Charlaine Harris - Real Murders

My mother was a friend of Bankston’s mother, and she was terrified of seeing Mrs. Waites again. “That poor woman,” Mother said. “How can she live with having raised a monster like that? The other Waites children are fine people. What happened? He’s known you all your life, Aurora! How could he hurt you? How could he think of hurting a child?”

“Who knows?” I said wearily. “He was having a great time, the time of his life.” I had no sympathy to spare for Bankston’s mother, right now. I had no extra emotion of any kind to throw around. I was drained, exhausted, and in pain. I had bruises and bandages galore. Even Robin’s kiss didn’t make me feel lecherous, just raised the possibility that someday I might feel that way. He was picking up his jacket now, getting ready to go.

“Robin,” I murmured. I seemed to be drifting down into sleep. He turned, and I realized that he was spent, too. His tall shoulders were stooped, the crinkly mouth drooping down at the corners. Even his flaming hair looked limp.

“You saved me,” I said.

“Nah, Jed Crandall saved you,” he said with an attempt at being off-hand. “I was just back-up muscle.”

“You saved me. Thank you.” And then I drifted down a long spiral into sleep.

When I woke up again the clock said 3:30 a.m. Someone else was sitting in the guest chair, someone short and stocky and blond and fast asleep. Arthur’s head was slumped forward on his chest and he was snoring a little. I’d have to remember that.

My mouth was dry and my throat sore, so I reached for the cup of water on the bedside table. Naturally, it was just out of reach. I wiggled painfully sideways, still stretching, but then Arthur handed it to me.

“I didn’t want to wake you up,” I told him.

“I was just dozing,” he said quietly.

“What happened?”

“Well, we found a box of-mementoes-at Melanie Clark’s little rented house.”

“Mementoes?” I asked with dread.

“Yes. Pictures.”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear more.

He nodded. “Pretty awful. They photographed Mamie and the Buckleys after they died. And Morrison Pettigrue. Melanie made advances to him, it turns out, and she got him to get undressed that way. Then she killed him, and let Bankston in, and they arranged him.”

“So they confessed?”

“Well, Bankston did. He was proud.”

“So they weren’t like Hindley and Brady in the end.”

“No. Melanie tried to kill herself.”

“Oh,” I said after a moment. “Oh, no.”

“We had a watch on them both, so we caught her fairly quickly. She had taken off her bra and was trying to hang herself with it.”

So grotesque, but at least it showed human feeling.

“She was sorry,” I said softly.

“No,” Arthur said definitely. Sharply. “She didn’t want to be separated from Bankston.”

There seemed to be nothing to say. I handed my cup back to Arthur, who put it on the beside table and automatically refilled it.

“They were mad we hadn’t found the weapon Bankston used to kill Mamie Wright. They were sure they’d planted it where we couldn’t help but find it. It was a hammer they’d stolen from LeMaster Cane’s garage, and it had his initials on it. But as it turns out, some kids had picked it up the same night they killed her, and the kids only got scared and turned it in tonight. Evidently Melanie and Bankston were going to use the golf clubs in the future. After you saw Bankston carrying them into his place-he’d just showered over at Melanie’s after killing the Buckleys, and he was going to get the clubs out of his car at a time when he thought no one would be out and about at the apartments-he got scared and ditched the bag, the only distinctive thing about the set, the next dark night. But he kept one or two of the clubs on the off-chance he might need a weapon. Then you and Crusoe found the briefcase… we fell down on that one. I don’t mind telling you, we wondered about Crusoe for a while after that. Tonight I was ready to shoot him when I saw him charging into Waites’s place with a shotgun, but Jed Crandall’s wife was running out of her gate saying, ”My husband and Mr. Crusoe have gone down in Bankston Waites’s basement to catch the murderer!“ I was half expecting to see Perry Allison down in that basement, standing over Waites’s body, and yours, and Phillip’s.”

“Where is Perry? Does anyone know?” It was Sally’s call that had sent me running out in the dark soon enough to raise the alarm so Bankston and Melanie hadn’t a chance to get Phillip away.

“He’s checked himself into a mental hospital in the city,” Arthur said.

That was undoubtedly the place for him, but it would be hard on Sally.

“Benjamin?”

“We’re sending him to State Psychiatric for evaluation. He also confessed to several other murders we’d definitely solved. Somehow finding Pettigrue’s body unhinged him.”

“Oh, Arthur,” I said wearily, and began to cry for so many different reasons I couldn’t count them. Arthur stuffed tissues in my hand, and after a while brought over a wet washrag and wiped my face very carefully.

“I guess roller skating tomorrow night is off?” Arthur asked seriously.

I gaped at him in shock until I realized that Arthur-of all people!-was making a joke. I couldn’t help smiling. It slid all around my face, but it was a smile.

“I’ve got to go back to the station, Roe. They’re still sorting through the stuff they found in the search, and there’s a lot we don’t know yet. How Bankston got Mamie Wright to come to the meeting early. Why he let Melanie mail you that candy. He’d bought it for her and brought it back from some convention in St. Louis. But she had it in for you in a big way, and she thought you were the one who liked chocolate creams. That was the stupidest crime, since the typewriter’s sitting in Gerald Wright’s insurance office. We need to ask more questions, so we can back up these confessions with some solid evidence. Bankston has waived his right to have a lawyer present, but sooner or later he’s gonna regret it and that’ll be the end of the confession. Back to work for me.”

“Okay, Arthur. I was glad to see you come down the stairs tonight.”

“I was glad to see you alive.”

“It was close.”

“I know.” Then he bent over and kissed me, and I thought I was getting to be quite a hussy.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he promised, and then he was gone, and for the first time in forever I was alone. I was exhausted to the bone, but I could not sleep. I was afraid to close my eyes.

I turned on the television to CNN, to find that I was on it. They were using a picture I’d had made when I joined the library staff. I looked impossibly sweet and young.

I was on the news. I’d be in the books when this case joined others in accounts of true murder cases. I had seen real murderers and I had almost been really murdered. That was something to ponder. I flicked the remote control to off.

I thought of Bankston and Melanie coming into the VFW Hall that night, disappointed to see me, maybe, since they expected I would have received and eaten the chocolate by that time. And I could see them waiting, waiting, for someone there to go looking for Mamie Wright. I remembered how fresh from the shower Bankston had looked when he was carrying in the stolen golf bag the day the Buckleys had been slaughtered. He’d been so shiny and clean… I had never, never suspected him. I heard Melanie’s voice as she’d said,

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” and kicked me.

It was too close, too recent, I’d been frightened too deeply.

Of course, this hadn’t turned out to be a real puzzler, like the 1928 intrafamilial poisonings in Croyden, England, unsolved to this day. Was Mrs. Duff guilty?… or could it have been… I drifted away in sleep.