Charlaine Harris - Day Shift

Olivia felt depressed now. And that made her angrier. She’d done well, she thought, and this was the thanks she got: none at all.

“Listen, shrimp, no one can ever prove that you put her meds in her drink, because you didn’t. Bertha did.”

Manfred sat down abruptly. “Lewis just told me Bertha did it. But I didn’t know whether to believe him.”

“I looked up Morton’s will,” she said. “He did leave everything to his wife first, and after she died, to the heirs of his body. He had his money in a trust. Rachel had the use of the trust in her lifetime, but after that, yada yada yada.”

“And John really is Morton’s son?”

“Morton apparently suspected he was, or he wouldn’t have worded the will that way. I found a way to read it online.” She smiled with considerable pride.

“But why kill Rachel? If the money would eventually come to John anyway?”

“I’m just guessing, but John was arrested recently. That’s public record, too. Not in Bonnet Park, but in Abilene. For vehicular manslaughter. He totaled his car and his passenger was killed. So he was facing a trial. And he had no dinero for a lawyer. I don’t know if Bertha tried to get Rachel to cough up the money or if she even told Rachel what was going on. But John needs money, and he needs it now.”

“But it would still have to go through probate, right?” Even his grandmother’s meager estate had had to go through probate. “I needed money to keep the house running after Xylda died, and the lawyer let me have it.”

“I bet he would have let you have money for an attorney if you were facing criminal charges.”

“That… well, I just don’t know.” Manfred suddenly felt the whole day crash down on him like a ton of bricks.

“Where are you going?” Olivia asked sharply.

“To bed, Olivia,” he said. “I just can’t…” He never finished his sentence but went into his bedroom and closed the door.

And now, it seemed, Olivia would have to clean up Bertha’s body all by herself. She had counted on the tigers doing their thing and eating most of Bertha, but she guessed that was not going to happen. She went outside again.

“When I called you and told you to follow Lewis, this is not what I expected,” Olivia said to what was left of Bertha.

It hadn’t been hard to incite Lewis into tearing over to Midnight. Not hard at all, especially after she’d told him about the newscast. She’d pretended to be a reporter, and she’d repeated everything Manfred had said, and embellished some. And once he’d threatened to confront the fiend who’d ruined his life, Olivia had called Bertha. The result had been pretty damn near perfect. Except, of course, if the body is found and the law starts looking for tigers. Boy, the Rev won’t like that at all…. And this thought, which she admitted she should have had much sooner, worried Olivia quite a bit.

Okay, the body wouldn’t be found. And Bertha’s car wouldn’t be, at least for a while. Olivia hoped she had another shower curtain and extra duct tape stockpiled in her apartment. They were the handiest tools for body disposal. And she’d have to keep a close watch out for the tigers, not a hazard at any body disposal site she’d ever attended. She went down to her apartment, humming.

When she came back out some twenty minutes later, Olivia was pleasantly surprised to find that the body was gone. Only a bloody patch showed where it had lain. In the interest of tidiness, she attached the Rev’s hose to Manfred’s outside water faucet and spent ten minutes hosing down the evidence. There was still a chance of rain, but better to get the process started.

She thought, At least he can pay for the water.

Joe went out to exercise the next morning for the first time since he’d hurt his ankle. He couldn’t run, but he could walk. He turned east instead of west because he wanted to check on the death site. He and Chuy had heard the scream the night before, and they’d hugged each other. After a short time, he’d observed one of the tigers dragging something across the street and through the gate into the pet cemetery. And he’d seen Olivia cross the street to fetch the Rev’s outside hose, so he figured she’d watered down the ground.

Joe was willing to bet that the Rev was in the pet cemetery now, digging a deep grave. There were several deep graves in the burial ground. The Rev put the illicit bodies very far down and buried the pets on top of them. It was his technique. “The exercise is good for me,” he’d told Joe, back when he was talking more. As the years had gone by, the Rev spoke more and more seldom.

Before he’d gone far out of town, Joe heard someone running behind him. He half turned his head and glimpsed the tall man who’d left Diederik with the Rev. He was a little surprised that the man was up to running this morning, but then, were-animals were high-energy creatures. Joe was taking it easy on his ankle, and it wasn’t long before the taller man had caught up with him. He passed Joe with a nod, which Joe returned.

Joe turned around a few minutes later, because he was feeling an unpleasant ache in his injured leg. When it began to nag at him, he slowed still more.

By and by, he heard footsteps behind him. The sun was beginning to hammer down, and Joe was streaming with sweat, and at first he thought he was just hearing his pulse hammering in his ears. But the tall man was coming up behind him, and after another moment he fell into step beside Joe.

“You may be thinking what a terrible father I am,” he began.

“Let’s stop by Fiji’s. Maybe you should tell her this story,” Joe said. “She’s taken great care of your boy, more than any of us.” After that they proceeded in silence.

Though it was early in the morning and her store had not yet opened, Fiji was dressed and working in her garden when they strolled up. She didn’t seem surprised when Joe called to her; he thought perhaps she had seen both of them set out on their run, and put herself in their way. She rocked back on her heels and stood up, putting her hand over her eyes to look up at the two men. Though Fiji smiled, at her feet Mr. Snuggly glared up at the tall man.

The tall man squatted down. The sun gleamed on his bald head as he held out his hand to Mr. Snuggly. “Little brother, you have nothing to fear from me,” he said. “And neither does Miss Fiji.” The cat stared at the man’s hand. Then he turned and strolled away, his tail straight up in the air. Giving the cat version of the finger, Joe figured.

After a moment, the man straightened and stood. He looked from Joe to Fiji, and Joe noticed his eyes were purple, like pansies. Like his son’s. “I’m Quinn,” he said. “My son tells me that you’ve all been taking care of him. Especially you, Miss Fiji.”

“Just Fiji will be fine. Diederik’s a cute kid,” she said slowly, as a preliminary. Joe thought she wasn’t sure how to put what she wanted to say. “Really, we all helped to take care of him. The Rev…” She paused. Then she decided to be blunt. “What the hell,” she said. “You gotta know, Mr. Quinn, that the Rev was not the best person to leave a little boy with. No matter how much he looks like he’s in his teens, Diederik’s still a kid. Especially in view…” She looked at Joe for support, and he nodded.

“We wonder what the story is,” Joe said, simplifying.

“I deserve that,” Quinn said. “And I want to explain. I didn’t think there were any other weretigers left in North America. In fact, I was wondering if I was the last one in the world when I met Diederik’s mother, Tijgerin. The first time she got pregnant, she told me she wanted to be a traditional mother. That means she would raise the cub on her own. I hated the idea, but she wanted to do things the way her own mother had. But Tijgerin lost the cub. We were sad. Really sad. But we both figured it wasn’t likely that something else would go wrong with another pregnancy. So after a time, we made another baby. I was sure she would be different this time, but I was wrong. Tijgerin was still convinced she was right. She wanted to raise him old-school. Away from me.” The big man shook his head. Joe could feel the sadness and regret emanating from him.