went to the boathouse. She called Derek from there and said she wanted to see him. He came down from his room angry. I was finishing up some work in my office. He stormed in and told me he felt like a servant being called to a duty. He basically said to hell with her and went into town instead to drink with Sonny Gilroy.”
Gilroy was a local wildlife artist, a guy who liked his Johnnie Walker and painted great ducks.
“After he’d gone,” Ophelia went on, “Lauren called me, demanded I get Derek out there. I’d had the gun for a while. I’d been imagining what it would be like to confront her with it. I don’t know why exactly, but that night I decided it was time to find out. Maybe I’d had a little too much to drink, too. The truth is that I hated her. I hated what she’d done to me and I hated what she was doing to Derek. Everything in me just … hated her. So I loaded the gun with the cartridges I bought and went to the boathouse. I knocked. She told me to come in, and when she saw that it wasn’t Derek, she went crazy, screaming at me all kinds of obscenities. I pointed the gun at her. Honest, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. But it was like she didn’t even get it. She screamed something like, ‘Oh just give me that thing, you stupid bitch.’ She started throwing stuff at me, whatever she could put her hands on. I tried to jump out of the way.” She stopped, thought, then finished, “And the gun … just went off.”
“How many times?” Cork asked.
“Once.”
“You fired the revolver only once?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m positive. I was horrified. I mean, oh, God, I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I turned and I ran.”
“Did the bullet hit her?”
“I guess. She fell back anyway.”
“Did you take the gun?”
“When I got back to my office, I didn’t have it. So I don’t know, I must have dropped it. I was, like, in shock. I didn’t know what to do. I left the center.”
“And drove home to your grandma Hattie?”
“Yes.”
“What did Hattie do?”
“Everything. She heard me out, and then we drove back to the center in her truck. There was Lauren lying dead on the boathouse floor. Grandma Hattie told me to help her, and we wrapped the body in a canvas tarp and put it in the back of the pickup. We cleaned up all the blood. Then I took Lauren’s keys and got her car and followed Grandma Hattie out to the rez. She showed me where to ditch the car, and she drove me home and dropped me there. She said she’d take care of the body. She made me swear that I wouldn’t say anything to anyone, that I would just pretend I knew nothing. And that’s what I did.”
“When Lauren’s body was found with the others in the Vermilion Drift, did you ask Hattie about that?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Nothing. She said I should never ask about that again, ever, and I haven’t.”
“Okay, back to the shooting in the boathouse. How far away was Lauren when you shot her?”
“I don’t know. Ten feet.”
“You’re sure?”
She thought a moment. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
“Did she fall down?”
“Yes.”
“Straight down, or did she fall back?”
She thought a moment. “She kind of stumbled back, like she was surprised or something, and then fell down.”
“On her back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“When you returned with Hattie, how was Lauren lying?”
Her brow furrowed, and she worked at remembering. “Facedown. I know because, when we lifted her up, there was blood all over the front of her dress and on the side of her face that had been on the floor.”
“What time was this?”
“After midnight, maybe twelve-thirty.”
“How long were you gone to Hattie’s?”
“Maybe an hour and a half.”
“So you shot Lauren at what time?”
“It was a couple of minutes before eleven when Derek left. I went to the boathouse a few minutes later, and I wasn’t inside more than a minute when it all happened.”
“When you left to go to Hattie’s, did anybody see you?”
“I don’t think so. Except for my office, the lights in the center were off. All the volunteers who’d had cocktails with us had gone home. The house staff were off for the weekend.” She reached out for her cane. “I need to go now. I need to get Grandma Hattie out of jail.”
Cork reached out and put a gentle restraining hand on her arm. “I’d like you to wait on that, Ophelia.”
“Why?”
“Your grandmother can’t be arraigned until Monday, but I suspect that our county attorney might be reluctant to charge her with anything. There are too many discrepancies in her story. I understand why now. Before you say anything to anyone, I’d like to do a little more investigating. I think I’m close to some answers, and I need a little more time.”
“Answers? I gave you the answers.”
“This is more complicated than you imagine, Ophelia. And Hattie’s a tough old girl. She can take a day or two behind bars, especially because she’s doing it for someone she loves. All right?”
She didn’t seem entirely convinced, but she said, “Okay, Mr. O.C. If that’s what you want. But will you do me a favor?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“When I finally do go in to talk to the sheriff, will you go with me?”
“Kiddo, I’ll be right there holding your hand.”
THIRTY-SIX
When Cork returned to the sheriff’s department, Ed Larson was back from the site of Indigo Broom’s burned cabin. He looked up as Cork walked into Marsha Dross’s office, and he shook his head.
“Nothing?” Cork said.
“My guys are still out there sifting dirt, but it’s not looking fruitful. Those manacles you mentioned to Rutledge? Not there. No bone fragments either. We didn’t find anything but scraps of metal and broken glass and broken crockery, all of it showing char. Oh, Azevedo got excited about finding a nineteen twenty-five Peace silver dollar, whatever the hell that is.”
“Did you see the rake marks?”
Larson nodded. “Somebody went over that area pretty carefully. After you got clobbered, how long were you out?”
“A couple of hours.”
“That might have been enough time to clean that small area. Bottom line is that, at the moment, we don’t have a thing to support any allegation against this Indigo Broom.”
“It appears that somebody’s protecting him. Which is odd,” Dross said to Cork, “if what you’ve told us about him is true.”
