For the Love of Jazz (20 page)

Casting him a slight smile, she said, “You were always his. It just took ya’ll a while to find each other. Anyway, when I was sixteen, I tried once puffing on a cigarette butt. I was so sick, and all of a sudden, I knew why he hadn’t punished you.”

“We got sick right there behind the barn,” Jazz remembered. “He found us lying on our backs, green around the gills, and he offered us another cigarette. I started puking again, but Alex just looked miserable.”

Their steps slowed, halted, as they came to the elegant, gray memorial.

June 5, 1966 to July 13, 1984.

Such a short period of time.

“God, I miss him so much,” Jazz rasped, holding Anne-Marie’s hand in a vice grip. “He was the best friend I ever had. And I killed him.”

“Just like you killed my daughter.”

They both turned at the dry, brittle voice. The wind whipping her tangled hair around her face, Eleanor stood in her worn, black dress, glaring at Jazz with hatred burning in her eyes.

“Ms. Park, I know you have suffered these past few days,” Anne-Marie said diplomatically. “But Jazz had nothing to do with Maribeth’s accident. He was with me.”

Anne-Marie may as well not have spoken for all the attention Eleanor paid her.

“You’ve got the blood of two on your hands now, more like three. You’re the reason the old Doc Kincade got shot.”

Jazz remained silent as he urged Anne-Marie to the car once more.

“You’re cursed,” she rasped from behind them. “Cursed from the day you were born and will be until you die. Everybody you touch suffers. Even the golden boy couldn’t escape it, could he? Just you being in the car with him damned him.”

Eleanor had already turned to walk away when Jazz raised his head. Each looked at the other before turning their heads to stare at Eleanor.

Just you being in the car with him damned him
.

“Jazz?” Anne-Marie whispered softly.

“I know, honey,” he replied. “Just get in the car and let’s go for now.”

* * *

Just you being in the car with him damned him
.

Anne-Marie threw down her pen and pushed back from her desk. A pile of charts nearly up to her nose waited for her signature, another dozen or so were stacked out on the nurse’s station, she had a baby to check on, and she couldn’t get those words out of her mind.

In a flurry of movement, she shed her lab coat, grabbed her purse and rushed out the door. “None of these are major emergencies, right, Marti?” she asked the young blonde sitting at the front desk.

“Not unless you consider a case of head lice a national crisis,” Marti replied cheerfully.

“I think I trust you to handle that on your own,” Anne-Marie said dryly. “Listen, I’ve got some things I need to do. I’m going to go check on Baby Marsden and then do some running. I’ll come back later tonight and finish those charts.”

“You’re the boss,” Marti said, shrugging her shoulders. Propping her elbows on the desk, she looked at Anne-Marie with innocent, blue eyes. “I don’t suppose your errands have anything to do with the sexy friend of yours, do they?”

“What sexy friend?” Jake asked, swinging through the door and sauntering over to lean against Marti’s desk.

Fluttering long lashes at him, Marti said, “Why you, handsome. Who else?”

Leaning down, he covered her mouth with his briefly, then drew away and looked down at her smiling face. “You’re a terrible liar, Marti. That’s one of the things I love about you.” Then he stood, stretching his hands high overhead. “Busy day, huh?”

“Very. Jake, I need to do some errands so I’ll finish up the charts tonight or tomorrow. You don’t mind if I duck out, do you? Do we need to talk about anything?”

He shrugged, his broad shoulders straining against the white oxford he wore tucked into a faded pair of blue jeans. If it wasn’t for the stethoscope hanging around his neck, you’d take him for a farmer. “Nothing much, that I know of. Need any help?”

Flashing him a tired smile, she shook her head. “No. Personal things, you know. You ought to take that wife of yours out. Probably going crazy from missing you, she sees you so little.”

Chuckling, he reached out, stroking Marti’s neck in an absentminded, offhand gesture. “Yeah, she only sees me what, sixteen to eighteen hours a day?”

Reaching up, Marti captured his hand with hers. Pressing a kiss to the back of it, she agreed, “Hmmm, twenty-four a day wouldn’t be enough.”

Anne-Marie rolled her eyes. “Please, get me out of here before I get a cavity,” she joked, heading out the door.

A short time later, she pulled up in front of a small, ramshackle house. This was one of the last places Alex had been at before he died. Staring at the dreary, dismal Park household, Anne-Marie reflexively closed her hands around the steering wheel, muttering, “What am I doing here?”

Looking for answers, she told herself, reaching for the handle. Swinging out of the car, she headed up the cracked concrete sidewalk.

Her steps slowing to a halt, Anne-Marie watched as the door flew open. Studying the drunk woman in the doorway, Anne figured she wouldn’t get any answers here.

“Whatcha doin’, rich girl?” Eleanor asked, swiping one hand across her mouth, smearing what was left of her red lipstick.

“What did you mean, Alex was damned just by being in the same car as Jazz?” Anne-Marie asked bluntly.

“Boy’s dead, ain’t he? Just like my baby,” Eleanor asked coldly, smiling as Anne-Marie paled. “Dead’s dead.”

“Do you know something about the night Alex died?”

Cocking her head, Eleanor studied the composed woman in front of her. “Maybe. You gonna make it worth my while to remember?”

Silently, Anne-Marie reached up and removed the gold swirls she wore at her ears. “I don’t keep much money on me. These cost nearly six hundred dollars. They’re yours, if you remember.”

Greed flickered, battling with the grief and self-pity. With Maribeth gone, Eleanor was going to have to find a way to support herself. Those earrings would be a start. Shakily, she dug a smashed pack of cigarettes from her pocket. After lighting one, she studied Anne-Marie through the haze of smoke. “Maybe I know something,” she repeated. “But those aren’t gonna buy what I know.” With a sly smile, she eyed the diamond ring Anne-Marie wore on her right hand.

“Not on your life,” Anne whispered, closing her right hand into a tight fist. Her mind whirling, she did a mental tally of the accounts she had at the bank. “These earrings, and a check for five hundred dollars.”

“I like the ring,” Eleanor said. But that five hundred sounded tempting, she had to admit. Of course, the ring was probably worth much more, but she wanted it just because Anne-Marie didn’t want to give it up.

“This ring was my mother’s,” Anne said, shrugging her shoulders. Reaching up, she started to slip the earrings back on. “I’d sooner see a poodle wearing it around a choke chain than to see it on you. Have a nice night, Eleanor.”

“Wait.”

The girl was every bit as solid as the boy had been, Eleanor mused. Desmond bred his kids with iron in their backbones. With jerky motions, she dragged deep on the cigarette one last time before stubbing it out. “A thousand and the earrings,” she decided.

“If what you tell me isn’t worth it, I’ll stop the check before the sun sets,” Anne-Marie said with a shrug, reaching into her bag for her checkbook.

With a catty smile, Eleanor sighed with satisfaction. “Oh, it’s worth it, little girl.”

* * *

Could she have lied to me?
Anne-Marie thought, moments later speeding down the highway. Her hands were shaking and her heart pounded like a runaway freight train as she pulled into the parking lot of the small building that housed the county jail and sheriff’s office.

“What brings you here so late?” Darla asked as Anne-Marie strode through the door. She already had her purse slung over her shoulder and was reaching for the desk lamp when Anne-Marie approached her desk.

“I need to look at a few things in the archives.”

Eyebrows arched, Darla asked, “What things?”

“My brother’s accident report and the investigating officer’s report, for starters,” Anne-Marie said in a clipped voice.

Slowly, Darla replaced her purse into the drawer of her desk. “You mean the ones I copied for your father right before he was shot?” Darla asked, settling back down in her chair and beckoning for Anne-Marie to join her.

“What?” Anne asked faintly, clutching her purse so tightly her knuckles went white.

Leaning forward, keeping her voice low, Darla explained Desmond’s request via the phone a few days before someone shot him in his own library. “Tate already knows about it,” Darla concluded with a quick glance around the quiet station.

“Coincidence…” Anne-Marie murmured. Then she shook her head. “No. It was not a coincidence. Who all could have known about Daddy wanting those records?”

“Everybody in town,” Darla scoffed, shaking her head in disgust. “Muldoon overheard me taking the call and he asked about it, of course. Then he was over at the tavern talking about it to anybody who would listen. Shoot, the man probably told half the county.”

“I need to see those records,” Anne-Marie whispered.

“That may not be wise,” Darla argued. “Look what happened to your daddy.”

“If my dad asking for those records has something to do with him getting shot, then somebody has something to lose, or something to hide,” Anne-Marie argued. “And they are public records. Either get them now, when it’s just us or I’ll come back another time, and who knows who’ll overhear.”

“Give me a few minutes then,” Darla said, sighing.

* * *

She took the records home after Darla promised to lock up the originals in the file cabinet in Tate’s office. Not as good as a safe deposit box, but this late in the day, it was the best that she could do. Darla had called her back as she headed out of the office.

“Are you sure you want to go stirring up a hornet’s nest that’s been sleeping for sixteen years? A lot of people could be hurt. You could be hurt.”

Quietly, Anne-Marie had said, “I have to. Darla, I have to know.”

Consistent with bruising noted on victims with a history of blunt force trauma.

Multiple lacerations, broken sternum, cardiac tamponade.

Cardiac tamponade, when the pericardial sac was ruptured and filled with blood. The type of injury caused when striking something with such force that the coronary arteries rupture. Something like a steering wheel.

Like what happens to a water balloon when flung with force against concrete.

Shuffling through the papers, she searched for the report filed by the insurance company. The exterior damage had been beyond repair, but some of the interior had been salvageable. The two bucket seats, the dashboard. They had found blood and pieces of human tissue on the steering wheel.

Why hadn’t somebody seen this? she wondered, setting her jaw as she reached for the post-mortem once more. Broken nose, a deep laceration across the brow, internal hemorrhaging.

Slowly, forcing herself to take a deep breath, she laid the reports down. It was all there, plain as could be. If you were searching for something unusual, you would have found it. It just happened to be that nobody had been looking for anything unusual. Nobody had even questioned it. Anne-Marie knew why. Larry Muldoon and Sheriff Blackie Schmidt. For decades, the Muldoon family had the run of the town. Blackie had been one of their buddies, and a bully all on his own. A bully who had somehow landed the sheriff’s office.

“Alex was driving,” Anne-Marie finally whispered. Tightly closing her eyes, she bit back a sob. Having suspicions was one thing, confronted with proof such as this…

Eleanor Park hadn’t been lying.

“What do you mean Alex was driving?”

“Jazz wasn’t driving that car, honey. Your brother was.”

Anne-Marie shook her head and forced her mind back to the matter at hand. She studied the papers before her and faced the bittersweet truth. Alex had been driving. If Alex had been in the passenger seat, he wouldn’t have had those types of injuries. If the impact had thrown him as the report said, his injuries would have been different, head trauma, spinal cord damage. And if both passengers were thrown, there wouldn’t have been so much blood or tissue inside.

“Oh, Alex. What were you thinking?” she murmured, pressing her hands to her mouth. Emotions that ran too deeply to be labeled swirled through her as she rocked herself back and forth.

Golden, laughing Alex, gone. Because he’d been driving drunk. For nearly two decades, there was guilt resting on the shoulders of somebody who hadn’t done a damned thing wrong.

“My God, Jazz. What have we done to you?” she whispered, burying her face in her hands. Lowering her head to the desk, hot tears poured out of her while her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

It was a long time later when she raised her head and scrubbed at the dried tear tracks on her face. After a quick shot of whiskey and splashing her face with cold water, she felt ready to look at the reports once more.

She already knew, but had to check one more time.

The investigating officer, the first on the scene. Larry Muldoon.

With steady hands, she gathered up the reports and locked them in the safe hidden behind the false back of the medicine cabinet. She locked it, replaced the false back, and closed the mirrored cabinet door. In the mirror, she stared at herself. Pale, with slashes of high color riding on each cheek, her green eyes dark with anger.

Then she turned away, stripping off her clothes as she walked to her bedroom. She needed a good night’s sleep and some time before she could think of this with a level head.

If she thought about it now, if she decided how she was going to handle it, chances were she’d be watching the sunrise from the sheriff’s office. And Larry Muldoon would never see the sun rise again.

Naked, exhausted, but certain she would get no sleep, she tumbled down on the bed.

Her head had barely touched the pillow when she fell asleep.