Twisted Reason (29 page)

“And didn’t you say that the state took over the case?”

“Yes. Ahhh – sure – it would be presumptuous of me to call in the FBI on a state case, wouldn’t it?” Lucinda said with a grin.

“You betcha,” Jake said.

“Well, I might survive my next encounter with the captain after all.”

“You’re really going to have to get over your aversion to working with the FBI or I might start taking it personal.”

“C’mon, Jake. You know I view you differently than any other
special
agent. I actually think you are kind of special.”

“What do you think of Special Agent in Charge Dixon in our local office down your way?”

“He’s one of the worst, Jake. Arrogant. Pushy. Grasping. And I don’t think he likes women detectives.”

“He’s retiring next month.”

“Oh, really. Doubt if it will make much of a difference. What officious SOB will be taking his place?”

“That officious SOB will be me.”

“What?”

“Me – Special Agent in Charge Jake Lovett, at your service, ma’am.”

“You’re moving here?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In four weeks. Do you think my office could expect more cooperation from you in the future, Lieutenant?”

“As long as the promotion doesn’t go to your head
Mister
Special
Agent in Charge,” Lucinda said with a laugh. “Jake, I’ve got to run. Just got to the state trooper barracks. I’m really excited about your move. Talk to you soon.”

            She was escorted to the interrogation room by a trooper who explained the audio and video recording capabilities. “I’ll be in the observation room. If you need anything, just let me know.”

When she entered, Don raised his head up from his folded arms resting on the table. “Thanks for coming, Lieutenant.”

“Are they treating you okay, Mr. Blankenship?”

Don winced. “Please. Call me Don. My dad is Mr. Blankenship and I really don’t want to be reminded of that fact.”

“Because he shot your sister?”

“Yes and no. That’s when it all hit me. Everything he was doing was wrong. I’d had my doubts before but I brushed them away. But when I saw her with that bullet in her head, it was as if – well, you know that old hymn ‘Amazing Grace’?”

Lucinda nodded.

“It’s got a line in it: ‘I once was blind but now I see’. That’s how it feels, Lieutenant. When Donna died, everything came into focus.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah. Starting with my mother. There was a lot of fighting going on between her and dad right before she left. Mostly about my grandmother. Dad wanted her to move in with us after Grandfather died. Mom insisted there was no room in the house for another person. She wanted to find a place for her nearby. The night before Mom left, I heard her telling Dad that if he brought his mother into the house, she was leaving and taking the kids with her.

“Then, the next morning, she was gone. Dad said she was a tramp and she ran off with another man. And then, we never heard from her – no phone calls, no letters, no birthday cards. It hurt a lot. Grandmother was a big comfort to us all. But she kept telling us to forget our mother. Pretty soon, we did put her out of our minds. It was easier for Derek. He didn’t remember her.”

“Don, I don’t think she left you. We found evidence of massive amounts of blood in your parents’ bedroom.”

He winced as he brushed his hair off his forehead and said, “Yeah. It hurts to hear you say that but it tracks with what I’ve been thinking. My grandmother lived with us until she got married again to a guy named Alvin Hodges. He seemed nice enough but I never got to see much of him since my dad was violently opposed to the marriage and furious that his mother moved out of the house. He blamed Hodges for all of it.

“Then Grandmother started showing signs of Alzheimer’s. Hodges took care of her at home for a while until it got too much for him. He put her in a lockdown unit at River’s Edge. My dad was beside himself. He ranted and raved that Hodges had poisoned her. He said there was a conspiracy between Hodges and the staff at the Alzheimer’s place to destroy her mind with drugs. He had piles and piles of articles and books to prove it.

“He sent a lot of that stuff to Hodges before he put grandmother away. One day, I came home and it was all piled up on his desk along with all the other stuff he’d accumulated. I asked him where it came from and he said that Hodges dumped it all on the front porch without even ringing the doorbell.

“That night, I woke up hearing a noise in the backyard that sounded like metal against rock or brick. I got up, went downstairs and onto the back porch. Dad had a shovel in his hand and was throwing dirt on a spot by the fence. I hollered down and asked him what he was doing in the backyard in the middle of the night.

“He said, ‘One of you damned kids left the gate open and some damn stray wandered in here digging the place up. I’m shoveling the dirt back. I shoulda made y’all get your lazy asses out of bed and do it.” I told him I was sorry. And he said, ’You better be, boy,’” Don’s hands flexed and folded into tight fists. “I hate it when he calls me ‘boy’. I asked him but he just won’t stop.”

“What are you thinking, Don?”

“I’m thinking that Dad was probably burying Alvin Hodges in the backyard. Dad stopped calling and yelling at him on the phone. In fact, he totally stopped talking about him. I’m thinking Hodges did bring over those papers and books but Dad never let him leave. And if he did that, maybe he did kill our mother. Maybe she’s back there, too. Maybe she never left us after all,” he said, struggling to maintain control of his emotions.

Lucinda’s heart raced.
This is enough to get a search warrant to tear up every inch of that yard. Maybe Sadie and Alvin would finally get the justice they deserved.
“Thank you, Don. I know it had to be difficult to talk about that. Can I ask you questions about what is going on now?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’d like to think about something else.”

“How did this whole thing get started out at Sleepy Hollow?”

“After Grandmother died, Dad grew obsessed with River’s Edge. Kept saying that he had to do something to keep them from poisoning old people. He said that dementia was a label they put on the elderly who just grew tired of it all and wanted to relive their childhoods. He thought if you gave them a place where they could be children again, where their bodies were free of pharmaceutical poisons, then their minds would heal.

“One day, he came home all excited saying he found the perfect place. We all went out there to check it out. We fixed up our rooms, a bathroom and the kitchen and moved in. We got busy on the rest of the place – fixing up the rides, making the bungalows livable. Then Dad went spying at River’s Edge. He parked on the edge of their lot.  Said he found the perfect spot under some trees where the light was dimmer, the sun didn’t bake the car and he had a clear view of the front door.  He said he was looking for people who were ready to put their parents into jail.  He could pick them out ‘cause they arrived with an old person and when they left they still had the senior citizen with them. When he spotted a likely prospect, he’d follow that person all the way home.  Nobody ever seemed to spot that they had a tail.

“He’d spend days watching the house and suddenly he’d come back with a new resident – a guest, he’d say. After we had about six or seven of them, Dad trained Derek to do the spying or stalking or whatever you’d call it. Then, Derek scouted the rest with Dad doing the pick-ups until all the bungalows were full.

“When the first death happened – a poor old lady died in her sleep clutching a teddy bear – Dad trained me to do the pick-ups. He called them rescues and he had me convinced. I saw myself as a hero for a while. I thought we were working in the service of a noble cause and never wavered in that conviction. Not until Dad made us dispose of the first body. I wanted to bury Adele on the hill with the others. But he wouldn’t hear of it. I should have listened to Derek – he argued against it, he begged me not to dump her in the middle of nowhere. But I did what Dad told me to do like some stinkin’ robot. Then, I did it again with that crazy guy, Francis DeLong.” Don dropped his head to the table and sighed.

Lucinda reached across to him and patted his shoulder. “I think that’s enough for today, Don. The prosecutor will want to talk to you tomorrow to hammer out a deal. And I’ll be back at some point to let you know what we find in the backyard.”

Lucinda flipped off the audio, leaned forward, turning her face away from the camera. “Don, get an attorney to guide you through the plea bargain.” She stood up and left the room.

As she stepped into the hall, a trooper was at her elbow guiding her in the opposite direction of the exit. “This way, Lieutenant. The captain is ready to take your statement.”

“Excuse me,” she said, shrugging off his hand. “It’s been a long day. I need to arrange for cadaver dogs and an excavation team and I need to get to the hospital.”

“You’ll have to talk to the captain about that, Lieutenant.”

Lucinda strode ahead of the trooper down the hall and threw open a door marked Captain P.L. Johnson. “Sir, I need a couple of cadaver dogs and personnel experienced with the excavation of bodies to search the Blankenship’s backyard tomorrow morning.”

“You certainly do. I was informed of that by the trooper monitoring your interview and have already gotten the ball rolling. They’ll all be on-site at daybreak. Now, if you please have a seat, I’d like to get your statement about today’s events.”

Lucinda remained standing. “Captain, it’s been a long, freakin’ day. I’ve been shot at and dunked in water. I haven’t had a bite to eat since I gobbled down a pitiful container of yogurt at 6 o’clock this morning. My partner is in the hospital with a gunshot wound. And I’ve gotten enough information from Don Blankenship to keep you busy for days. My body is beat. My brain is fried. It can wait until tomorrow.”

“We still need your statement, Lieutenant.”

She glared at him without saying a word.                                                                                  

“Okay. Okay. It can wait until morning.”

“Make that afternoon. Since your people are digging up a backyard in my jurisdiction, I need to be there.”

“I’d rather take care of this matter first thing in the morning, Lieutenant,” the captain said rising to his feet.

She grinned and straightened her posture when she realized he was shorter than her.
Tactical error, Captain
. “No can do, sir. I’ll be out here soon as I can. Thank you for your patience.” She turned and walked through the doorway.

Looking back, she added, “Oh, yeah, don’t screw with Don Blankenship, okay? Don’t knock him around, badger him or give him a hard time. Give him a nice, warm meal, get a trooper to pick something up for him if you can’t fix it here. Okay?”

“All right, Lieutenant. No need to be a smart ass. We’ll take good care of your boy.”

“Don’t call him a boy – his dad did that. He hates it. I don’t want him pissed off when I get back here. And I don’t want to waste time listening to him bitch about you.”

“Do we need to give him a pillow and tuck him in, too?”

“Why don’t you toss in a lullaby while you’re at it, Captain? See you tomorrow.”

Back in her car, Lucinda paused before starting the engine.
Why is it I piss off captains wherever I go?
She turned the key in the ignition.
Face it, girl, you don’t really care.
She pulled out of the parking lot and raced to the hospital.

Forty-Two

She was halfway to the hospital when her cell rang. “Hey, Lieutenant. It’s Hirschhorn. Jumbo’s doing fine. In fact, he’s asking for you.”

“Thanks for calling, Chief,” she said and pressed down on the accelerator. She muttered a prayer of thanks as she raced through the night.

When she arrived, she jerked to a stop along a yellow-painted curb and ran inside. Stepping into his room, she doubted what Hirschhorn had said. She stifled a gasp. Wires and tubes ran from Jumbo’s body to equipment and apparatus on both sides. His eyes were closed and his small face too pale. His red hair stuck out in every direction like a visible aura around his head.

She approached his bed as quietly as she could and slipped her hand into his. Eyelids blinked and he turned to look in her direction. “Lieutenant!” He smiled big, color rushing into his face and his eyes danced with pleasure.

She returned his smile, “Hey there, Jumbo. You gave me a big scare. You shouldn’t have stepped into the line of fire.”

Jumbo shrugged. “What can I say? There was a guy heading straight for you. What else could I do? But he wasn’t the one that shot me, was he?”

“No. The shot came from the boat. It was serious, Jumbo, but no main arteries were hit. They say you’re going to be all right. It’ll just take some time.”

“I’m not complaining. I get a paid vacation from work just in time for the baseball season openers. And I now have an interesting scar I can show my grandchildren one day. But, I tell ya, Lieutenant, homicide is not for me. A little too much agitation and high-speed action. I like Missing Persons where steady on wins the day.”