Carol O’Connell - Stone Angel

“No need. I don’t plan to spend more than five minutes with Sally Laurie. I just hauled her back because she pissed me off leaving town that way.” The sheriff rustled the faxes and handed them back to her. “File these or burn ‘em.”

She hesitated, looking for something to say, but finding no way to prolong her presence here, she turned and left the room.

“And close that door!” the sheriff hollered after her. He smiled at Charles. “Babe’s widow left town with her kid the day of the murder. I tracked her down inside of a morning. Not bad for a hick sheriff, is it?”

Charles ignored this opportunity to flatter the sheriff with a predictable denial of the man’s hickdom. Mallory would not have approved of that tactic. ‘Never suck up’ was a Mallory constant. “So the dead man had a wife and child.”

“Well, the dead man’s widow has a son – that part’s a fact.”

“Not Babe Laurie’s son?”

“That’s the rumor. Babe and his wife have big blue eyes, and the boy’s got little slitty brown ones. Just by coincidence, Babe’s brother Fred has those same slitty brown eyes.”

“Well, you know, genetically it’s possible if there’s a factor of – ”

“No, it isn’t possible, Mr. Butler. This is too small a town to make room for hard science. The sign at the highway says population eleven hundred, but that’s pure bragging – more like nine hundred.”

And the stranger in a small town was always first to be suspected of a crime. Charles refrained from jumping to Mallory’s defense, though he did long to point out that, for many reasons, she was the least likely suspect.

“You must be under a lot of pressure, Sheriff.”

“Pressure?”

“The news media?”

The sheriff seemed to find that funny. “A man’s head connected with a rock. You can’t make the evening news with a murder like that. Those reporters are looking for inspired killing, real talent.”

“But he was a religious leader.”

“He was the freak headliner in a road show called the New Church. Babe’s only publicity is a mention in Betty Hale’s tour ramble for the guests at the bed and breakfast. Now that does sell a few souvenirs at the drugstore, and I’m sure Betty gets her cut.”

How embarrassing for Mallory to be embroiled in a mediocre murder. “I’d like to see this woman now, if you don’t mind.”

The sheriff accompanied him out to the reception room and handed him into Lilith’s care. Charles followed her up the stairs and broke the uncomfortable silence as she opened the door for him. “Aren’t you going to check me for dangerous weapons?”

Her expression was insulting, only because it obviously never occurred to her that he would know the barrel of a gun from its butt end. The deputy hung back by the door at the end of the cell block as he walked down the narrow corridor.

He had been prepared to see Mallory languishing in a cold impersonal cell; he had never imagined anything like this. On one wall was the print of a quaint landscape in a gilded frame, and a braided rug sat at the foot of a stuffed armchair. Her bed was decked with a colorful patchwork quilt, and fresh violets sat in a mason jar on a small chest of drawers. But for the iron bars of door and window, it was all rather charming.

How she must hate this.

Her own tastes ran to stark simplicity in her surroundings and superb tailoring in the blazers she wore with her blue jeans. That gingham dress must be humiliating. But when she looked up at him, she was only angry.

He stood with his back to Lilith Beaudare, his body blocking her sight of Mallory. “Augusta Trebec has asked me to ascertain whether or not you’re the legal heir of Cass Shelley.” His hands said, “ I only want to help. Tell me what I can do for you.”

“Go away,” Mallory said. And then her hands said, “Go away.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d at least hear me out.” He restricted his sign language to finger spelling to conceal the movements from the deputy at his back. “Let me call Riker or Jack Coffey. They can do something.”

“No,” she said, and “No way,” said her hands and her angry face. “Are you nuts? They’re both cops.”

“But, you’re a cop.” Or was she? Though she had neglected to do the proper paperwork for separating from the police department, she had left her badge behind in New York City, along with the police-issue.38 revolver. She had always preferred to carry her own personal weapon, the cannon of a gun that so intrigued the sheriff. If she was not a cop anymore, then what was she?

The term “rogue” came to mind. The word suited her on so many levels.

“Just go away and leave me alone,” she said.

“ No, I won’t leave you sitting in a jail cell .”

“ I won’t be here for long. Go away .”

Aloud, he said, “I could hire an attorney for you.”

“I don’t need one. Get out,” she said, rising, walking to the bars. “They can’t prove motive. But I think the sheriff might be working on that. He’s smart. Don’t underestimate him. I don’t.”

“Well, that’s high praise, coming from you.” He handed her the garage bill for an oil change and the warranty on his car’s new transmission. “This is the paperwork on your estate. It’s an affidavit of inheritance. Will you please read through it and sign it?”

She put the papers down the front of her dress to free her hands for speech. “You have to go now. You can’t help me. Everything will go sour if you stay in Dayborn.”

He knew what she meant. Mallory was predicting that he would botch every attempt at deception with the inexperience of an honest man. So she didn’t trust him to do anything base or even remotely shady, but he was not offended by her confidence in his good character.

“ I just put a lie past the sheriff,” he signed hopefully, offering this act of gross wrongdoing as a sign of improvement.

Mallory winced, going beyond mere skepticism to near pain. She was probably wondering how much damage he had already done.

She handed the papers back to him. “I’ve read it, okay? Now get out!” She brought her face closer to the bars, her hands extending through them to touch his own hand, and then she signed, “You haven’t asked me if I killed that man.”

In her expression, there was the slight suggestion that she might have done it. Perhaps it was that unwholesome smile of hers. And now there was a question in her eyes.

One would not say of Mallory, she couldn’t possibly do murder. However, because he took his friendships so seriously, if she had set fire to a school bus full of nuns and orphans and pushed it off a cliff, he would have assumed that she was merely having a bad day.

Charles was leaving the municipal building when he saw the woman emerge from the alley and stop a few feet from the stone steps. Her hair was what he noticed first. It was a black dye job gone awry and turned to purple in the highlights. The thin middle-aged woman revolved slowly, eyes wide with confusion, looking now to heaven for some sign to point her in the right direction. There was time to note that her slip hung below the hem of a dress that needed washing; that her face was wet with tears and deep etched with agony lines. Her mouth hung open in an eerie prelude to a scream as she bolted to the far side of the square.

A tall stocky woman, wearing an apron and carrying a covered tray, appeared on the steps of the municipal building beside Charles.

“Alma!” she called out to the running woman, but the purple-haired Alma never looked back. The stocky woman shrugged and carried her tray across the square to Jane’s Cafe, where Darlene had gone with Ira.