Ties That Bind (21 page)

“Sam, I think that’s enough,” Chief Roberson said, and she looked up, thrown completely off her game by his intrusion. She’d almost forgotten he was there.

Embarrassed to be derailed, though it shouldn’t have surprised her, Sam blinked, breathed, then spoke. “I am trying to solve a case you’ve assigned me to solve.”

“Well, I think you are just going a little too far with this, Detective. Obviously, this man knows nothing.”

“Obviously, we won’t know that if we never get to question him like we would any other—”

“Detective Montgomery, would you like to find yourself on suspension?”

“Well, Chief, if that is what you feel is necessary.”

Not used to being called out by any of his officers, his mouth dropped open a little, and Sam knew he was thinking long and hard about what to say next. She decided to help him.

“These are dead teenagers. And the intricacies and covenants that these people are intoning are not going to change the fact we have dead children. Children. That is all they are. But maybe you are right; maybe we should discuss this elsewhere. I’m totally amenable to that,” Sam said, knowing the look on her face had to convey just how desperately she wanted to take this elsewhere and give the chief a piece of her mind—even though that would undoubtedly result in her suspension.

And then she remembered Gage’s words. She remembered that he believed, like she did, that this was a serial murderer and not suicide. And this man, no matter how arrogant, had just lost his son. And she could hardly solve the case with irrational, emotionally charged behavior.

Chief Roberson caught her eye, and she put up her hand, asking him to stop without words. He waited a moment, then gave her a brief nod.

“President Malone, I know these are hard questions. All I want are answers. Don’t you want them, too? Don’t you want peace of mind, not always wondering what happened? I can tell you from personal experience that not knowing is the cruelest fate of all.”

Stake President Mark Malone, a blond, distinguished man in his late forties, looked her straight in the eye, then reached into the pocket of his shirt. He pulled out a picture and held it out to her. She stepped forward and took it.

Then the man collapsed, consumed with a grief he couldn’t explain. Chief Roberson gave her an alarmed look. Sam looked down at the picture and saw two teenagers, naked, laughing, the girl’s arm up as she took the picture. It was obvious this was a sexual interlude. The girl’s long hair covered her breasts, but there could be little doubt what these two were up to.

It was Jeremiah Malone and Sam’s niece, Whitney.

“Where did you get this?” Sam asked Malone.

He didn’t speak, his hands covering his eyes. “President Malone,” she said again, softly but firmly. “Where did you get this?”

“Someone left it on my doorstep,” he said, his voice a mere whisper, the words coming out choppy and terse.

“I’m sorry,” she said. No one wanted to believe their child could do such a thing. Especially the morally rigid. She followed her instincts and went to Malone, knelt down by the chair, and gripped his shoulder as he shook.

And she knew it would never be spoken of again.

TWENTY-NINE

The peaches were mushy, the lemons didn’t smell fresh, and the green peppers were way too small. Sam had decided to assuage the emptiness inside her by filling up with a healthy meal, except nothing at the grocery store looked appetizing. It wasn’t food she wanted or lacked. It never was.

All she’d thought about since leaving President Malone’s home was the distinguished man’s breakdown. She’d bagged the picture and dropped it off at the crime lab, but she knew it had been handled too much and this killer—and she knew it was a killer—was too careful to leave behind evidence.

And the fact that the stake president had allowed her to comfort him had no place in her psyche to be compartmentalized. What was she supposed to do with that image? She didn’t know. She wanted a strong drink and mindless sex. That immediately turned her thoughts to Gage, which made her flush.

Sam turned away from the peaches, annoyed with her own weakness and chiding herself for not focusing on the case. That’s all Gage was—or could be—to her.She pushed her cart forward and almost bumped into two women whispering to each other, carts side by side, blocking the aisle. Their heads were together and eyes wide and glistening, a look of surprise and superiority on both faces. Gossipmongers. The same kind that she had encountered for years—and still did.

She looked around the women, in the direction they kept turning, and when she saw the ratty bathrobe, the uncombed hair, and the blue slippers her breath slipped out of her and didn’t return. She put a hand on her cart for support and forced herself to breathe deeply, refusing to allow herself to return to the past, to a place where her mother made hamburgers for every meal, every day. The same meal she had made the day Callie was found hanging from the tree. Hamburgers over, and over, over, every day, dressed in an old bathrobe and ratty slippers, until one day she just stopped functioning completely.

Breathe, Sam, breathe.

How could Ruthie Montgomery have escaped the hospital? Her father watched her so closely, so diligently, that he no longer had any health left, all of his energy and support going to care for the woman who didn’t even seem to know he existed. But the hospital—surely their care and guard was even closer than Sam’s father’s, who had slept through four noisy girls, slumber parties, and movie night with Mom.

Movie night. When Mom and the four girls sat down and watched the late show,
Nightmare Theatre,
something their father would never have approved of. But their mother was every bit as enthralled in it as the daughters were.

But this ratty hair was not laced with gray. The body was a bit larger, the slippers a color of blue that no one in her family would have bought—they were the color of Callie’s eyes. That color caused keening and wailing that wouldn’t stop without medication. The only response from a catatonic mother they had managed to get in years. It was never allowed in the Montgomery house.

This lost soul was not Sam’s mother. It was Lydia Malone.

Sam approached Lydia and said her name softly. The woman stood in front of the grapes, picking up first one bunch, then another, and staring at them helplessly, as though it was impossible to decipher which bunch was better. Or as though they held some invisible message that would make everything right again.

“Lydia,” Sam said again.

She didn’t respond to Sam at first, then turned to stare at her dully, through eyes that only saw what she wanted to believe was real.

“I need grapes. Jeremiah gets so upset if there aren’t any grapes. He says they are fuel for his body. He only likes the sweet ones, though. Do you know if this kind is sweet?”

“No, I think these aren’t good grapes at all. I think they are out of season. I bet if you come back another time, though, they would be better.”

The two women who had led Sam’s attention to Lydia Malone had gotten a little brazen and moved in closer, probably hoping to hear the conversation and have something to tell all their friends and ward members.

“Why don’t you let me take you home,” Sam said, her voice soft, her face close to the other woman’s ear. Sam fought the impulse to wrinkle her nose as the woman’s unwashed state hit her senses. It was a familiar smell.

“Oh, I can’t leave without grapes. Jeremiah will be so mad. Do you know where the good ones are? Are they keeping them in back?”

“No, they probably don’t have them here. I heard they carry them at Smith’s, though. I’ll take you to get some,” Sam said, taking Lydia by the elbow and steering her away from the prying eyes and toward the door.

“But…”

“You want the best grapes, don’t you? Let’s go.”

“Okay,” the woman said meekly, allowing Sam to guide her out of the store.

Although she thought it was possible Lydia Malone had driven herself to the store, Sam did not attempt to find her car and, instead, drove her home. Sam parked in front of the Malone house and let herself out of the driver’s side, hurrying around to open the door for the other woman. But Lydia Malone was in no hurry to leave Sam’s car, even though she had not spoken a word on the ride home.

The Malone home was dark, and Sam wondered where President Malone was now. Sam also wondered if she would be chastised for her small lie—not taking her to Smith’s when she had promised—but Lydia did not react. Sam, used to this silence, let her be. Now the woman stared at the house, almost fearfully.

“It’s okay, Sister Malone; I’ll help you inside,” Sam said, using the familiar title LDS Church members used to address each other.

“I can’t go inside,” the other woman whispered. She didn’t take her eyes off the house. “There’s no one there. No one is home.”

“I’m sure your husband will be home soon.”

“No one is home.”

“Not right now, but—”

“No one is home!”
The words came out as a shrill scream, and Sam jumped back.

She waited a moment, watching the other woman, who stared at the house with longing and desire—and repulsion. To step inside this house would be yet another reminder that her son was dead and would never come back. Every time she saw a place where he had once stood, she would be reminded of him. In this small town, no place would be safe. And yet she probably wanted that as much as she dreaded it.

“No, no one is home,” Sam said softly, compassion filling her. Lydia Malone had been mentally ill before Jeremiah died, for reasons Sam didn’t entirely understand and probably never would, but this … from this she would probably never recover.

“I can’t go inside if no one’s home. It scares me. It scares me.”

“I’ll go inside with you,” Sam said. “I’ll wait until your husband comes home.”

“He never comes home,” the other woman said, not looking at Sam, still staring with fear at the large house. “At least not really. His head is somewhere else. His heart, too. No, no one lives here anymore. No one at all. Especially not me. I can’t. There isn’t a place here for me.”

Sam saw the desolation in her face and knew she had to make a call.

“I think I’ll find somewhere else for you to stay,” she said lightly, not wanting to tip the woman off to her real purpose. “Someplace where people are home.”

“That would be nice,” Lydia Malone said, still not breaking her gaze from the house.

Sam stepped away from the car and moved to the sidewalk, quickly dialing Dispatch and requesting an ambulance for a 5150. She gave the name and the address, and the dispatcher asked no more. Perhaps the only surprise was that it had taken this long.

Before the scene became chaotic—which Sam knew it would—she returned to the side of Lydia Malone. The woman turned to look at Sam, finally, breaking her gaze from the house she feared, the memories that haunted her.

“I’m crazy, aren’t I?” she asked, tears streaming down her face.

“You just need a little help to get through a tough situation.”

“No, I was this way before. So depressed. So sad. I didn’t even get out of bed. I wasn’t there for him. I wasn’t the mother he needed. Now he’s dead, and I don’t get the chance to fix it. I don’t get the chance … I lost me. I didn’t get to achieve any of the things I wanted to do, because of my duties. And I let it drive me crazy. Maybe he thought he wasn’t enough. That I didn’t love him enough.”

The truth had already broken this woman, spreading the fissure that existed in her brain. Would more truth do more damage? Possibly irreparable?

“You didn’t wish it on him, Sister Malone.”

“Don’t call me that, please. Call me Lydia.”

“Okay, Lydia. Jeremiah’s death was not your fault.”

“It was. It had to be.”

“No, it didn’t.”

She reached forward and put her arm on Sam’s shoulder. “You don’t understand. You’re not a mother. It’s your job, as a mother, to keep your kids safe. I was in bed when he died. When he took his own life. I was sleeping, too sad to even realize my own son was worse than I was.”

“I don’t think he killed himself,” Sam said, deciding the truth could not hurt any more than the pain Lydia Malone had already endured.

“You don’t?” Shock filled Lydia’s gray eyes—clear gray eyes, Sam noted. Eyes that didn’t look crazy or lost, at least right now.

“No.”

“Someone killed him?”

“It’s something we are looking into. Either that, or it was an accident.” She didn’t want to have to explain the nasty games boys could play, games that sometimes ended with a funeral and insurmountable grief.

“But who would want him dead? Everyone was his friend.”

“I’m not sure right now, but if someone is responsible, I’ll find them.”

“Who would do this to me? Why? Why would anyone do this?” Her gray eyes became cloudy again, and the woman looked away, back toward the house, fear filling her gaze once more. “I never knew it would be like this. One day you’re tucking that sweet child, with big blue eyes, into bed, and he looks up to you and says, ‘Mommy, will you marry me?’ And when he wakes up, he can’t even stand to look at you. He hates you. The venom is so real. And you just wait for the day when he will love you and adore you again, when he outgrows the hatred and embarrassment, and I’ll never … I’ll never have that. I couldn’t handle the hate. It was just a phase. He was a teenage boy. He would have gotten over it, right?”

“I’m sorry, Lydia.”

Sirens filled the air as the ambulance pulled onto the street, followed by two police cars. Lydia Malone didn’t seem to see or hear them.

“My son died hating me.”

THIRTY

Late-summer nights in Utah were hot and sultry, sometimes breezy, but generally still and quiet. Tonight was no exception.

Sam ran through the tree-lined streets of Kanesville, the small, old houses a blur as she passed them, concentrating on her rhythm and the shadows around her. Her feet pounded the pavement, her heart beating rapidly.

There were only a few lights on; some just illuminated a porch or house number. She ran uphill, toward the mountain, although she knew she wouldn’t go that far. The climb gave her something to concentrate on; just breathing was an effort. That was what she needed tonight.