Moving Target (23 page)

LeAnne was enough ahead of rush hour that once on the freeway she made good time; it was only five-thirty as she approached the San Leandro exits. Her mother had told her that due to basketball practice, she and the boys wouldn’t be home for dinner until close to seven; there was no rush. When LeAnne reached the downtown exit, she hesitated, but in the end, she turned off there and headed for the address Sister Anselm had given her. She wasn’t looking forward to meeting Lowell Dunn’s daughter, but she had said she would, and LeAnne Tucker liked to think she was a woman of her word.

Susannah Bissell lived in a neighborhood of aging clapboard houses that backed up on an abandoned railroad right of way. The street out front was parked full of cars, so LeAnne had to park several houses away. Walking back, she noticed that the Bissell home was in better shape than some of its neighbors. A boy’s bicycle leaned up against a small wooden porch, and a young black kid of eleven or twelve sat on
the front porch, cell phone in hand and earbuds dangling from beneath a faded Texas Rangers baseball cap.

LeAnne was only a few feet away before he noticed her and stood up. “Who are you,” he asked, “another cop to talk to my mother about what happened to my grandfather?”

“I’m not a cop,” Leanne said. “My name is LeAnne Tucker. I’m a friend of your grandfather’s—more of an acquaintance than a friend. I wanted to tell you and your mother how sorry I am about what happened.”

“She’s got people with her right now,” the boy said. “Friends and stuff.”

“Of course,” LeAnne said. “I don’t want to intrude, but could you maybe let her know that I’m out here?”

With a shrug, the boy turned and went inside. A few minutes later, the door opened and a woman came out. She was about LeAnne’s age. Her dark eyes were bloodshot. She clutched a white hankie in one hand. “You’re the mother of the boy Papa went to see in the hospital yesterday?”

Her words sounded more like an accusation than a welcome. LeAnne nodded. “I heard about the accident,” she said. “Your father was kind to my son. I wanted to say how sorry I am.”

“No matter what the cops say, it wasn’t an accident,” Susannah Bissell declared.

“But it said on the news—”

“I don’t care what it said!” she declared. “After my mother died, I gave my dad strict orders that if he was going to keep on smoking, he was going to have a smoke alarm, like it or not. We had one installed and I made sure the batteries got replaced just like you’re supposed to do whenever we switch over to daylight savings time. The fire marshal tried to tell me that the alarm probably started beeping and Papa took the batteries out himself. That didn’t happen. My husband is the only one who messes with the smoke alarms or their batteries. The investigator wrote it into his notes, but I don’t think he was listening, not really.”

“They’re saying the same kinds of things about my son,” LeAnne offered quietly. “The cops claim he set himself on fire deliberately, even though I’ve told them that makes no sense. What I wanted you to know is that when your father stopped by to see us at the hospital yesterday, he said the same thing. He didn’t believe Lance did it, either. I’m afraid that’s why your father’s dead—because he was taking our side.”

There was an electric moment, and in that instant, the connection Sister Anselm had hinted at between the grieving mother and grieving daughter snapped together.

“Is your son going to be all right?” Susannah asked.

“I think so. They had to amputate one leg, but so far the other one shows no sign of infection. In other words, he’s better than he was.”

“On the way home from Austin, Papa was talking about Lance,” Susannah said. “He thought your son got a raw deal.”

“That’s the other reason I came to see you,” LeAnne said. “Did he say anything specific about that, about his offering to help us?”

“He was more than just offering,” Susannah said. “Papa told me he was suspicious about one of the guards. When he was a kid, the guy got sent to juvie for being a firebug. After he got out and had his juvenile record expunged, he pulled enough strings to hire on as a guard at the same detention center where he used to be a prisoner.”

“A firebug?” LeAnne asked.

“You know, an arsonist. Papa said that Marvin Cotton was the first person the cops should have looked at, but since they hadn’t, he started asking a few questions himself.”

“If this Marvin guy’s record was expunged, how did your father know anything about it?”

“My father had dyslexia,” Susannah explained. “He couldn’t read or write. It was supposed to be a big secret. My sister and I figured it out; we just never let on. One of the ways he coped was by having an encyclopedic memory. If he heard something once, he remembered it. He probably could have told you the name of every kid who came through that detention center in the last forty years. He knew what they
got sent up for and how long they were in. Most of the kids were way worse off when they got out than when they went in. He told me Lance was an exception to that rule, that he was still a good kid. That’s why he wanted to help find out who set your son on fire.”

“Did he come right out and say he thought Marvin was responsible?”

“No, but before I dropped him off, he told me that he had been talking to the warden’s office to find out what shift Marvin was working that day and whether he had been anywhere near the rec room.”

“In other words, your father had already been doing some checking on Marvin before he came to the hospital yesterday?”

“Evidently,” Susannah said. “But I have no idea how far he had gotten.”

Far enough to step on somebody’s toes and get himself killed, LeAnne thought.

Another vehicle stopped out front. As a new family of well-wishers arrived to visit with Susannah, LeAnne took her leave. Back in the car, she called Sister Anselm.

“I talked to Susannah Bissell,” LeAnne said. “Her father evidently thought that one of the guards, a guy named Marvin Cotton, might have had something to do with what happened to Lance. What should we do now, give that information to the police?”

“We still don’t have any solid information,” Sister Anselm said. “We have the unfounded suspicions of a man who’s dead.”

“So we do nothing?”

“I didn’t say that,” the nun responded. “Let me run that name by a few people and see what they come up with.”

B
ack in the suite, Ali found the sitting room empty. The door to Leland’s room was closed, with no light showing in the crack under the door. It was only eleven. She was tempted to call B., but knowing he’d spent a long day on the plane, she decided to let him sleep. Instead, firing up her computer and finding the Wi-Fi connection working properly, Ali sent him a long e-mail, telling in detail about her visit to Banshee Group and her long chat with Thomas Blackfield after Leland’s abrupt departure from the bar.

When her phone rang, she was surprised to see Sister Anselm’s name in the caller window. “Hey,” Ali said, “how’s my favorite matron of honor?”

“I’m currently your favorite patient advocate,” Sister Anselm said. “Have you had a chance to look into the situation with Lance’s former teacher?”

“Not yet. I was busy all day, and someone ran me off the road on the way back to the hotel. Hang on. Let me take a look at my mail.”

There were no direct messages from Stu on her e-mail list, but there was one from her mother at High Noon. When she opened it there was another scenic Sedona photo, which no doubt contained an encoded
message from Stu. Turning from her computer, Ali reached for her purse and began searching for her thumb drive.

“You were run off the road?” Sister Anselm interjected. “Are you all right? Did you get hurt?”

“Bruised by the seat belt but otherwise fine.”

“What happened?”

“A guy swerved into my lane. I managed to avoid hitting him, but my car ended up in a ditch. What makes the case even more interesting is that the Good Samaritan who pulled me out of the wreckage turned out to be a car thief.”

“You have the uncanny ability to attract trouble wherever you go,” Sister Anselm said with a laugh.

“Thanks for laughing,” Ali said. “It didn’t seem all that funny when I was hanging upside down in the rental car. Hertz doesn’t think it’s especially funny, either. What’s happening on your end of the world?”

The laughter went out of Sister Anselm’s voice. “I ordered Lance’s mother to take the night off. She went home to spend some time with Lance’s brothers, who have barely seen her since all this happened. She just called, though. On her way through San Leandro, she uncovered something I’d like High Noon to look into. It could be important.”

“What?”

“LeAnne stopped off to see a woman named Susannah Bissell. Susannah is the daughter of last night’s fire victim.”

“Yes,” Ali said. “Lowell Dunn. B. told me about him earlier. What happened?”

“According to Susannah, Mr. Dunn mentioned that he thought he knew who might have been involved in what happened to Lance—a guy by the name of Marvin Cotton.”

“Who’s he and what do we know about him?” Ali asked.

“Not a lot,” Sister Anselm said. “I tried Googling him but didn’t get anywhere. According to Susannah he’s currently a guard at the same juvenile facility where Lance Tucker was incarcerated but a number of years ago, Cotton was also an inmate there.”

“On what charges?”

“Arson, supposedly, but there’s no easy way to verify that. Cotton’s record was expunged. With this new case of something that might be arson too, I was hoping High Noon could look into it.”

Ali had spent the entire time they’d been on the phone searching for the thumb drive and worrying that it might have tumbled out of her purse in the accident. She finally found it, but just as she inserted it into the computer, Leland’s door opened. Wearing his robe, he came out to the sitting room and sat down across from her. Ali trusted herself to be able to do two things at once, but not three.

“Let me get back to you on this once I see what Stu’s sent me.”

“Whenever is fine,” Sister Anselm said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Leland started to rise. “I shouldn’t interrupt.”

“I’m fine,” Ali said, putting down the phone and closing the computer. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t sleep,” he said. “Guilty conscience. I shouldn’t have stomped off like that. It was rude of me to leave you to deal with Thomas. I don’t know what came over me.”

“What came over you is an unexpected dose of the past,” Ali said.

Leland shook his head regretfully. “I should have left it buried. I never should have come back here and stirred things up. I had no idea it would affect me this way.”

“Why wouldn’t it affect you?” Ali asked. “Finding out your father was murdered had to come as a huge shock, and then being confronted by Thomas with no advance warning? That had to come as a shock, too.”

“Why did he even come here tonight?”

“Because he was hoping that after all this time you could still be friends.”

Leland shook his head. “I don’t think so. Thomas sent my letters back unopened. The words on one of the envelopes, ‘Return to Sender,’ were written in his own hand.” The hurt of that long-ago betrayal was still heavy in Leland’s voice. “I got the message. It came through loud and clear.”

“A message,” Ali said, “but not the whole message. Thomas returned your letters because he was hiding from who and what he was. That’s why he took up with Linda, the woman who became his wife. They were both teachers and they were both gay. Yes, they may have been married for fifty years but it was also a lie—a companionable one, but a lie nonetheless. And speaking of letters, what happened to the ones he sent to you?”

“If he wrote letters to me, I never got them,” Leland said.

“See there?” Ali said. “I think that’s why he came here tonight—to explain all that. I believe he also came with the hope that he could have you back in his life.”

“I’m not sure I can do that,” Leland said.

“Your brother beat him up,” Ali said. “Broke his leg, knocked out some teeth, and got away with it.”

“Langston did what?” Leland was aghast.

“After you left town, Thomas heard the rumors that Langston was circulating about you, so he went to your father to plead your case. He said he thought he had convinced your father that you’d been wronged. He believes your father intended to do the right thing but he died before he was able to do anything about it. The cops were all over the car-thief theory, but Thomas may have uncovered a possible motive for your father’s murder, one he never mentioned to the authorities. Had your father lived long enough to revise his will, Langston would have been sharing the estate with two brothers rather than with one.”

“Greedy bastard,” Leland muttered.

“So what happens if this turns out to be true and we solve your father’s homicide?” Ali asked. “What happens if blood evidence places Langston at the scene of the crime? Do we tell his great-grandson Jeffrey the truth, or do we leave that piece of the past safely buried?”

“I don’t know,” Leland said, rising from his chair. “There’s one more thing for me to toss and turn about, although knowing they have a murderer in the family would give Maisie and Daisy plenty to talk about for
the rest of their lives.” He returned to his room, closing the door behind him.