Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

He stood a few feet away. Holding the knife toward her. “I heard you and him talking. You want to pin this on me-me and Star.”

“No, that’s not true.”

He waved the knife. “Don’t lie. I heard you talking. I heard what he was saying.”

“What you heard was fear that maybe Star did it. You heard fear, not certainty. You heard when he talked about Star, he couldn’t even make a complete sentence. Frank loves Star. She’s the daughter of his best friend. He’s her guardian now, and he’s scared to death for her. If you were listening, you had to have heard that.” Diane thought she saw a subtle change in his features. “Do you know who did this?” she asked.

“I didn’t. Neither did Star.”

“Why, then, are you standing here holding a knife on me?”

“ ’Cause. . Look, shut up. You don’t know nothing.”

“Why don’t you tell me?” She heard the high-pitched sound of her phone ringing in the other room. “That’s my phone. He’ll expect me to answer it.”

“He’ll just think you went to the bathroom or turned it off.”

“At any rate, he’ll be back soon.”

“I know.” He paced back and forth between her and the door. “I got to think.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Don’t talk. I got to think.”

“What’s your name?”

“Look, what do I have to do to get you to shut up?”

“Why did you pull me in here? Why didn’t you just hide out until we left? You must want something.”

“I thought you were going to search the house, and I’d get you first. And maybe you have some money.”

“Okay, now that you have me first, what are you going to do?”

He took a couple of steps toward her. “I could get rid of you.”

“If you didn’t kill Star’s parents, why start now? Look, let me help you. What’s your name?”

“Dean! It’s Dean. Are you satisfied? Don’t you think I know you just want to turn me in?”

“Turning yourself in might not be a bad idea.”

“It sounds like a bad idea to me. You people are all alike. You have to have control, tell me what to do.”

“No. You have control over what you do. You make up your own mind. I’m just suggesting you do something that works. This isn’t working for you. Look at yourself in the mirror. Unless rheumy eyes and snot running out of your nose is a new fad like green hair and body piercing, you’re not doing that well. You’re hungry, you’re alone, the police are looking for you-it’s not working.”

He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah, and just what do you think turning myself in will do?”

“It will be a start in solving this. It will look really good for you if your lawyer can say to the court that you turned yourself in because you’re innocent and want to help find out who killed your girlfriend’s parents.”

“Like they’re going to believe that. Besides, I can’t afford a lawyer. They’ll just give me one of those free ones that don’t know nothing.”

“Do you know how to make a silencer?”

He looked at Diane as if she were the one on drugs. “What? A silencer? Like a hit man uses? That metal thing you screw on your gun? No, I don’t know how to make one. How would I know how to make one of those?”

“How did you and Star get her grandfather’s coins?”

“Why are you asking me all these questions?”

“I want to help. Right now, that’s why the police are holding her. They think she took the coins after she killed her parents.”

“That’s a load of crap. She came back here and got them a couple of weeks ago. Been hanging on to them like they meant something.”

“Crystal McFarland told the police that the coins were in the house until the Boones were killed.”

“That’s a lie. How the fuck would she know anyway? Like Star’s father didn’t hate her worse than me.”

“Dean, why don’t you tell me everything? I’m trying to find out who killed Star’s family. Right now, I don’t believe it was Star or you. Won’t you put the knife down and talk to me?”

“I’ll hold on to the knife.”

“Make yourself look innocent. You think I’m going to jump you if you put it down?”

“No, but he will when he comes back.”

“No, he won’t. Not if you don’t have a weapon. Look, if I know him, when he gets back he’ll have enough food for an army. We’ll all sit down in the dining room and talk.”

As if on cue, Diane heard a car door slam. Dean gripped his knife tighter and looked at her, wide-eyed.

Diane held her breath as the door opened.

“Hey, I called. .”

“Frank, this is Dean. He’s going to eat with us and tell us about himself and Star. I hope you brought enough food.”

Frank stood in the front doorway, two large sacks of fast food in his arms, and stared at Diane and the teenager standing beside her.

“Hello, Dean,” he said, stepping inside and kicking the door closed behind him. “Shall we go into the dining room?”

The dining room, between the kitchen and foyer, was a bright yellow. Wilted parlor palms and peace lilies stood in the corners. Diane made a mental note to water them before she left. The round oak table had been dusted for fingerprints. She went into the kitchen to get something to use to wipe it off.

She stopped for a moment to look around. All the appliances, including the mixer, were pink. The floor was a checkerboard of black-and-white tiles. The countertops were a classic fifties design of squares with rounded corners and tiny antennae-the iconic symbol of the popular new and powerful innovation of the time, the television screen. Louise Boone had loved her home, she had loved to decorate it and loved to make it fun. Diane wet some paper towels, took some all-purpose squirt cleaner from under the sink and went to the dining room to remove the detritus left from collecting evidence of Louise’s murder.

They sat around the table and Frank pulled out the mounds of food he had brought back-cheeseburgers, corn dogs, chili-cheese pups, French fries, Cokes and a thermos full of coffee.

Dean downed four Krystal cheeseburgers and was on his second corn dog before he said anything. “We were in Atlanta when her parents were killed.”

“Is there anyone who will alibi you?” asked Frank.

“Not anyone the police would believe.”

“You said Star took the coins about two weeks ago,” said Diane. “Is there any proof of that?”

He threw a French fry on the table. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

“That’s not it,” said Diane. “Star was arrested because of the coins. If we can show the police proof that she already had them, then we’ll have a better chance of getting her released.”

“And proving that McFarland bitch is a liar? I don’t know. We came in when her parents were gone. She knew where they kept them. Said they were hers anyway, for her education. What would be proof? It’s not like she signed them out.”

“Did anyone see them?”

“Are you kidding? To Star they were the family jewels. She hid them, and even I didn’t know where they were.” Dean kicked his chair legs as he talked and fidgeted in his seat. He grabbed hold of a Coke and drank down half of it. “Is it true they used to be made with real coke-you know, cocaine?”

“Early on, it was made with trace amounts of the coca leaf,” said Frank.

Dean giggled. “I wish they still made it that way.” He pushed on his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Do you have anything for a headache?” He wiped his nose with a napkin.

“I think I can probably find something,” said Frank. He left the table and came back in two or three minutes with a bottle of aspirin and gave Dean a couple.