It felt weirdly liberating and yet terrifying to be untethered to a cell phone as she drove to Bronson County on Monday morning. Conley kept glancing anxiously at the dashboard-mounted clip where her phone was usually anchored.
When she walked into the sheriff’s office, she politely insisted that Merle Goggins would want to see her, in fact had requested her presence. The deputy working the desk looked unconvinced, but after a quick phone call, she was ushered into Goggins’s office.
“Oh, uh, hi,” Goggins said. He pointed at her cheek, where an ugly palm-shaped bruise bloomed overnight. “That happen yesterday?”
“Yes,” she said, sitting down.
He winced.
“You owe me,” she told the sheriff.
“How do you figure?”
“You hired a psychopath as a law enforcement officer. A mentally unbalanced bully who stalked and harassed and ultimately attempted to kill me.”
“First off, I didn’t hire Poppell. I inherited him from my predecessor. I was in the process of trying to fire him the first time you encountered him,” Goggins said.
“Did you know he had a juvenile record? Of violent sexual assault?”
Goggins rubbed his chin nervously. “You know juvenile records are sealed in this state. The first I heard of this was when I read that story in the Beacon’s digital edition this morning.”
“Poppell blamed me for getting fired,” Conley said. “What was the cause?”
“Dereliction of duty was the official cause. Unofficially, it was chronic laziness and general dumb-assery.”
“My sister, who is a lawyer, says we should sue you, individually, and the county,” Conley said, crossing and uncrossing her legs.
“Christ,” Goggins muttered. “The county attorney would have my ass if he knew I was talking to you right now.” He got up and paced around the small office, stopping to wipe an invisible speck of dust from one of the picture frames. “I told that kid reporter, Torpy, I told him to tell you I feel terrible about Poppell. What he did to you. I’ve got a daughter. She’s only fifteen, but if something like that happened to her?” He shook his head. “But that’s all I can say about this mess. You understand? If the lawyers get involved, it’ll be real bad.”
“I don’t want to sue you,” Conley said.
“No? You don’t want your pound of flesh?”
“I don’t want to spend years hashing it over, talking about it and reliving the worst night of my life,” Conley said. “Poppell’s dead. And I guess I believe you when you say you didn’t know about his history.”
Goggins raised his right hand, palm out. “Swear to God, I’d have fired him my first day in office if I’d known what a sick bastard he was. So if you don’t want to sue, why are you here?”
“Just doing my job,” Conley said lightly. “I need to know where you are with the Robinette investigation. You said at the funeral that the medical examiner found a toxic combination of fentanyl and alcohol in his system. Does that mean you suspect foul play?”
“You think you’re gonna bargain information in return for a promise not to sue me?” Goggins asked, chuckling. “Like this is some kind of bartering situation?”
“Not at all. I’m a journalist. You’re in law enforcement. Congressman Robinette’s death is a matter of public interest. Now what’s the story?”
“Off the record?”
“I’d prefer to be on the record.”
He shrugged. “Then it’s still under investigation.”
“Okay, tell me what’s not under investigation.”
“He had a shitload of fentanyl in his system. But he was being treated for terminal cancer, and he had a transdermal pain patch, which was prescribed by his doctor.”
“Not news,” Conley said. “You already told me he was dead when he hit the deer. And that he had a blood alcohol level of .06.”
“It’s in the medical examiner’s report, but that still hasn’t been released yet, so you can’t say I was the source,” Goggins cautioned.
“Where’d he get the booze at that hour of the night?” Conley asked. “I thought Vanessa was keeping him on a pretty tight rein. His neighbor said Symmes had to sneak over to his house just to have a beer.”
“Vanessa Robinette was adamant that she’d gotten rid of all the booze in the house. She said Symmes was pretty mad about it, but his doctors told her he couldn’t drink. Not while he was wearing that patch,” Goggins said.
“I bet the first Mrs. Robinette was more than happy to play bartender to the old man,” Conley said. “Toddie never would tell me if he was at the farm that night.”
“She didn’t want to tell us, either,” Goggins said. “But we’ve got proof that he was there.”
“What kind of proof?”
“We tracked his cell phone.”
“Charlie said Vanessa took his phone away.”
“Somebody gave him a new phone that the wife didn’t know about,” Goggins said. “I tell you what, this family? Rich folks? These people will turn on their own kin in a heartbeat.”
“I’m guessing Charlie gave him a phone,” Conley said. “Just to piss off his mother. But how did he get it to Symmes? Vanessa had him locked out of Sugar Key, although he hinted that he’d come up with some kind of workaround, which was how he’d managed the Symmes-and-Toddie reunion in the first place.”
“Charlie Robinette hasn’t been ‘available’ for follow-up interviews, but we looked at the video footage from the Sugar Key security gates,” Goggins said. “He came and went half a dozen times in the month before his father died. He sailed right through the gates for residents.”
Conley looked up from her notebook. “Because he had a transponder. And I bet I know where he got it.”
“How’s that?” Goggins asked.
“Just a hunch,” she said, being deliberately vague. “I’ll let you know if it pans out. Tell me more about the alcohol. Did you get Toddie to admit Symmes was drinking that night?”
“Once we told her we had the cell phone records, she became a little more cooperative. She confirmed that Symmes called shortly before midnight. Said he was upset and wanted to talk. She urged him to wait until morning, but he knew Vanessa was watching him like a hawk. According to Toddie, Symmes told her Vanessa took a sleeping pill and went to bed around eleven that night.”
“So he took a midnight ramble,” Conley said. “I wonder what upset him?”
“Toddie wouldn’t say,” Goggins said. “Her story is that he got there, they talked, and he wanted a drink. She tried to talk him out of it, because he had to drive back to Sugar Key, and it was late, but he insisted. So she let him fix himself a dirty martini.”
Conley laughed. “That’s appropriate.”
“Toddie Sanderson isn’t the most reliable witness,” Goggins commented. “First, she said it was just the one drink. Later, when we told her about her ex’s blood alcohol level, she allowed that maybe it was two martinis. Okay three, but no more than that.”
“Three martinis?” Conley exclaimed. “How was he even standing upright at that point? And she was okay with letting him drive forty-five miles home in the middle of the night? It’s a freakin’ miracle he didn’t hit and kill something much worse than a deer that night. Can you say ‘death wish’?”
“Bad decisions don’t equal foul play, though,” Goggins pointed out. “Seems to me every member of that screwed-up family had a part to play in Symmes Robinette’s death. The son was playing mind games with his mama, the wife locked up the husband out of spite, and the ex-wife fed him enough booze to put down an elephant, then let him loose on a dark country road. I can’t prove any of this, of course, but I guarantee, it all boils down to money.”
“Symmes Robinette had a lot of it too,” Conley said. “He was a millionaire many times over. It’ll be interesting to see how all of this shakes out when his will is probated.”
“Blood money,” Goggins said, his expression serious. “They might get their hands on his money, but those same hands will have his blood all over them.”
“Guess I’d better get back to work,” Conley said. “Deadlines, you know.”
“You going to be writing about any of what I just told you?” he asked. “Remember, all of that was off the record.”
“Deep background,” Conley said. She held out her hand, which was still scratched and bruised, and the sheriff, though looking surprised, clasped it.
“I’d tell you to take care of yourself,” he said, “but I guess you already proved you can.”
She had one more stop to make before she headed into the Beacon office, where she was sure Grayson would be frantic, wondering about her whereabouts.
There was only one car in the parking lot at the funeral home. Mondays, she guessed, were slow days for dead people.
Conley heard Graceanne’s giggle echoing in the high-ceilinged hallway and followed it until she reached the marketing director’s office.
The little girl was sitting on the floor, playing with a pair of stuffed unicorns. Kennedy McFall was staring intently at a computer terminal, chewing on a pencil. She looked up at the sound of footsteps and frowned when Conley appeared in her doorway.
“I don’t want to be rude,” she started to say.
“Then don’t.” Conley sat without being invited. Her grandmother would not have approved. “Are you in the habit of breaking into people’s cars and stealing jewelry?” she asked, her face and voice pleasantly bland.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kennedy said. She was a terrible liar, which didn’t bode well for her future as a political wife, Conley thought. But then, maybe Vanessa could give her lessons.
“Sure you do. You were at the country club one day, and your fiancé was venting about how pissed he was that his mommy was denying him access to his daddy. I guess you parked next to a car with one of those Sugar Key decals on the windshield, looked in, and saw a transponder sitting there in the cup holder. It must have seemed like the perfect crime of opportunity. The car was unlocked. You were right there, nobody was around…”
“That’s insane. Are you accusing me of being a petty thief?”
“Technically, it’s not petty theft. Those diamond earrings you took were worth more than $25,000. So that’s a felony. I don’t know about the cost of a Yeti cup and a transponder, but I think the police could look that up.”
Kennedy glanced down at her daughter. “Look,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t know what you’ve got against Charlie, but you’re dead wrong about him. And me. I never took any earrings. There weren’t any earrings in that car.”
“The owner filed a police report that said the earrings were there.”
“The owner’s a friggin’ liar,” Kennedy said. “I’m telling you I didn’t take any earrings.”
Graceanne looked up, interested. “Mommy. I want my earrings. I want to play dress-up.”
“Not now, honey,” Kennedy said. “Why don’t you go in Granddaddy’s office and get some paper from the printer. Then you can color him a pretty picture.”
“A picture of earrings,” Graceanne said. “Purple earrings.”
“Whatever,” Kennedy said, making a shooing motion. “Okay, what’s your point?” she asked when the child was out of earshot. “What’s the big deal? Yes, I borrowed the transponder. Vanessa was being such a bitch. Charlie knew she was cooking up some plot against him, poisoning his dad’s opinion of him. He just wanted to see his dad. Talk to him before he was gone. Is that so wrong?”
“You mean, talk to Symmes and tell him he’d found his long-lost ex-wife and kids? Maybe stir up a little trouble in paradise?” Conley asked.
“Symmes was thrilled to get a chance to reconnect with his family. It had been eating at him for years, the way Vanessa forced him to abandon them. We knew he only had weeks to live. It was an act of mercy.”
“Do you really believe that bullshit?” Conley asked. “C’mon, Kennedy. You’re a smart girl. When was the last time you saw Charlie do something—spontaneously—out of the kindness of his heart?”
“He’s wonderful with Graceanne,” Kennedy said. “And she adores him.”
“You haven’t answered my question. So I’ll answer yours, the one you asked me earlier. You want to know what I have against C. Symmes Robinette Jr.? He’s a fraud. A charming, entitled, vicious fraud.”
“No. He was just a kid when the two of you had your silly little breakup. He told me about it. He’s changed in ways you can never appreciate.”
“Skunks don’t change their stripes, Kennedy. I’ll tell you what really happened, if you’re interested. I came home from boarding school the summer before my freshman year of college. Symmes and Vanessa had shipped Charlie off to military school for reasons nobody ever disclosed, but I guarantee it wasn’t because he was interested in marching and drilling. I didn’t really know him, but I was hanging around the pool at the club, and I thought he was cute, and the other girls thought he was quite the catch. He asked me out a couple of times, and I went, but then on our second date, when he tried to get in my pants, I told him no. He was furious but polite. Took me home at nine o’clock. The next thing I know, he’s texting all his guy friends, telling them about how I pulled a ‘train’—you know what that is, right?”
Kennedy’s face paled a little. “Group sex. Charlie wouldn’t do that. He probably thought it was a joke.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” Conley said, looking her straight in the eye. “Guys were calling me up, saying the vilest, most obscene things you can imagine. They drove past my house at night and tossed packages of condoms in the yard. In my grandmother’s yard, Kennedy! Somebody keyed the side of my car—they wrote WHORE in foot-high letters. I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends in town before that, because I’d been away at school, and people thought I was some kind of snob. After Charlie started that rumor? They thought I was a slut and a snob. Everybody believed that shit. He made my life a living hell because he could. That’s the kind of man you’re engaged to.”
“I don’t believe you,” Kennedy said, her lips quivering. She blinked back tears.
Graceanne was back now with a sheaf of printer paper in her chubby hands. She plopped down onto the floor, found a basket of crayons, and began scribbling away.
“That’s your choice,” Conley said, speaking in a low voice. “But ask yourself why I’d lie about something like this. Ask yourself about this clan of vipers you’re about to marry into. Take a good, long look at that family tree. Symmes Robinette walked away from his wife and kids after he got Vanessa pregnant. He might have been feeling pangs of regret three decades later when he was facing his own mortality, but he was perfectly content to leave Toddie for the next shiny thing that came along. And then there’s Charlie’s mama, Vanessa. You’ve seen firsthand the kind of evil she’s capable of.”
“You have no idea what it’s like to be a single mother in this town,” Kennedy said, twisting the diamond solitaire engagement ring around and around on her finger.
“And the Robinettes are rich, right? Well, financially rich but morally bankrupt,” Conley said. “I’ve seen Symmes’s recent financial disclosure statements. Filthy rich is the applicable term here. The old man made his first millions defending his pal Miles Schoendienst’s railroad after they poisoned dozens of people with toxic chemicals stored at a switchyard they abandoned in Plattesville.”
She looked up sharply. “What about Plattesville? My aunt and uncle lived there.”
“Did they die of cancer?” Conley asked.
“My uncle did, but he was a heavy smoker, and this has got nothing to do with Charlie and me.”
“Okay,” Conley said wearily. “I’ve got to get to work. I only stopped to see you as a courtesy call today. That first time we met, right here in this office, I thought, ‘She seems pretty nice. Smart, funny, somebody I’d want to be in a book club with.’ Believe me, Kennedy, you are better off single than with a man like Charlie Robinette. You deserve better. And so does your daughter.”
She stood up to go.
“Bye-bye,” Graceanne said, smiling and waving a purple crayon.
Kennedy followed her to the front door. “You’re not going to tell anybody about the transponder, are you? It could be bad for Charlie’s campaign.”
“You ever steal anything before? I mean, as an adult?”
“God, no!”
Conley gave her a pitying smile. “That’s the thing, Kennedy. You stay around slime long enough, it doesn’t wash off. Pretty soon, you’re doing slimy stuff too. Have a nice life, okay?”