James parked his car beside the navy blue sedan, in the shade of a spreading old live oak a dozen yards from the front door to the old plantation house.
Jay Bradley, the detective he’d met the night Weezie was arrested, leaned against the hood of his county-issue vehicle, smoking a cigarette, which he flipped to the ground at James’s arrival. He wore a short-sleeved white dress shirt, wrinkled dark slacks, and a bored expression.
“How ya doin’ there, Father?”
“Just James. Remember?”
“Sorry. Old habits die hard, you know.”
“So,” James said briskly, “we’re all clear to take a look around the house?”
He had hated to ask Jonathan for the favor, but he really did need to get an idea of what kind of evidence the police might have against Weezie.
And Jonathan had been uneasy about it too. “It’s a defense attorney’s right to see the crime scene,” he’d pointed out. “Of course, Weezie hasn’t really been charged with the homicide.”
“But you think she will be,” James said.
“You know I can’t talk about that,” Jonathan said.
So Jonathan had told him whom to call, and this morning Bradley had called back to set up the walk-through, not sounding exactly thrilled with the idea.
James could already feel the sweat soaking through his shirt. It must be close to a hundred degrees already, and not even ten o’clock yet. He hated to think about what that musty old house would feel like in this heat and humidity.
Bradley strode toward the east side of the house. He put his hand on the trunk of a huge old magnolia tree that nearly dwarfed the house. “This here’s how your niece says she got in the house,” he said.
“If she says she climbed the tree, she did,” James said.
“We lifted her fingerprints off the doorknobs, kitchen and front door,” Bradley said.
“She tried the doors first, of course, but they were all locked. She needed to use the bathroom.”
“Right,” Bradley said, doubt dripping from his voice. He dug a key from the pocket of his pants. “We’ll go in the kitchen.”
James followed Bradley inside. A narrow path had been cleared through the old-fashioned room, but otherwise the place was stacked to the ceiling with dust-covered furniture, dishes, and boxes and boxes of miscellaneous stuff.
“Whole house is like this,” Bradley said, clucking his disapproval. “Packed with crap.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” James said, remembering Weezie’s insistence that the house was a treasure trove of valuable antiques. Although he himself could not picture anybody wanting any of this stuff.
James followed Bradley into the hallway, and Bradley pointed again, with his radio, toward the stairway.
“The body was found up there, in a bathroom closet. According to your niece, anyway.”
“Have your people found any evidence to indicate the body had been moved?” James asked. “The DeSantos woman was much taller than Weezie. Even if she had killed her, which she didn’t, I doubt she could have stuffed the woman into a closet.”
Bradley volunteered nothing. Instead, he started up the stairs. His labored footsteps echoed on the splintered wooden steps, and the handrail groaned as he pulled his bearlike body upward. James said a small silent prayer that the staircase wouldn’t collapse beneath the weight of the both of them.
Upstairs the heat was even more oppressive, if that was possible.
Bradley mopped his steaming forehead with a handkerchief, and James did the same.
“Closet’s right in that bathroom,” Bradley gasped, lunging toward a bedroom doorway. “I gotta get a window open, get some air in here before I pass out.”
“Right,” James said. He waited until he heard the wooden window creak open, then whipped out the small camera he’d tucked in his pocket.
He slipped into the bathroom and with the toe of his shoe, James pushed the closet door open, bracing himself for a ghastly sight.
There was actually very little blood. It was an ordinary closet. Empty, save some old wooden coat hangers littering the bottom of the closet.
James clicked away as rapidly as he could, changing the angle with each shot. When he was done, he tucked the camera back in his pocket and stepped back into the hall.
He heard Bradley approaching, his breath labored. The cop’s face was an alarming shade of pasty gray.
“Detective Bradley?” James said, reaching for the detective’s arm just as the younger man swayed, his eyes rolling upward in his head.
The cop slumped to the floor.
“Sweet Jesus,” James said, kneeling down beside Bradley. He put his fingertips at the base of the cop’s throat. His breathing was shallow, his color unearthly, and despite the suffocating heat, Bradley’s flesh felt clammy to the touch.
James ran back into the bathroom. He grabbed an old rag from a towel bar, shoved it under the tap, and turned it on. The pipes groaned, and after what seemed like an eternity, a thin trickle of brown water began to drip from the faucet. He soaked the rag in the water, than ran back to Bradley’s outstretched form, squeezing the water onto the detective’s face and neck, then dabbing at his wrists and the back of his neck.
He struggled to unbutton Bradley’s shirt collar, which bulged under the bulk of his fleshy neck. But his hands were sweaty, his fingers clumsy. He tore at the collar until he’d ripped the buttons off, then went to the man’s waist, loosening the cinched leather belt.
“Jay?” James said, keeping his fingers on the man’s pulse. It was rapid, fluttery even. The detective couldn’t have been much older than forty, but he was at least fifty pounds overweight, and a smoker. Could he have had a heart attack?
Should he raise the detective’s head? Try CPR? Years ago, at his first parish in Thunderbolt, he’d sat in the church social hall while the Boy Scout troop went over the basics of CPR. But James had paid scant attention, being more intent on keeping the boys from disturbing a group of parishioners attending the Overeaters Anonymous meeting in the adjacent library.
He needed help, James thought. Was there a working phone in this godforsaken place? Surely not. Then he remembered the detective’s radio. It was there, clipped to his belt. James reached over and unclipped it. He held the radio to his face, pushed what he prayed was the send button.
“Er, uh, this is a civilian. My name is James Foley, and one of your detectives is in need of medical attention. He appears to have had an attack of some kind. He’s breathing, but his pulse seems erratic. We’re at Beaulieu Plantation, near the Skidaway River, on the second floor of the house. Please send an ambulance immediately.”
The radio squawked and a woman’s voice floated out. “Ten-four that, Mr. Foley. We have a rescue unit on the way.”
“Thank God,” James said.