Erica Spindler (20 page)

A
very stood at her front door for a long time after Buddy left. She felt numb, disconnected. She gazed out at nothing, the things Buddy had said playing over in her head.

Would anything Gwen said to her have made her suspicious if she hadn't been in the throes of grief? Sal's death would have been a terrible tragedy, one of those freak occurrences that made one ask, “Why?” Dolly Farmer another victim of the breakdown of the family, Pete Trimble a drunk-driving statistic.

What did
she
believe? She rubbed her throbbing temples. How could she be so easily swayed? One moment believing the people of Cypress Springs were involved in a conspiracy of discrimination and murder, the next sucked in by an emotionally unstable woman with a questionable agenda. She had always been so firm in her beliefs, so self-confident. She had been able to access the facts, make a decision and move on.

Avery dropped her hands. Is this how a breakdown began? One small confusion at a time? A bout of tears, mounting indecision, a feeling of drowning that passed only to return without a moment's notice?

Becoming aware that the air-conditioning was being
wasted, she closed the door, turned and wandered back to the kitchen. Her gaze landed on Buddy's nearly empty water glass.

What did she want to believe?

In the people she loved and trusted. In those who loved her.

And that her father hadn't taken his own life.

Therein lay the source of her conflict.

The phone rang. She turned toward it but made no move to pick it up. The caller let it ring nine times before hanging up. A moment later it rang again. Someone needed her. To speak to her.

Her father had needed to speak to her.

She hadn't taken his call.

She leaped for the phone, snatching the receiver off the base. “Hello?”

“Avery? It's Gwen.”

Not now. Not her.
She fought the urge to slam down the phone.

“I just got your message,” the woman continued. “I drove to New Orleans to see my mother.” She paused. “Avery? Are you there?”

“Yes, I'm here.”

“I'd like to get together as soon as possible. When can you—”

“I'm sorry, Gwen, I can't talk about this just now.”

“Are you all right?”

If she could call falling apart at the seams all right
. “Yes, fine. I just…this isn't a good time.”

“Are you alone?”

Avery heard the concern in the other woman's voice. She could imagine what she was thinking. “Yes.”

“You sound strange.”

“I think I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? I don't understand.”

“I can't do this. I feel for you, Gwen, I do. I understand loss, I'm swimming in it myself. But I can't be party to your far-fetched notions. Not anymore.”

“Far-fetched? But—”

“Yes, I'm sorry.”

“I'm all alone, Avery. I need your help.” The other woman's voice rose. “Please help me find my brother's killer.”

Avery squeezed her eyes shut. Against the desperation in the other woman's voice. The pain.

Trust the people you love. The people who love you.

“I wish I could, Gwen. My heart breaks for you, but—”

“Please. I don't have anyone else.”

She felt herself wavering; she steeled herself against sympathy. “I really can't talk right now. I'm sorry.”

Avery hung up. She realized she was shaking and drew in a deep breath. She had done the right thing. Pain shaped reality—her pain, Gwen's. The woman had focused her energy on this conspiracy theory as a way to lessen her pain. To turn her attention away from grief.

Avery had been drawn in for the same reason.

The phone rang again.
Gwen. To plead her case
. As much as she preferred to avoid the woman, she needed to face this. This was part of getting her act together.

She answered without greeting. “Look, Gwen, I don't know how to make it more plain—”

“How does it feel to be the daughter of a liar and murderer?”

The breath hissed past Avery's lips, she took an involuntary step backward. “Who is this?” she demanded, voice quaking.

“I'm someone who knows the truth,” the woman said, then laughed, the sound unpleasant. “And there aren't many of us left. We're dropping like flies.”

“You're the liar,” Avery shot back. Outrage took her breath, fury on its heels. “My father was an honorable man. The most honest man I've ever known. Not a coward who's too afraid to show her face.”

“I'm no coward. You're the—”

“You are. Hiding behind lies. Hiding behind the phone, making accusations against a man who can't defend himself.”

“What about my boys!” she cried. “They couldn't defend themselves! Nobody cared about them!”

“I don't know who your boys are, so I can't comment—”

“Were,” she hissed. “They're dead. Both my boys…dead. And your father's one of the ones to blame!”

Avery struggled not to take the defensive. To remain unemotional, challenge the woman in a way that would draw her out, get her to reveal her identity. “If you had any proof my dad was a murderer, you wouldn't be hiding behind this phone call. Maybe if I knew your sons' names I'd be more likely to think you were more than a pathetic crank.”

“Donny and Dylan Pruitt,” she spat. “They didn't kill Sallie Waguespack. They didn't even know her.”

The Waguespack murder.

Dear God, the box of clippings.

Avery's hands began to shake. She tightened her grip on the receiver. “What did my father have to do with this?”

“Your daddy helped cover up for the real killer.” The woman cackled. “So much for the most honest man you've ever known.”

“It's not true,” Avery said. “You're a liar.”

“Why do you think my boys never stood trial?” she demanded. “'Cause they didn't do it. They was framed. None of it would have stood up to judge and jury. And all
of them, those hypocrite do-gooders, would have gone to jail!”

“If you had any proof, you'd show it to me.”

“I have proof, all right. Plenty of proof.”

“Sure you do.”

At the sarcasm, the woman became enraged. “To hell with you and your dead daddy. You're like the rest of 'em. Lying hypocrites. I tell you what I got and you'll bring the authorities down on me like white on rice.”

Avery tried a different tack. “Why do you think I left Cypress Springs? I'm not one of them. I never was.” She let that sink in. “If what you're telling me is true, I'll make it right.”

“What's in it for you?”

“I clear my father's name.”

The woman said nothing. Avery pressed on. “You want justice for your boys?”

“In this town? Ain't no justice for a Pruitt in this town. Hell, ain't no real justice to be had in Cypress Springs.”

“Show me what you've got,” Avery urged. “You've got proof, I'll make it right. I promise you that.”

She was quiet a moment. “Not over the phone,” she said finally. “Meet me. Tonight.” She quickly gave an address, then hung up.

M
agnolia Acres trailer park was located on the southern boundary of Cypress Springs, just outside the incorporated area. Avery turned into the park, noting that the safety light at its entrance was burned out.

Or had been shot out by kids with BB guns, she thought, seeing that all the park's safety lights were dark.

She made her way slowly down the street, straining to make out the numbers. Even the dark couldn't soften the forlorn, abandoned look of the area. The only thing the neighborhood had going for it, Avery thought, was the large lot given each residence. But even those had a quality of runaway disrepair about them. The weeds were winning.

She found number 12 and parked in front. Avery climbed out. Music came from several directions: rap, rock and country. From an adjacent trailer came the sound of a couple fighting. A child crying.

Avery slammed the car door and started toward the trailer, scanning the area as she did, noting details. Dead flowers in the single window box. A pitiable attempt at a garden: a few shrubs that badly need trimming, weeds, a rock border, half overgrown. Three steps led up to the front door. A concrete frog sat on the top step.

She neared the door, saw that it stood slightly ajar. Light spilled from inside. As did the smell of fried food.

She climbed the steps, knocked on the door and it swung open. “Mrs. Pruitt,” she called. “It's Avery Chauvin.”

No answer. She knocked and called out again, this time more loudly.

Again, only silence answered.

She stepped inside. The place was in a shambles. Furniture overturned, newspapers and take-out boxes strewn about, lamp on its side on the floor, light flickering. Her gaze landed on a dark smear across the back wall.

Avery frowned and started toward it. A radio in the other room played the classic “Strangers in the Night.” Avery laughed nervously at how weirdly appropriate that was.

She reached the back wall. She squinted at the stain, touched it. It was wet. She turned her hand over. And red.

With a growing sense of horror, Avery turned slowly to her left. Through the doorway to the kitchen she saw a woman stretched out on the floor, back to Avery.

“Mrs. Pruitt?”

Swallowing hard, she crept forward. She reached the woman. Squatted beside her. Stretched out a hand. Touched her shoulder.

The woman rolled onto her back. The woman's eyes were open but it was her mouth that drew Avery's gaze—blood-soaked, grotesquely stretched.

With a cry, Avery scrambled backward. She slipped on the wet floor, lost her balance, landing on her behind. Blood, she realized, gazing down at herself. She had slipped in it, splattering herself, smearing it across the floor.

A sound drew her gaze. The woman blinked. Her mouth moved.

She was alive, Avery realized. She was trying to speak.

Avery righted herself and crept closer. Heart thundering, she knelt beside her, bent her head toward the woman's. A small sound escaped her—little more than a gurgle of air.

“What?” Avery asked, searching her gaze. “What are you trying to tell me?”

Her mouth moved again. She inched her hand to Avery's, fingers clawing.

From the front room came the sound of footsteps. Avery froze. She swung her gaze to the doorway, heart thundering.

The person who had done this could still be in the house.

The sound came again. Terrified, she jumped to her feet. She looked wildly around her.
No back door. Small window above the sink.

No way out
.

Her gaze landed on the phone. She lunged for it.

“Police!”

Avery whirled around and found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. Her cry of relief stuck on her tongue.

“Get your hands up,” the sheriff's deputy said, voice steely. She obeyed the order. Keeping his weapon trained on her, he bent and checked the woman's pulse.

“She's alive,” Avery said, fighting hysteria. “She was trying to tell me something. When I heard you, I thought you were the one…. the one who did this.”

He unhooked his radio, called the incident in and requested an ambulance, never taking his gaze or aim off her.

“Turn around. Hands on the wall.”

She did as he ordered, the scream of sirens in the distance. Her bloody hands would leave marks on the wall, she thought, a cry rising in her throat.

The officer came up behind her. “Feet apart.”

“You have the wrong idea. I found her this way.”
When she twisted to plead her case to his face, she found herself shoved flat against the wall, his hand between her shoulder blades. Gun to her head.

“Back off, Jones! Now!”

At the sound of Matt's voice, the deputy reacted instantly, dropping his hands, stepping back.

“Matt!” Avery cried. She ran to him, and he folded her in his arms.

“Sweetheart, are you all right?”

Avery clung to him, shaking. She managed a nod, eyes welling with tears. “The woman…is she…I thought…I heard a noise and—” She buried her face in his shoulder. “I thought whoever had done this, that he was still here.”

He tightened his arms around her. “Deputy Jones?”

“Received a call from a neighbor. They heard a commotion. What sounded like a gunshot. When I arrived, I found the door open and interior ransacked. I called for assistance and made my way in here. I found the suspect kneeling over the victim.”

“I found her this way!” Avery looked up at Matt. “The door was open…I called her name. She didn't answer, so I made my way in. I—”

The paramedics arrived then, interrupting her, shouting orders, pushing her and Matt toward the door. Behind them waited several more deputies, ready to process the scene the moment the paramedics gave the okay.

Holding her close to his side, Matt led her from the kitchen through the living room and outside. As they made their way out, her toe caught on the frog and it toppled into the garden. They descended the steps and crossed to two rickety lawn chairs set up around a kid's inflatable wading pool. Yellow crime scene tape had already been stretched around the perimeter of the trailer; a deputy stood sentinel, watching the group of neighbors who had come out to gawk.

“Sit,” Matt said. “I have to go now. I need you to wait
here. We're going to need to question you.” He searched her expression. “Will you be all right?”

She nodded. “I'll be okay.”

He squeezed her hands, then turned toward the deputy. “Make sure nobody bothers her. If she has any problems, come get me.”

Avery watched him go, an intense sense of loss settling over her. She bit her bottom lip to keep from calling him back and sank onto the chair, the woven seat sagging dangerously.

“You all right?”

She glanced at the deputy, a baby-faced young man who hardly looked old enough to be out past ten, let alone to carry a weapon. She nodded. “The woman…is she Trudy Pruitt?”

The kid looked surprised by her question. And rightly so, she supposed, considering the circumstances. He answered anyway. “Uh-huh. Waitresses over at the Hard Eight.”

The pool hall
.

Avery hugged herself, the woman's image filling her head. Her vacant stare. Her slack mouth. The feel of her fingers clawing at Avery's.

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, attempting to block out the images. They played on anyway. The woman's bloody mouth moving, the tiny puff of breath against her cheek. Blood, everywhere.

The paramedics came out. Avery opened her eyes at the sound. One looked her way. Their eyes met. In his she saw regret. Apology.

Her breath caught. She shifted her gaze.
No stretcher.

They passed her. Climbed into the ambulance. Slammed the doors shut, the sound heavy. Final.

“Avery?”

She turned. Matt stood in the trailer doorway. She got to her feet; he started toward her.

“She didn't make it,” she said when he reached her.

“No.”

He caught her hands. “What are you doing here, Avery?”

She blinked, confused. “Pardon?”

“Tonight, what brought you here?”

“The woman, Trudy Pruitt. She said she had proof…about my father. And Sallie Waguespack.”

His forehead creased. “Avery, sweetheart, you're not making any sense. Start at the beginning.”

She drew in a deep breath, working to collect her jumbled thoughts. To fight past twin feelings of panic and confusion. “I need to sit.”

He nodded and she did. He swung the second chair to face hers, then sat. He took out a small notepad. “Ready?”

She nodded. “The day of Dad's funeral I got an anonymous call. From a woman. She said that Dad had…gotten what he deserved. That I would, too. Then she hung up.”

His expression tightened. “The caller you told me about the day McDougal's car was discovered in Tiller's pond?” She nodded. “Go on.”

“She called again just this afternoon. She said Dad had helped cover up a crime, a murder.”

“Sallie Waguespack's.”

“Yes. She called him a liar. And a murderer.”

“And that woman was Trudy Pruitt.”

“She said she had proof. She was…going to show it to me tonight.”

“Did she tell you that her sons—”

“She said they didn't do it. That they were framed.”

He passed a hand over his face. “Dammit, Avery…I wish you'd called me. Trudy Pruitt has been proclaiming her sons' innocence for fifteen years, to anyone and everyone who'd listen. Twice she hired investigators to
review the evidence, neither investigator found anything to suggest killers other than Donny and Dylan.

“Trudy Pruitt was an alcoholic and drug abuser. Before and after her sons' deaths. She's spent her life between jail and rehab, a bitter and desperately unhappy woman.”

Avery clasped her hands together. “Why my dad, Matt? Why me? Why did she choose…us?”

“Why does someone like Trudy Pruitt do anything? My guess is, your dad's wake and funeral stirred up memories. The overwhelming love and community support for you fed her bitterness. Unfortunately, we'll never know for sure what her motivations were, not now.”

Because she was dead.

Murdered.

The full impact of that hit her with the force of a wrecking ball. Elaine St. Claire. Luke McDougal. Tom Lancaster. Now Trudy Pruitt.

“Who did this, Matt?”

“I don't know,” he said grimly. “Not yet. I need your help, Avery.”

“How? What can I do?”

“I need you to tell me exactly what happened tonight. What you saw and heard. Every detail, no matter how insignificant it might seem to you.”

“All right.” She paused a moment, collecting her thoughts, then began with arriving at the trailer park right around 10:00 p.m. “I noticed how dark the park was, that all the safety lights were out.”

He made a note. “Did you pass another car on your way in?”

She shook her head. “I found Mrs. Pruitt's trailer and climbed out. I could hear music coming from a number of directions.”

“Where?”

“I don't know. I assumed other trailers. I heard the couple next door fighting, a child crying.”

“Next door? You're certain?”

Avery glanced in the direction of the nearest trailer. A man, woman and child stood in the doorway, staring her way. “Fairly certain.”

Again he made a notation on the pad. “What about inside Trudy Pruitt's?”

“I found the door partially open. I knocked and called out. When she didn't answer, I poked my head inside. Called out again.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “The living room was a mess. At first I…I thought she was a slob. I didn't…until I saw the blood…on the back wall, I didn't realize anything was wrong.” She pulled in a shaky breath. “And then I saw her. Lying there.”

“Did you touch anything?”

She thought a moment. “The blood on the wall. That's when I realized what it was.”

“Go on.”

“I went to her, reached out and touched her shoulder. She rolled onto her back.”

“She was on her side?”

“Yes. She tried to speak to me.”

He straightened slightly. “What did she say?”

Avery's eyes welled with tears. “She never…I couldn't make anything out. I heard a noise…and got frightened. I thought maybe the killer was still in the house and now—” She struggled past the emotion welling up in her. “Her hand…she—”

Avery glanced down at her hands. Blood stained the tops of the fingers of her right hand. “Touched mine. Like she needed my attention. Like she needed to tell me something important.”

“It might have been nothing more than the need for human contact,” he said gently. “She was dying, Avery.”

“Now we'll never know.”

“Other than Deputy Jones, did you hear anything?”

“The radio playing.”

“And that's it?”

She couldn't tear her gaze from her bloodstained fingers. “Yes.”

“If you think of anything else, call me. No matter how insignificant you might believe it is.” He closed the notepad. “Promise?”

“I will.”

“Avery?” She looked up. “Call me if you need anything else. Even just to talk. I'm here for you.”

She swallowed hard. “Thank you, Matt.”

“I'll have one of my deputies follow you home. Are you up to driving?”

She said she was and Matt called one of his deputies over, gave him directions, then accompanied her to her vehicle.

“I was by your house earlier. Dropped something off.”

“For me?”

“In light of this, I wish to hell I…” He swore. “My timing stinks.” He opened her car door. “I'll call you tomorrow.”

She found what Matt had referred to on her front porch. Flowers. A beautiful spring bouquet. The card read:

Thinking of you and me. Dancing under the stars. Matt.