Dead Giveaway

DeShay sighed. 'Guess you know the law almost as well as you know your best buddy inmates. You and God gonna help us on this one?'

Kelly smiled. 'I might do that, Sergeant, because you see, I think God is the one who sent you both here.'

On the ride back to Houston, I called DeShay immediately on his attitude change after we'd sat down with the chaplain.

'Sorry,' he said, 'but some things get to me. See, the reason I wear a badge is because my sister was murdered when she was sixteen. Drive-by shooting. Some damn bleeding-heart minister convinced my mother to forgive the crackhead who killed her. Mamma actually testified during the penalty phase on the bad guy's behalf. Then she dropped dead the next day. Had a massive stroke. Now that's God talking, you ask me. The Big Man called her on her mistake.'

'So you're mad at her, too?'

'No. I only wish things would have turned out differently.'

'You go to church anymore, DeShay?' I said quietly. If his mother's faith had been that strong, he'd probably been raised in a religious home.

'Don't feel comfortable there, you know?'

'Yeah. Forgiveness may be a choice, but it's not an easy choice. And before you get all pissed off again, I'm in that boat myself. I'm having a hard time forgiving my adoptive Daddy. I thought he hung the moon, but after he died, I found out he was a liar. A liar with good intentions, but still a liar. Then I married an even bigger liar who blackmailed and killed and generally messed up my life and plenty of other folks', too. I haven't forgiven either of them.'

DeShay changed lanes to avoid a convoy of trucks traveling the interstate toward Houston. 'You're a lady who leads with her heart. Sounds like that got you into trouble. Not all bad, putting your emotions out there. Me? I deal with them by working the streets, loving my job.'

'Me, too. Even when it gets... emotional and scary.'

'You got the smarts to do this investigating thing, Abby. Be careful with that Washington dude, though. Bad guys are pretty much all psychopaths, and psychopaths are convincing SOBs.'

'What if he is innocent?' I asked.

'Washington's guilty of something or he'd be talking. They all want that get-out-of-jail-free card and we hinted we might offer a good parole report. Somehow, that wasn't enough. That tells me something.'

I glanced out the passenger window. DeShay was right. If Washington was innocent, why had he walked out on the interview? Was he protecting someone? The mother of his child—who probably was not Verna Mae? I could be wrong about that, though. DNA doesn't lie. If it wasn't Verna Mae, who was the birth mother? I didn't know, but maybe looking deeper into Washington's past would help me answer that question.

After DeShay dropped me off at home, I went straight to the garage and climbed in my car. I couldn't fix the mistake I'd made by rushing to the prison prematurely, but I could take the keys back to Burl, explain why I had them and enlist his help as Jeff had suggested.

About five p.m., I walked into the Bottlebrush police station, and Burl came out to the front desk to greet me.

'What's up, Abby?'

'I'd like to take you out to dinner and, well, apologize. Then maybe you'll help me with something.'

'If you're apologizing for not telling me you and your sister were coming to town last night, there's no need, Abby.'

'It's not that. I have to talk to you. Anywhere we can grab dinner?'

'You think the Missus would like it one bit if I went out to dinner alone with a woman who looks like you? Believe me, she'd hear about it before I paid the check.'

'I'm paying the check,' I said.

'No. We'll go to my place. That will make everyone happy.'

We left a few minutes later, with me following Burl home. He lived on the outskirts of Bottlebrush in a sprawling brick one-story home. When we arrived, he introduced his wife, Lucinda, who had come out on the front porch to greet us. She responded by giving me a punishing hug while reminding me we'd already met on the phone.

'Pretty thing, isn't she, Burl? You married?' she asked as she and Burl led me into their house.

'Divorced,' I answered. I was proud of that particular piece of paper.

'You're free. Great. Our oldest, Burl Junior, is—'

'Lucinda. Quit.' Burl looked over his shoulder at me. 'He's twenty-one. She thinks he needs to get married as soon as he graduates next May.'

'He's a little young for a thirtysomething like me, wouldn't you say?' I smiled, glancing around. If there was an opposite of the place I'd visited this morning, this was it. Warmth and comfort filtered out from walls crammed with photos of a smiling family, not to mention the smell of the home-cooked meal that saturated the air and had my mouth watering.

'Hope you like fried chicken,' Lucinda said when we entered the country-style kitchen. 'We'll have plenty for ourselves. The boys are gone doing their thing. One has swim practice; the other's into martial arts, so he's out breaking apart planks of wood. Boys do like to destroy stuff. Burl Junior's up at A&M taking a summer Spanish class.'

An oval table covered by a green woven cloth was set with bright plates, all different colors, cloth napkins and tall glasses of tea. Steaming bowls of mashed potatoes and green beans surrounded a platter of golden chicken pieces.

'You knew I was coming?' I asked.

'Burl called me to set a place for you on his way home. We talk a lot. Or I do, if he's telling it. Anyway, this is a better dinner than you'll get in town. Not a decent restaurant to be found unless you're looking for eggs and grits. Casey's Cafe? does serve up an acceptable breakfast after church.'

'Sit, Abby,' Burl said, 'or Lucinda will talk you to death before you get to taste the best fried chicken in the world.'

So we ate, and I found no time for talk during that meal. I was too busy savoring every mouthful. Lucinda managed to get in plenty of conversation, though. By the time she was finished, I knew everything that had happened in Bottlebrush that day, down to the woman who'd broken a liter of Dr Pepper in a supermarket aisle and thought she could just walk away without telling a clerk. The way Lucinda told it, the woman had more nerve than a sumo wrestler turned cat burglar.

Burl leaned back in his chair, a contented smile on his face. 'I'm curious. What do you need to apologize for, Abby?'

'A set of keys I spotted under Verna Mae's bed. I grabbed them, but when I found Kate hurt, I forgot all about them.' I rose and went to my purse, which Lucinda had set on the kitchen counter. I removed the originals and handed them to Burl. 'Here you go.'

He stared at the keys in his palm. 'You gonna give me the copies you made, too?'

'And why would I make copies?' I said evenly.

'Hand them over.' He sounded just like Daddy used to when I got caught in a lie.

'Is there a reason I can't keep a set? I mean, the estate belongs to Will and he's given me free rein.'

'Think for one second and answer that question yourself,' he replied.

'Okay. So you don't want me messing with evidence,' I answered.

'Aren't you glad we never had girls, Lucinda?' Burl said.

'I don't know, sugar,' said Lucinda. 'This one might make me proud if I were her mother. You gotta admit, she's working her case.'

'Yes, ma'am,' he said. 'But she still needs to give me the copies.'

I did. One set, anyway. 'Looks like the key with the label might be for a storage unit, right?' I asked after I handed them over.

'Yup, and just 'cause I have these, doesn't mean you can't know where these keys lead me.'

'Thanks. See, that's what we need help with. Finding what they belong to.'