Family Skeletons Read online

  “Much better looking truck without that big dent in it,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah, they did a good job.”

  “But I hope you realize it’s twice the size and work of my coupe.”

  Jonathan sounded unfazed. “I hope you realize that you’ve got two vehicles to my one.”

  “The Reviler isn’t my responsibility. Sunny’s driving it.”

  “Do you want to make a deal with her? You can cook dinner, and she and I can wash the Reviler.”

  “You can forget about the Reviler,” she muttered. “It’s going for a ride.” After putting the basket in the backseat of the car, which was parked in the front yard, she hollered at the men from around the corner of the house. “Laundromat. Give me an hour.”

  Jonathan looked up with a frown. “Give me a minute to finish up here, Sunny. I’ll go with you.”

  But she ducked back around the side of the house as if she hadn’t heard him. I swear. You guys are gonna give me a complex.

  The Laundromat was deserted. She filled three machines and was inserting coins in the last one when she felt a presence looming behind her. She whirled.

  Tim Joyce jumped back a step. “Hey! I’m one of the good guys.”

  Her heart started beating again. “Criminy. You’re as quiet as Cat.”

  She turned back around, plunged in the coins and got the machine started. He dumped the contents of one of the bags he carried into the machine next to hers. Her eye caught a white shirt among the dark uniforms, jeans and sweats. That shirt wasn’t going to stay very white for very long if that was his usual sorting style. Was it thrown in there for expediency’s sake, or did he really not know any better? He filled the next machine with blue-and-white-striped sheets.

  “Have you checked your phone messages?” she asked.

  He gave her a sidelong look. “At home or the office?”

  “Office.”

  He eyed the wall telephone. “Shall I check now, or will person to person suffice?”

  “Howard Wilkes used to play baseball.”

  He studied her, eyes narrowing, and then his gaze shifted to the list of Laundromat rules tacked on the wall as if vital information was stored there. “Well, now, how about that.” With thoughtful lines creasing his forehead, he pulled a metal chair out from under the table that was used for folding clothes and sat down.

  Sunny was glad. Her neck felt strained from looking up at him. “How tall are you?”

  She was still standing and he looked up; he didn’t have to look up far. “Six-three. You?”

  “Almost five-two.”

  He grinned. “In cases like this, spike heels make sense.”

  She sat in the other chair. “Tell me how far you’ve gotten in tracing Howard?”

  “Guess it can’t hurt. It’s not classified.” He clasped his hands behind his neck and slumped in the chair. His legs stuck out from under the other side of the table. “He and Bev didn’t make a clean break of it. They were on again, off again for several years, and finally they filed for divorce when Matthew was about a year old. Nice guy. Left her flat with a kid and never paid a dime in child support. He’d worked for a logging firm over near Grizzly Camp, but then he moved on to Oregon and got on with a company there. Trouble is, that place folded, and so did the next one he went to. We ran into a blank, and it’s been a lot of years, but we got people on it. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “So, as far as you know, he hasn’t been around here in...what? Fifteen years or so?”

  “So Bev tells us.” He was staring at the machines. He seemed to think best when focusing on inanimate objects. “And nobody else remembers seeing him around, either. But I’ll be talking to her again. Today, in fact. I’m not much of a believer in coincidences, and this one is a biggie.”

  He folded his arms across his chest, leaned back, directed his gaze straight ahead and crossed one huge sneaker-clad foot over the other. It appeared he was falling asleep with his eyes open. She settled in with her paperback. When she became aware that the deputy’s attention had shifted back to her, she looked over at him and instantly recognized the look of male to female interest. It was universal, needing no translation in any language.

  “I get the impression you and Jonathan are an item. That so?” His eyes, not exactly brown, closer to hazel, were partially concealed behind lazy, half-closed lids.

  Sunny simply nodded. Though she wasn’t interested in Joyce’s attention, she was flattered by it. The deputy sheriff was a prime example of the male species. Cupid had really engaged his funny bone with this one—the uninhibited Tim Joyce was more Sunny’s type than Jonathan, yet the staid Jonathan was the one who turned her on.

  “Too bad,” Joyce murmured. “Personally, I have nothing against spike heels, short women and spunk. In fact, I like spunk. If it doesn’t work out with you and Jonathan, I hope you’ll look me up. I guarantee that if I hear about it, I’ll look you up.” He gave her a slow grin. “Agreed?”

  She couldn’t stop her lips from curving in response. “Nothing shy about you, is there?”

  He held the lazy but gorgeous grin. In self-defense, she turned back to her book.

  That smile you’ve got could melt hearts by itself, Deputy Joyce. Inwardly, she smiled. John Grisham comes in second, but you’re a close third.

  Ryan was sitting on the front porch steps with Cat on his lap when Sunny returned home. He rose when she walked around to unlock the trunk, and Cat settled in the corner of the step to give herself a bath.

  “Well, you sure took off in a hurry,” Ryan said.

  “Where’s Jonathan?”

  “He took off, too. Didn’t tell me where, just said there was something he wanted to do.” He picked up the basket of clean laundry, and then they both stood there until he gave her a pointed look. “Are you going to go open the door? I’ve kind of got my hands full.”

  She mounted the steps, held the door open for him, and he led the way inside. Cat dodged between them, padded into the parlor and hopped up into her favorite chair.

  “Mavis called,” Ryan said. “And she was a tad on the frantic side. As I would be, too, after that message of yours. I calmed her down, told her everything we knew but nothing we’d surmised. Tom won’t be home until late tonight.” He stopped, turned to look at her. “I don’t like waiting on this. Maybe you should go ahead and call this guy Hendricks, whoever he is.”

  “Not necessary. I already talked to Joyce. He was doing his laundry, too.”

  “Good.” He nodded decisively. “Then it’s out of our hands and in his.” He looked up the stairs. “Where do you want this basket? Not up there, I hope.”

  She pointed to the front bedroom. “In there is fine. It needs sorting.”

  After putting the basket atop the ivory bedspread, he gave her a studying look. Curiously, she looked back.

  “What’s with you?” he asked. “You look like...” He snapped his fingers as if the proverbial light bulb had switched on in his mind. “A cat with a bowl full of cream. Joyce made a pass, didn’t he?”

  Sunny’s mouth fell open. How can you do that?

  He chuckled. “How about that? You hide out for four years then attract two men at the same time.”

  Floored, she scrunched her eyes closed.

  “Hey, this has got to be good for the ego. And you needed the boost. Sunny, sweetheart, I couldn’t be happier for you.”

  She opened her eyes. “Will you stop?”

  “So who’s it going to be? The doctor or the deputy sheriff?”

  She drew in a controlled breath. “Ryan, there are times, like now, when you overstep yourself.”

  His face sobered. One reason she’d always trusted Ryan was that he heard more than mere words. As flippant as he could be at times, he was always listening. He stepped forward to cup her shoulders. “I couldn’t love you more even if you were my sister. You know that.”

  She nodded, conveying that the brother and sister feeling was mutual.

  “The
n listen carefully. Jonathan wants to talk to you. When you left he wanted to go with you, but not because he didn’t want you off on your own, which is how you probably took it. He’s not a spontaneous person. He has to plan what he wants to say and then look for the opportunity to say it. I think my presence here has gagged him, and I regret that. When he returns, invite him to go for a walk on the beach. Or give me a signal and I’ll go for a walk.”

  She frowned. “When and where did you pick up on this? I haven’t—”

  “Trust me, Sunny. The man’s got something on his mind. Something important.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Whatever Jonathan was doing, it was taking him a while, which meant that Sunny had nothing to do but wonder where he was and what he was up to. She’d given up on packing, had finished her book at the Laundromat, and she didn’t feel like going for a walk. She watched football with Ryan for as long as she could stand it, and then she got busy in the kitchen making a potato salad.

  Once done with that task she rejoined Ryan, who was sitting on the sofa with his feet adorning the coffee table. She crossed in front of him, chose the corner chair, propped her elbow on the arm and her chin on her fist while she watched grown men fight over a football. And take time out to regroup, then another time out, and then another one.

  She went back to the kitchen and cut up all the fruit she could find into another salad.

  “Got some chips you could bring back with you, Sunny?”

  The fruit was healthier but if he wanted chips, he could have chips. He accepted the wrinkled bag with his attention glued to the set. He angled his head to see around her and then snapped it back the other way when she went on to her chair.

  “Awright!” The crowd roared at the same instant his fist hit the arm of the sofa.

  She glanced back. Pitiful. Downright pitiful.

  She reached for the newspaper, thumbed it, and when she found the puzzle page she thought maybe she wouldn’t go crazy after all. But when she got up to get a pencil so she could work the crossword puzzle, she evidently passed in front of the TV set one too many times.

  “Sunny, dammit, you’re like a yo-yo! Will you settle somewhere?”

  “Oh, for...” She figured her frown had to be as severe as his. “You want me to settle? That’s your problem? We’ve got a skeleton with a dented skull, a bloody baseball bat, a missing victim with at least one murderer, maybe two, questions and puzzles all over the place and you’re watching a stupid football game?”

  “Yes. I’m watching a stupid football game and would appreciate your settling down while I do it. It’s really not that hard. Shut up, be still, and you’re halfway there.”

  Sunny glared at the ceiling, blew her breath out in a long exhale, then settled in the chair with her pencil and puzzle. At halftime, Ryan surfed channels until he found another game that then also went into halftime. He put the TV on mute and wandered toward the kitchen. She watched the silent commercials; they were more interesting than the game was.

  On his way back, Ryan came to a dead stop in the middle of the doorway, a can of beer held inches from his mouth as he stared into space as if hypnotized.

  Sunny looked up. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s a grave,” he whispered.

  His shock was contagious. Sunny rose. “What’s a grave? What are you talking about?”

  He set the can on top of the TV so fast that beer sloshed out of it. “A shovel. I need a shovel.” He headed down the hall.

  “Ryan!” She sprinted after him, caught up in the utility room, slammed the outside door closed that he’d just opened and placed herself in front of it. “What...are...you...doing?”

  It took visible effort for him to stand still. His eyes snapped at her.

  “It’s a grave, Sunny, in that clearing in the trees. The flowerbed is almost a perfect rectangle and nothing else is growing anywhere else. Unless I miss my guess, that’s a grave and I’m going to prove it. Now get out of my way.”

  He elbowed her aside and went out the door. She followed him to the tool shed. “Will you hold on a minute? If you’re right, you need Tim Joyce. You can’t just go over there and—”

  “Yes, I can. I might be wrong and I hope I am, but I can’t, absolutely cannot, sit here and wait for some uniformed cop who’s out of uniform to take it into his head to check his messages.”

  The tool shed wasn’t equipped with electricity, and impatiently Ryan mumbled while waiting for his vision to adjust to the dim interior. Then he grabbed the one and only shovel that leaned against the wall, checked the edge and frowned, then slammed the door shut.

  “At least wait for Jonathan,” she suggested. “And while we’re waiting, I’ll look for Tim Joyce’s number. This isn’t like you, to go off half-cocked.”

  He gave her an are-you-serious look, and then went into long-winded mode. He didn’t often exhibit stress, but when he did he expressed it through verbiage. “This isn’t like me? Just how many skeletons have we discovered? Unless I’ve drastically lost count, it’s been one and this would make two. How could either of us know how either of us would react in a situation like this?”

  She’d positioned herself in front of him, so he walked around her. She wished she had a rope. She watched him, looked at the house and then again at his fast-moving figure, swore loudly and ran after him.

  “All right, Sherlock, suppose you find your skeleton,” she said when she caught up. “Whose is it? Have you figured that out yet?”

  “Howard Wilkes.”

  She stopped, but he didn’t. She ran again to catch up. “Howard?”

  “Think, Sunny, think. It adds up. It makes sense. It’s the only answer that answers everything.”

  “Bev?” she whispered, and stopped again. “Bev killed Howard?” Then she had to break into another sprint. “Ryan, please, I can’t keep up. Slow down.”

  With visible effort he waited for her, then matched his stride to hers. “She had equal access to whatever bats were around the house. He might’ve guessed the baby wasn’t his and confronted her. Maybe she swung at him in self-defense, probably did. However it happened, she panicked and called Franklin for help. He had to have been in on it at some point because he hid the bat.”

  “Insurance,” she murmured. A stunned daze threatened to overtake her, and she fought it back.

  “Exactly. He helped her bury the body, and then he stole the murder weapon.”

  “So she was trapped. She couldn’t force his hand. As long as he had that bat he had complete control over her.”

  “But she snapped. In time, something made her snap and she killed Franklin, too. But she was still trapped. She didn’t know where the bat was that she’d killed Howard with.”

  “I was right,” she said tonelessly. “Mavis and Franklin’s affair was the catalyst. Bev had seen them together, guessed the rest, confronted him and then lost it.”

  The trees loomed. Sunny found herself wishing she’d stayed behind. She didn’t want to discover another grave.

  A rifle shot cracked and Ryan fell to his knees.

  Without conscious thought, Sunny dropped with him. “What—”

  “The trees, Sunny. The trees. Get in there.”

  “But...”

  “Move!”

  She half crawled and half rolled until she was in the blessedly dark and safer shade. He was at her side.

  “Ryan, are you...” She choked on the words, mesmerized by the spreading stain in his shirt. “Blood,” she whispered. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I got shot, Sunny. Of course I’m bleeding.”

  Still on their knees, they looked back across the field toward the house and the pickup parked in front of it. Neither of them had heard the vehicle approaching, but Bev now stood at the driver’s door, rifle in hand.

  She’s here because Joyce talked to her. She’s running out of time and she knows it. She already saw the shovel so she knows we’ve guessed.

  And the shovel now rested behind t
hem where Ryan had dropped it when he’d been hit. They couldn’t even use it as a weapon.

  His wound had dulled Sunny’s wits but seemed to have sharpened his. His gaze darted everywhere. Then he pointed toward the beach. “You go that way. I’ll lead her this way. Go.”

  “I can’t leave—”

  “You have to. You can’t get back to the house, and she can cut you off from the road. You’ve got to get to the beach and then to town that way. That’s our only chance.”

  They scampered back several more feet before feeling safe enough to stand upright. Ryan was bleeding from his left side. He wore a long-sleeved shirt that he tore down the front, not taking time with buttons, and with her help he pulled it off. She winced at the raw, ugly hole gaping in his side. The blood was seeping steadily, but, thank goodness, wasn’t gushing.

  “Help me with this, Sunny, then get out of here.” He wadded the shirt and put it in place, and she tied the sleeves at the right side of his back. Her fingers trembled.

  “Okay. Now go,” he ordered.

  “But...”

  “But nothing!” He grabbed her arm and squeezed so hard she winced. His eyes resembled hard gray marbles.

  “Listen to me.” He bit off the words. “I think the bullet went clean through, but I’m bleeding and will leave a trail. I can’t move as fast as you can on your own. If you’re worried about me, then you need to get help back here as soon as you can. Now get the hell out of here.”

  She couldn’t think coherently. If he weren’t holding on to her, she would’ve held on to him. “Ryan, I can’t—”

  “It’s you she wants, dammit! I’ll be safer without you than with you. Now go!”

  Roughly he shoved her away, then started inland toward the eucalyptus trees and the road. His walk was just short of a stagger. She looked back across the field. Bev was almost halfway across it. With an audible sob, Sunny turned and ran toward the ocean.

  He’s on his feet. He was thinking coherently. He’ll be all right.

  She tripped over a trailing root and sprawled headlong, knocking the wind out of herself. Gasping, she got onto all fours, then to her feet and took it slower. Panic wasn’t far away. She needed to slow down in more ways than one.