Jeff Abbott - Only Good Yankee

“My God! He wanted you to put a bomb in my house!” “Not a bomb-the makings of a bomb. It wasn’t all hooked up together.” She let out a long, unhappy sigh. “I told him no way, no way in hell. He offered me ten thousand. I said no, not any business of mine. He reached in his jacket, and I thought for sure he was getting a gun to shoot me dead, but he pulled out a thousand dollars. A thick wad, in twenty-dollar bills. He pushed it in my hand and said we’d never talked. He said if I did talk, keeping the money wasn’t going to pay for the trouble I’d buy myself.” “My God. He wanted to make me look like the bomber.” I stared at her. “What did you do?” She surveyed the lawn again. “I kept the money. I was afraid to say anything-he frightened me. There was something about his eyes, a blankness behind them that made me all shivery. And Jordy, a thousand dollars is a lot. I guess I can’t buy back your trust with it. I thought he wanted to pull some mean prank on you because of you and Lorna’s past. I thought maybe he was involved with her. Or maybe I thought he’d be gone soon and I could just take the money and put it in my granddaughter’s college fund. But then he turned up dead, and no one at all had to know he’d given me that money. I figured it was okay, ‘cause at least he couldn’t hurt you like how he wanted to. “I didn’t have to say anything and I could keep the money. At least, I thought I could.” She shook her head. “I ain’t cut out for this shit. I can always keep other people’s secrets but never my own.” I was hardly listening to her. Greg had wanted to frame me as Mirabeau’s least favorite explosive personality. Why? What on earth did he have to gain? I looked over at Clo; I’d been staring off at the wall as she talked. A hot anger boiled up in me. This woman, who had cared for my mother, for me, our family-she’d taken money from a man who wanted to implicate me as a criminal, and not said a word. “And if he hadn’t died, I guess you would have just stayed quiet about it.” My voice was cold. Her stoic mouth trembled for a moment. “I don’t know what I would have done, Jordy.” She fumbled in her purse and drew out a roll of crisp bills. “I can’t spend it. I can’t put it in the bank, I can’t even put it into Diane’s college fund!” Diane was Clo’s granddaughter, a pretty, precociously bright girl of ten. “It’s like blood money. I wished I’d never stepped out of the car with it!” Her thick hand, closed around the roll, shook in anger. I didn’t feel much sympathy for her. “I think you better go, Clo. I’m sorry that our family wasn’t worth more than a thousand dollars to you-” She threw the money in my face; the rubber-banded wad of cash bounced off my forehead. If I hadn’t been so numbed by her news, I imagine it would have hurt. “I wish I had your smug superiority, but I don’t.” She was screaming now, and tears made her voice ragged. “Instead I got one son to support ‘cause he can’t find work and a grandbaby to raise ‘cause her mama’s dead. I don’t get to sit behind a library desk all day on my ass. I have to take care of people that are going to die soon. And I try not to love them, but I do. People like your mama. I’m sorry I made a mistake, but I made it.

Only you can forgive me for it. I ain’t gonna forgive myself anytime soon.” I glanced up; Lorna leaned in the kitchen doorway, a shocked look on her face, and Mark stood stock-still on the stairs, his mouth gaping. I didn’t know what to say; I felt the molten pain of betrayal-in my gut, in my heart, in my head. My mouth was dry. “I-I suppose you should tell Junebug about this. Maybe Greg knew who the bomber really was.” “All right, I will.” Her tears were gone, wiped away on the back of her hand. “I suppose you don’t want me around here no more. Like I said, I’ll send my resignation to Mr. Goertz.”

Sister’d kill me if I let Clo go. But what was I supposed to do? This woman was caring for my mother, yet she’d stayed quiet for money, knowing that I or my family might be in danger from Greg Callahan. The trust I’d felt for her lay shattered. “I think that would be best, Clo. I’m sorry.” “I’m sorry, too, Jordy. More than you will ever know.” She glanced up at Mark. “Tell your Mamaw goodbye for me, sugar pie.” She turned to Lorna. “You be glad that man’s dead, miss. He was nothing but trash through and through.” Lorna didn’t answer. I didn’t look up as the front door closed behind her. I was still staring at the thousand dollars at my feet. Lorna had more presence of mind than I did; she picked it up using a towel and dropped it in a paper bag.

“Junebug’ll probably want it,” she said. I nodded, hating Greg, hating myself, and wondering if I should let Lorna keep a hold on that money.

I took the bag from her and said, “I’ll keep it for him.” She nodded and went back into the kitchen. Mark had vanished upstairs. I went to go lie down on my bed. I closed my eyes. Try not to think about Clo.

The sharp sting of betrayal still hurt. Was I being unfair? Could I forgive her? I rubbed my eyes through closed lids. If Candace was right, Lorna was betraying me in a way possibly worse than Clo-yet I’d given Clo, who had confessed, a tongue-lashing, and I’d given Lorna, who hadn’t, a peanut-butter cookie. I wasn’t being entirely fair by being understanding toward one and damning toward the other. I rolled over and called the police station. According to Junebug, the Boston police had found an address for a Doreen Miller, but she apparently was no longer in residence. They were still looking for her. He had not offered an opinion about the passworded and destroyed Intraglobal computer files. I could only imagine what he would make of Clo’s tale.

I tried to be analytical. Greg wanted me to look like the bomber. Why?

What was his connection to the bomber? I drew two quick blanks, discarding the notion that he considered me a serious rival for Lorna’s affections. Unless he’d been madly in love with her and we hadn’t known it. Had he planned on blackmailing me into selling my land? That wouldn’t have worked, him using some manufactured secret against me. It made no sense. My black eye hurt and I resisted the urge to rub it. Greg asking Clo to plant phony evidence against me had nearly eclipsed my misadventures with Parker, Dee, and Jenny (I’d never seen a whole family of suspects before, but then I’m not a cop) and Candace’s accusation against Lorna. Not to mention that Tiny Parmalee, with all things considered, was the only person vicious enough to do these crimes anyway and could not be eliminated from the running; and neither could his probable puppet master, Nina Hernandez.

And how did poor Freddy Jacksill, getting blown to smithereens in Greg’s room, tie in? He must’ve known something about Greg and gotten killed for it. Something Greg did here in town and no one wanted known-was there a reason not only that Freddy got killed, but that he was murdered in Greg’s room? My headache was not ebbing with all this arduous speculation. I kept thinking about Lorna and those files. A rap at the door interrupted my completely chaotic train of theories.

“Uncle Jordy?” Mark stuck his head in. “Lorna wants to know if you want some dinner.” “Yeah, I guess. I’ll come down in a minute and fix something.” “You better. She’s talking about cooking something called bread dressing, but it doesn’t have cornbread in it Sounds real gross.” “It is, trust me. It’s not like dressing you’re used to. I’ll be down in a minute.” A stray notion, hovering on the edge of my speculations, crowded to the front of my brain for attention. The odd phone number in Greg’s room that I’d traced to the Johnson family.

“Hey, Mark, do you know two kids at the high school named Brice and Becca Johnson? A little older than you?” Mark nodded. “Brice is a geek. He’s going off to major in chemistry at A amp; M this fall.”