Homemade sin, p.1
Homemade Sin, page 1
KATHY HOGAN TROCHECK
HOMEMADE SIN
A CALLAHAN GARRITY MYSTERY
Dedicated with love and gratitude to my spousal unit,
Tom Trocheck
Contents
Author’s Note ix
1
NINE-LETTER HINT,” I muttered,
absentmindedly winding a curl around my… 1
2
THE QUIET IN THE CAR was deafening. It was thirty… 11
3
A RED PICKUP TRUCK, a green Honda Civic, and a… 15
4
THERE WERE DOZENS more questions
swirling around in my head. 25
5
I CALLED AHEAD AND BY SHEER luck got Charlie Fouts… 34
6
FOUTS WAS STILL STRUGGLING to get the seat belt ends… 44
7
WHEN I NOTICED THE RED Ford parked in the driveway… 50 BUCKY WATCHED ME watching Tyler King leave. “And you call… 63
9
MARCH IN ATLANTA is an iffy proposition. Lots of rain… 69
10
HALF AN HOUR,” I told Mac. We were walking up… 78
11
WINTER CAME BACK Monday morning. Rain pelted against my bedroom… 87
12
THE LAST TIME I REMEMBER staying in bed for two… 93
13
WEDNESDAY MORNING, I noticed that Edna had taken my bottle… 99
14
SINCE I WAS IN THE neighborhood, I told myself, I… 108
15
HE WAS DRESSED IN a black Atlanta Falcons sweatshirt black… 118
16
WHEN I GOT HOME, Edna was still gone, but she’d… 125 I KNEW I MUST BE getting close to The Texas… 135
18
SO MAYBE I DID oversleep. All I know is, by… 143
19
THE CAR PHONE RANG as I was leaving the Varsity. 156
20
SUSIE BATTLES STEPPED off the MARTA bus just as the… 165
21
FRIDAY MORNING I found the appointment book placed squarely in… 175
22
THE PHONE RANG again as I was finishing the calculations… 182
23
ON ANOTHER DAY I could have tolerated Anita Lindermann. Some… 193
24
THE HOUSE WAS TOO quiet. I had a throbbing headache… 203
25
WALLER WAS STAYING at the Holiday Inn in Decatur. Nancy… 209
26 220 IT WAS NINE O’CLOCK. “How about we get some dinner?”…
27
THE TAPE QUALITY was poor: grainy, black and white, it… 229
28
THE WOMAN IN MY dream wore a diaphanous white gown… 234
29
YOU LIKE STRIP CLUBS?”
249
30
DID YOU CATCH the comic’s name?” I asked Edna. Michael… 260
31
YOU’RE NOT GOING OUT by yourself
tonight.” Edna said it… 269
32
IT WASN’T UNTIL I’D gotten in the van and was… 276
Epilogue
I PULLED THE PILLOW over my head, but it didn’t… 287
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Kathy Hogan Trocheck Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Author’s Note
Although some streets, locations, and neighborhoods referred to in this novel are authentic, I have occasionally rearranged Atlanta geography to suit my own purposes. Homemade Sin deals with themes of murder, family, and betrayal. Although certain real-life situations may have influenced the plot line, this is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are the product of my imagination, and resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1
N
INE-LETTER HINT,” I muttered, absentmindedly winding a curl around my finger.
“Adumbrate,” said a disembodied voice from behind the sports page.
I glared, but he didn’t see me. Too busy reading about the ACC basketball tournament. Edna and I exchanged glances. My mother knows about my love/hate relationship with the Sunday crossword puzzle. I like to save them up and work them on Saturday mornings. I read the clues out loud. Helps me think. But I loathe it when someone tries to help me. And Lord help the person who tries to beat me to the puzzle. Edna knows better than to even talk to me while I’m working the crossword.
Reluctantly, I scribbled the letters in the box. Adumbrate worked, of course. Stupid word. Mac doesn’t even bother with the Atlanta Constitution’s crossword puzzle. He usually picks up a Sunday New York Times at Oxford Books.
“Any coffee left?” said the voice again. With a small, martyred sigh I put down the paper and got up to refill both our cups.
I caught the telephone on the first ring.
“Callahan?” The voice on the other end was low, muffled. “Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”
The response was whispered.
“Speak up,” I said. “I can’t hear you.”
“It’s me, Neva Jean,” she hissed. “I can’t talk any louder. I’m at a pay phone.”
I rolled my eyes heavenward. Edna saw me, got up, refilled the coffee cups herself and sat back down.
“Must be Neva Jean,” she told Mac. “She’s got that look.” Mac lowered his paper and looked for himself. “Definitely Neva Jean,” he said.
“Callahan,” Neva Jean said. “You gotta help me. I’m in trouble. Big trouble.”
This was not hot news. Neva Jean McComb is rarely not in some sort of mess. She’s a hard worker, one of my best employees, and she usually means well, but Neva Jean is one of those souls who attract trouble like a black dress attracts lint.
“What’s the deal?” I asked, leaning my back against the kitchen counter. “Where are you, anyway?”
“I’m at one of those fast-food emergency room places, over on Covington Highway,” she said, raising her voice a little. “Swannelle’s bad sick. Callahan, I might of sorta killed Swannelle.”
“Might have?” I repeated. “Speak up, Neva Jean. Is he dead or isn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed, up to top volume now. “He’s been back in with the doctor for over an hour now. The nurse won’t tell me nothing. For all I know Swannelle’s dead and they’ve already called the cops to come get me.”
“Calm down,” I ordered. “Tell me what happened.”
“It was that goddamned bass boat,” she said, sobbing. “It never woulda happened if it weren’t for that damn boat. I didn’t mean to kill him, really. I was so mad I didn’t know what I was doing. Is pissed off a defense for murder, Callahan?”
“What bass boat? Did you try to drown him or what? Quit crying and quit talking in circles, damn it. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Swannelle went to the boat show with Rooney. Rooney Deebs, that’s his cousin. And when he came home last night he was towing a brand new candy-apple-red bass boat behind his truck.”
Slowly, the motive for Neva Jean’s attempted murder was becoming clear.
“He bought a bass boat? Aren’t they pretty expensive?”
“Twenty-eight frigging thousand dollars,” she said, gasping for breath in between sobs. “Our house didn’t cost but eighteen thousand. And it’s got plumbing. He put eight thousand down—all the money we had saved, and signed a note for the rest. Said he was gonna sell McComb Auto Body and him and Rooney was gonna go on the professional bass fishing tour together.”
“So you had a fight.”
“Not this time,” Neva Jean said. “I was so mad, I thought I’d bust a gusset. I slammed the bedroom door and locked it. Then I took every piece of clothes he owns, and all his bowling and softball trophies, too, and pitched them all out the window. And you know it rained last night.”
“So what did Swannelle do?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“Hollered at the locked door for a while. Stormed around, rippin’ and rantin’. Then he got drunk. Knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk. Then he passed out on the living room sofa. I got up this morning. I saw the little prick, laying there, passed out on my good sofa, and when I looked out the front window and saw that twenty-eight-thousand-dollar bass boat, I got mad all over again. I picked up the nearest thing to hand, a can of Raid, and I emptied it on that bad boy.”
“You sprayed Swannelle with a whole can of roach spray?” Poisoning was a new frontier for Neva Jean. The last time the two of them got into it, she’d taken a steak
knife and cut off his ponytail while he was sleeping. She’d grazed him once with the pickup truck in the parking lot of Mama’s Country Showcase out on Covington Highway another time. And then there was the memorable time he’d abandoned her in a Waffle House parking lot in Macon.
“It was more like half a can,” she said, calmer now. “We’ve had a bad bug problem this year.”
“What happened?”
She started sniffling again. “It was awful. He started coughing and choking. Grabbing at his neck like he couldn’t breathe. Tried to sit up, but he fell back down again. His eyes were watering and his nose was running, he was drooling like a mad dog, and when I looked down I noticed he’d peed his pants, too. I never seen nothing like it in my life. He was dying, right there in front of me.”
“You got him to an emergency room, right?” I said, encouragingly.
“Yeah,” she said, pausing to blow her nos
She had me there. I’m a former cop and I’ve been dabbling in the private investigation business for a couple of years now, when I’m not running my cleaning business, but I’d never heard of death by Raid before. There’s always that first time, though.
“Tell you what,” I said, “give me your number there. I’ll call Maureen and ask her. In the meantime, do you have a lawyer?”
“A lawyer?” she screamed. “What do I want with a lawyer? I didn’t mean nothing by that roach spray, Callahan. I was just so mad I couldn’t think straight.”
“I know,” I said. “And if ever there was a case for a justifiable homicide, you’ve got one. But if the worst happens, if somebody calls the cops, you really should have legal representation. You want me to call Katie Reilly?”
“That’s the lawyer with the condo in Ansley Park?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you clean her place alternate Thursdays.”
“I reckon,” she said, resignedly. “She keeps a real neat kitchen as I recall.” Neva Jean gave me the emergency clinic phone number and then hung up.
“Did I hear right?” Edna asked, looking over the top of the bifocals that slide down to the end of her nose. “Did Neva Jean spray Swannelle with bug spray?”
“Half a can of Raid,” I said, picking through the box of doughnuts Mac had brought. I found a cake, one with gooey chocolate frosting, and picked a piece of the frosting off with a fingernail. I’m trying to diet again. “They’re at one of those doc-in-the-box emergency clinics. Neva Jean’s convinced she’s killed the one great love of her life.”
“Are you really going to call Maureen?” Mac asked. He knows my sister and I are not on the best of terms. But she’s a nurse at Grady Memorial Hospital’s emergency room, and even if she is a bitch she knows emergency medicine.
My eyes met Edna’s. “I thought maybe you’d call, Ma. It’d be quicker. Neva Jean really sounded scared.”
“Gimme the phone,” Edna said, slapping my hand away from the doughnuts. She dialed my sister’s number and turned her back to me. After chatting for a moment or two she hung up.
“Maureen says Swannelle’s probably sick as hell, but that Neva Jean probably couldn’t kill the little pissant with Raid unless she managed to bash his head in with the can. She says they’ve probably got him hooked up to an IV with atropine; that’s the antidote to roach poison. And your sister sends her love.”
“I’ll bet,” I said. “Well, I guess I’ll hold off calling Katie, since it looks like we’ve ruled out homicide.”
Katie Reilly’s an old family friend. She handles what little legal work I need, and in return we clean her condo every other week. I love cash-free transactions like that. I called the emergency clinic back and asked for Neva Jean.
“Callahan,” she said quickly, “he’s all right. My lover man’s gonna be fine. The nurse just came out and told me. Swannelle’s gonna pull through.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “Maureen says you can’t kill a person with Raid. So I guess you don’t need a lawyer unless you decide to divorce him.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” she said, sniffing. “I’m just so thankful Swannelle’s going to live. I’d never forgive myself if anything should happen to that man.”
She started blubbering again, going on about how sweet and kind and good Swannelle McComb really was.
“Yeah, he’s a saint, that Swannelle,” I said, interrupting. “Listen, as long as he’s okay, I really need to go now. I’ll see you Monday, right?”
“Uh, well, the doctor says Swannelle’s going to need some nursing, Callahan. Bed rest and fluids and like that. I thought I’d stay home and—”
“Put a six pack of Old Milwaukee on his side of the bed and leave the television on ESPN, Neva Jean. He’ll be fine, but you’ll be out of a job if your butt’s not here at nine A.M. Monday.”
“Aw, Callahan,” she moaned. I cut her off and hung up. Edna and I run the House Mouse, which we think is the best damn cleaning business in Atlanta. Trying to keep Neva Jean and the other girls in line is a full-time job, but it beats the hell out of my last real job, which was as a detective for the Atlanta Police Department’s property crimes unit. With the House Mouse I make my own hours (long) and my own rules (mostly flexible). We’re making a decent profit now, and every once in a while I take on a private investigation gig, just to satisfy my own need to right wrongs and mind other people’s business.
“What did Swannelle do to provoke Neva Jean this time?” Mac asked. While I was on the phone he’d swiped my crossword puzzle and was now busily filling in the blanks. With a pen.
“Messed with her crossword puzzle,” I said, snatching the paper out of his mitts and glaring at him.
“Seriously,” he said.
I sat back down at the table and sipped my coffee, which had gotten cool. “He came home with a brand new twentyeight-thousand-dollar bass boat which he bought with the money Neva Jean’s been saving up for a new kitchen,” I said.
“Too bad she didn’t spray him with something more lethal,” Edna said, lighting up one of her maxi-length filter-tip cigarettes. “I’d have tried some of that Easy-Off Oven Cleaner if it’d been me. That stuff would knock a dog off a meat wagon.”
“Jeez,” Mac said, folding the sports page. “You’re not serious, are you? You think it’s all right to kill a man just for buying a bass boat?”
Edna leaned her head back and let twin streams of smoke drift toward the ceiling. “Aw, the oven cleaner’s just a warning,” she assured him. “A man like Swannelle McComb, a man like that, you’ve got to keep him in line all the time.”
Mac reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Tell me she’s not for real. I can never tell when your mother is putting me on.”
Edna had gone back to reading the wedding announcements in the newspaper’s lifestyle section. “I’d say she’s serious. So let that be a warning to you, Andrew McAuliffe. We Garrity women play for keeps.”
“I’ll remember,” he promised.
The kitchen was quiet then. The kind of rare Saturday morning quiet that’s filled with the sipping of good coffee, the turning of a newspaper page, the occasonal snicker at something in the funnies. The furnace clicked on. We were having an unusually wet and chilly March.
When the phone rang again the three of us jumped, simultaneously.
“Get that, Ma, will you? And if it’s Neva Jean tell her she’s got a full day Monday, and I’m not kidding, either.”
Edna got up slowly, letting the phone ring twice more.
“Well hey, Jack,” she said warmly. I looked up at the mention of my cousin Jack’s name. But instead of grinning, as she usually did when her favorite nephew called, Edna’s face had gone pale and her mouth was twisted with pain.
“Oh my God,” she said, holding a hand to her mouth. “Are they sure? When? How did it happen? Sweet Jesus. What about the kids? Are the kids all right?”
She listened intently, her body tensed, the cigarette forgotten, dropped ashes down the front of her blouse. She brushed at them, then shut her eyes.
“I can’t believe it,” she was saying. “They’re really sure? How’s your mother? Is somebody with her? Yes. Yes. I’ll come right away. Okay, love, see you soon. Thanks for calling.”
“What?” I said, rushing to her side. “What’s happened?” I think I knew before she told me.
“It’s Patti,” Edna said dully, massaging her temples with her fingertips. She pushed her glasses down and dabbed with a dish towel at red-rimmed eyes. “She’s dead, Jules.”
“When? How?”
Edna sank back down in her chair. “Yesterday. Jack didn’t want to tell me everything on the phone, because Jean was sitting right there. The police are saying it was a carjacking. Dylan was in the car too, but he’s been so upset they can’t tell what he might have seen.”
“Oh my God,” I said.
Mac got up, got the coffeepot, and refilled our cups. “Is that Patti McNair, the cousin you told me about?”
I nodded, unable to speak. My throat had swollen shut and my eyes burned with scalding tears. I buried my head in the crossword puzzle, watching while the ink blurred.
