Dead Secret (11 page)

“Susan, what’s wrong? Has something happened to Mother or Dad?”

“Yes, something has happened,” Susan snapped. “It’s a nightmare. You have to come to Alabama tonight.”

Diane’s heart was beating hard against her chest. She and her parents were all but estranged, but the thought of something happening to them filled her with fear.

“What is it, Susan?” Diane tried to sound calm.

“Mother’s been sent to prison for robbing a bank.”

Chapter 17

Diane expected to hear that her mother or father was ill, had been in an accident, had disappeared or had died. She had not expected to hear that her mother had robbed a bank.

“Susan, is this some kind of joke? It’s in very poor taste. It’s late and I’m tired.”

“Diane, it’s not a joke. Have you ever known me to joke? Mother’s been arrested. Dad is beside himself. He’s so upset he can’t go in to the office. You know about this kind of thing. You’ll have to come.” Her sister sounded frantic.

“I’ll . . . I’ll leave tomorrow,” stammered Diane.

“You have to come now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? What’s more important? Dammit, Diane, you have to get on a plane and come right now.”

“I had a medical procedure done yesterday. I can’t come right now, but I’ll leave as early as I can tomorrow morning. Mother’s had a bail hearing, hasn’t she? Are you at the house? Can I talk to her?”

“No, she’s not out on bail. I already told you, she’s in prison.”

“Is Dad there?”

“He went to bed early. I made him take a sleeping pill. We’ve both been trying to get you. Why don’t you ever check your messages?”

With the funeral and the stabbings Diane had forgotten to look at her answering machine.
Damn
. “I just got back from a two-week vacation. Why didn’t you call the museum? They would have gotten in touch with me.”

“I couldn’t remember the name of it.”

“You could call information and ask for the museum in Rosewood. There’s only one.”

Diane heard Susan expel her breath in the exasperated way she did when they argued. It meant that she wasn’t going to listen to anything Diane said on the subject.

“But that doesn’t matter; I’m here now,” Diane said. “Tell me what happened.”

“Mother didn’t come home last Tuesday. We’ve been frantic, calling hospitals, friends, the police, everywhere we could think. We thought she’d been kidnapped. She finally phoned this morning—from federal prison! They told her she robbed a bank!”

Diane ran her fingers through her hair, and the effort brought a pain to her arm. She winced.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Diane said. “Why do they think it was her?”

“I don’t know. We can’t find out anything. The police are witless and uncooperative. This is just awful.”

None of this was making sense. “What did Mother say?”

“She’s just as confused as we are.”

“What does her lawyer say?”

There was a long pause.
Surely,
thought Diane,
they have a lawyer
.

“Alan is trying to find out something,” Susan said.

“Alan? Alan who? Not Alan Delacroix?” Diane shot up off the sofa and paced back and forth.

“Yes, and don’t you start anything. You know he’s been friends with Mother and Dad forever. He’s always been like a son to them.”

“I didn’t know he was in Birmingham.”

“Yes, he is. Dad helped him get a job with a law firm down here.”

What a cozy little family,
thought Diane. Her parents, her sister and her ex-husband.

“He only does wills and estates,” said Diane. Alan would be a fish out of water in criminal court.

“Alan is a good lawyer.”

Diane let it go for now. Arguing with Susan was a waste of time and energy. She sat back down on the sofa. “I’ll call tomorrow and let you know when to pick me up at the airport—you can pick me up, can’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Has she been arraigned? Do you know when she goes to trial—anything?”

“She’s not going to trial. They took her straight to prison. There’s not any talk of a trial.” Susan sounded exasperated. “Are you listening to me?”

“What? Susan, what country did she get arrested in?”

“Here, of course. Diane, you ask such absurd questions sometimes.”

“They can’t put you in prison without a trial.”

“Alan thinks she got caught up in this Homeland Security thing.”

“Are you saying they think she’s a foreign terrorist?” Diane was completely bewildered now. For the life of her she couldn’t imagine anyone in their right minds thinking her sixty-five-year-old, upper-middle-class mother was a bank-robbing terrorist. She was beginning to wonder if Susan had started drinking.

As she talked to her sister, Diane watched Star eating her pizza and listening to the conversation. Her dark eyes were as large as saucers. Diane thought that must be the way she looked too.

“I’m not saying anything. I’m telling you what’s happened.”

“Susan, they can’t send her to prison without a trial.”

“They can. It’s in that new Homeland Security act.”

“The act doesn’t give those kinds of powers, Susan.”

“Oh, so you know what it says.”

“I know about anything that concerns human rights. I still keep up with the law in that area.”

“You always think you are so smart. Well, you’re not. I’m telling you what has been going on with Mother and you’re over there smugly saying it didn’t happen, but it did.”

Diane felt her face getting hot and her jaw aching as she clamped down on her teeth. “Dammit, Susan,” she yelled into the phone. “Listen to yourself. Nothing you’ve said so far has made any sense. That’s why I’m skeptical.”

Star’s eyes got really wide as she stared at Diane.

“Alan says there are several ways they can put you in prison without a trial. He believes they are holding her as a material witness to a bank robbery that the government thinks was done by terrorists.”

Diane shook her head, though Susan couldn’t see it. “That doesn’t track.”

“ ‘That doesn’t track’? What does that mean? Just because Alan thought of it? It’s the only thing I’ve heard that makes any sense.”

Diane pinched the bridge of her nose, glad she hadn’t taken any Percocet or she’d probably wake up in the morning thinking she had dreamed the whole thing. “I’ll make sense of it when I get there.”

“God, that is so typical of you. You think you are the only one in the family with any brains and we have to wait for you to tell us what’s going on. Just because you couldn’t stay married to Alan, you think everything he says is wrong. Well, Gerald agrees with him; so does Dad.”

“It’s not a matter for a majority vote; it’s a matter of facts. And we don’t have all the facts.”

“I hate it when you get like this. Let me know when to pick you up.”

“I will. Before you hang up, do you know where Mother is being held?”

“In Montgomery. Tombsberg Prison for Women.”

Diane’s heart froze. Tombsberg was one of the most overcrowded facilities and had the most deplorable conditions of any prison in the country.

“I’ll be in Birmingham tomorrow as early as I can.”

“Wow,” said Star when Diane hung up the phone. “I’ve never heard you yell at anybody.”

“Unfortunately, that’s the way my sister and I usually interact.”

“I’m glad I don’t have . . . ” Star didn’t finish, and her happy face suddenly collapsed into grief. “I didn’t mean that.” Large tears welled up in her eyes.

Diane knelt beside Star and hugged her. “It’s all right, Star. I know what you meant. You can still love and miss your brother without grieving forever.”

Star sobbed for a moment and then pulled away. “I sometimes forget and then I feel guilty. Jay was good. I was the one doing bad things, and he’s the one who got killed.”

Diane smoothed Star’s hair and put a hand under her chin. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It feels like it is.”

“I know that feeling. I feel the same way about my daughter . . . if I had just gotten her out of the country.”

Star wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I’m sorry about her. Uncle Frank said she liked music.”

“She did like music.” Diane’s eyes teared. Frank must have told Star about the special CD of her favorite music Diane had made for her. Diane rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. All she needed was for the two of them to sit there crying.

“Tell me about your sister. Is she older or younger than you?” Star asked quickly.

“Older.”

“You’re a little sister? You don’t seem like a little sister.”

“Well, I am. By three years.”

“Sounds like the two of you don’t get along.”

“We don’t.” Diane walked back around to the couch, sat down and took another bite of her pizza. It was cold.

“Did you fight when you were kids?”

“Yep. She and her friends were always tormenting me. But I was faster, stronger and smarter than they were. Susan liked to get into trouble and blame it on me. It worked for a while.”

“What?”

“I started collecting evidence. Jeez—I’d forgotten about that.”

“What did you do?”

“I think I was eight; Susan was eleven. She and her friends were getting into Mother’s makeup and jewelry, as usual. She told Mother that I was the one who spilled powder all over her dresser and dented up her lipsticks. What she didn’t know was that time I’d gotten my dad’s brand-new camcorder, hid in his closet, and filmed them. When Susan blamed me for the mess she and her friends had made, I popped the cassette in the VCR.” Diane laughed. “You should have seen her face.”

“So they punished her instead if you,” said Star.

“Yes, they did punish her for lying. But they made an appointment for me to see a child psychologist.”

“You? Why you?”

“What I did scared them for some reason. The psychologist told them I was simply bright and inventive and that they shouldn’t worry.”

“That was good. So you became a crime fighter early. I’ll bet you that stopped your sister dead in her tracks.”

“It slowed her down, and my parents didn’t automatically believe her like they did before. But they didn’t really trust me either after that. Taping her just offended their sensibilities.”

“So it wasn’t too good for you growing up?”

“It wasn’t bad. I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’. I was my granddad’s fishing buddy. He’s the one who took me to my first caves.”

Diane was surprised how easy it was to talk to Star about her family. Maybe because Star seemed to find comfort in the fact that Diane had similar problems communicating with her parents as Star had when hers were alive.

“Where did you grow up? Uncle Frank said you were from here in Rosewood to start with.”

“Yes. We moved to Tennessee when I was about twelve. They didn’t move to Birmingham until after I was in college.”

Star sipped her drink and started another slice of pizza. She didn’t take her eyes off Diane as she fired questions at her. “What does your dad do?”

“He’s a stockbroker.”

“Is he rich?”

“Probably. They live in a wealthy section of Birmingham.”

“They sound nice. Uncle Frank’s family’s real nice, too. We went out to visit them at Christmas. It was fun.”

“I’ve met them. They are nice.”

“When you lived in Rosewood, did you know Uncle Frank?”

“No. I’m sure we were in the same elementary school, but I didn’t know him.”

“So are you and Uncle Frank going to get married? I’d be your daughter then.”

Diane got up and collected her leftovers. “It feels like you’re my daughter now.”

The ring of Star’s laughter followed her into the kitchen. “You aren’t going to answer me, are you?” she said.

“Nope.” Diane came back to the living room. “I’m going to head to bed now. Do you mind?”

Star shook her head. “No. Uncle Frank said you’d probably turn in early.”

“You can watch TV if you like. Just don’t stay up all night.” Diane started to get some bedclothes for the sofa, when she spotted them on a dining room chair.

Star followed her gaze. “I hope you don’t mind. I got them out before you got here.”

“That’s fine. The sofa makes a bed. I’ll help you pull it out.”

“I’d rather sleep on it like it is.”

“Okay. Don’t stay up late.”

Diane called David and told him she had to go out of town on a family emergency and that he was in charge of the crime lab. When she hung up, she called Kendel and told her she would be gone a couple of days and to go ahead with setting up the position for Mike. With that finished, she took a shower, making an effort not to get her bandage wet—no easy task—and it took her three times as long. She selected a thin nightgown. Even at its end, the summer was still hotter than usual for North Georgia. Just as she slipped the gown over her head and was about to climb into bed, Frank’s characteristic knock sounded at the front door; then she heard his key in the lock.

“Anybody home?”

“Uncle Frank, you’re back.”

Diane put on a robe and walked to the living room. “I didn’t expect you, but I’m glad you’re here.”

Frank was putting an overnight bag on a chair. “I made an effort to wrap things up as soon as I could. How’s it going? Star made you crazy yet?” He winked at Star, who made a face at him.

“She’s good company.”

“We’ve had a really interesting time,” said Star. “Diane’s sister called. Her mother’s been arrested for armed bank robbery.”

Frank stood holding his shaving kit under his arm, staring from Diane to Star, as if waiting for Diane to contradict her absurd statement.

“I know,” said Diane. “That’s how I was when Susan told me. I don’t understand it.”

“Armed robbery? Your mother?”

“As unlikely as that sounds, she’s apparently in prison,” she said, smoothing back her still-damp hair. “I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you can make some sense out of what Susan was trying to tell me.”

The dining table sat in a corner just outside Diane’s efficiency kitchen. Frank pulled out a chair and sat down. Diane sat opposite him. Star heated Frank several slices of the pizza, then joined them at the table, propping her chin up on her hands, apparently content to listen quietly.

The whole conversation between her and her sister didn’t take long to relate. When Diane finished, Frank sat silently eating his pizza and washing it down with Dr Pepper. He set down his glass.

“There’s another reason they would take her to prison without a trial or bail,” he said.