Christmas Mourning Read online

  “There was no deer stand and no Wednesday morning deer hunt, was there, Willie? We know why Jason borrowed your gun and this flashlight. He was going to show his little brother how to hunt deer at night, wasn’t he? Did you go along to hold the light?”

  “No! I didn’t go. I told you—I quit doing dumb stuff like that. He already lost his own gun for doing that and I told him if he wound up with the law taking mine, I was gonna take it out of his hide with a pipe wrench.”

  “So who did go on that hunt with them?”

  “Guy named Jack McBane was supposed to go with Jase. It was just gonna be the two of them, but they had a falling-out, so he said the hell with it, he’d take his brother instead.”

  “What was the falling-out about?”

  “Something to do with Jack’s girlfriend. That’s all I know. Honest.”

  “Jackson Dwayne McHenry, aka Henry Jackson, aka Dwayne Jackson,” said McLamb, reading McBane’s adult record off the computer screen. It was a record of escalating violence. He had punched out a store clerk at the age of sixteen, torn off part of someone’s ear in a bar fight at eighteen, was arrested for shooting up a car at twenty.

  As the list grew, they were beginning to think this could be their man, until McLamb uttered an involuntary expletive.

  “He was tried in district court here last Friday. Found guilty of a misdemeanor DWI, Level One, and was immediately taken into custody. Damn! Talk about an ironclad alibi.”

  “McHenry’s probably not the only violent guy Jason Wentworth ran with,” Dwight said. “Maybe the flashlight got smashed in a fight. Keep digging.”

  Joy Medlin showed up at 1:30 right on schedule. To Dwight’s surprise, however, she had been driven there not by her mother or father but by Jessica Knott, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Deborah’s brother Seth.

  Dressed in a dark blue warm-up suit, the injured cheerleader maneuvered into the interview room on crutches. The room was bare except for a metal table and four chairs. As Mayleen pulled out one of the chairs and reminded her that they had met before, Dwight shot an inquiring glance at his niece by marriage. Tall and sturdily built, with her grandfather’s clear blue eyes, she wore black stretch pants and a red cardigan over a white turtleneck jersey. Her earrings were small gold bells that gave a tiny jingle when she moved her head.

  Giving him a don’t-blame-me shrug, she murmured, “Sorry, Uncle Dwight. She seems to think you won’t be as rough on her if I’m here.”

  “And why would I be rough on her?” he asked.

  She did not answer, but moved on into the room to take her friend’s crutches and prop them in a corner.

  He and Mayleen sat down at the table across from the two girls. When introductions had been made all around and the girls had asked to be called by their first names, Dwight said, “Joy, I’m told that you and Mallory Johnson were best friends since first grade?”

  The girl nodded, her eyes wide and frightened.

  Of what? Dwight wondered. Taking a second, harder look at her, he could see that she was basically a pretty young woman. Or had been. Today her face was gray and pinched. There were deep shadows, almost like bruises, under her eyes, and her jaw was tight, as if she were clenching her teeth.

  Why?

  And then he remembered that Jessica had told him at lunch yesterday that Joy planned to wean herself off all painkillers over the holidays.

  “Are you sure you feel up to this?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not trying to quit your pain medication cold turkey, are you?”

  “No, sir. My doctor told me I could keep gradually increasing the time between doses. I’m due for another at three. I can make it.” Her smile was probably a ghost of what it once was. “In fact, being here takes my mind off the clock.”

  “Did you know Matt Wentworth?”

  “No, sir. I mean, I know he got killed this weekend, but he was a freshman and…” She hesitated. “Not to say something ugly about someone that just died, but he really wasn’t anybody who…”

  She looked to Jessica for help.

  “He ran with a different crowd,” Jessica said smoothly.

  “Yes.”

  “What about Mallory? Did she ever go out with him?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. He told his stepmother that she was his girlfriend and that he gave her a necklace for her birthday last weekend and took her to a movie.”

  “Mallory? Not in a million years, Major Bryant. She wouldn’t be seen dead with—”

  Her eyes filled with tears as she realized what she had said. She brushed them away impatiently. “Besides, her birthday’s in June, not December.”

  “How old are you, Joy?” Dwight asked abruptly.

  “Eighteen. Why?”

  “Legally you’re an adult now, but before I go further, I need to tell you that you have the right to counsel.”

  “A lawyer?” Her eyes widened even more. “Do I need one?”

  “I don’t know and I can’t advise you on that.”

  “Anything I say can and will be used against me?” In a wry voice, she said, “Isn’t that what they say on all the cop shows?”

  He did not return the smile. “That part’s accurate.”

  “Uncle Dwight!” Jessica protested.

  “I’m sorry, Jess, but this may be a murder investigation and she has to be warned.”

  “Murder?” said Jessica. “It was an accident. She swerved off the road and wrecked her car. How could that be murder?”

  “Jess, honey, I think you ought to wait outside.”

  “No, please, let her stay,” said Joy.

  Until then, Mayleen Richards had been silent. Now she placed a calming hand on the girl, who was becoming increasingly distraught. “He’s right, Joy.”

  “But shouldn’t I be here as her witness or something?” Jessica asked, reluctant to abandon her friend.

  “Not unless you’ve suddenly acquired a law degree, Jess. There’s a bench out there in the hall. Go sit on it, please, and close the door when you leave.”

  Half angry, half scared, Jessica did as she was told.

  Once the door was closed, Dwight again reminded Joy that she was entitled to an attorney.

  “I don’t want a lawyer,” Joy said. “I want to get this over with.”

  “As you wish. Do you see that camera over the door?”

  She nodded.

  “We’re going to record your statement. Richards?”

  In a quiet voice, the deputy recited the date and time, the people present, then gave the girl a formal reading of her rights. “Do you understand that, Miss Medlin?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you waive your right to an attorney of your own free will?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you wish to make a statement at this time?” Dwight asked.

  “Yes, please.” She took a deep breath. “I want to confess to causing Mallory’s death.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “I put a Vicodin tablet and some vodka in a Coke and switched cans with her when she wasn’t looking.”

  “When was that?”

  “About ten or fifteen minutes before she left the party.”

  “Was it your pill or Mrs. Crowder’s?”

  “I’m not sure. I think it was mine, but I lost count when they got mixed up.”

  “So you were the one who stole Mrs. Crowder’s pills?”

  Joy nodded. “Everybody knows I’ve been taking Vicodin for my ankle and Kevin said his mother was taking them, too, and that they seemed to be pretty strong and she was trying to do without them. I figured that meant they would be in her medicine cabinet. Our friends were all over the house, so I used the master bathroom and found them in the medicine cabinet.”

  “Why?” asked Dwight.

  “Because I was hurting and my doctor wouldn’t give me anything stronger. I still had five days to go before I could get a refill and I was dow
n to just three days. So I poured Mrs. Crowder’s pills into my prescription bottle. Only I didn’t realize that hers were twice as strong as mine till after I got home and looked at them more closely.”

  “And that’s what you gave Mallory?”

  “I thought it was mine, but it must have been Mrs. Crowder’s. Why else would she run off the road like that?” Tears rolled down her cheeks and she fumbled in her purse for tissues so that she could blow her nose. “I mean, I heard afterwards that she was taking Benadryl for her cold, but even with that and the vodka, one of my regular pills shouldn’t have made her so groggy that she would crash. I didn’t mean for her to die, Major Bryant,” she sobbed. “Honest. I thought maybe she might sideswipe a mailbox or go in the ditch. Like being drunk or something. So that for once everyone wouldn’t think she was perfect—that she could mess up, too.”

  “Is that why you’re taking yourself off the Vicodin?”

  She nodded, shamefaced. “I don’t care how much it hurts anymore. At least I can still hurt and Mallory can’t. And it’s all my fault.”

  “Were you jealous of her, Joy?”

  “I hated her!” the girl said vehemently.

  That surprised both officers. “I thought she was your best friend.”

  “No. That’s what she said. That I was her best friend.”

  Dwight glanced at Mayleen for help.

  “Why did you hate her, honey?” the deputy asked.

  “Stacy and Ted are dead because of her. Dana might as well be dead, and I’m going to limp the rest of my life. All because she wanted to mess up what Stacy and I had.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’d been putting the moves on him for over a week, pretending like it was all in fun, that coming on to him was just playing. I told him that, too, but he was, like, flattered. She was so pretty and so hot, he didn’t care if it was a game with her or not. I told her to quit it, but she wouldn’t. She kept texting him sexy messages. He thought she was going to put out for him when she’d never done it with anybody. That night—okay, I know he’d had a couple of beers too many and maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly, but all the same…”

  She shook her head angrily. “See, she suddenly quit texting him. That was part of her game. Go after them till they respond and then quit cold like she was going to drop them. Bang! She wouldn’t answer her phone if they called and she wouldn’t text them back. It drove guys crazy. It drove Stacy crazy. He kept checking his phone even though I was sitting right there beside him. Then finally, while we were driving home after a game, she texted him. Told him that if he dropped me off early, he could call her when he was alone and they could have phone sex. Oh, that’s not what she wrote, but that’s what she meant, and he got so excited, he just stomped on the gas. Two minutes later, he was dead and my ankle was shattered in a million pieces.”

  She pulled more tissues from her purse and blew her nose and wiped her eyes, but the tears kept coming.

  “So, yes, I hated her for that, but I swear I never meant to kill her. I didn’t!”

  At that, she turned to Mayleen.

  “What’s going to happen to me? Will I have to go to prison? Oh, God! Mama and Daddy! This is going to wreck their lives.”

  “I don’t know,” Dwight told her honestly. “It will be up to the district attorney. We still don’t have all the details of that night.” He pushed a legal pad over to her side of the desk. “For now, though, I want you to write out what you just told us about taking Mrs. Crowder’s pills and how you put a pill and some vodka in a Coke and gave it to Mallory. Then sign and date it.”

  “And then I can go home?”

  “And then you can go home. Just promise me you won’t do something stupid.”

  “Like kill myself?” She gave a bitter laugh. “I thought about it. I felt so bad, I almost took all of Mrs. Crowder’s pills. But then I knew I couldn’t do that to my parents. Seeing how torn up Mallory’s folks are?” She shook her head. “This is going to hurt them when they find out what I’ve done, but not like it would if I killed myself.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The southern colonies, largely rural and unhampered by Quaker and Puritan dissenters… cultivated Christmases of a very different sort.

  —Christmas in America, Penne L. Restad

  With Christmas bearing down upon us, I could understand why the DA’s office wanted to reduce the backlog of cases that had built up under Chester Nance’s poor management, but when ADA Julie Walsh handed me yet another batch of miscellaneous add-ons that various attorneys had pushed to be heard that Tuesday afternoon, I guess I let my exasperation show.

  Although it goes against my grain to badmouth a Democrat, in my heart of hearts, I really wish Nance’s moderate and extremely efficient Republican opponent had won.

  “Sorry, Your Honor,” Walsh apologized. “I’m pretty sure these are the last of the day.”

  Julie Walsh looks like a sweet little schoolteacher with her sandy blond hair in a loose braid, sensible pumps, and a businesslike tweed jacket over a black turtleneck and black slacks, but she has the persistence of a dog worrying a bone when she’s pushing for a conviction, so I listened to the plea bargains she had worked out with the accused and their attorneys and agreed with most of them, although I did increase a couple of the penalties and lowered some of the others depending on the aggravating or mitigating circumstances of each case.

  Not everything was serious that afternoon and a certain holiday lightheartedness permeated the proceedings once a twelve-year-old child took the witness stand to testify that yes, indeed, she certainly did see the defendant pick up a two-by-four and smack her uncle on the head. With the face of an angel, blond curls, bright blue eyes, and a ruffled white blouse, she could have stepped off a Christmas card. She placed her small hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Because of her age, I leaned forward and said, “Do you understand what you just said, Taylor?”

  Taylor nodded her curly blond head. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And do you know what will happen if you don’t tell the truth?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” she said earnestly. “I’ll go to hell and the devil’s fiery furnace.”

  Suppressing a smile, I told Ms. Walsh she could proceed. I thought it was safe to assume that we’d hear nothing but truthful answers to her questions.

  In the late afternoon, I looked up and saw my niece Jessica enter the courtroom. There was a lull in the proceedings as Walsh conferred with an attorney who wanted to change his client’s plea, and I motioned Jess forward.

  “What’s up?” I asked in a low voice, seeing the unhappiness on her face.

  “Uncle Dwight wanted to talk to Joy—Joy Medlin—and she asked me to come with her. But now he won’t let me stay in the room. She said she didn’t want a lawyer, but I’m afraid she’s going to say something she’ll wish she hadn’t and shouldn’t she have somebody in there with her? Somebody on her side?”

  “How old is she, honey?”

  “Eighteen. And yes, I do know that means she’s an adult and can speak for herself, but she’s hurting so bad, she can’t be thinking clearly.”

  “Did you call her parents?”

  “No. She didn’t want them to know where we were going.” Her eyes were troubled as she confessed, “They think we’re Christmas shopping.”

  Joy Medlin had been at that party, so if she was now spilling her soul to Dwight, it wasn’t much of a stretch to wonder if she was responsible for the alcohol in Mallory’s bloodstream.

  “I’m sorry she didn’t wait and get an attorney,” I told Jess, “but your Uncle Dwight’s not going to put thumbscrews on her. He’ll go by the book.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry, Jess. For what it’s worth, if she tells him anything that’s self-incriminating—if—I imagine an attorney will find a way to get it tossed out.”

  It was Job’s comfort, but the best I could offer under
the circumstances, and she accepted it glumly.

  “Now I’ve really got to get back to work. Are you still sitting with Cal tonight?”

  She nodded and I watched her leave as unhappy as when she came. I couldn’t fathom why Joy would spike her best friend’s Coke, if indeed that’s what she’d done, but I’ve had enough teens in my courtroom—hell! I’ve watched enough of my own teenage nieces and nephews mess up—to know that they can do stupid and impulsive things without considering the consequences.

  Like Frederick Arnold Hallman, seventeen, white, brand-new short haircut, and dressed in a gray suit he had outgrown. He rose to plead guilty to setting off a string of firecrackers inside a local movie house. An elderly black man had thought a trigger-happy gunman was firing randomly and promptly had a heart attack. The man had recovered and the boy had been so genuinely remorseful that he had mowed the man’s grass all summer and they had become friends. With the older man there to speak on his behalf, I gave an appropriate fine, added some community service, and put the boy on unsupervised probation for six months.

  My last case for the day was a middle-aged black man who had violated his probation so that he was not only on the hook now for his original suspended sentence, but was about to get an additional three months’ prison time.

  This was not the first time he’d faced lockup, and his attorney had come prepared. “Your Honor, my client hopes that in view of the season, you’ll let his two sentences run concurrently rather than consecutively.”

  Her client was nodding vigorously and I fixed the man with a stern look. “And why should I do that, Mr. Adams?”

  “ ’Cause of all my hardships, ma’am. See, I’ve got a lot of people depending on me. My mama’s got the sugar, my wife’s real poorly, and now my daughter’s got the smiling mighty Jesus.”

  “The what?” I asked.

  “The smiling mighty Jesus,” he repeated.

  I looked at his attorney, who with a perfectly straight face said, “I believe his daughter has spinal meningitis, Your Honor.”