CHAPTER 11
“I don’t have to talk to you. You’re not welcome here. Leave.” Ona’s angry face glared through the narrow opening of her door. Colm had said she was upset, so I’d waited a day before calling on her, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I needed answers.
“Maura’s autopsy showed a pregnancy,” I blurted before she could get the door shut.
She reacted as if I’d just slapped her, flinching, her eyes darting about nervously.
I pushed: “But you already knew about the baby, didn’t you?” She steadied her gaze on me. The darkness in her eyes sent shivers through me. “Let me come inside, Ona. So we can talk about this.” I was glad I’d caged Wilco back in the cruiser. Ona would be reluctant to let me in with a sixty-pound police dog at my side.
“No. I don’t want you in here.”
“Why? We’ve always been friendly.” I would have said, “We’d always been friends,” but that wasn’t quite true. Ona, at least fifteen years older than me, was closer in age to my mother than me. Widowed young, with two children, her life had been one struggle after another. Still, she carried an air of superiority about her. I’d always had the feeling she looked down on me for being only part Pavee and a child of an unwed mother. Like many in the clan, she’d labeled me as a half-breed. And now that I’d joined forces with settled people, and was a cop, I’d picked up another label: graansha. Outsider.
All that was fine. I could take it. But anger welled inside me as I thought of Gran and the hurt in her eyes as she talked about being shut out from Ona yesterday. I fought to temper it, keep it from interfering with the job before me. “You can’t deny the pregnancy, Ona. The medical examiner’s report proves it.”
Her gaze was defiant, but her lower lip quivered. Was it fear, like Colm thought, or something else?
“I don’t believe Nevan was the baby’s father. There was someone else, wasn’t there?” The irony wasn’t lost on me. This woman had spent a lifetime adhering to her strict moral ideals, working hard to instill those very morals in her children, probably using people like me as an example of how not to be, and then her own daughter, Maura, betrayed everything she’d worked so hard to cultivate.
Pride comes before the fall.
I pressed harder. I needed her to crack, open up, and give me information. “She got pregnant by a settled boy. And you knew—”
“No! My Maura wasn’t like that!” She tried to slam the door shut, but I’d anticipated that and had already stuck my foot against the jamb.
“Like what, Ona?” Like my mother?
Her eyes popped. Tears sprang along the edges. “Get off my property!”
I leaned forward. “Did Nevan know he wasn’t the baby’s father?”
A tremor rippled through her muscles. I saw it. Plain as day. The fear Colm referred to. What was it that had her so scared? “Ona, what is it you’re not telling me? Has someone threatened you?”
“Leave her alone.” The voice, angry and masculine, came from directly behind me. I startled. My foot drew back; the door slammed shut. The lock clicked.
I turned. “Eddie.” He stood not five feet from me, his hand gripping a leash. The Lurcher on the other end curled its lips and snarled. Inside my car, Wilco went nuts, barking and scratching at the window. I tensed, but kept my gaze steady on Eddie’s one good eye. The other was patched like a pirate’s. “How are you feeling, Eddie?”
“What do you think? I’m half blind now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not. You couldn’t care less. You’re out to get us like all the other damned coppers. Your own people. Everyone says you’re a traitor.”
“I’m doing my job, Eddie. Trying to bring Maura’s killer to justice. That’s what you want, right?”
“Leave Nevan alone. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. Especially not Maura.”
“Did Nevan tell you about the baby?”
He turned away, walking toward the back of the house.
I followed. He went to the cages, unleashed the Lurcher, and guided it into one of the pens. I waited until the pen door was secured before stepping in closer. “Did Maura tell you that Nevan wasn’t the father?”
He whipped around. “Are you saying my sister was a limmer?”
No, I didn’t think she was a slut, but had she been in love with Hatch Anderson? Or had he taken advantage of her? From somewhere across the yard, I heard what sounded like a rooster crow. “What was that?”
Eddie’s eyes darted toward an old shed in the far corner of the yard. I headed that way. He trailed close behind. “You can’t just walk all over my yard without a warrant.”
I continued around to the back of the shed. A five-foot chain-link fence surrounded a stack of small cages. Most were filled with rabbits or hares. Probably for hare-coursing training for his dogs. But a couple cages contained roosters. “What a coincidence. We just busted a cockfight up at Jack’s. You know the place?”
“Yeah. I’ve been there. I don’t know about no cockfighting, though.”
“Oh, I see. You’re raising these two roosters for a special 4-H project, aren’t ya? Because I don’t see any hens. If you had hens, I might understand why you needed the males. But just two cockerels? Seems strange to me, Eddie.” Or maybe he did have hens at one time. Maybe he whacked off their heads and hung their bodies from trees. “One of the guys we busted seemed to know your buddy Nevan. You two into the cockfights? Is that how you turn an extra buck or two?”
His jaw jutted out. “You can’t prove nothin’.”
“What about Maura? Did she approve of Nevan’s extracurricular activities?”
Eddie busied himself scooping pellets into the rabbit cages.
I kept on him. “Maybe she was in on it. With a baby coming and all, she probably needed the extra cash.”
I knew from the journal entry that Ona was going to talk to Nevan to try to convince him to go through with the wedding in order to save Maura’s reputation. I didn’t know if that conversation had happened or not. I was about to ask, when my cell buzzed. I stepped aside and answered.
It was Pusser. “The remains are at the morgue. There wasn’t much to process at the scene. They’re working on getting the ATV out of the ravine now.”
My mouth went dry. “Good.”
“We’ve got a name on the license number. You won’t believe this.”
Unfortunately, I would.
“It came back registered to Dublin Costello.”
“Costello?” I hoped I sounded surprised. “What do you think we’re looking at?”
“Too soon to tell. We’ll know more tomorrow after the examination.”
I was sure we would. I disconnected and turned back, but Eddie had already disappeared inside the camper. I let him go. I had a more pressing issue to deal with now.
My grandmother.
* * *
“I need to know exactly what happened the night you killed Dub Costello.” I placed a cup of coffee in front of her and took the seat across the table, Wilco curled at Gran’s feet, his snout resting on her slipper. “You can’t leave out anything, Gran.”
She held the mug between trembling fingers and took a sip. “I’ve told you most everything there is to say about it.”
“Tell me again. Start with why you went to Dub’s trailer that night. And why you had your gun with you.”
She put her mug down and leaned back. “Your granddad was so sick back then. The cancer, all the medicines he took, and then his mind started to fail. You remember how he’d forget things. I could tell him something and two seconds later it was gone. But things from a long time ago . . .”
“I remember, Gran.” Lung cancer had eaten away at his lungs, stolen his ability to breathe, but the dementia took his mind. I couldn’t decide which was crueler.
Gran took a long sip of coffee before speaking again. “That night, he was so upset. At first, I thought it was your mother’s death. How we’d just learned she was killed and left out there in those woods.”
I squeezed my eyes and tried to block out the images flashing across my memory. I’d found her body, or what was left of it, dumped up in the mountains, rotting and ravaged by animals, picked over beyond recognition.
“It happened that very night of her funeral, remember? Fergus had been in bed all day, unable to go to our own daughter’s funeral. Not that he really understood what was happening. By then, his mind was about gone.” Her eyes widened, her mouth drooped. “Maybe that was a blessing. God’s way of protecting him in his last moments.”
I gave her hand an encouraging pat. “I know this is hard, but I need you to tell me the story again. Just in case there’s something you forgot to mention before.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything about that night. It’s etched in my memory forever.” The words came as barely a sigh. Gran never complained. Never displayed her grief like many widows. After Gramps passed, she went on, stronger than ever, always helpful and outwardly cheerful. But I sensed the toll her grief had taken. I saw it in the small things: dull eyes, weak posture, laughter that didn’t quite meet her eyes. Or like now, pale and ashen, a sheen of sweat on her face as she recalled Gramps’ last moments.
Maybe I was wrong to press her like this. She’d suffered enough. But if I didn’t get to the truth, there could be much more suffering to come. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m okay.” She sat a little straighter and continued the story. “Fergus was babbling a bunch of nonsense that night, living in the past like he always did. At first, he was talking about your mother, remembering the good old days and all. Then he got real upset. He started ranting on about you and how you could never follow our rules, and then he told me about Dub and how he’d . . . you know.”
“Raped me.” The words had festered inside me all these years, like a poisoned cyst, and, now released, they burst out of me, hot and vile. I closed my eyes, swallowed my own emotions; I had to get from Gran the story that only she could tell.
“Yes. And I was so angry. All those years and I hadn’t known what had really happened that night you left Bone Gap.” She clenched her fist. “I’ve never felt so angry in my entire life.”
“The gun. What made you grab your gun?”
“I didn’t. I took my purse. I don’t know why, but I did. The gun was in my purse, like it always was. You remember how your grandfather bought me that gun when all those attacks were going on.”
That was true. Several of our women had been attacked and roughed up. The law never got to the bottom of it. Never really tried, according to Gran and Gramps. That’s when Gramps got her a gun and told her to keep it with her at all times. Was it registered? Traceable? “So you went to Dub’s trailer. With your purse.”
“Yes. I confronted him. Told him I knew what he’d done to you all those years ago. And he laughed. He said you owed it to him. He felt no remorse for what he’d done. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I became so angry, told him he would pay for his sins and that I was going to see to it. And he . . . he exploded. Lord, but I’d never seen a man so angry. He started shaking me . . . and he . . . he had me backed against the kitchen counter. He was hitting me.” She raised her hands, staring at them like they were foreign appendages. “That’s when I cracked. My purse was right there. I got to my gun, and . . .”
She swiped at her eyes. Her skin went from ashen to a splotchy red flush.
“Then what, Gran?”
“I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I ran home. Kevin Doogan was outside and he saw me. Asked me what was wrong and I told him everything. He told me to go inside. Wash up. Change my clothes and to not tell anyone. Not your grandfather, not you. No one. He said he’d take care of everything. I didn’t see him again after that. The next thing I knew, Dub’s place burned to the ground.”
Doogan had done that. He disposed of Dub’s body and burned his place to the ground in order to cover any evidence that might lead back to my grandmother. Over the past months, I’d wondered, over and over, about what compelled him to risk everything for Gran. A woman who wasn’t even family. One answer returned time and again, however unlikely. We’d only known each other for a few days as I’d helped him discover the fate of his sister. Then I’d shared my story with him, a story I’d shared with no one before. And that night in his arms, I’d seen it and felt it: an intimacy borne from an understanding and connection few people share. Doogan would risk anything to protect me.
“How many times did you shoot him, Gran?”
“I . . . I don’t know. . . .” She used her napkin to wipe her forehead.
“It’s important. How many? Just once?”
Her lower lip trembled. “No. More than that. I just kept pulling the trigger.”
It was a little snub-nose revolver—S&W Model 36, with distinct engravings on the metal grip. She may have unloaded the whole cylinder into him. Five rounds, if it was fully loaded. “Do you know how many bullets were in the gun?”
“No. Your grandfather loaded it for me.”
None had been recovered from Dub’s burned-out trailer, and I’d only found one by the remains. There could still be more rounds. Had Doogan picked up some at Dub’s place and gotten rid of them? Had I missed something at the scene? It was possible that bullets had embedded in other parts of the body and been dragged off or ingested by predators. There were too many variables. “And the gun? You’d told me that Doogan took it from you.”
“Yes. But I don’t know what he did with it. Like I said, he told me to go inside and wash up. I didn’t see him after that.”
The gun tied Gran to the murder. If Doogan dumped it somewhere near the body and it was found . . . “Gran, what is it?”
She doubled over the table, grasping her temples and letting out a deep, body-rattling groan that set my nerves on fire. I shot out of my chair. Wilco scrambled out from under the table and began whining and sniffing at Gran’s face. I pushed him away and wrapped my arms over her shoulders. “Gran!”
She started to tell me something, but her words came out garbled and slurred. I knelt down, grasped her cheeks. The left side of her face drooped slightly.
“No! Oh, God, what have I done?” I dialed 911 and gave the operator my address. “Please hurry. It’s my grandmother. She’s having a stroke.”