Can’t Never Tell Read online

  “Why they doing that?”

  “They want his family to know what happened to him, want him to get a proper burial.”

  “That’s nice.” His voice dripped with cop skepticism.

  “Shamanique’s working on it,” I said. “If she turns up anything, I’ll let you know.”

  He didn’t reply. He turned sideways in the booth, his back against the wall, so he could eye the people coming in the front door. Rudy hates it when I beat him to Maylene’s because he hates sitting in the booth with his back to the door. If we’re both late and have to take one of the tables in the middle of the room, then he can choose his position. Knowing he hates it was one of the reasons I try to grab the booth first. Just because.

  “Has the ME sent a report on Rinda Reimann?”

  Rudy turned his gaze directly on me. “Interesting you should ask that. You the one who called her life insurance carrier?”

  “How’d you know about that?” Heck, that had been only a short time before I left for lunch.

  Rudy read my mind. “The adjuster called me as soon as you hung up. Seems he’s more than a little suspicious about that accidental death. Especially when you’re calling before the body’s even found.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t call on Saturday?”

  “Nope. I told Mr. Insurance that, too.”

  “So who did?”

  I shook my head. I had my suspicions about Rog’s overzealous guardian angel, but nothing more than suspicions.

  “But you called this morning.”

  I nodded. “Just to see what documents Rog needed to supply to put the process in motion.”

  “Cheesh, A–vry. Didn’t your mama raise you any better than that? Show some respect. She’s barely cold.”

  Underneath his mocking tone was a vein of suspicion, the natural state of mind for a cop as well as for life insurance claims guys.

  “Funerals cost money,” I said. “A friend of Rog Reimann’s is concerned that he might need the money. I can assure you it wasn’t Rog’s idea to call.”

  “But Rog hired you.”

  Rudy didn’t need an answer to his rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother supplying one. Remembering Rog’s fey, perhaps drugged state, I wondered what Rog even remembered about our meeting.

  “So,” I said, “this insurance guy called you this morning?”

  Rudy turned in the booth to face me, his back squarely to the door, his forearms propped along the table’s edge.

  “Twice.”

  My turn to stare until he elaborated.

  “He called first thing this morning to report the weekend call,” he said, then waited until I responded.

  “He told me he’d gotten that call,” I said.

  “But he didn’t tell you he’d gotten the preliminary autopsy report?”

  I didn’t try to hide my surprise. “No. He acted like he hadn’t seen it.”

  “I assume his fax machine was working,” Rudy said. “In any event, he knew the important part.”

  “Which is?”

  “That Rinda Reimann had bruises on her arms.”

  She fell several hundred feet down a rock cliff face, battered by a cascade of water. I would expect she had lots of bruises, but Rudy’s sly tone hinted at something unexpected.

  “And?” I prompted.

  He studied me a moment, either to build the tension or to assure himself that I wasn’t playing dumb.

  “The ME found bruises on her upper arms. Finger bruises. As if somebody stood behind her and grabbed her. Hard.”

  He studied my face for a reaction, some indication that his bombshell news combined with something I’d learned from Rog or another source to yield a telling connection. He got no such revelation from me, just shock. And questions.

  “She had to have a lot of bruises. Didn’t she? I mean, how can they be so specific about what caused certain bruises in a situation like that?”

  “Of course she had a lot of bruises. Almost every inch had an abrasion or a contusion, plus the broken bones.”

  I suddenly wasn’t interested in the tuna salad scooped onto the lettuce leaf that the waitress plopped in front of me.

  The visions in Rudy’s head didn’t tamp down his appetite. He picked up a knife and fork and started sawing away at his clammy white chicken.

  “I just saw the digital photos attached to the report,” he said. “The fingertip bruises on her arms really stood out. Remarkable, considering what the rest of her looked like.”

  Rudy eyed me as he took a bite and chewed slowly. He knows I don’t keep things from him unless I’m protecting a client confidence. It had taken a while after I’d come home to stay, as we renewed our high school acquaintance, for me to stop getting defensive under his suspicious probing. It’s what cops do, I realized. Some instinct they were probably born with and refined to a sharp point as cops. Without that skepticism, they didn’t make very good officers. Knowing that didn’t make it any less offensive.

  He finished chewing. “Most of the other bruises were part of large scrapes. These particular bruises were small and dark. Four on the front.” He pointed to where his beefy bicep strained his uniform shirt. “And one on the back of each arm.”

  I pushed my plate away and took a sip of tea. My mouth felt dry as white flour.

  “How do they know when she got those bruises?” I asked. Could they somehow time-date bruises? I had a dim memory from research or reading that they couldn’t accurately date bruises, but the state medical examiner’s office had some smart people on staff.

  The corner of Rudy’s mouth tightened, then relaxed, the tenseness passing in a second. I’d hit a soft spot.

  “The time element is something we’ll be asking questions about. Somebody left those bruises on her. Clear ones, from a tight grip.”

  “Who are you going to be talking to?” I hoped Rog would have sense enough to call me—or somebody—before he sat down for a chat. How embroiled did I want to get in this?

  Rudy shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Haven’t got all our questions together.”

  I stared at the chopped egg white glistening in the brown tuna, the lettuce limp in the humidity.

  “You gonna eat that?” Rudy pointed his fork at my plate.

  I pushed it in his direction and he shoveled up a mouthful.

  “Too hot to eat,” I said.

  Maylene’s was air-conditioned, but during the heat of the day and the height of the lunch rush, the system couldn’t handle both the kitchen and the crowd. Rudy’s forehead glistened along the fringe of his short-cropped sandy hair while he ate his lunch and mine.

  “So that guy at the insurance company, he knew about the bruises?” I asked.

  Rudy nodded. “I’d just finished reading the report this morning when he called.”

  No wonder Mr. Jacobs had been so antagonistic. He’d had more reason for his suspicion that I could’ve guessed.

  We sat in silence while Rudy worked his way through both plates of food and occasionally raised his fork and nodded a greeting as someone passed our booth.

  I sipped my tea and kept him company until he was ready to leave. I paid for my half of Rudy’s lunch, of course.

  Perspiration popped from every pore as soon as I stepped out on the sidewalk. The humid air wrapped around my head, and I had that summer-familiar sensation of swimming in hot Jell-O. I dragged myself down the sidewalk back to the office.

  Shamanique surprised me, sitting at her desk fanning herself with an advertising brochure from the fresh stack of mail.

  “Nice flowers,” she said. “A special occasion?”

  I ignored her question. “You just get here?” It didn’t take Sherlockian skills to observe the glistening line of perspiration along her carefully shellacked hairline. The office, with its twelve-foot ceilings and deep porches, was designed to stay cool. The air-conditioning served to hold the clamminess at bay and keep the books, furniture, and rugs safe from
the high humidity.

  “Auntie Edna was using her computer, so no point hanging around there. Besides, got a lot of stuff for you.”

  I slumped into the leather chair across the room from her desk. “Great. Let’s hear it.” Neither of us bothered turning on a light. Somehow the dimness, lit only by sunlight shaded by the deep porch, protected the illusion of coolness.

  “First off, did you know accidental falls are a leading cause of death in the national parks?”

  “Makes sense, when you stop to think about it.” I’d just never thought about it. What else would you die from? Bad potato salad? Bear attacks? Only rarely and not around here.

  “Which could raise some eyebrows about whether the cops’re trying to bust some guy just for the hey.”

  She had a point. An accident made at least as much sense as a murder—if you could ignore those bruises. Those could’ve happened days before her fall. Maybe that’s why they stood out so clearly.

  I knew how our county solicitor thought. Josiah Thames wouldn’t waste taxpayer money trying to find some hired gun to testify that he could time-date the bruises and tell exactly when they were inflicted. Defense attorneys with rich clients and big budgets might try a junk science route, but scant few prosecutors can afford to—and Josiah would never even consider it. No, instead Josiah would artfully use the finger bruises to point to the most likely culprit—Rinda’s husband Rog. No matter when he’d grabbed her, Josiah would argue, he’d grabbed her in anger.

  To my mind, the most logical explanation was that Rinda’s fall was an accident. The idea that Rog Reimann could face the vagaries of a murder trial for what was most likely an accident was starting to scare me. Those bruises stuck out in my mind, just as they must on her pale, bloodless arms—ten mute but powerful witnesses. Witnesses to what, though?

  Shamanique finished shuffling through some typed pages and continued her recitation without prompting.

  “Reimann’s first wife died in an accident three years ago. Smashed by a semitrucker driving drunk. Killed instantly. She had a hundred-thousand-dollar accidental death policy from her employer, which paid out to her husband. He also sued the trucking company.”

  She paused to read directly from one of her printouts. “The case was settled for an undisclosed amount. I couldn’t shake loose how much it settled for.”

  “No,” I said, “you probably can’t. Likely a sealed settlement, which is negotiated by the parties. The defendant agrees to pay money, the plaintiff agrees not to tell anyone how much, and they both avoid the risk of a trial.”

  “How much you reckon he got?”

  “Hard to say. The amount of damages would depend on the financial loss her family suffered from her death, usually the present value of her future income. Was it a large trucking company or a small local operation?”

  “I didn’t recognize the name,” she said.

  “A small operation doing local hauls might carry a half to a million in insurance. A big outfit would easily have over a million. If the driver was drunk, the defense would’ve been worried about punitive damages at trial, so a settlement could’ve exceeded the insurance limits.”

  “No shit? That mean her ol’ man’s a millionaire?”

  “Probably not. The lawyer and the case expenses would’ve taken a chunk, probably forty percent or more.”

  “Still,” she said, “he would’ve gotten a chunk of cash, huh?”

  “Any indication how he’s doing financially?” I asked.

  “Haven’t checked that yet. I’ll see what I can find.”

  My mind flashed to Eden Rand and her urgency over getting the insurance proceeds invested and her insistence on Spence Munn’s advice about the time value of money.

  “I might have a lead on that,” I said. Not that Spence would betray any confidences, but no harm in asking if Rog had any money invested with him.

  I continued with my questions. “So no sign that the first wife’s car accident was anything but that, a drunk driving accident?”

  “No sign. All the reports seemed pretty straightforward. Truck crossed the center line and hit her head on. She died instantly. The other driver was treated and released, later sentenced for vehicular homicide. He got a deal in exchange for a guilty plea.”

  For Rog, that created a bad coincidence, having two wives die in accidents, even with evidence that each was nothing more than an accident.

  “Any mention how much life insurance the latest Miz Reimann had?” I asked.

  “Nope. Want me to find out?”

  “No, no.” I flagged her with both hands. “We’ll wait on that.” No need rattling the insurance claims adjuster’s cage again, and I was certain any peripheral inquiry would make its way back to him.

  “To change the subject, any word on our carnival guy?”

  “Not yet. Got some leads, though. I’ll make some more calls today. Most everybody who would know seems to live in Florida, but I’m having trouble getting anyone on the phone.” She grinned and cocked her head. “Might just be cheaper for you to send me down that way.”

  “Hm.” I responded with a shake of my head and a smile. “The Plinys said that’s where lots of carnival folks live when they’re off the road.” I hadn’t thought about it, but Gibsonton and the carnival world sounded like just another small town—one whose residents happen to be widely traveled. That small-town quality could make it easier to find people who know people who know something.

  “More than likely, they’re on the road, working the Fourth of July holiday fairs,” I said. “Keep trying.”

  The bell on the outside door jangled. From her vantage point, Shamanique could see the front hall. She sat up straight, so I knew we had a visitor. By the way she pressed her lips together and cocked her head, I knew she was wondering who this was daring to enter without an appointment.

  Eden Rand floated into view, her thick waist and middle-aged heavy hips and breasts once again trying to seek disguise in a series of jagged-edged scarves and skirts. This afternoon, the outfit was sea-foam green with baby-blue beaded flats and a thin scarf tied through her frizzy hair.

  She stopped in the doorway, pinned by Shamanique’s frown. When she spotted me, Eden brightened.

  “Avery, I’m so glad you’re here. Do you have time? Could we have a word?”

  Shamanique didn’t tell her we were closed. Maybe I should have, but it was hot outside, so it wasn’t as though I had anywhere else to go.

  “Come on back.” I pulled myself out of my deep slump and gestured toward my office. I paused in the doorway to tell Shamanique, “Don’t work too long. You’re supposed to be taking some time off.”

  Shamanique cocked her head. Lord, how she reminded me of her forbidding aunt Edna, who also hated being told what to do.

  “I’m just biding my time. Got to go get my hair done today.”

  That, I knew, was an hours-long operation.

  “Going to the carnival tonight,” she said. “All this talk got me curious.”

  Knowing Shamanique, she’d have some hunk in a tight T-shirt buying ride tickets and cotton candy for her. She has powers.

  “Hate I missed seeing our famous man in the flesh, though.” Shamanique shook her head in mock mourning.

  I grinned and slid the pocket doors shut. Eden Rand had claimed one of the wing chairs in the window nook rather than one of the wooden armchairs in front of my desk. Might as well make ourselves at home.

  “Avery, I’m worried sick about Rog. That stupid sheriff seems to have made up her mind that there’s something fishy about Rinda’s accident. How the people in this county could elect such an oaf to office is beyond me.”

  “Has Rog talked to the sheriff?” I tried to keep my tone even, but I hoped he had better sense than to go into what likely would be a hostile interrogation without counsel.

  “He has refused.”

  I knew from her tone that she had been the one to put her foot down. Rog—at least the way he’d presented himself this m
orning—was in no shape to exert himself with anyone.

  “I’m not sure completely shutting down on the sheriff is wise,” I said.

  Her eyebrows shot up under her frizzy orange bangs in surprise.

  I wasn’t being contrary just for the heck of it. “Cops assume people want to find out what happened to their loved ones. Innocent people do, anyway. The deputies might draw some unfortunate conclusions if Rog refuses to talk to them.”

  “But they’ll just try to trap him into some sort of admission. You saw him. He’s in shock. He barely knows his own name. I just told them he wasn’t able.”

  Just as I’d suspected. I didn’t push it any further for now.

  “I thought you could talk to them,” she said. “There’s some things they should know. About Rinda. Things that would change everything. But I’m not the one to tell them.”

  “What sorts of things?” My caution flags raised.

  “For one thing, Rinda had a lover. I don’t know if that’s why she wanted to move back to Camden County or if that’s something that started after they moved, but she took up with an old boyfriend almost as soon as the boxes were unloaded into the house.”

  “Who?” For once, I might be ahead on the small-town gossip, unless Rinda was a lot more active than my sister Lydia knew.

  “Ken Tharp. They knew each other when she was growing up here. I don’t know if they kept in touch over the years or what, but everybody knows they’re together now. I don’t know if you noticed her talking endlessly on the phone at the picnic, but that’s who she was talking to.”

  “How do you know?” I’d assumed Rinda was checking on her kids or something. How many others beside Eden and Lydia had leapt to the assumption she was talking to her lover—and had a name for him?

  Eden rolled her eyes in dramatic fashion. “Who else? And so compulsively? It’s typical for someone to be so consumed by another person in the first passionate blush of an affair. Rog knew, for certain.”

  I didn’t argue with the sociologist, even though I doubted any judge would recognize her as an expert on the effects of the first passionate blush of an affair, based solely on her academic credentials.