer to communicate with visitors.

“Woodstone back from his arraignment?” Granite spoke through the glass.

“Yeah, Chief. Got back ’bout ten minutes ago.”

“Bail?”

“Steep. Two hundred thousand.”

Her heart sank. How could Palm and Hal raise that much money?

The officer buzzed the chief and Royce through the solid steel door with its own four-inch square of wire reinforced glass.

She followed Granite down the inner hallway, as dingy as the outer room and smelling equally of pine-scented cleaner. An inmate—a trustee, she guessed—was pushing a filthy mop along the floor with lethargic motions. She wondered if the jail would look any worse without his efforts.

They stopped before another steel door, which opened to a cramped elevator. They stepped inside, Granite punched a button, and the elevator started a slow descent. Neither spoke again until the door creaked open, and they entered the jail proper in the basement. The chief led Royce to the visitors’ room, about ten feet square, furnished with a metal latticework table and two chairs of the same utilitarian construction.

“Wait here, Royce. I’ll have Woodstone brought in.” He went out, and she sat on one of the metal chairs. The room had no windows, but high in one corner, a video camera stared down with its unblinking red eye.

A few moments later she heard footsteps, lighter than the chief’s heavier tread. She stood and looked toward the door. Palm Woodstone, his brown hair just clearing the top of the doorway, stopped a few inches inside the room, while behind him a jail officer freed his handcuffed hands and closed and locked the door. He stood still, looking at her with no expression on his face. He was pale, and new lines his twenty-something face shouldn’t have etched his forehead.

“Palm. Are you all right?” She reached for him. “I’ve been so worried about you.”

Though his arms were unfettered, he made no effort to return her embrace. Dark blue eyes—some of the color seemed to have washed out of them since she last saw him—locked on her without any hint of their usual warmth, as though he were looking at a stranger.

She drew back, shaken. “Palm? What’s wrong?”

He walked around her and sat in one of the chairs, putting the table between them. “What could be wrong in this place?” His voice was cold.

She sat back down in the other chair. “I was afraid you were hurt when no one could find you.”

“Really?” He pushed his chair back a little and leaned forward, face toward the floor, hands linked loosely between his knees.

Royce jumped when a loud banging sounded behind her. The officer wielded her nightstick on the bars and called out to Palm. “Hands in sight, Woodstone.”

Palm slammed his hands onto the metal table.

“Palm? You could not have robbed and killed Bert Morrell. I know that.”

“Well, I’m glad to know somebody believes in me.” Belying his words, no hint of gladness informed his voice.

“Is there anything you need?”

He laughed harshly. “Only two hundred thousand dollars.”

“It’s a lot, but we’ll raise it somehow. We’ll get you out of here, Palm.”

“Hmmm? You have some secret source of funds, Royce?” He raised his head and stared into her eyes. Was there an emphasis on “secret”? No. He couldn’t possibly know about the money.

He stood up and paced to the wall, turned and paced back. “I doubt Dad will make much effort. He thinks I’ve been nothing but trouble since the day I was born.”

“Palm. No. Hal loves you in his own way.”

“What way would that be?”

“It can’t have been easy for Hal after Lily left. But he made sure you were cared for while he worked hard to provide for you.” The last thing she wanted to do was defend Hal Woodstone. But Palm was the important one. Thinking his dad didn’t care about him couldn’t be good for him, locked up in here.

“You’re a fool, Royce.”

She rocked back hard in the metal chair. It must be leaving that lattice imprint on her skin even through her clothes.

“And you love me in your own way, too, right, Royce?” Now a perverse gladness, though edged with pain, echoed through his voice.

The shock his mocking words produced had to be clearly visible on her face.

This was not Palm. This was a consequence of his being locked up for something he didn’t do. People, even adults, strike out at the people who love them when they’re hurt. Get the facts. Then get him out of here. That was what would help him.

She marshaled her thoughts. “Palm. Do you have a lawyer?”

“Lawyers want money.”

“But you have to have one.”

“Dad—Dad said something about Marc Sage. I doubt he’d take the case.”

“He’s a corporate attorney. Amanda’s a criminal-defense attorney.”

“I pointed out that fact to…Dad. He snorted, thinks—you know what he thinks of women.” He ran his hands through his sandy brown hair, reminding her of the Palm she knew. Then some inner resolve seemed to harden, and he drew into himself again.

“Go home, Royce.” He walked toward the door. “You’re right, I didn’t rob or kill my boss, so this will all sort itself out.”

He glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room, then banged on the door with the flat of his hand.

A moment later, the lock clicked, and the jailer opened the door, handcuffs in hand. She made a circular motion with her hands, and Palm turned his back, thrusting his hands behind him.

Palm looked at Royce and opened his mouth. He closed it, then opened it again. “Royce. They let me use the phone once. I tried to reach someone. Would you—? No. Forget it.” He turned to the officer. “We’re through here.”

“Palm. Who is it? Of course, I’ll try to reach the person for you.”

Royce took a step after Palm and the jailer, but a second female officer took her arm and said, “You’ll have to come this way, Mrs. Thorne.”

Frustrated, she almost jerked her arm away, but common sense prevailed. She watched until Palm and the jailer disappeared through the door at the end of the corridor.

At least Palm was alive. He would be cleared of the charges; she’d make sure of it. Palm’s trouble was her fault. Why hadn’t she done what Eddy had directed in his letter six months ago? Then there would have been no motive and no suspicion of Palm in this robbery.

She pivoted toward the person who held her arm. Officer Sloan Odell was etched on her name shield. “Sloan! I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.”

Sloan’s lips turned down at the corners. She shrugged slim shoulders encased in her perfectly fitted uniform. “I wish it wasn’t, right now.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I don’t dare talk to him.”

“You can’t believe Palm is guilty of robbery and murder.”

“Of course not.” The young jailer motioned that they should start walking. “We’re not supposed to hang around the visitor’s room when no one’s in here.”

“Why don’t you dare talk to Palm?”

Sloan looked up at the camera near the first door leading from the jail proper and signaled. After a second, the lock clicked and the door slid open. They passed through and continued toward the elevator. She stood for a moment before punching the elevator control. “I requested to be relieved from duty in the jail itself while he’s here.”

“But surely it would help him to see a friendly face.”

“It could also hurt him.”

Royce didn’t understand. In her frustration, she spoke more sharply than she meant to. “How could it hurt him?”

“Even if we just talked about the weather, the prosecution might call me to testify, if Palm goes to trial.”

“The prosecution?” Royce frowned.

“They may, anyway.” Sloan pressed her lips together; tears glistened in her eyes and threatened to spill over. Then she took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. She pressed the elevator button and the door opened. She nodded for Royce to precede her.

“Surely District Attorney Fuller wouldn’t call you. Would he?”

“He might call anyone who knows Palm.” Concern shown in Sloan’s eyes as she looked at Royce. “Even you.”

Royce’s stomach lurched as the elevator started to rise but not from the motion, and she suddenly felt a little nauseous. Testify for the prosecution against Palm? It was unthinkable.

The elevator stopped, and the door opened on the hallway leading to the administrative offices. Royce stepped out, and Sloan started to push the down button. Royce held the door as it started to slide closed. “Wait, Sloan. You weren’t with Palm Saturday night?”

“It was my weekend off. I went to see…” She didn’t finish her sentence and looked as though she wished she could call back what she’d said.

Royce waited. When Sloan didn’t continue, she asked, “Did you talk to Palm at all on Saturday?”

“Not since Friday. He wanted to go with me Saturday, but I said no. How I wish I’d said yes. They have to meet some…” Again the younger woman bit off her words. “I’d better get back to work. ’Bye, Mrs. Thorne.”

Royce touched Sloan’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right. Palm is innocent, and I’ll prove it.”

She let the doors close but didn’t move for a moment. Standing in front of the stainless steel panels, she stared at her blurred reflection. She, too, wished Palm had gone with Sloan to see whomever she had to see on Saturday.

She headed down the hall toward the chief’s office. She hoped Jared Granite was still in his office; she had some questions for him and she intended to get some answers. Reaching his office door and Chuck Brand’s line of sight at the same time, she tilted her head toward the door and lifted her eyebrows in a question. The sergeant waved for her to go on inside.

She turned the knob and strode through the doorway. Chief Granite laid his phone receiver in its cradle as she entered. “Royce.” He greeted her without his usual smile. Neither did he stand, which surprised her. Chief Jared Granite was unfailingly polite to Fall Creek citizens who visited his office. And Royce was a fallen officer’s widow, not just an ordinary citizen.

“What have you done to Palm?” She planted both hands on his desk and leaned toward him.

“We arrested him, charged him with murder and robbery, and arraigned him.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“Sit, Royce. What exactly do you mean?”

“He’s not acting like himself. He’s withdrawn, cold, and almost hostile. Why?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. He’s not talking to us.”

“He didn’t have an explanation for the money you found or why he was at the Fall Creek Inn?”

“As I said, he’s not talking to us. We’re going over the room he was in now. Maybe we’ll get some answers that way.”

“Did he check into the motel himself?”

“Desk clerk says he can’t remember checking him in. Palm wouldn’t say, to us or his dad.”

“Hal was here today? Did he show up at the arraignment? Try to arrange bail?”

“Yes. Yes. No,” the chief stated succinctly.

“He didn’t even try to arrange bail?”

“Said he couldn’t raise that kind of money. Palm told him, ‘So go transplant something.’ And he left.”

“Well, I’m going to do something. I’m not letting Palm waste away in your jail.”

“Go. Do. But until he makes bail, I have to hold him. You know that.”

The chief fiddled with the magnetic sculpture he’d pulled over on his desk blotter from its usual place on the corner. She’d seen him play with it often when he was thinking.

Just then the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. “That’s who he called?” He looked at Royce and sighed. “Thanks. Keep going over everything.”

“What is it?” A premonition of disaster prickled down her spine.

“Did Palm tell you who he was trying to call at the motel?”

“At the motel? When?” She frowned, trying to remember exactly what Palm had said just before he left the visitors’ room at the jail.

“He made a phone call this morning from the pay phone at the jail to the Fall Creek Inn. Asked for Fern Rock’s room. He hung up when my man answered. We traced the call.”

The chief’s words hit her like a blast of frigid air. “Then he must have had a reason.”

“And the dead woman must have had a reason for calling you, Royce.”

She wanted to storm out of the police station but managed to contain herself. She turned and left the chief’s office without another word.

Chuck Brand, at his desk, was talking on the phone. “I understand, ma’am. We’ll have someone check it out just as soon as possible.” His soothing voice spoke to the person on the line as he waved goodbye to her.

She pushed through the etched glass doors into the spring sunshine. She fished for her keys while Jared Granite’s last words echoed in her head. And almost walked in front of a cruiser pulling out of the official parking lot beside the building. Fear, horror, and anger chased across the face of the rookie driver, piercing the fog of her own indignation and preoccupation.

“I’m sorry.” She raised a hand and pantomimed apology.

Reaching the safety of her car, she got in and took a deep breath. Palm called the motel and asked for Fern Rock. Why, in the name of God, would he do that? What connection could there be between Palm and this Fern Rock person? And could that connection, whatever it was, be the reason Palm was at the motel? And did that—oh please, God, no—connection have anything to do with her death?

But what about Thelma Morrell and the man, Clupper? They talked about a woman being killed. Fern Rock? If so, what was their involvement with her? And the money from the robbery. Did one of them somehow get Palm and the money to that motel? For what purpose?

She decided to follow her plan and go to the motel herself to poke around. The motel was on the northern edge of town, in the opposite direction from her home. Had she started from her own house, she could have saved time by driving the half mile to Creek Boulevard and then two blocks to access the bypass around the downtown area. From the police station, she had to maneuver through shoppers in oversized SUVs and business people rushing to complete errands on their lunch hour. The last traffic light changed to red as she approached it. She tapped her fingernails on the wheel, staring unseeing at the cars passing in front of her.

A pleasure boat swathed in plastic, apparently new, almost big enough to merit being called a yacht, swayed through the intersection. Only inches separated it from the sides of vehicles meeting it. The driver of the truck pulling the boat must have made a wrong turn. Hadn’t Palm said recently that he’d overheard Bert Morrell fighting with Thelma over a new boat he’d ordered to use at their “estate” on the lake?

Before the dam was built and formed Fall Creek Lake, the Morrell place was a rustic vacation lodge in the hills above Fall Creek. As their automobile dealership prospered, they enlarged and renovated the lodge. The area became the exclusive lakeside subdivision Fall Creek Acres, and other expensive homes were built nearby.

A honk behind Royce reminded her to look at the light, now green, and accelerate. The antique stores, offices, and few retail shops of downtown fell behind her. She merged onto state highway 411, the Fall Creek bypass, and continued past the mall. An eight-story building, passing for a high-rise in Fall Creek, stood on property across from the mall. All the floors above ground level were condos, one of which belonged to Chrys Wynter. Ten minutes of driving brought her to the Fish Camp Road exit. Taking the first left, she followed the curved driveway to the motel, hidden in a grove of oak trees.

She parked in front of the office in one of the spaces used by guests when they checked in. As Royce approached the double glass doors boasting the same stylized cascading stream decal as the police headquarters entrance, the official Fall Creek logo, a woman with her arm in a sling pushed through them. She walked to a late-model Lexus sports car and paused before getting in.

“Royce. I see you tracked me down,” Lucianne Sibley called. Her wine-red pants suit exactly matched the custom paint job on the Lexus.

“Lucianne. You’re staying here?”

“It’s a dump, but since Wohlford Place isn’t open yet, I’d no choice.”

“I thought you were in the hospital.”

Lucianne gave a sharp laugh. “Couldn’t stay. Work to do. And since Jared’s and my divorce was final last year, I’m not exactly welcome at our old house.”

“Having second thoughts?” If she could have, she would have bitten back the words the instant they left her mouth.

“Why? Are you interested?”

“Hardly. Eddy has been gone only a few months.”

“Jared better not wait too long to make a move. When you become a famous writer, you’ll probably leave town, too.”

“When I become…?”

“Don’t be coy, Royce. That’s why I want to meet with you. Maybe I can drum up some publicity for your book.”

“Why would you do that if you think I’m after Jared?”

“Lighten up, Royce. I guess you never even caught on that Jared had a thing for his partner’s wife. That he joined the Marines because of it.”

Royce’s grip on the shoulder strap of her bag tightened visibly. She stepped back.

Lucianne narrowed her eyes, missing nothing. “Or did you?”

“But he came back and married you.”

“Well, you still weren’t available.”

“Why did you marry him?”

“I wasn’t getting any younger. And it was a boost to my career, first crack at some juicy stories. Don’t look so shocked. You asked.”

Royce was bereft of words. What Lucianne had seen on her face was not shock at the woman’s admission about why she’d married Jared. It was the revelation that Hal Woodstone’s jeering words at their engagement party had been true. She forced her attention back to the present, flung her own question at the reporter.

“What juicy story brings you back to Fall Creek? And did it require you to carry a gun?”

“Prominent local businessman robbed and murdered. Pretty big story for Fall Creek.”

“I heard you were here before Bert’s murder was discovered.”

Lucianne examined Royce’s expression and offered additional information. “All right. I saw the review of your book in my paper. Thought I’d come down and see if I could get a nice little human-interest story out of it. Hometown writer makes good, et cetera. Just my good luck to stumble into a bigger story, the Morrell robbery/murder.”

“Bigger story? Is that all it is to you?”

“Hey, I’m sorry your little neighbor boy is in trouble. But it’s not my fault.”

Speechless, Royce turned away and marched toward the motel entrance.

“Royce,” Lucianne called. “I still want to discuss your book. Meet you later.”