Lowcountry Boneyard (29 page)

Thirty-Five

I studied the lock on the gate on the way in. It was a padlock, an old one, but substantial, hanging from a chain. After hours, the chain was no doubt looped through the iron gates and secured with the lock. For anyone who cared to watch a YouTube video, it would be easy to pick.

I pulled over in front of the white, two-story building and went inside. A short vestibule led to an office. A smiling middle-aged lady walked towards me and met me at the door to the room. “Good afternoon. Can I help you?” She was a sweet soul—that much shined from her eyes. The way she emphasized the word help reminded me of the librarian at the Stella Maris branch.

“Good afternoon. Thank you so much.” I showed her my ID and license. “I’m wondering if you could tell me who was buried here on Saturday, September thirteenth of this year.”

She gave me a look that signified that was an unusual request.

“Ma’am, this is in regards to a missing person’s investigation.”

“Oh,” she said. Her eyes got bigger. “Oooh.” She nodded.

She turned around and went to her desk. She tapped the keys of her computer, wrote something down, and came back to the door. She handed me the piece of paper. “There was only one. Mr. Roger Vanderhorst. He was buried in the Greenhill section.” She pulled out a white eight-by-ten photocopy of a map and circled the area I’d already seen up close, then made an x where Mr. Vanderhorst was buried. “It’s back here. This used to be the eighteenth hole of the Navy base’s golf course.”

“Could you tell me when his grave would’ve been dug?”

“Probably Wednesday, maybe Thursday of that week.”

“Thank you so much. I’m going to check this out right quick. Y’all don’t lock me in, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “Bye-bye now.”

I slipped the name inside my purse and headed for the door. Inside the car, I pondered how I was going to get anyone to authorize an exhumation based on my hunch. I pulled ahead along the same road I’d been on the day I’d found Kent’s car. A chill made its way from the base of my spine to my brain as I drove between the two marshes.

It was nearly five. It wouldn’t take but a moment to check out Mr. Vanderhorst’s final resting place. I drove faster than one normally does through a cemetery, but there was no one around to witness my act of disrespect. I sent mental apologies to the deceased. Following the clerk’s directions, I took the third left in Greenhill, crossed another dirt road, and stopped three plots from the end. I stared at a pink granite tombstone that read Roger Vanderhorst.

I got out of the car. If I wanted to hide a body so that it was never found, I’d bury it underneath another. I was betting that was exactly what Evan had done. Put Kent in Mr. Vanderhorst’s grave, covered her up with just enough dirt. Maybe he had to dig a little more out first, but still. It would work.

How was I going to persuade Jenkins and Bissell to ask the family to allow us to disturb this poor man’s final resting place? I knew in my bones Kent was buried with Mr. Vanderhorst. But this was going to be a hard sell. Colton Heyward would have to be on board. If I convinced him, he could maybe speak with the family.

“You should’ve let me make you dinner tonight.”

I jumped. My heart seized. Evan. 

He was behind me, must’ve parked one row over, his car shielded by the stand of trees and circled around. How had I not heard his car? Of course. It was an electric car. Could I make him think I wasn’t on to him?

“Dinner would’ve been so much more pleasant.” His voice held what sounded like genuine regret. “I’m an excellent cook. And I bought a very nice Russian River Valley pinot noir. I think you would’ve liked it.”

“How did you know where to find me?” My skin prickled, like someone was sticking me with millions of tiny needles charged with an electric current.

“Mike and Emily were so concerned about that poor girl you were looking for. After you left, they wondered if I’d seen anything while I was there. So they called me. By the time I arrived, you’d just finished knocking on doors, I guess. I saw your car at the end of the block. I followed to see what you were up to.”

“Did you?” I turned to look at him. “See anything while you were staying at Mike and Emily’s?”

His expression held reproach, said
nice try
. “Sadly, I think you’ve figured it all out, haven’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing here. It’s a shame. You and I could’ve been good friends, maybe more.” He took one step towards me. He had a rag in his hand. Chloroform?

I wasn’t waiting to find out. He was between me and my car.
Sonavabitch
. My gun was in my tote.

I took off at a run, cutting between gravesites.

He followed. His legs were longer. I couldn’t outrun him long.

I ran behind a live oak, putting it between us.

He crept around the other side.

I dashed for cover behind a tall monument and peeked out. He was looking the other way. I sprinted for the car. 

I jerked the door open, put my right leg in. Almost there.

He grabbed my left arm and pulled. Rather than fall towards him, I hit the dirt and tried to roll away from the car, going under the door.

Just as I cleared the door, he pounced, straddled me, pinned me down.

I punched him in the face.

He recoiled, and I slid out from under him. I crab-crawled back, turned over.

I was almost up when he tackled me, knocking the breath out of me. I gasped for air and inhaled grass. I bucked and grabbed at him, but he was far stronger. He wrestled me over. He grabbed my right hand and held it above my head and reached for my left hand.

I jabbed him in the eye with my left thumb and gouged for all I was worth.

He screamed and let go of my hand.

I arched my back, rolled, and wriggled out from under him.

I jumped up and ran. I darted between monuments, crossed graves, zigzagged. Then I crouched behind a tall monument.

He wasn’t far behind me. I could hear him coming.

I glanced up at the grave marker that shielded me. On the top was a carved angel.

Use the angel to smite the enemy.
Colleen’s words echoed in my head. Where in hell was Colleen?

Evan appeared from the other side. He reached for me.

I grabbed the angel. She was heavy, but whatever had once secured her to the base of the monument had come loose.

I grasped her just as Evan’s arms came around my waist in a move meant to tackle me.

I brought down the angel. Gravity did most of the work. I’d aimed for his head, but hit him in the shoulders. He slumped to the ground with a grunt.

I didn’t kid myself he was down for long.  

I dashed back to the car.

I heard him behind me, not quite as fast as before. He stumbled.

I reached for my tote.

He grabbed my left shoulder just as my right hand gripped Sig.

I spun on him, brought up my weapon in both hands. “I will shoot you where you stand and sleep just fine tonight.”

He was so close the barrel of the gun was nearly touching him. He hesitated, let go, then took three steps backwards.

It wasn’t nearly far enough. “Back off,” I said. “Now.”

His left eye bored into mine, his expression crazed. His right eye was closed tight. He bent over and charged me.

I got off one shot before he slammed into me and my back hit the car.

He staggered backwards. Pure rage contorted his face.

He charged me again.

I fired twice more.

He went down.

I kept my gun on him while I fumbled behind me in the car for my phone.

I voice-dialed Nate.

Thirty-Six

My mamma’s long-standing rule was that we discuss nothing unpleasant at dinner. She was hard-pressed to enforce her code of conduct that Wednesday night. A week had passed. Nate and I had spent the better part of it being questioned, talking to our client, and producing reports. My family was all done with being patient. Nate and I were barely inside the door when the questions started. Everyone was there: Merry and Joe Eaddy, who to everyone’s amazement we’d not run off, Blake, Mamma and Daddy, and Nate and me.

We gathered in the family room. Daddy was pouring Jack. Mamma had opened a bottle of pinot noir. Normally she preferred merlots. I knew my mamma. Tonight, I would have my favorite. She’d likely made my favorites for dinner, too. I’d bet anything she had country fried steak with gravy in the kitchen.

Blake cut through the barrage of questions. “Just tell us what the heck happened. We read the paper. We want the details.”

Nate started, and I jumped in. We left out any mention of Peyton and Peter, and glossed over Abigail Bounetheau’s involvement. We tag-teamed our way through the case hitting the high spots: Talitha and Turner Ingle, Virginia Bounetheau, Evan and his twin sister, right up to the part where I dropped Nate off to update Sonny on how Evan really didn’t have an alibi, and our theory of how he’d pulled off Kent’s disappearance.

Nate said, “But we didn’t know the Lowells had called Evan right after we left, before the police detectives showed up with a warrant to search the trailer. They were trying to be helpful, but they alerted Evan that we were on to him. Sonny pulled inside the gate and hid his car behind the Lowells just in case Evan showed up. We called Jenkins and Bissell. They parked in a driveway a few doors down. Unfortunately, none of us thought about him following Liz. We were focused on the paint evidence. Jenkins and Bissell took a sample for the crime lab, which, as you no doubt read, was a match for the make and model of Kent’s car. We didn’t find that out until the next day.”

I said, “Meanwhile, now that we had a timeline to work with, I was convinced Evan had left Kent at the same place he’d left her car: Magnolia Cemetery. He could bury her in an open grave, but he had to roll the car out of the trailer and into the woods.

“His timing was perfect. He followed me to the cemetery, and when he saw me park at Mr. Vanderhorst’s grave, he knew I had it figured out. He probably knew he’d have to deal with Nate later, because the Lowells told him we were both at their house. But he didn’t know we had the police involved already. And here I’m surmising, because he isn’t talking. His first word when he woke up after surgery was ‘lawyer.’”

“
E-liz-a-beth Su-zanne Tal-bot.
” Mamma was not happy. “What in this world possessed you to go traipsing around a cemetery under the circumstances? Why didn’t you go back to the house where Nate and Sonny were?”

“Well, Mamma,” I said, “I had no idea Evan had been informed I was on to him. I thought he was busy getting ready to cook dinner for me. If I’d known, I would have headed back over to the house on Lamboll lickety-split.”

She gave me a censoring look by way of an answer.

“I’m just glad I didn’t kill him,” I said.

Nate said, “I’m mostly relieved he didn’t kill
you
.”

“I’m happy about that, too. But I want him to answer for what he did. Death would’ve been too easy. I think he really wanted me to kill him there at the last. Why else would he charge at me when I had a loaded gun?”

Blake said, “Guy’s a psychopath. Who knows why he did anything?”

Joe Eaddy’s grin took up his whole face. His eyes were bright, eager.

“Did they catch the guys who sent you the snake and threatened you? Are they the same ones who caused your car crash?”

“
They
didn’t catch them.” I looked at my brother. “Blake, you want to tell this part? Or how about you, Daddy?”

Daddy winced. He took a sip of his Jack and Coke, then stared at the glass. “Oh, I’ll let Blake tell it.”

Blake cleared his throat. A look passed between him and Daddy. I knew exactly what made the two of them so fidgety: Colleen. But I would never get tired of hearing my brother tell this story. Thanks to my new redundant security system and its motion-activated cameras, I could also watch it. I’d gotten an alert on my phone, but had been otherwise occupied at the time.

“Yeah, okay,” Blake said. “While Liz was running around the graveyard, Mom was getting Wednesday dinner ready. Dad and I decided to ride by Liz’s house, check on things. We’ve been doing that regular since she called on the way to Greenville and asked me to take care of Rhett. I figured until she and Nate closed this case, chances were those two guys would pay her another house call.

“So, we pulled into her driveway, and right off I knew something was up. Rhett didn’t come running out to greet us. That dog always flies out of the house when he hears a car. I knew Liz wasn’t home because she’d told Mom she was in Charleston, that’s why she wasn’t at dinner.”

He shot Daddy a look of disapproval. “Dad had his shotgun. I told him to wait in the car, which of course was a waste of breath. I checked the front door, and it was unlocked. I heard Rhett barking. He was upstairs. I found him later, locked in one of the guest bedrooms. I went inside to check the house. When I got to the kitchen, I smelled gas.

“I went straight to the garage and got a vice grip. I knew where the gas shutoff valve was—the meter’s right outside the garage walk-thru door. I turned off the gas supply, then went back upstairs and started opening windows. The two rent-a-goons were still there—they must’ve just turned on the gas when I got there. Maybe they tried to leave and saw Dad out front on the porch where he had no business with a shotgun.”

Daddy interjected, “Seems to me that worked out just fine.”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Dad, I guess. Anyway, they’d run upstairs. After I opened the downstairs windows, I went upstairs to let Rhett out. These two guys came barreling out of the hall bath about the same time I opened the bedroom door to let Rhett out. One of ’em rammed me from behind—knocked me down. I guess they must’ve been afraid to fire a gun in the house, not knowing how much gas was in the air. They ran down the stairs. Rhett chased after them, raising unholy hell. I jumped up and was right behind him. Rhett skidded in the hall and I tripped over him.” He shook his head, grabbed the back of his neck.

“They tried to run out the back onto the deck.” Blake stopped. His face drew up like a prune. “For some reason, they couldn’t get the back door open.” He knew, and I knew from looking at the footage and talking to Colleen, that they had gotten the door open just fine. My brother was using selective memory.

“I had gone around back,” Daddy said. “Come up onto the deck. Tell them what we saw, son.”

Blake glared at Daddy. “I don’t know what you saw.”

Daddy laughed, shook his head. “It was real pretty, whatever it was. Bright colors, all shimmery. It was a wall in front of the door. These two guys had the door open, they just couldn’t get out, is what it was. On account of this shimmery wall.”

“Man,” said Joe Eaddy. He was mesmerized.

Blake said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you were drinking before we went over there.”

Daddy was indignant. “I had one Jack and Coke. Not enough to make me see things, I can assure you of that.”

Colleen appeared, stretched along the back of the sofa like a cat. “I love to hear them argue over this.”

I smothered a grin.

Blake made a swiping gesture with his arm. “For whatever reason, they turned around and ran towards the front. And I was ready. I had my weapon out. Theirs were under their shirts. Not to mention they didn’t know I’d cut the gas. I hollered, and Dad…”

“I couldn’t get in the back because of that wall,” Daddy said.

Blake shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. He walked over to the wet bar and poured himself a drink.

I thanked Colleen again with my eyes and in my thoughts. I knew now why she had told me up front to use the angel statue, and why she wasn’t in the cemetery when I needed her. She’d saved my daddy’s life that same evening, by keeping those armed thugs from coming out on the deck. They wouldn’t’ve fired in the house. But once outside, the two of them against Daddy…Of course he did have his shotgun. But if Colleen had been there, he needed her there. Maybe Blake did, too. Who knows what might’ve happened.  

Daddy said, “I ran around and came in the front. Held my gun on ’em while Blake cuffed them. Then he called Clay Cooper for back up. But we had ’em by then.”

Blake took a long pull on his drink. “They lawyered up fast. I’m hoping they’ll eventually make a deal that gives us whoever hired them, but I’m not holding my breath. Whoever it is, they’re more afraid of him than jail.”

Nate and I exchanged a glance. C.C. Bounetheau was cooperating with the police up to a point. But he’d made it clear that Evan was the only family member going to jail. Mr. and Mrs. Heyward—the whole family—had closed ranks. They’d acknowledged that Evan was Virginia’s son. Their story was that Evan had a mental breakdown shortly after Talitha’s death, brought on by the surprise of finding out she wasn’t his mother. They weren’t standing by Evan. He’d killed Kent. But they would spin things to protect the rest of them.

“I can’t believe the Bounetheaus kept that quiet all these years,” Merry said. “Virginia being married before and having children.”

“It’s an awful mess,” I said. “I feel really bad for Colton Heyward. He’s a little gruff, but a nice man. He’s having to deal with finding out his wife was married before, and not only did she have children, one of them killed his only child.”

Nate said, “I feel bad for the Ingles. That whole family was victimized by the Bounetheaus.”

I cut him a look. He and I had decided, after protracted discussion, not to raise our suspicions about Talitha’s death or Turner’s. It would be virtually impossible to prove their deaths were anything other than accidents. Our own story about being blinded had been quickly explained away by the investigating officers. Some unexplainable reflection, they thought. How much had that cost Abigail, and who had she paid off? My primary concern was keeping all of us safe.

I’d taken C.C. Bounetheau at his word when he said he’d put an end to Abigail coming after Nate and me. But either C.C. had lied to me, or he’d overestimated his control over his wife, because the thugs had tried to blow us up after that. We’d considered giving the recording of our conversation with C.C. to Jenkins and Bissell, but with C.C. in her corner, that would make us all targets for Abigail and her considerable resources. Since Evan’s arrest, and with Virginia’s first marriage in all the papers, Abigail had no reason to come after us now. We wanted to keep it that way. We’d agreed to let the task force handle bringing down the remaining Bounetheau criminals. Hopefully Abigail would be caught up in the indictments handed down. But we couldn’t talk about any of that until the task force finished its work.

“I heard Charleston PD released the boyfriend,” said Blake.

I nodded.

“Matt Thomas is free, but not doing well. He lost his girlfriend and his unborn child.” When I’d spoken to Matt, he was crumbling under the guilt, blaming himself because he hadn’t been excited about the baby. He was killing himself with “what ifs.” I’d told him, and I believed, it wouldn’t’ve changed a thing. Kent’s death had nothing to do with him. Ansley was trying her best to provide comfort, but she was in pieces herself.

Daddy said, “That poor little girl.” He shook his head slowly.

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Mr. Vanderhorst’s family had agreed at Mr. Heyward’s request to ask for an expedited exhumation. Kent’s body had been recovered on Friday, along with her laptop and iPad. Clearly, Evan had thought there was evidence there that could lead back to him. I hoped he was right, and I prayed it could still be recovered. The more evidence, the better.

I was glad we’d been able to give the Heywards some sort of closure. But I felt a darkness pressing in on me. How could family heap such cruelty on family? Watching news accounts of such chilling inhumanity to those closest to you was one thing. Witnessing it firsthand was another thing entirely.

“Autopsy report back yet?” Blake asked.

“No,” I said. “But there were no obvious wounds. The handkerchief he had at the cemetery when he came for me tested positive for chloroform. And they found two syringes of heroin in his car—fatal doses meant for Nate and me. I think it’s a safe bet that’s how he killed Kent. Though honestly, I’m surprised he knew where and how to buy heroin. There’s no evidence he’s a user.”

“That just creeps me out,” Merry said. “You came so close to being buried under someone else.”

“It was dicey, I admit. But if anything, I think this proves I can take care of myself.” I looked at Nate.

Mamma and Nate displayed similar looks of consternation.

Blake worked his jaw.

“With a little help from your friends,” said Colleen.

I smiled and thought,
thank you
.

Merry squinted at me. “What are you smiling about?”

Colleen bray-snorted.

I had to come up with something on the fly. I glanced at Nate. He shrugged as if to say,
your call.

“I have happy news. I didn’t want to share it during this particular topic. Maybe after dinner?”

Mamma said, “I think we’ve already given far too much of our evening to discussing that poor girl and her family’s misery. We could all use some happy news.” Mamma smiled, like it was my choice, but her tone informed me otherwise.

I reached for Nate’s hand.

He wrapped his around mine.

“Nate and I are engaged,” I said.

The room erupted with happy sounds and congratulations. We all hugged. Mamma cried. Daddy slapped Nate on the back.

I overheard Blake say, “You take good care of my sister.”

Nate responded, “Always.”

Mamma said, “I need to reserve the church. Are you thinking May or June?”

“I like October better.” Nate grinned at her.

“A fall wedding?” Mamma asked. “Those can be quite lovely. I won’t have any trouble getting the church for next October. That will give us more time to plan.” She beamed a sunny smile at Nate. She was so happy with him in that moment.

“I was thinking this October,” Nate said.

Mamma’s smile evaporated. That quick, Nate fell from grace. “That’s just not possible.”

Merry and I exchanged grins.

Blake, a pot stirrer from way back said, “Sure it is. They could go to Vegas.”