Colors of Blood, page 32
The door opened and Soire stood in the frame, sans shotgun, defiance flaring from her small face. Her brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail, then draped over her shoulder and down toward her waist. Her cinnamon brown eyes held my cerulean blues.
“Cici Soire,” I said.
“Cici Dinneggan,” she said as if she’d just escaped Lombard’s lust.
The sheriff moved forward. “Don’t matter what you call yourself, I’m arresting you under the name of Cici Soire. If you want me to, I can put Dinneggan in parenthesis.”
The flat of her palm touched her chest. “These people saved me.”
“They also gave you up,” he said, taking handcuffs from his belt. “Come down those steps.”
“Why?” she said, her voice a pseudo sob.
“Felonious assault by vehicle on Miss Moriah Dru. Come on down, or we’ll come up there and take charge of your person now.”
Two deputies moved forward.
Soire shot her clinched fists down the sides of her body. “I was not driving the truck!”
“Who was?” he asked. “We know it wasn’t Pat Dinneggan. He’s still in jail in Alabama for bilking an old lady out of tornado roof money.”
“It was his father, Gilby Dinneggan, that drove the truck.”
“Gilby’s got cancer and only months to live.”
“He’ll tell you himself,” Soire said. “He’s at home next door with the housekeeper.”
“Last I heard he couldn’t walk,” McElroy said.
“He’s a fooler,” Soire said, a sly smile smearing her mouth.
“Just like you,” I said. “You used your jockey skills to run me down because you wanted me to stop looking for you.”
She blinked at my patch. “He did. Mr. Gilby did.”
“All you had to do was call and tell me your circumstances, but I found you anyway. That was my job.” I stepped back. “Sheriff, now she’s your job.”
He flicked a glance at me. He didn’t seem to want the job and I didn’t blame him.
I left to walk back to my car, feeling their eyes on my back in the disturbing silence.
Endings
Lake was wrapping his gang banger case, busy with the computer, stating facts, issuing analyses, and generally celebrating with his Major Crimes detectives. Later we would celebrate at our favorite seafood house if I had my way, or our favorite steak house if Lake has his way.
Marley called to put the Lombard cases to rest. The DNA material picked up by luminol revealed that the brain tissue near the swing on Green-on-Springs Farm was that of Annalie Ericsson. There was hair and fiber material mixed with the blood, meaning a battle had taken place and the nanny fought her killer. That material was being examined. Eugene Roup resides in an insane asylum, to use the old-fashioned terminology. Whether it’s a Psychiatric Institute for the Socially Impaired, or a simple insane asylum, Eugene Roup will never leave. If he gets well enough, he will stand trial.
I left Saratoga on the Lombard plane and had one more conversation with Mary Celeste. Abigail’s and Freddy’s executed wills were missing from his safe at Loblolly Farm. Mary Celeste claims she never saw the wills, read them, heard about them. Nothing about them. I did not believe her. But her parents had wisely put their assets in a trust with instructions to bank trustees to manage the estate she would inherit until she came of age. Her two uncles, Andrew and Bart, had petitioned for guardianship of the very wealthy Mary Celeste. She appeared to favor Uncle Andy. She said, “He can run his tout business from Loblolly Farm’s office if he minds his own business. I’ll live in a big mansion with maids all by myself, just like Evangeline.” I told her Evangeline had guardians, too. “But,” said Mary Celeste, “she’s the boss because her Aunt Lorraine is always overseas on some trade mission. Most of the time Uncle Andy and Uncle Bart will be gone to the races.” Her eyes gleamed and I cringed.
I had to return Evangeline’s calls.
She was mad as a hornet in a fallen nest that Mary Celeste was not returning calls or texts or emails. She had been turned away at the gate to Loblolly Farm. “She used me,” Evangeline said. “I hate her and never want to talk about her again.”
Ditto for Soire. “She got married and didn’t tell us?” Evangeline barked.
“Travis doesn’t think it’s a legal marriage, just some Irish Society’s idea of vows. Sorry I had to tell you.”
“I’m going there and tell her what I think.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“She’s in jail and going to trial.”
“Why?”
“For running me off the road. I could have been killed.”
“But you weren’t.”
Not for her not trying.”
“Soire is now off limits for discussion,” she said emphatically. “You remember Sheriff Avlon and your promise you’d come back to Cape Fear and prove he killed Emile Cocineau in the hospital?”
I’m going to find the son-of-a-bitch who killed Emile. Cautiously, I answered, “I do. Why?”
“Sheriff Avlon was at a wine tasting at one of our festival booths. He asked about you and I said that I got you another case. He said you would be a worthy opponent if you ever tried to prove some of the things you were thinking about him. Come to Cape Fear, stay with me and we’ll prove he killed Emile.”
Not happening.
Then there was the wrap of the Carl Orville Crain case. Portia told me that Crain lost his daughter Tiffanie Daisie Crain when he drank himself into a stupor and died on impact on Ponce de Leon Road. His car hit a telephone pole and tried to climb it. A Dirk’s detective had followed Crain to a bar and was on the scene outside when Crain hit Tiffanie twice. Police came, Crain sped away and Tiffanie will become a foster in a city that already has too many.
Before she rang off, Portia hit me with another case. Police were investigating the strangling deaths of two kids—one from an adoptive home—found behind separate dumpsters in a poor neighborhood. The deaths were suspected to be unrelated parental or family killings. But the body of a third child that had been strangled, from an equally poor neighborhood in an adjacent county, was found in the Chattahoochee River. That child had recently been in Portia’s courtroom and turned over to Child Protective Services.
“Find the son-of-a-bitch who’s killing my kids, Dru,” she said, concluding the call abruptly, Portia-style.
Endings?
No such thing.
About the Author
Retired journalist for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Gerrie Ferris Finger won the 2009 St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel for The End Game. She lives on the coast of Georgia with her husband, Alan, and standard poodle, Bogey.
www.gerrieferrisfinger.com
www.gerrieferrisfinger.blogspot.com
The Moriah Dru, Child Trace series
The End Game
The Last Temptation
The Devil Laughed
Running With Wild Blood
Murmurs of Insanity
American Nights
Wolf’s Clothing
See the books here
Bold Venture Press
Gerrie Ferris Finger, Colors of Blood
