Ten Little Bloodhounds (30 page)

It was done. I had deliberately murdered my ex-husband, Buford Sidden Jr., and the only emotion that I felt was enormous relief that it was over.

T
he bullets didn’t stop Bubba’s forward motion. He hung there above us for an incredibly long time, it seemed, before he toppled toward us like a fallen oak. He landed on top of us, as if he wanted to smash us flat for our part in ending his life. I didn’t hear him fall, just felt his warm blood all over me as the air was knocked out of my lungs.

I couldn’t hear anything except the ringing in my ears from the close blasts of the .32, and now I couldn’t breathe. I worked to draw in precious air to keep from blacking out. The first inhalation made my chest burn, and I heaved in more to clear the black dots from my vision.

Jasmine hadn’t moved beneath me. I scrambled around like a crazy person, trying to push the heavy body off me, and drag her away from the pool of blood. His heart would have stopped pumping when I hit it
bang-on, but it must have been the final bullet. It seemed as if we were drenched with gore.

I fumbled for Jasmine’s pulse and felt her move her hand to push mine away. She sat up and looked at me. I must have been a sight. I could feel the wetness covering my face.

“Are you hurt?” My hearing had returned with a vengeance. Her voice was too loud for normal conversation, but we weren’t exactly in a normal situation. At least we were still breathing.

“The blood is all his.”

I saw her glance wildly around until her eyes found his body.

“He’s dead.” My voice was matter-of-fact.

“Did I shoot him?” she asked, in the same tone.

Her question surprised me. It seemed to have taken an eternity to kill him. I had had time to memorize every move and have it indelibly engraved in my memory.

“Of course not!” I answered quickly. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“It happened so fast.” She tried to smile. “Can you fill me in?”

Fast? How could two memories be so different? Maybe it was for the best. I wanted us to be able to tell the same story to whoever got here first, and if her memory was cloudy,
maybe I could make her believe my sanitized version.
It was worth a try.

“Rand kidnapped me, brought me here so Bubba could beat me. He became scared when he found out Bubba was going to kill me, and ran away. Bubba had the bat raised to beat my brains to a pulp, and I had to kill him to save my life. Do you remember it now?”

“Sorta … Didn’t I yell freeze or something?”

I forced a laugh. “Boy, you’re really out of it. What makes you think you yelled freeze?”

I had dropped my gun, and it was beside the body. Jasmine’s was under my left hip, the one away from her, and I was going to keep it out of this murder scene, if I could possibly manage it.

“I thought I brought my gun inside,” she said with a frown.

“Listen, let’s get this over with as quickly as possible. Someone may have heard the shots and reported them. I want you to go call Hank, and don’t settle for anyone else. Wait till you are speaking to Hank before you tell what happened. Okay?”

“Yes, all right.” She acted as if she needed to have some reason to move. She stood awkwardly, and held out a hand to help me up.

“Nope.” I gave her a grin. “I’m not gonna attempt to stand until I think I can without falling back down. I’ll be fine. Go make the call.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. Scat!”

The minute she left I picked up her gun and scuffed my shoe soles every step to keep from leaving clear prints because they were bloody. I walked around the truck and opened the passenger side, pulled the wide seat back, and searched for something to wipe the gun clean. I found a pile of oily rags, and used two of them. I placed her gun beside my backbone, and holding onto the oily waste, I began cleaning my face and hands as I strolled out to where she was in the van, attempting to reach Hank.

I opened the door of the van and saw Jasmine’s purse
on the passenger seat. I slid in, picking up her purse and resting it in my lap.

“Got any tissues in here?” I said, as I causally opened it and moved around its contents.

“I think so—Hank? Oh, I’m so glad I found you. Please come quickly, there’s been an accident.” She turned in the seat away from me, so she didn’t have to look in my eyes when she told Hank that I had shot Bubba.

I quickly placed the gun in her purse and pulled out several tissues.

“I’m afraid so.” Her voice was low.

Hank had asked if Bubba was dead.

She turned back to me with a startled expression.

“Do you know where we are? I can’t direct him here.”

“In the alley between Bleeker’s old warehouses,” I said.

Jasmine replaced the mike with a trembling hand. I slid between the seats and squatted in front of the storage locker, searching for baby wipes. I crammed the oily rags into the locker and returned to the passenger seat and offered the box to her.

We began cleaning our hands and face, and dabbing on our soiled, spotted clothing.

“How did you manage to switch from your car to the van and still tail us?” I asked as we worked on the stains.

“I was terrified that I took too long, and wouldn’t know which way he turned on the highway. I hit the left side of the gate when I turned onto the lane. I felt the bump, but kept on going. I couldn’t see his truck when I got there. I guessed and turned right. I must have been doing ninety when I spotted his taillights when he
turned onto Oak Street. I almost lost control when I made the turn because I hadn’t slowed enough.”

“You did great,” I said when she paused.

“Yeah, just great,” she said wryly. “I lost him after about five turns. I was like a lost dog in the meat house, running from one intersection to another trying to find out where y’all had gone. It was pure luck when I finally spotted him pulling out of a small road later. His lights shone my way for a second as he made his turn. I was one street over. Tell me, he actually was the helicopter pilot? Was he really delivering you to Bubba? They didn’t know each other, did they?”

“It was Rand. He must have looked up Bubba when he found out I was investigating Mrs. Alyce Cancannon’s murder. He didn’t want me nosing into his past, I guess. He is a suspect because he inherits the same amount as the nieces. He could be the murderer, for all I know. I’d been saving him and Celia Cancannon for last. Maybe I should have started with him.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Just my dignity. He bound my hands with duct tape. I promised him that I wouldn’t run away and he eventually freed them, before he took me to Bubba. Then he feared for his own worthless hide and ran away and left me there. I’m looking forward to future conversations with the jerk. He almost got me killed.”

“Why did you agree to go with him?” Jasmine asked, trying to get oriented.

“Wayne and Donnie Ray were upstairs. I didn’t want them involved.” I didn’t mention that she was also on the way home, and could wander in unsuspecting.

“I would have seen Rand’s truck outside your door,”
she said softly. “I wouldn’t have blundered in, I would have gone upstairs and called you. You could have warned me over the phone, just as you did when we met on the driveway. That way, you wouldn’t have had to confront Bubba.”

“I couldn’t take the chance,” I lied.

Jasmine studied my face and I had to lower my eyes. I covered it by rubbing at a stain on my pants. It’s difficult to lie to Jasmine. She seems to have X-ray vision into my soul.

After a short silence, she spoke.

“Tell me what to say.”

“You came home just as we were leaving. You didn’t know Rand, and knew I was expecting you, and wouldn’t have left except for a dire emergency. You quickly exchanged your car for the van and followed us. When you reached the warehouse, you went inside, just in time to hear Bubba threatening me. You started forward, spotted Bubba advancing toward me, you rushed to help me, and I shot Bubba. It’s simple.”

“But not the entire story, is it?”

I pulled the truck door closed, the dome light went out, and her face was in shadow. I hoped mine was also.

“It’s close enough. We have to tell the same story,” I stressed.

She pulled her purse toward her, and took out the gun.

“You put it back when you got the Kleenex. I will tell your version, but I want to know why.”

“Why do you think I put it in your purse?”

“Because I had it under the seat, and if I hadn’t taken it inside and yelled freeze, and prepared to fire before you knocked me aside, it would still be under the seat.”

I sighed. “Will you tell it my way, and stay out of it? I’m expecting Hank to come roaring up any minute with a whole pile of people in tow. I have to know what you’re going to say. I can’t be caught in a lie at this stage.”

“I’ll tell it like you say. I now understand why you want me out of it, so they can’t question me about my past and embarrass me on the stand. Don’t you realize they will do exactly that, if I’m on the stand telling your version?”

“Of course I do, I just don’t want two women pointing a weapon at Bubba. Even if the ballistics report proves I’m the only one—”

A faint squeal of tires sounded down the block, then we could hear Hank’s engine before we could see his car. He wasn’t using the siren, or the flashers.

He skidded to a stop and quickly started toward the van. Jasmine jumped out of the van and ran toward him. He hugged her while patting her on her back and never once took his eyes off mine while he stared over her shoulder.

It was the first time I had thought of myself, and now I realized I was in for a rough night. You just didn’t empty a gun into a person and go home and get a good night’s sleep with everyone’s blessings ringing in your ears. Self-defense was bad enough, but if they discovered I had plotted and planned in advance to murder him in cold blood, I might have a lifetime of rough nights.

With his arm around Jasmine, Hank walked to the truck window.

“Are you all right?”

“Sure,” I replied, and promptly burst into tears.

I
n the week since the shooting, I had tried to get back to a normal routine, but it was foolish of me to think that I could. I was sitting on my back porch with my third cup of coffee. The birds were flitting through the dying garden, and the last blooms of the early roses. Their chirping must be the same but it now sounded foreign, as if I had been in a time warp and returned incorrectly to a different planet.

I had seen more of my lawyer, Wade Bennett, this week than I had the entire time I had known him. He made daily visits to question, probe, and furnish uplifting comments. I knew he would do his very best for me, but after a week I was very sick of any mention of Bubba, the shooting, and the depositions that he was planning. I just wanted to go away and hide, but since that was out of the question, I just sat a lot and stared at the kennel across the courtyard.

Hank had walked us through the whole nightmare last Monday night, or early Tuesday morning, several times. I understood he was drilling us to make sure our stories matched and Jasmine and I could repeat our statements in our sleep. I was so tired of the repetitions that both Hank and his second-in-command, Lieutenant P. C. Sirmons, finally relented. Jasmine and I were being led to the van when Charlene Stevens drove up in a bright red Corvette.

I was so startled I stumbled into Hank and gave him a glowering stare.

Hardly moving his lips, he said under his breath, “Don’t say a word. I’ll handle this.”

Charlene had a wide smile as she strode toward us. Her nickname is the Barracuda, used only behind her back by all who have to deal with her. You would have to see her teeth to understand. Nice, large, even white teeth, the better-to-eat-you-with kind. She hated me with a purple passion. She had been seeing Hank occasionally when he and I began our brief affair. She hadn’t appreciated being dumped, and apparently I was still on her list.

“What are you doing here?” Hank asked her in a reasonable tone of voice.

“Why, Hank, you know I catch the first three nights of the week. Why didn’t
you call me?
”

“This isn’t a crime, Charlene. It’s self-defense. No charges, so your services are not required.”

“Don’t you think that the district attorney’s office should make that decision? You know that we are to be called for all homicides, even justified?”

“You thanked me when I didn’t get you out of bed for the Henderson shooting last week.”

“Well, that didn’t involve your girlfriend, did it?”

She hadn’t even glanced at me during their discussion. I was beneath consideration.

“I’ll just listen while you reconstruct the crime
again
for me.”

Charlotte’s eyes gleamed as she spoke. She was a true blond, short hair, slim as a pond weed, and two inches taller than I was. As a rising assistant DA working under district attorney Bobby Don Robbins, she was climbing the political ladder on Bobby Don’s back. He had been trying to protect his flank since Charlene had won her first case. He knew she was after his job.

We trudged back in and started telling the story again. When I mentioned that Randall Finch had brought me here, Charlene held up her hand for silence.

“Is this Randall Finch in custody?”

“Not yet,” Hank replied.

“Put out an APB on him at once,” she said, directing her command to P. C.

“It’s been on the air and wire since we first arrived,” P. C. reported.

She waved for Hank to continue. We finally finished, using the same words we had used in the first walkthrough. Jasmine and I were finally told to go home, but I knew that Charlene wouldn’t let it go. I proved to be correct.

Wade gave me daily reports on her actions. On Tuesday, Rand turned himself in, lawyer in tow. Charlene had obtained a deposition. Wade was still trying to find Rand to obtain one for our side. We both suspected Charlene had advised him to vanish for a few days.