Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List

Matilde never bore her own children, although she wanted them desperately. Outliving all five of her wealthy husbands, Aunt Matilde ended up with a fortune, which she left to her nieces and nephews and the rest to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Bayou Blanche Parish.

Half the family swore the old lady wanted to be buried above-ground in case of flooding. They were all from Cajun country down in New Orleans, where apparently, the dead face a distinct possibility of their own human remains floating away if buried six feet under.

The other half of the family insisted departure by water was not a possibility for Auntie in the casket. They insisted she keep pushing up the daisies. They were all a little afraid Aunt Matilde might have the power to visit them from the Great Beyond, and nobody wanted that.

With all of them steeped in Cajun tradition and brainwashed in voodoo superstitions, they’d nearly come to blows at Auntie’s funeral over the whole thing. The family finally had some money thanks to Aunt Matilde, so of course, a lawsuit ensued. With a pack of lawyers involved, it’d be years before Auntie was dug up and hence, the mausoleum inhabited, if ever.

Just think of all those billable hours.

Another thing for Francis to contemplate here on the floor of an empty crypt. Lawyers. Oh, how he hated them.

The court-appointed one he’d had for his last court case made him sick. He wanted to punch her out the moment she started talking to him. She looked at him as if he were crazy. She was the crazy one, not him.

The crypt was the perfect place to stash his guns and HCBs. Temporarily of course. He’d bring them home and stow them back under the kitchen table as soon as things cooled off. Plus, he had no idea which one was the murder weapon. It had all happened during one of his “episodes,” as his mother used to call them.

But it was true, he’d had plenty of blackouts. Hours, sometimes days where he couldn’t remember exactly where he’d been or what he’d done. He was known to drive around, sometimes great distances, make purchases, hold long conversations, and even check in and out of motel rooms during these periods. He’d checked the odometer on the car afterwards, when he’d come out of it, and sometimes there would be over a thousand miles registered.

Francis naturally kept a log of daily mileage on the old sedan, as well as every time he got gas, tune-ups, oil changes, even car washes.

You could never really be too careful.

All the shrinks called his episodes “psychotic breaks,” but they were all asses anyway. They just made their two hundred bucks an hour when they saw him, paid for by the government of course, after his court-ordered mental treatment. The judge was also an ass. A woman judge of course. That explained a lot.

Francis knew he didn’t have any such thing as psychotic breaks. He himself blamed it on the lithium. He’d taken it for years before he realized he could refuse to swallow the stuff. It was only after the old bag (his mother) died that he’d learned how she’d sneak it into his food when he chose to go off his meds.

But now, she was gone and he was off it for good. Things were so much clearer now.

Auntie Matilde’s vault was perfect. The Feds would never think to look here. Now, if he could only get out of here without Danny seeing him and becoming suspicious. He liked Danny well enough, that was true. But if it got out he’d hidden the murder weapon, if Danny found out somehow and got a subpoena to testify in court, their friendship would likely go straight down the crapper. Danny would sing like a bird if he had to.

Francis’s neck was cramping, and so was his left leg. He finally unfolded himself from his squatting position there at the slit of a window and sat down, stretching his legs out on the cold stone floor of the crypt. Leaning back against the wall, he forced himself to relax. No need to be anxious. He just had to wait.

Sitting there, he finally had a chance to admire his handiwork. It had taken days (and nights) to hollow out enough storage space to stash all the guns. But he did it, all right. After being kicked out of regular classes in high school, he’d been forced to go to shop classes to learn a trade. Well, guess what, Mother? They paid off. No one would notice the drill marks in Aunt Matilde’s vault.

To start with, the mausoleum was large and, of course, way over the top in predictable Cajun Catholic style. The Holy Mother Mary took center stage in the crypt; a large ivory-colored statue of her stood in the middle of the room, hoisted up on top of a large, square base. Around it were three separate benches, solid, oblong, rectangular seats. The benches, the statue’s base, even part of Mother Mary herself were now hollowed out and chock-full of guns wrapped in thick burlap sacks.

Perfect.

True, it had been hell lugging all these guns into the mausoleum. And especially his little babies, the liquid bombs in plastic Coke bottles. They had to be carried in just two at a time, each wrapped in layers of towels and stuffed down the front of his jacket.

They could all rest easy here, because with lawyers involved, it’d be years before they got the family lawsuit settled. Anyway, Francis had no reason to doubt Danny, and even though he’d witnessed the door left open on several occasions, he’d never actually seen anyone visiting. Plus, as far as he could tell, he was all alone in the crypt… No indication it was inhabited by a dead body. Just Francis and 253 guns, to be exact.

He had to be more careful. Just last week, with one of his last loads of guns stashed in his mother’s car trunk, Danny had noticed Francis lingering there. Danny had actually made a crack about how Francis was spending a lot more time lately at his mother’s grave.

It was totally out of character, since Francis, on many occasions, complained bitterly to Danny about how his mother had ruined his life. He better come up with a damn good explanation as to why he had a change of heart and was suddenly visiting now.

Details, details, details. The devil truly was in the details.

Francis peeked through the slot just in time to see Danny’s back disappear around a corner of tall hedges. He knew for a fact it was the spot where Danny hid when he wanted to take a nap.

Must have been a doobie he was smoking after all. Francis waited and watched for just a few more moments to make sure the coast was clear. With one last, quick glance around the vault, he headed for the door.

Just as he was stepping out, Francis stopped. Turning, he quickly stepped back into the vault just a few steps… just far enough to kneel down on his knees in front of the Mother Mary. She looked down at him mournfully. She looked sad, disappointed, as if she knew exactly what Francis had been up to. She looked like she knew about the red panties he’d stolen out of Leather Stockton’s bungalow at Shutters and what Francis did with them on a weekly basis.

He crossed himself three times because, you know, you just can never be too safe.

KOLKER PAUSED, THEN GRITTED HIS TEETH AND BUZZED THE DOORBELL.

Standing at the threshold of Hailey’s apartment was like déjà vu. Kolker had come here immediately after following her ambulance to the hospital that horrible morning. He’d found her lying on a dentist’s floor unconscious, the dead body of defense attorney Matt Leonard sprawled beside her.

As soon as he’d learned she was safe, he’d come straight to her apartment, used the spare key from the lobby after badgering Ricky, the doorman. Ricky had taken quite a bit of persuading in order to get him to give up the key without Haliey’s permission. But after Kolker told him what had happened and how he feared Clint Burrell Cruise could still be lingering around, Ricky relented.