This story features Junior Norton, the police chief in Byerly.
I'd known Erik Husey ever since we were in grammar school, but when I looked at the smoking mess that had been Erik and his dog, Lucky, all I could think of was that I never thought he'd be that dumb. To go out in a rowboat and set yourself on fire with a cigarette when you're so drunk that you don't even think to jump into the water, is just out–and–out stupid.
"Who found him?" I asked Mark Pope, my deputy. We were both standing on the floating platform that served as a dock for Walters Lake, looking down at Erik's body in his boat.
"Wade Spivey. You want to talk to him, or shall I give you the high points?"
"I may as well talk to him myself." I didn't doubt that Mark had all the facts, but sometimes it helps to get the story from the horse's mouth. Before I went over there, I asked, "Did you call the medical examiner?"
"Right after I called you."
"How about Erik's wife?"
He shook his head.
Mark just can't stand breaking the news to the next of kin. It's a good thing it doesn't bother me so much. As the chief of police of Byerly, North Carolina, I can't avoid it. "I'll talk to her later."
I walked down the dock to where Wade was staying out of our way. "Hey, Wade. How're your folks doing?"
"They're fine, Junior."
"Glad to hear it."
"And your folks? How's your daddy liking retirement?"
My daddy was police chief before me, like his daddy had been before him. Which is why I'm named Junior, instead of the kind of name you'd expect for a woman. "He likes it pretty well." With manners attended to, I said, "Mark tells me it was you who found Erik Husey."
"That's right."
"Why don't you tell me about it?"
"Well, I saw his boat on the lake with smoke coming from it this morning."
"What time was that?"
He thought about it. "I slept late this morning so it must have been after ten before I came outside to get the paper."
Knowing Wade, that meant he had been out drinking the night before, but unlike Erik, he had had enough sense to stay off the lake. "And then you saw the smoke?"
"Well, it wasn't much smoke. Just a little curl coming up, like he was having a cigarette. Only I couldn't see him over there. I called out a couple of times, and when nobody answered, I got to thinking that something might be wrong, so I went to take a look."
"Was your boat handy?"
"Tied up at the dock like always. It didn't take me no time to go over there, and that's when I saw him."
"Not a pretty sight."
"It sure wasn't," he said, shaking his head. "Anyway, I tied a line to the bow and towed it in. Then I called you folks."
"Any idea of how long he'd been out there?"
"He wasn't there when I left for town yesterday evening, but I don't know about when I got back. It was dark last night, and I don't think I even looked in that direction."
"Didn't hear anything?"
Wade shook his head.
"Good enough. I appreciate you letting us know right away."
"No problem. Y’all want some coffee? I put a pot on right after I called."
"I sure would. Thank you."
Wade went into his trailer, and I went back over to Mark.
"Good thing his boat's aluminum," Mark said. "If it was wood, it would have burnt right through and sunk. There's no telling when we'd have found him."
I nodded, looking inside the boat again. Like I had said to Wade, it wasn't a pretty sight, and it didn't smell too good, either. Erik was lying flat on his back, with a bottle in his right hand. The label had been burned off, but the bottle looked like Rebel Yell whiskey, the cheapest brand I knew of. On his left side was what was left of Lucky, a brown and white mutt who had wagged his tail at everybody he met.
"Lucky must have passed out first," I said, "or he'd have tried to wake up Erik."
"Lucky was probably drunk, too," Mark said.
"Erik gave whiskey to his dog?"
Mark nodded.
"That man was dumber than—" A station wagon drove up before I could finish the insult. "Dr. Connelly's here. Why don't you get the Polaroid from my trunk and take a few pictures before he gets started?" I handed him the keys.
While he left, I took another look at Erik and Lucky. I've seen people dead from gun shots, blunt instruments, and way too many car wrecks. I was pretty sure that this was the first man I had seen die from stupidity.
Which is how I ended the story when I was telling it to my parents that afternoon over Sunday dinner. I suppose most people wouldn't have thought it a fit subject to speak about at the dinner table, but after all the years Daddy was a cop, he and Mama had heard it all.
"That must have been awful for you," Mama said.
"I've seen worse." Smelled worse, too, but not many times.
"But this time it was somebody you knew."
"Mama, I know most of the people who end up dead in Byerly." Byerly isn't that big.
"But Erik was your age. In your grade at school, wasn't he?"
I nodded.
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"It always bothers me when somebody dies in my town."
"That's not what I mean. Andy, you know what I mean, don't you?"
"What your mama means, Junior, is that she's surprised that you're not taking it more personal this time."
I took one last bite of pecan pie. "Can't say as I am, Daddy. I didn't know Erik that well, and I didn't like him much. About the only time he ever spoke to me was to make fun of my name or to complain about speeding tickets."
Mama just sighed and tapped the maple dining room table. "Junior, I swear you haven't got a bit more feeling than this table here. What about Rinda? How did she take it?"
Rinda was Erik's wife. "About as well as you'd expect. She cried a little at first, but then wanted to know what happened. She hadn't been up long enough to worry about where Erik was. Said he'd gone out drinking the night before, and she figured he'd fallen asleep at somebody's house."
"Erik always did drink too much," Daddy said. Despite retirement, he kept up with most people in Byerly. "But I thought he drank at home. Cheaper that way."
"Rinda said he usually did, but they had had a fight."
Mama said, "That's terrible! The last words they spoke were in anger."
"Kind of suspicious, too," I said.
"Junior! It was an accident."
"Probably," I agreed. "She said they weren't fighting about anything important anyway, only about him not taking care of the house when she was out of town last week. She just got back from going to her father's funeral in Tennessee."
Mama said, "I heard about that. She hopped right onto a bus when she heard how bad off he was, but missed being able to say goodbye to him by an hour. It really hit her hard." She shook her head. "First her daddy, and now her husband. Junior, I've got a big dish of chicken and dumplings that I was going to freeze for later this week, but I want you to take it over to Rinda."
"Mama, I'm the police chief. I can't be taking food over every time somebody gets killed in an accident."
"I don't see why not. Especially when it's somebody you've known your whole life."
I looked at Daddy, hoping he'd be on my side, but he said, "I don't think it would hurt anything, Junior." Then he winked. "Besides, she might confess."
"Andy!"
So later Sunday afternoon, when I should have been cleaning up my apartment or doing nothing at all, I drove back to the lake and Rinda Husey's house. There were extra cars in the driveway, meaning that Rinda had company, so I wouldn't have to stay any longer than it would take to drop off the chicken and dumplings. At least, that's what I thought.
It wasn't Rinda who came to the door, it was Erik's aunt Mavis.
"Afternoon Miz Dermott. My mama wanted me to bring this over for Rinda." I held out the dish, but she didn't take it from me.
Instead she called out, "Mary Maude, did you call Junior?"
My mama tells me that Mavis Dermott and Mary Maude Foy had always had dark hair, but now they dye it solid black, without the first highlight to make it look real. Both wear face makeup so thick that it could be a mask, especially the way it ends right under their chins. Mavis is a widow, and since Mary Maude's husband is an invalid who never leaves the house, she might as well be one, too.
"No, I didn't call her, but I'm glad she's here," Mary Maude said. "Junior, I want you tell Rinda that it's not legal for her keep things that Erik inherited from his mama. Those things ought to come to me and Mavis."
Now I had to go inside. "Hello, Rinda," I said, ignoring Mary Maude for the time being. "My mama sent this for you."
Rinda looked a lot more tired than she had before, but with Mary Maude and Mavis pestering her, I wasn't surprised. She had been blonde and vaguely pretty when she and Erik started dating in high school, but between the marriage, a few extra pounds, and what she had been through, she didn't look pretty anymore. Even her blonde hair had grown out so that the dark roots were showing.
"Thank you, Junior." She took the dish from me and went out into the kitchen.
"Miz Foy, did Erik have a will?" I said.
"Of course not, him being so young. But I know he'd have wanted those things to come to me and Mavis."
"With no will, his property belongs to Rinda, and she can do with it as she sees fit."
"But it's not right," Mary Maude insisted.
"That's the law."
She muttered under her breath about law and police.
Mavis said, "Didn't I tell you that, sister?" To me, she added, "She didn't pay a bit more mind than the man in the moon. It's just a shame, that's all. Those things have been in our family for three generations."
I wanted to ask what things they were so worried about, but it didn't really matter and Rinda came back in then.
"Junior, do you know when I'll be able to claim Erik's body?" she asked.
"Dr. Connelly said he'd get to it just as quick as he could."
Mary Maude said, "That's another thing. Why can't we bring Erik home now? You've got no business cutting into him."
I guess Rinda had heard it before, because she didn't even wince. I said, "I'm sorry Miz Foy, but when a man is found dead under—" I started to say "suspicious," but changed it to keep from riling her up further. "Under unusual circumstances, there has to be an autopsy."
This gave Mary Maude a chance to mutter some more, and Mavis a chance to say, "Didn't I tell you that, sister? They'll fix him up for the funeral. Isn't that right, Junior?"
I hesitated. Usually Connelly does keep an autopsy as neat as he can, but in this case, the body had been pretty messy to start with.
Rinda came to my rescue. "He was burned to death. There's nothing an undertaker can do with that."
Just for a second, the aunts were struck silent. Then Mavis said, "Lord all mighty, Rinda, I didn't know you were so hard. Don't you have any feelings?"
That sounded darned close to what my mother had said to me, so I felt like I should defend Rinda. "She's right, ma'am. You wouldn't want to see him the way he is."
Both Mary Maude and Mavis started bawling, and I was impressed by the way their makeup repelled the tears. Rinda tossed a box of tissues at them, then walked me to the door. "Thank your mama for me, Junior."
"I will. Are you going to be all right with them two?"
"They'll quit as soon as they realize they don't have an audience." She didn't sound hard to me, just realistic.
I was getting into the car when Mark called me on the radio. "This is Junior."
"Junior, Dr. Connelly wants you to call him."
"Let me get to a phone." Mark gave me the number, and I started up the car. I could have gone back inside to use Rinda's phone, but I wanted to stay as far away from that house as I could. Besides, the only case Connelly was looking at was Erik's, and I wasn't about to discuss it in front of his family.
There was a filling station with a pay phone a mile down the road, so I pulled in there to call. "Dr. Connelly? This is Junior."
"Junior, I found something that might interest you."
"What's that?"
"When I examined Lucky's body—"
"Don't you mean Erik's body?"
"No, I mean Lucky's."
"You autopsied the dog?"
"I thought it would be interesting. I dissected cats and pigs in school, but never performed a post–mortem on a dog. That was all right, wasn't it?"
Different strokes for different folks, as Daddy says. "I don't see why not. What did you find?"
"A couple of things. First off, that dog's lungs were clear as a bell."
"Meaning what?" I asked, though I thought I knew the answer.
"Meaning that that dog never inhaled smoke from any fire."
"Which means that Lucky was dead before the fire started?"
"That would be my opinion."
"Then what killed him?"
"There's some fluid in the stomach, and it looks like antifreeze. You know dogs love the taste of antifreeze, even if it is toxic."
I ran through a few possibilities in my head. First, maybe Erik accidentally left antifreeze out where Lucky could get it, and burned himself to death in a fit of remorse. Or maybe it was some sort of dog murder/suicide pact. Or maybe it was just plain old everyday murder. It seemed to me that the last idea was the most likely.
"You said a couple of things?"
"This may not be important, but Lucky had been operated on in the past few weeks. He had a scar in the stomach area, healing nicely. Clearly done by a professional."
I didn't see how that mattered, but you never know. "What about Erik? How did he die?"
"I was just getting ready to start on him, but I thought you'd want to hear about the dog immediately."
"You thought right. Let me know what you find out about Erik." I hung up the phone, and got back in the car to radio Mark and tell him what Dr. Connelly had told me. "I guess you know what I want you to do."
He's not got much imagination, so he had to think about it. "Go talk to everybody living near the lake and see if they saw anything?"
"That's right."
"I'm on the way. How about you?"
"I'm going to see Wade Spivey again."
Actually, it wasn't Wade I wanted to see so much as it was his boat, but I thought I better check with him before I went sniffing around. He was watching a football game when I knocked, but invited me in anyway.
"Hey, Junior. Anything wrong?"
"A couple of odd things have shown up in the Husey case. You mind if I ask a couple more questions?"
"Not at all. You want a Coca-Cola?"
"No, thank you." Drinking coffee with someone who found an accident victim was one thing. Drinking a Coke with the first man on the scene of a murder was something else. "Did you know Erik well?"
"Just enough to speak to."
"But he docked his boat right next to yours."
"Only because he bought the boat from Ralph Stewart. Ralph had always kept it there, so I said Erik could just keep on leaving it there."
"So y'all never went fishing together?"
"Erik wasn't a real fisherman. He'd throw out a few lines, but mainly he just went out there to be by himself."
"Did you ever know anybody to go out on the lake with him?"
"Just his dog. I shouldn't say this after what happened to him, but I used to think Erik would only bring Lucky because of him being so tight-fisted. He'd have had to share his Rebel Yell with a human being."
"He was a careful man with his money," I said, but knowing how Wade drank, I couldn't blame Erik for not wanting to share. "But didn't he give whiskey to Lucky?"
"He used to," Wade said, "but the vet put a stop to it. She told him that Lucky was going to die from cirrhosis of the liver if he didn't stop. And Erik thought the world of that dog."
I was glad to hear that Erik had had some sense after all. Though Lucky would have been better off with the whiskey than the antifreeze. "Now you leave your boat out there at the dock so anybody could come use it if they wanted to."
"I suppose so. Do you think somebody did?"
"I don't know. Do you mind if I have look at it?"
"Not at all. You want me to come with you?"
"No, you enjoy your football game. I've messed up enough of your day."
I knew darned well he was going to be watching me through the window instead of the game, but I wanted to look around on my own.
Wade's boat wasn't much of a much. It had a motor, and enough room in it for two or three people. Maybe more, if one of them was dead. I squatted on the dock, looking down into the boat. No blood, but there was some light-colored hair or fur caught on the bench. Wade's hair was brown, but Erik's had been dirty blond and Lucky's brown and white.
I had some evidence bags in my pocket, so I put the hair into one of them. I thought about dusting for prints, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. Wade's boat was made of wood, not the best surface for prints, and everybody knows to wear gloves these days.
I gave the boat another look, this time getting in and looking under things, but didn't find anything more incriminating than a package of fish hooks, so I went back to my car. Wade was trying to hide behind a curtain, so I pretended not to see him.
I radioed Mark, getting him as he was driving to the next person on his circuit of the lake. I told him I'd start on the other direction, and we'd meet in the middle.
Neither of us got anything. Walters Lake isn't that big or that scenic, and not many people live right on the water. Wade's place was the closest, and Erik's own house the next after that. Nobody saw or heard anything.
There was another dock on the other side, but the only boat there was leaky and I don't think even a murderer would take a chance on taking it out at night.
"So what have we got?" Mark asked when we met.
It seemed right obvious to me, but Mark likes to have things spelled out. "It looks like somebody brought the bodies out here, arranged them in Erik's boat, used Wade's boat to tow Erik's boat out to the middle of the lake, set it on fire, then left Wade's boat where he found it."
"Had to be a local to know where the boat was, and that Wade wouldn't be home."
"I don't think Erik had many enemies from out of town. Or Lucky either." I looked at him sidewise to see if he'd noticed he was being made fun of. He hadn't. "But I want to talk to Dr. Connelly before I do anything else. Why don't you head back to the station, and I'll call and see if he's finished with Erik's autopsy." I found another pay phone, reminding myself to ask the city council for a couple of cellular phones in the next year's budget.
I guess he wasn't done yet, because it took a while for him to answer the phone, and when he did, he said, "Dr. Connelly," in a tone of voice that meant that I had interrupted him.
I decided not to ask about the autopsy right off. "Dr. Connelly, this is Junior. I've got a sample of hair or fur I found in Wade Spivey's boat. Can you tell me if it matches either Erik or his dog?"
This must have interested him, because he sounded less cranky when he spoke again. "I'm not sure. I can tell if it's human or canine, and if it's human, I can tell you if it matches Husey. But I don't know if I can get a positive identification on a dog. I'd have to do some research."
"Should I run the sample up to you?" Byerly didn't have its own coroner. Connelly served the whole county, and he was a good thirty minutes away.
"It's getting late. Why don't you call the vet in town. He can tell you if it's dog or not, and maybe he knows if you can ID canine hair."
"I'll do that." Now to butter him up. "Do you think you'll have the autopsy on Husey done by the first part of the week?"
"First part of the week?" he said, sounding pleased with himself. "I should have preliminary results this evening."
I whistled in appreciation, some of it sincere. "That's fast work." If I had asked him to have it done that night, he'd have fussed. "Will you call the station when you're done?"
"Of course."
I hung up the phone, grinning a little. And Mama said I didn't have feelings. Of course, I had to admit, I hadn't treated Dr. Connelly like that to make him feel better so much as to get what I wanted.
I was out of quarters, so I drove on over to the veterinarian's place. Josie Gilpin, who insisted everybody call her Dr. Josie, was an older woman with no family who spent most of her weekends tending to animals who were too sick to go home. I didn't think she'd mind a little company and from her smile when she opened her door, I was right.
"What can I do for you, Junior? You didn't find another dog hit by a car, did you?"
"Not this time. I was wondering if you could take a look at a sample of hair I've got and tell me what it came from."
"I can try. Come on in." She led me through a room where the floor was strewn with dog toys and the furniture covered with dogs. They were well-trained and didn't even bark as we walked through and down a hall to where Dr. Josie had a lab set up, complete with microscope, test tubes, and such.
"What animal do you think it came from?" she asked.
"Either human or dog," I said, handing her the evidence bag. "I want to see if it came from Erik Husey or his dog Lucky."
"I heard about them two," she said, which didn't surprise me. News travels fast in Byerly. "Erik should have had more sense, risking Lucky's life like that."
Dr. Josie is partial to animals, and I guess that's why she lives alone. She used tweezers to pull part of the fur out and put it on a slide. Then she turned on the microscope, put in the slide, and peered at it.
"Lucky had been operated on recently," I said. "Was that your work?"
"Sure was. Erik brought Lucky in a few weeks ago, said he was acting puny, not eating."
"Was it from the drinking?"
"Did you know about that? You know, Junior, there are laws about mistreating animals."
I held up both hands in surrender. "I only heard about it this morning, or I'd have said something to him. Anyway, I hear you did a good job of laying down the law yourself."
"You bet I did. But it wasn't the whiskey that made Lucky sick. He had a blockage in his intestines. I had to operate."
"Is that how you found out about the drinking, when you had him cut open?"
She was still peering, so I couldn't see her grin, but I could tell that she was. "As a matter of fact, I didn't see the first sign of it. It's just that I had heard that Erik was giving that dog whiskey, and knew if I scared him, he'd stop."
For an animal doctor, she was pretty smart about people. Then I said, "I'm surprised Erik paid for an operation like that, him being so close with his money."
"He didn't even argue with me. Paid half up front, and the rest in payments. He may have been cheap, but not when it came to Lucky." She pulled the slide out of the microscope. "Well, it's not dog, cat, horse, or squirrel."
"Human?"
Dr. Josie shrugged, no longer caring, and handed me the evidence bag. "Probably."
"I appreciate your help." She showed me out past the dogs, and I went to the station to see if Dr. Connelly had called.
He had, and what he'd told Mark caught me by surprise. Erik really had died in the fire. Only thing was, he had been hit in the head beforehand, hard enough to knock him out. Dr. Connelly said that he might not have lived even without the fire.
"What do you think?" Mark said after he made his report, letting me draw any conclusions there were to be drawn.
"I might be able to convince myself that Erik got so drunk that he fell and hit himself on an oar or something. The fire could have wiped out any trace of that. But there's two things that bother me."
"What two things?"
"One, Lucky already being dead. And two, the hair I found in Wade's boat."
"So how do you make it out?"
I sighed, wishing he could put one and one together without my help. "Somebody killed him."
He nodded like I had confirmed something rather than giving him the whole idea. "Who do you think it was?"
"We'll start with the obvious suspects. Rinda, of course." The spouse is always the first one you look at. "She said they had a fight Saturday night."
"Would she have told you that if she killed him?"
"Maybe she thought the neighbors heard yelling. And I want to look at those aunts of his. They were fussing about something they wanted and how Rinda wasn't going to let them have it. Maybe it's valuable. And I guess I have to consider Wade Spivey. It wouldn't be the first time that the killer was the one to 'find' a body."
The only other person I could think of was Dr. Josie, and I didn't think even she'd burn a man alive for giving whiskey to a dog. And she'd never have hurt Lucky.
I looked at the clock. "It's too late to start anything now. I'll see you tomorrow." Mark frequently slept at the station, one ear listening for the phone. I did it too, when I had to, but preferred my own apartment.
I guess Mama would have been put out if she had found out how I slept when someone I knew had been murdered, but I slept like a baby. Not even a bad dream.
Dr. Connelly had told Mark he had a couple of early appointments, and I should wait until eleven or so before calling. So I spent the morning making phone calls.
First I called Erik's insurance agent. There's only two agents in town, and I guessed the right one the first time. He was the cheaper of the two, and of course, Erik's life insurance had been the cheapest available. There was just enough money to bury Erik if Rinda didn't mind a pine box.
Then I called Mary Maude Foy to find out just what it was that Rinda was keeping from her and Mavis. I made it sound like I was seriously investigating their claim, and she was mad enough at Rinda to believe it. The thing was, it turned out to be nothing more than a double bed, a dresser, and a chest of drawers. Mary Maude and Mavis were strange, but I didn't think they'd kill their own nephew for a bedroom set. I did make a note to ask Rinda if that's all they were asking for, and to call Maggie Burnette, a dealer at the local flea market who could tell me if the pieces were worth anything.
Then I headed for Dr. Connelly's with the sample of hair. Other than the drive, the visit didn't take long. Dr. Josie had already told me that it wasn't Lucky's fur; it turned out that it wasn't Erik's hair either. Which I should have known, since Erik and the dog had been in Erik's boat, not Wade's. Dr. Connelly showed me something that told me who it was in that boat.
Now I knew who, but I spent the drive back to Byerly trying to figure out why. Mama had said that I didn't have any feelings, but the person who killed Erik must have had feelings, strong ones. To burn a man to death would take an awful lot of feeling. Not to mention killing his dog. It took me most of the drive to figure out just why the killer had hated Erik that much.
I radioed Mark as I got into Byerly so he could make a phone call for me, and had just got out to the circle of houses around the lake when he called me with the answer I needed. Then I told him to come out there and meet me, in case there was trouble.
There was only one car in the driveway at Rinda's house this time, and she answered the door herself. "Hey. Junior," she said. "What can I do for you?"
"I wanted to let you know that the doctor's finished Erik's autopsy," I said. "He'll be able to release the body today."
"I'll be glad to get the funeral taken care of."
"I know you will be. One thing I wanted to ask you. How did you find out about the vet bill?"
Her face turned white as a sheet, much whiter than her hair. "The vet bill?"
Her reaction was enough for me. "Rinda, I have to arrest you for the murder of Erik Husey. Before I go any further, let me read you your rights." I did so, put the cuffs on her, and walked her out to my squad car just as Mark showed up to escort us to the station.
"She killed him over a vet bill?" Mama asked that night over dinner. We don't eat together every night, but I knew Daddy would want to hear the whole story. Mama, too, even if she wouldn't admit it.
I said, "It wasn't just the money. Rinda said she had always known that Erik was cheap, and she accepted that. So when her daddy was dying and he said they couldn't afford for her to fly to Tennessee, she didn't argue. You know she only missed being able to say goodbye to him by an hour—she'd have made it if she had taken a plane. Then when she got back, she found the last vet bill, and it showed how much Erik had paid for Lucky's operation."
"So she killed the dog to keep him from barking while she killed Erik for revenge," Daddy said.
"Nope. Rinda said she never intended to kill Erik, and I believe her. She just wanted to kill Lucky. She left a bowl of antifreeze out for him that morning. Only he didn't die right away like she thought he would. Dr. Josie says that it takes twelve to twenty-four hours for a dog to succumb to antifreeze poisoning. Rinda watched that dog all day long, waiting for him to die."
Mama shivered a little, and I didn't blame her.
I went on. "The later it got, the more desperate Rinda got, so she finally gave him some more and that did it. She was meaning to put the bowl away before Erik got home, but he left work early. When he found Lucky dead next to the bowl, he knew Rinda had done it on purpose."
"So he came after her and she was only defending herself," Daddy said.
"Yes and no. He was carrying on pretty bad, and said he was going to kill her. When he took a swing at her, she picked up a skillet and hit him."
"Cast iron?" Mama asked.
I nodded.
"So she thought he was dead when she burned him," Mama said.
"No, she knew he was still breathing. She wanted him dead."
Daddy said, "Did she think he'd come after her again when he woke up?"
"I asked her that, but she said she wasn't a bit scared. She was mad. Mad about not being able to say goodbye to her daddy, and mad about him spending money on a dog, and maddest of all about him wanting to murder her over that dog. She was determined to kill him. Now she thought that if she burned him, we wouldn't be able to tell he'd been hit in the head. She was going to put him in the car and run it off the road, but she wasn't sure it would catch fire. Besides, she said, it was the only car they had. The boat she didn't care about, so she put Erik and Lucky in a wheelbarrow and pushed them over to the lake. She knew Wade would be out drinking, so she borrowed his boat to tow with. She wasn't sure how she caught her hair on the boat." I had known it was hers as soon as Dr. Connelly told me the sample was bleached blonde. "She used whiskey to start the fire, actually stayed and watched. Said she had to make sure he didn't wake up." It made me right sick to my stomach to think about it. "And you said I don't have any feelings."
"I didn't mean that, Junior, and you know it," Mama said. "I just don't want you to forget that it's people you're working with, not cases."
I nodded. She might have a point.
"What happens now?" Mama asked.
"I think Rinda will plead guilty, but even if she doesn't, it should be open and shut," I said.
"What about Erik's funeral?"
"His aunts are going to take care of it. Spending their own money to do it, too, because Rinda won't let them have the insurance money. Maybe they aren't so bad after all. And they'll get that bedroom set."
"All over but the paperwork," Daddy said. "Nice job, Junior."
"One other thing," Mama said. "You said Rinda didn't resist arrest. So how did you get that dirt on your uniform?"
I looked down at the dark patches on my knees. "Well, Dr. Connelly called and said the funeral home had come after Erik, but he didn't know what to do with Lucky. Rinda said we could throw him on the trash heap for all she cared, but I just couldn't see it. So I took him over to Dr. Josie's place and buried him there. She's got a little cemetery for dogs and cats."
Darned if Mama didn't tear up. "That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. And I said you didn't have any feelings."
With her crying, I knew I had feelings all right, but what I felt most was embarrassed.