Day Shift

“You have issues with the way I handled that?” She was beginning to get angry herself.

Manfred took a deep breath, and she watched him calm down. “No,” he said. “And yes. I’m not happy that a woman is dead outside my house, and that she died in pain and fear. Also, I’m worried with how to conceal her corpse. I’m worried about further police investigation. And I’m sorry that since she’s dead, there may not be justice for Rachel. No one will know what happened to her. Since the murderer has been murdered, there’ll always be suspicion floating around.”

Olivia felt depressed now. And that made her angrier. She’d done well, she thought, and this was the thanks she got: none at all.

“Listen, shrimp, no one can ever prove that you put her meds in her drink, because you didn’t. Bertha did.”

Manfred sat down abruptly. “Lewis just told me Bertha did it. But I didn’t know whether to believe him.”

“I looked up Morton’s will,” she said. “He did leave everything to his wife first, and after she died, to the heirs of his body. He had his money in a trust. Rachel had the use of the trust in her lifetime, but after that, yada yada yada.”

“And John really is Morton’s son?”

“Morton apparently suspected he was, or he wouldn’t have worded the will that way. I found a way to read it online.” She smiled with considerable pride.

“But why kill Rachel? If the money would eventually come to John anyway?”

“I’m just guessing, but John was arrested recently. That’s public record, too. Not in Bonnet Park, but in Abilene. For vehicular manslaughter. He totaled his car and his passenger was killed. So he was facing a trial. And he had no dinero for a lawyer. I don’t know if Bertha tried to get Rachel to cough up the money or if she even told Rachel what was going on. But John needs money, and he needs it now.”

“But it would still have to go through probate, right?” Even his grandmother’s meager estate had had to go through probate. “I needed money to keep the house running after Xylda died, and the lawyer let me have it.”

“I bet he would have let you have money for an attorney if you were facing criminal charges.”

“That… well, I just don’t know.” Manfred suddenly felt the whole day crash down on him like a ton of bricks.

“Where are you going?” Olivia asked sharply.

“To bed, Olivia,” he said. “I just can’t…” He never finished his sentence but went into his bedroom and closed the door.

And now, it seemed, Olivia would have to clean up Bertha’s body all by herself. She had counted on the tigers doing their thing and eating most of Bertha, but she guessed that was not going to happen. She went outside again.

“When I called you and told you to follow Lewis, this is not what I expected,” Olivia said to what was left of Bertha.

It hadn’t been hard to incite Lewis into tearing over to Midnight. Not hard at all, especially after she’d told him about the newscast. She’d pretended to be a reporter, and she’d repeated everything Manfred had said, and embellished some. And once he’d threatened to confront the fiend who’d ruined his life, Olivia had called Bertha. The result had been pretty damn near perfect. Except, of course, if the body is found and the law starts looking for tigers. Boy, the Rev won’t like that at all…. And this thought, which she admitted she should have had much sooner, worried Olivia quite a bit.

Okay, the body wouldn’t be found. And Bertha’s car wouldn’t be, at least for a while. Olivia hoped she had another shower curtain and extra duct tape stockpiled in her apartment. They were the handiest tools for body disposal. And she’d have to keep a close watch out for the tigers, not a hazard at any body disposal site she’d ever attended. She went down to her apartment, humming.

When she came back out some twenty minutes later, Olivia was pleasantly surprised to find that the body was gone. Only a bloody patch showed where it had lain. In the interest of tidiness, she attached the Rev’s hose to Manfred’s outside water faucet and spent ten minutes hosing down the evidence. There was still a chance of rain, but better to get the process started.

She thought, At least he can pay for the water.

35

Joe went out to exercise the next morning for the first time since he’d hurt his ankle. He couldn’t run, but he could walk. He turned east instead of west because he wanted to check on the death site. He and Chuy had heard the scream the night before, and they’d hugged each other. After a short time, he’d observed one of the tigers dragging something across the street and through the gate into the pet cemetery. And he’d seen Olivia cross the street to fetch the Rev’s outside hose, so he figured she’d watered down the ground.