Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

‘She’s missing.’

‘I’m telling you, I don’t know who she is! That’s the truth.’

‘We’re taking your laptop, Al. We’ll find out all about the chat rooms. You might as well tell us about it. And who you’re working with.’

‘Man, I can’t tell you what I don’t know! I don’t even own a laptop.’

‘Cat says she took a ring from your house,’ Stride said. ‘A black pearl ring. Where did you get it?’

Al stared at them. ‘Ring? I don’t have any ring. Shit, man, laptops and pearl rings. Does it look like we got the money for stuff like that? I’m lucky if we got mac and cheese for dinner.’

‘This ring was stolen during a murder in Duluth almost nine years ago,’ Stride told him. ‘The gun that was used back then is the same gun that murdered a woman outside the Grizzly Bear Bar last month. The ring and the gun are connected , Al. And Cat says that ring came from this house.’

Al tried to stand up, but Stride shoved him down. ‘Aw, man, are you kidding? I don’t know anything about a ring, and I sure as hell don’t know anything about a gun! You guys are crazy!’

Maggie looked up as they heard a commotion inside the house. The front door wrenched open, and a woman in her late thirties stormed onto the porch, long hair flying. Guppo, in hot pursuit behind her, grabbed her flailing wrists, but when that didn’t stop her, he bear-hugged the woman and lifted her off the ground. Her legs kicked, and one high heel flew off like a missile. Her voice got louder and screeched for the heavens.

‘You people let me go and get out of my house!’

Al stood up again, trying to calm her. ‘Mom, Mom, knock it off, it’s okay.’

‘Put me down!’ she screamed at Guppo.

Guppo did, but he didn’t let her go. Al bounded up the steps before Stride could stop him and put his arms around his mother. She kept screaming. Police officers ran from different parts of the neighborhood. Finally, Stride shouted, raising his voice above the chaos, and everyone stopped in place.

It was silent. Al’s mother panted. Her face was furious. Her raspy voice dissolved in a coughing fit.

‘Listen,’ Al said, sounding calmer and older now, like a boy who wanted to protect his mother. ‘I don’t know what Cat told you guys, but you are on the wrong track. I swear. I don’t know anything about this ring she has, and I sure as hell don’t know anything about a gun.’

Maggie stared at Al’s mother. She was young, but she looked old. The woman wiped spittle from her lips and stared back at Maggie.

‘You know about the gun,’ Maggie said to her quietly. ‘Don’t you, Mrs. Pugh?’

Al started to interrupt, but then he saw his mother’s face, and he let her speak. She stood up straight and smoothed the housedress she was wearing. She was tall, like Al. The boy couldn’t hide his confusion. This was all new to him, but it wasn’t new to his mother.

She knew exactly what was going on.

‘Yes,’ she told Maggie. ‘Okay, yes, I do. I know all about that gun.’

They sat inside. One of Mrs. Pugh’s daughters made tea. The search of the house was over, but it had revealed nothing of importance in either murder investigation. There was no hidey-hole in the house or grounds in which the kidnapped women had been kept. Erin Tierney wasn’t here. She never had been. There was no jewelry from nine years earlier.

Everyone stared at Al’s mother, waiting for her story. There was an oversized photograph of Seymour Pugh with his family in a frame that leaned against a freshly painted wall. Maggie recognized the man from her visit years before. He still had the same smile, but life had corroded him at a fast pace. She wasn’t surprised to learn that he’d died of a stroke three years after she met him.

Mrs. Pugh stared at the photograph, too, and Maggie saw pride in the fierce little smile she gave Seymour. This was a woman who loved her husband, no matter what he’d done.

‘What you’re thinking is what it is,’ Mrs. Pugh finally told them. ‘It was Seymour who did it. He shot that man. Took the jewelry. Guess it doesn’t matter now, although I didn’t want Al and the girls finding out about their daddy. Seymour’s long gone, God rest him. I know Jesus forgives him. Jesus understands what he did.’

Mrs. Pugh was silent. She wiped her eyes.

‘The gun?’ Stride asked. ‘Where did he get it?’

‘He bought it on one of his road trips. Never told me about it. I would have made him get rid of it.’

She sat primly with her knees pressed together. Her fleshy body would have been toned once, and her worn-out face with its tumbling black hair would have been pretty. Maggie could imagine her and Seymour, hooking up, having kids, bumping into the struggles of life. It wasn’t easy then, and it wasn’t easy now. Her chest wheezed. She sucked in the air around her but never seemed to get enough.

‘Did you know what he was planning to do?’ Maggie asked.

‘No, no, ’course I didn’t. He wouldn’t dare tell me. He knew I’d kick his ass if I heard about it.’

‘Then why did he do it?’

Mrs. Pugh gave them a rattling sigh and stared at her lap. ‘For his family, what else? For me, for Al, for the girls.’

‘You needed money?’

‘Sure we did. A man does what a man’s gotta do when it’s his family. Jesus understands.’

‘When did you find out?’ Stride asked.

Her shoulders gave a little shrug. ‘Don’t remember. Few weeks later, I guess. Some cop came by the house, asking questions. Seymour said it was nothing to worry about, but I knew he was lying. That night, after the kids were in bed, I got it out of him. He told me what he’d done. Showed me the gun. The jewelry. He was too scared to unload any of it. I told him to bury it all somewhere. Get it out of the house. Throw it in the lake. Whatever. I didn’t want it here. I thought he got rid of everything, but I was wrong. He kept it. After Seymour died, I was going through his stuff in the attic, and I found a shoebox hidden in the rafters. There was the gun. The jewels he’d stolen. I tell you, I swore a blue streak at that man!’

Serena leaned forward. ‘What did you do with the box?’

‘I shoved it up on a shelf in my bedroom closet. I didn’t feel safe getting rid of it myself, and it’s not like I was going to tell you people what I found. Figured you’d lock me up if I did.’

‘What happened to the gun and the jewelry?’ Stride asked.

‘Far as I know anything, it’s still in the box.’

‘It’s not. We found the box. It’s empty.’ Stride’s head swiveled to her son. ‘Al, if you know anything about that box — about what was in it—’

The young man shook his head. ‘I don’t know a thing. I never saw it. I never even knew it was there.’

Maggie saw Stride and Serena exchange a sober glance, and she knew what that look meant. Cat. If it wasn’t Al, it was Cat. Cat found the box. Cat found the ring. And along with the ring was the gun that murdered Jay Ferris and Kelly Hauswirth.

‘When was Cat here painting the house?’ Stride asked, with a frown that looked as if his world were ending.

‘Sometime in May,’ Al said.

‘Did Cat paint your bedroom while she was here, Mrs. Pugh?’ Serena asked the woman in a soft voice. ‘Could she have gone in your closet and found the box on the shelf?’

Al’s mother scratched her chin and thought about it. Then she said: ‘No, the pretty young one was painting downstairs. Sweet girl. I liked her laugh. It was the other girl that did the bedrooms upstairs. The pasty one with the Halloween hair. She was a little creepy, I have to say.’

‘The other one?’ Serena asked.

‘Anna,’ Al interjected quickly. ‘The waitress at the bar. Anna Glick.’