Robert, page 7
“Sounds like a plan to me, honey. I like that.” He asked her about the house and how it was coming along. “I know you two were putting your heads together about some of the rooms. I have to admit; I do like that Robert wanted to combine the rooms, so they were bigger. You don’t think about that sort of thing when you’re putting up a house. The people who owned it before wouldn’t have thought about an inside terlit either.”
He’d been calling the toilet a terlit since she could remember. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what it was called, but he said that his mom called it that and liked it. She thought him goofy but knew if he were still alive when she and Robert had a child, their child would also be calling it that.
For the rest of the afternoon, they talked about the house. He was going to put his on the market when he got out of the hospital, and Sherman, another Archer, was going to help him. However, before he did that, he wanted her to go through the house and take whatever she wanted. Also, he wanted her to have all the photos on the walls and a few albums that her granny had put together.
“I’d like that. Bring some of the things that belonged to you to the house. You’re still going to be living with us, right?” He asked her if she was sure about that. “I’ve never been more sure about anything other than my love for Robert. And he’ll be disappointed in you if you don’t. I think he plans to learn everything he can from you before you push up some daisies.”
“He’s a smart boy, that one. I’m betting that before the end of the week, he’s got more ideas on running the business than I ever did. Even if he didn’t have a lick of training in being a construction worker, he wouldn’t let that stop him. As I said, he’s a smart boy.” She told him that she thought he was too. “Nah, I’m not smart. I have a good head on my shoulders about putting a house up and together, but I don’t know squat about how to give people what they want that I’m not used to building. He’s already shown me how to put on a deck made of old stones that he found in the yard where we park the heavy equipment. And there was a pile of slate out there that he insisted was worth some money. He was darned if he wasn’t able to sell it off for a good penny too. I’d of just had the boys dump it in the dumpster come winter for them something to do. Other things too. He donated a bunch of things that we’ve pulled out of houses to the local shelter for them to clean up. A couple of them down there have the skills to make them work like new. Never would have thought of that had he not told me.”
“He and his family have been at it, selling things for people for a while, I guess. And it’s good to be able to clean up things that would otherwise end up in a dumpster.” He told her that he’d not thought of it that way. “I don’t mean just you, Grandda. I’m talking about many projects like that one that they find a way to make it into something else or give it away so that someone else can sell it off.”
She walked around the hallways with him when the nurse reminded him to do it. As they moved around the hall, several people stopped them from talking to her grandda. She’d forgotten how social he was and shouldn’t have been surprised when everyone knew that he’d not had a stroke but had fallen asleep at the wheel. They also seemed to understand why he’d turned over the company to Robert. Even without the two of them getting married, they told him he still had made an excellent choice. As they made their rounds down the hallway three times, he said he’d had enough of socializing. When they returned to the room, Robert was there waiting. He kissed her and hugged grandda. The two of them acted like they were best friends, and she couldn’t be happier.
“I have a job for you to help me with, Bingo. It’s the Masterson building. The city wants it torn down. I’m not so sure that’s the best route only because I love that old building. They’re talking about it being an eye sore, and all I can see is that it’s been neglected for the last decade or so. How much work would it take to spruce it up a bit? It’s too late to plant flowers or trees, I was told, but I’d hate to see it torn down for another parking lot. That’s the plan for it.”
“Well, what ideas did you have for the old building? Keep in mind that there isn’t much in the way of use for those buildings anymore. They don’t have any air conditioning. No way to put it in without costing a bundle. Also, this might not have been a consideration to those folks at city hall, but that building isn’t just an eye sore; it’s kind of dangerous. If a hard storm came through, it would fall and land on several people. Worse yet, another building. I like that you’d like to preserve the building, but I’m not entirely sure it’s worth the money.” Robert asked him what he’d do. “Oh, I’d tear it down. But with hanging out with you, I have a good idea. Sell off the bricks. Tell them that the money is going to one of the Christmas funds. I know that I’d like to have a couple of them. Just on account of my misses and me got married in that place.”
“I love that idea, grandda. And it would benefit many people too while it’s being torn down. Hell, I’m betting there will be many weddings before it’s torn down. It would be so romantic to say they were the last to be married there.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” Robert got down on one knee and proposed to Elizabeth again. Bingo was so glad that he was a part of it; he didn’t bother wiping at the tears when they started to fall. Robert looked over at him. “We’re to be married in the morning at the old building. My family will be there, and my brother will release you if you promise to behave and have someone else drive you there, Bingo.”
“You bet that I will. I’ve got a granddaughter to be giving to you, young man. And you’d best be on your best behavior too.” He was still laughing when they left to get dinner for the three of them. Bingo was happy. Happier than he’d been in quite some time, as a matter of fact.
Chapter 4
Lance watched his sister as she worked on the wedding dress. She came in at night, which was fine by him to have a quiet place to work. He would hang out with her until she was ready to go home and he’d take her back then go onto his job. Lance didn’t want anything to happen to her while she was here alone.
It was her shop; he supposed that she could do anything she wanted. When she was at the stand that held the dress, he asked her if she wanted anything to drink. He was suddenly not just thirsty but a little hungry too.
“No, I’m fine. I have water and snacks in the fridge under my desk if you want anything.” He said he’d get something in a little while. “All right. Just be quiet. I need to have quiet time to work on all these beads. I know that’s difficult for you, but just try and refrain from telling me every little detail about your day.” He told her that he’d try, laughing with her.
She was good at what she did. And she loved it. Making wedding dresses for the rich was something that she’d done since she’d been a child, and making them for her dolls. Mom had done it as well with the two of them in bed; she’d create masterpieces that would keep them in bread in milk, she used to say. It had done a good deal more than that. They’d been wealthy since he’d been just a child. The only thing that they lacked in was love. Hugs had never been given, nor a kiss on the cheek. Their parents weren’t demonstrative at all.
Going into Lannie’s office, he got himself a bottle of water and a couple of the snack packs they’d had as children for their lunches. Eating the pudding, he thought it had an off taste and picked up the package to see what flavor it was. Dizzy now, he stood up to go to his sister when he heard voices. He never got to her as he passed out from whatever he was sure was in the pudding.
Waking up, he was on the floor of the office. Somehow he’d ended up under her desk and behind her filing cabinet. Sitting up carefully, unsure if he’d been hurt or only poisoned, Lance dragged his body up from the floor, holding onto the desk for a few moments to get his head to stop spinning. Leaning back down was difficult, but he put the pudding cups that he’d been eating on the ledge at the back of her desk. He had no idea why that seemed important, but he was a cop, after all. Going into the room where his sister had been working, he realized a couple of things. It was bright in the room, so it had to be morning, he’d bet, and Lannie wasn’t at the dress.
Hoping that she’d taken a nap on her sofa, he turned to see if she was there. She wasn’t there, so he looked around. That’s when he got a look at the wedding dress. It was covered in blood.
“Lannie? Lannie? Where are you?” Staggering to the stool she’d been sitting on when he’d left her, he saw that the dress was bloodied and a significant amount on the floor and walls around it. “Lannie? Please tell me where you are.”
“Here.” He made his way to her soft voice and found his sister. Dropping to the floor, he wondered how she was still alive. Lannie looked like she’d been shot a dozen times, and her face was bloodied and beaten. “Call Sherman Archer. He’ll know what to do.”
“Don’t talk. I’m calling for you an ambulance.” She told him it was too late for her. “Don’t say that, Lannie. You’re all I have.”
“I’ve stayed alive to tell you this, Lance. Call Sherman. Tell him it was Tommy. Promise me, Lance. Promise?” He said that he would. “I love you. So much. I’m sorry that we are going to part like this. You’re the best twin that anyone could have ever hoped for.”
When she closed her eyes, he cried for her to wake up. Knowing she was gone didn’t make him want her to wake up any less. He was dying inside himself. His heart no longer beat the way that it had before. Christ, what was he going to do now, he thought. She had been his reason for making all the decisions in his life. The reason that he wanted to be the best that he could be. He loved her more than he did himself.
Pulling out his cell phone, he called the police station. Telling them where he was, who he was, and that there had been a murder. Giving them the address, he realized that she’d not be coming here again to work. Every little thing about this room and the building surrounding it would forever make him think of his little sister. He was crying again when he closed his cell phone.
Sitting back on his ass, he held her hand while waiting on the first of his men in blue to arrive. Speaking to his sister, all he had in the world as a family, he cried hard, thinking she’d been too young to die.
“When we were little, you used to tell me that you were going to go places. I don’t think you ever made it beyond the city limits. So many times, we made plans that were canceled. I wish I’d not let my job interfere with us.” He cried harder when her hands, usually so warm, began to chill. “Lannie, what am I supposed to do without you? How will I ever get around now that you’re not there to keep me moving? I don’t want to go on without you, Lannie. Please, you have to come back to me. Please?”
When the first officer arrived, he didn’t move. They all knew his sister. Some of them had even tried to date her. But they were professional about the murder and didn’t cut him any slack even though he was their boss. The medical team arrived shortly after the first officers did. There was nothing they could do to bring Lannie back, but that didn’t stop them from trying. They, too, knew his sister as she volunteered weekly at the station house to cook them meals when she didn’t have a deadline, which wasn’t all that often. But she continued to make time for them.
“Did you see the killer, Lance?” He told Ben about the pudding that he’d eaten. But didn’t mention the cups that he’d hidden away with the water bottle. “We’ll send it to the lab. Also, you’ll need to get to the hospital so that we can get some results back.”
“You have to arrest me, Ben. I’m here with my sister. I know you don’t want to, but you have to.” He looked away, then back at him. “I’m going to find who killed her. I promise you that. She made me promise—I have to make a phone call. Can I do that first?”
“I’ll make it for you. I don’t know who it is, but you don’t want to make a call, and it comes up as questionable. All right?” He told him that was good thinking on his part. “She was the light of everyone’s life, Lance. I don’t…I can’t imagine why anyone would want to murder her. And so violently too. She was one of the best.”
Lance started crying again. His heart was broken, and he didn’t think that it would ever beat again without his sunshine in his life. When they took her away, still working on trying to save her, Lance sat in the chair offered to him while the medical team took blood samples and checked him over. Once they finished with him ensuring them that he was all right, they put him in a cruiser to take him to the jail cell for now. He didn’t care where they took him at this point. He just wanted to go to the hospital where she was. Hold her a bit more. The closer he was to Lannie, the better he’d feel anyway.
Lannie was his younger sister by eight minutes. But to others, his police family, they thought her older simply because she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. Mostly it was because she’d scold him about his eating habits—which were very poor—and his inability to keep a girlfriend. It brought a small smile to his face when he thought of the conversation they’d had recently.
“What about you? You make pretty dresses for brides, yet you date less than I do.” She told him that she’d seen what couples are genuinely like and wanted no part of it. “Not all couples are like our parents, love. You have to know that.”
“I’m sure there are more parents and couples like them than you think. Besides, who will tell your future wife what sort of person you are? Me, that’s who.” They often bantered back and forth like that. For hours, it seemed. But neither of them got upset, nor did they leave without a long hug and telling each other that they loved them. The phone was handed to him by Ben. After saying his name, the man on the other end started talking.
“I don’t know who this is, but I’m about to go into the courtroom to hear a case I don’t want anything to do with. Either tell me why I shouldn’t just hang up on you, or I will do just that.” He told him that he was Lannie Jacobson’s brother, Lance. “Lannie? Christ, I’ve not heard from her—what’s going on that you’re calling me?”
“She’s dead.” Lance broke down. He was sobbing to the stranger about how she was gone and that her last words were for him to call him. To tell him that Tommy had done it. “She was murdered, and now I’m all alone, Mr. Archer. What the hell am I going to do without her?”
“Listen to me, Lance. Have they taken you to the hospital?” He said that they’d taken him to jail. “Good. Stay there until you hear from me. I have to make a couple of calls but do not allow anyone to put an IV in you nor to take any of your blood.”
“They did that at the scene. What’s going on that has you telling me this like I’m guilty?” He said that he wasn’t guilty and that he didn’t want him to end up that way. “I didn’t kill my sister, Mr. Archer. I couldn’t have done that—”
“I’m sorry. But listen to me, Lance. Don’t allow anyone to take your blood. I don’t want you to answer any questions, say nothing about anything. You were on scene, I take it?” Lance told him everything, including the part about the pudding. “I’ll get someone to the shop to find the one you ate out of. Do you know where it might be?”
“It was under the desk where I was. I put it away so that it wouldn’t be obvious as to where it was. I didn’t know that Lannie was…I didn’t know about Lannie at that time. Also, you need to be aware that there are cameras all over her shop. They have a recorder in the offices, but everything is automatically uploaded to some kind of offsite place. It uploads every twenty-four hours with not just the time stamped but the date and year as well.” He asked for and was given the sign-in and the password to get them. Sherman told him not to say anything to the officers about it. “I won’t. You’re kind of scaring me. These are my men. I don’t think they’d do anything like this to me.”
“Do you know who Tommy is, Lance?” All he knew about it was that his sister was afraid of him. “With good reason. I’ll explain everything when I get there. I’m having my secretary make some calls. You keep your mouth shut and your fluids where they are now.”
~*~
Robert got off the plane in New Orleans at noon. He thought he’d done well since Sherman had called him only three hours ago to get his ass there. Robert also had a list of things he had to do for Lance. First and foremost, he was going there to talk to the other man. He was arriving just as a lunch tray was being served to him. For the third time, it seemed.
“Lance, you’re supposed to eat this. The doc said that you need to eat every bite of it.” Lance, he supposed it was the man sitting on the cot, didn’t say a word. “Come on now. If I take this back, they’re going to make me bring it back to you again. That guy taking over for you while you’re here has a real hardon for you to eat this.”
“Excuse me. My name is Robert Archer, attorney. I’m here to speak to my client. As for the meal, he just lost his only sister, and I doubt very much I’d want to eat either. Leave it here, and I’ll take care of it.” The officer, Crumble, his name tag said he was to make sure that Lance ate it. “As I have said to you, I’m here to talk to my client, and you leave it here, and I’ll take care of it.”
After handing the tray off to him, Robert set it on the floor and took samples of everything on the tray. Once he had them in evidence bags, he sealed them up and put them in his briefcase. He didn’t know if he’d make it out of the building with them, but he was curious as to why they wanted him to eat.
“My name is Robert Archer. My brother Sherman sent me here as your representative in this case. How are you feeling?” He said he was dead inside. “I can well imagine. I’m profoundly sorry for your loss. I’m here to make a few things happen for you.”
“My sister was murdered. Your brother said he’d explain a few things to me when he arrived. Is he coming?” Robert told him that he was, but not until tomorrow. He was working on things to help him not be arrested. “You think they will? Arrest me, I mean?”
