Day Shift (Midnight, Texas #2) (26 page)

T
he silence in Manfred’s house was broken only by the ragged breathing of the man on the floor. Lewis Goldthorpe had wet himself, which Manfred supposed was not an unreasonable reaction to being faced with two tigers. But it didn’t make the atmosphere any more pleasant, and it made Lewis even more angry.

“I hope you die,” Lewis sobbed.

“I should have left you out there to be eaten.” Manfred’s grandmother had warned him about helping other people. He should have listened.

“Why are there tigers here? What’s
wrong
with this place?” Lewis managed to sit up.

“The only thing wrong with this place is that you’re in it right now,” Manfred said. “Why the hell did you come here?”

“The police came back,” Lewis said. “They took apart the globe. They found Mama’s stuff.”

Manfred said, “So now you know I didn’t steal it. Now you know to leave me alone. I only wished your mother well. I liked her.”

“You cheated her,” Lewis said, and his voice began to rise. “You cheated her.”

“Out of what? Hours of loneliness? I just saved your life, asshole!”

“She should have turned to me when my dad died.” Now Lewis was snarling, and there was something in his face that made Manfred feel a flicker of fear. The man was down on the floor, and he was a mess, and his facial expressions were all over the place—fear, anger, some tears, a boatload of frustration. He was ridiculous. But he was frightening, too.

“But she didn’t?” Manfred made his voice gentler. It took a huge effort.

“No, she became more and more ‘Lewis, you need to stand on your own two feet,’ and ‘Lewis, you need to get another job.’”

“But you didn’t feel that was right?” From years of talking to upset people, Manfred made himself sound as sympathetic and understanding as a good therapist. But it was a huge effort.

“Of course not! She needed someone on the spot, someone to keep the—the predators away from her. People like you and that whore Bertha.”

“Bertha? The maid?”

“Yes, Bertha, the maid.” Lewis tried to do a cruel imitation of Manfred, but he just succeeded in sounding more foolish.

“I thought Bertha seemed . . .” What had he thought? He hadn’t really looked at Bertha with any interest. She was the maid.

“Seemed what? Grabby? Possessive?
Fertile?
” He spat out the last word.

“She didn’t seem anything,” Manfred said slowly. “She seemed like the background.”

“Right! Right!” Confirmed in his judgment, Lewis crowed in
triumph. “Always there. Always at Daddy’s right hand. Waiting. Whispering. Always with John skulking around.”

“John?” That was all Manfred could think of to say.

“Yes,
John
.” Lewis sneered. “Couldn’t name him Juan, I guess. Wanted to be
American
.”

“She’s not American?”

“Bertha? Oh, I guess, technically she is.”

Manfred sighed. “So why are you upset that Bertha’s son, John, came into the house?”

“Because she wanted my dad to love him. Because she wanted my dad to love him more than he loved me. And after my dad died, she started to work on my mother. But not telling my mom the big thing! No, waiting for the lawyers on that!”

Manfred had followed Lewis’s narrative until that moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“John is Dad’s son!”

“Are you kidding?” Manfred’s amazement was genuine and complete.

Never ask a madman if he’s kidding. For the next five minutes Manfred had to listen to an account of the affair between Bertha and Morton Goldthorpe. And the worst part was, Manfred couldn’t tell if this was fact or fiction, because Lewis believed it absolutely. He thought that Bertha’s son, John, was the product of that long-ago liaison.

“When my dad died,” Lewis said, “his will said his estate was to go to Mother during her lifetime. And afterward it was to be divided among the heirs of his body. See? Of his body? Which includes John. But my mom didn’t know about John. And maybe she could have changed the will.”

“Is that why you put the pills in her water?”

“I did not.” Lewis sounded definite and almost sane when he said that. “I did not poison my mother.”

“Are you saying Bertha did?”

“That is what I am saying.”

“Then why did you drag me into this?”

“You and Bertha worked together. She put the pills in Mama’s water the only time Mama had gone out of the house in a couple of weeks. She thought Mama would have a car wreck on her way to see you, and that either you or I would be blamed.”

“And how do you know this? And why on earth do you think I knew about it ahead of time?”

“I know it because Mama told me so. She’s been whispering in my ear. She told me all this.”

“That is total bullshit and you know it. Your mother is at peace with your father. She is not whispering in your ear.” Manfred shook his head. “I’m willing to believe you have some kind of delusional situation going on here. But you can leave me out of it. I wished your mother nothing but good.”

Lewis, amazingly, had no response to that. He struggled to his feet. Manfred offered no help. He didn’t want to get that close to Lewis. He was wondering how to clean the wood floor, which was wet where Lewis had landed. Maybe one of those Swiffer things?

“So what do we do now?” Manfred asked. “Are you ready to run back to your car and get out of here?”

“I still think you conspired with Bertha,” Lewis said. He was as tenacious as a pit bull but with half the brainpower and none of the looks.

Manfred sighed, and he made it gusty and obvious. “You’re a jerk, and I don’t know why your mother didn’t put you in a straightjacket,” he said, and then realized that had crossed the border into cruel. Did he mind? Not at this exact moment.

“There’s someone outside,” Lewis said. He was staring at the window. Skeptically, Manfred glanced in the same direction. There was
a face at the window for real. Manfred gasped. But once the shock was over, he thought he knew who he’d glimpsed.

“Was that Bertha?” he said, astonished. She must have followed Lewis all the way to Midnight. “You weren’t lying,” he said, and there was a lot of wonder in his voice. “She really does have it in for you.”

Manfred had a choice at that moment. (Afterward, he thought of it as his “The Lady, or the Tiger?” moment.) He could try to warn Bertha, grab her, and bring her into his house, just as he had Lewis—or he could leave her to the mercy of the tigers.

He felt something very like relief when the choice was taken out of his hands.

O
utside, with the moon radiating a gentle glow—intermittently, since clouds were drifting through the sky—Olivia felt more alive than she had since Lemuel had left for New York. She’d been atop Manfred’s roof since he’d left for Home Cookin with the lawyer. Since sunset, she’d been watching the tigers prowl through Midnight.

Olivia was almost certain she’d seen three. But like Fiji, she couldn’t tell them apart, and they’d never been all together.

Only one of the big cats was in sight now, and it was right below her. The woman who’d been looking through Manfred’s window had backed against the wall, and Olivia could hear her breathing—ragged, uneven breaths, almost like crying. Olivia hadn’t been able to get a good look at the woman, but she was fairly certain it was Bertha, and she was delighted at Bertha’s appearance here in Midnight.

Bertha stayed put until the tiger advanced and batted at her with a huge paw. Then Bertha bolted. Olivia watched, transfixed, as the tiger overtook her with one bound.

At least it was quick. The last shriek was cut off like a knife.

Olivia supposed that now the tiger would dispose of the corpse in the most practical manner.

But the tiger who’d made the kill didn’t get to consume his prey. An even larger tiger suddenly appeared from the brush-strewn acres that lay between Midnight and the river. The new arrival shoved the killer away from the corpse. Olivia figured the larger tiger would now eat the corpse himself, but he didn’t. He made a huffy, chuffy noise and rubbed up against the killer. Olivia thought,
He’s telling him he shouldn’t eat people.

The killer tiger made a halfhearted lunge at the new arrival, but the larger tiger simply butted him back. Then a third tiger emerged from the shadows behind the pawnshop. But he didn’t interfere. He turned silently and crossed Witch Light Road in a single bound.

As far as Olivia could tell, the tiger passed between Fiji’s house and the fence around the pet cemetery. Then it vanished into the night, heading south, perhaps to the Braithwaite ranch. After some silent interaction, which was surely communication, the other two followed.

Olivia waited a few minutes before swinging down. She landed in a neat crouch and knocked on Manfred’s door. “They’re gone,” she called.

The door opened. “Thank God,” Manfred said. “You’re okay, then? What about Bertha?”

“She’s a mess,” Olivia said. “Dead, of course. Was that Lewis pounding on your door? I couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah, he’s in here.” Manfred stood aside, and Olivia could feel herself smiling as she looked down at Lewis. “You’re a mess, too,” she said. And he was. He smelled like pee, his clothes were wet and dirty, and he was clearly very shocked by what had just happened. But she’d met a few Lewises before, and she knew that very soon he’d revert to being his disagreeable and unbalanced self.

She was right.

“You, you, you . . . crazy people!” Lewis was pulling himself up as he sputtered.

“Why’d you come here, Lewis?” she asked.

Manfred said, “Good question, Olivia. Lewis?”

“To tell you . . . to tell you . . .” he began, but he couldn’t think of a good ending for his sentence.

“Do you think he came to kill me?” Manfred asked Olivia.

She patted Lewis down. It was unpleasant to touch him, but she was not one to flinch at unpleasant things.

“No,” she said. “Unless words can turn to stones. I don’t think Lewis has the balls to kill someone. He likes to screech at ’em, though.”

“You people should be locked up,” Lewis said. But it had no force behind it. He was exhausted, at least for the moment. He did muster up a spark of defiance, just enough to make him draw his hand back to slap Olivia, but she caught his arm with no trouble at all and bent it the wrong way. He began to sob.

“Olivia,” Manfred admonished her. “I think we’ve heard enough from him for one night.”

“I agree,” she said. “Lewis, pipe down.”

Lewis made a poor effort to do so.

She opened the door. “Just go home,” she said. “And never talk to anyone about tonight. Or Manfred will bring charges for trespassing and assault against you. You know, I bet you’d really, really hate jail.”

Lewis staggered out the door and to his car, moving with almost frantic clumsiness to pull open its door and dive inside. He locked the doors. In the quiet night, Olivia could hear the click. He didn’t even glance over at the mangled corpse.

“I wouldn’t want to be on the road with him driving tonight,” she said, as they watched the car lurch backward and then go to the intersection. Lewis turned south, probably going to the interstate.

“And yet we’re not stopping him,” Manfred said. He sounded angry. Surprised, Olivia swung around.

“You have issues with the way I handled that?” She was beginning to get angry herself.

Manfred took a deep breath, and she watched him calm down. “No,” he said. “And yes. I’m not happy that a woman is dead outside my house, and that she died in pain and fear. Also, I’m worried with how to conceal her corpse. I’m worried about further police investigation. And I’m sorry that since she’s dead, there may not be justice for Rachel. No one will know what happened to her. Since the murderer has been murdered, there’ll always be suspicion floating around.”

Olivia felt depressed now. And that made her angrier. She’d done well, she thought, and this was the thanks she got: none at all.

“Listen, shrimp, no one can ever prove that you put her meds in her drink, because you didn’t. Bertha did.”

Manfred sat down abruptly. “Lewis just told me Bertha did it. But I didn’t know whether to believe him.”

“I looked up Morton’s will,” she said. “He did leave everything to his wife first, and after she died, to the heirs of his body. He had his money in a trust. Rachel had the use of the trust in her lifetime, but after that, yada yada yada.”

“And John really is Morton’s son?”

“Morton apparently suspected he was, or he wouldn’t have worded the will that way. I found a way to read it online.” She smiled with considerable pride.

“But why kill Rachel? If the money would eventually come to John anyway?”

“I’m just guessing, but John was arrested recently. That’s public record, too. Not in Bonnet Park, but in Abilene. For vehicular manslaughter. He totaled his car and his passenger was killed. So he was facing a trial. And he had no
dinero
for a lawyer. I don’t know if Bertha
tried to get Rachel to cough up the money or if she even told Rachel what was going on. But John needs money, and he needs it now.”

“But it would still have to go through probate, right?” Even his grandmother’s meager estate had had to go through probate. “I needed money to keep the house running after Xylda died, and the lawyer let me have it.”

“I bet he would have let you have money for an attorney if you were facing criminal charges.”

“That . . . well, I just don’t know.” Manfred suddenly felt the whole day crash down on him like a ton of bricks.

“Where are you going?” Olivia asked sharply.

“To bed, Olivia,” he said. “I just can’t . . .” He never finished his sentence but went into his bedroom and closed the door.

And now, it seemed, Olivia would have to clean up Bertha’s body all by herself. She had counted on the tigers doing their thing and eating most of Bertha, but she guessed that was not going to happen. She went outside again.

“When I called you and told you to follow Lewis, this is
not
what I expected,” Olivia said to what was left of Bertha.

It hadn’t been hard to incite Lewis into tearing over to Midnight. Not hard at all, especially after she’d told him about the newscast. She’d pretended to be a reporter, and she’d repeated everything Manfred had said, and embellished some. And once he’d threatened to confront the fiend who’d ruined his life, Olivia had called Bertha. The result had been pretty damn near perfect.
Except, of course, if the body is found and the law starts looking for tigers. Boy, the Rev won’t like that at all. . . .
And this thought, which she admitted she should have had much sooner, worried Olivia quite a bit.

Okay, the body wouldn’t be found. And Bertha’s car wouldn’t be, at least for a while. Olivia hoped she had another shower curtain and extra duct tape stockpiled in her apartment. They were the handiest
tools for body disposal. And she’d have to keep a close watch out for the tigers, not a hazard at any body disposal site she’d ever attended. She went down to her apartment, humming.

When she came back out some twenty minutes later, Olivia was pleasantly surprised to find that the body was gone. Only a bloody patch showed where it had lain. In the interest of tidiness, she attached the Rev’s hose to Manfred’s outside water faucet and spent ten minutes hosing down the evidence. There was still a chance of rain, but better to get the process started.

She thought,
At least he can pay for the water.