Dead Secret

Diane started to protest, but Star was already to the phone.

“Hello. . Who?” Star put a hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Diane. “Do you want to talk to a Susan Abernathy?”

Diane reached for the phone. Something heavy formed in the pit of her stomach. Her sister, Susan, almost never called her. There would have to be a dire emergency for her to phone.

“Susan?”

“Diane, I’ve been trying all week to reach you. Don’t you answer your messages? I had no idea what the name is of that museum you work for, and I don’t know your cell phone number.” Susan made it sound like Diane had been avoiding her on purpose.

“Susan, what’s wrong? Has something happened to Mother or Dad?”

“Yes, something has happened,” Susan snapped. “It’s a nightmare. You have to come to Alabama tonight.”

Diane’s heart was beating hard against her chest. She and her parents were all but estranged, but the thought of something happening to them filled her with fear.

“What is it, Susan?” Diane tried to sound calm.

“Mother’s been sent to prison for robbing a bank.”

Chapter 17

Diane expected to hear that her mother or father was ill, had been in an accident, had disappeared or had died. She had not expected to hear that her mother had robbed a bank.

“Susan, is this some kind of joke? It’s in very poor taste. It’s late and I’m tired.”

“Diane, it’s not a joke. Have you ever known me to joke? Mother’s been arrested. Dad is beside himself. He’s so upset he can’t go in to the office. You know about this kind of thing. You’ll have to come.” Her sister sounded frantic.

“I’ll. . I’ll leave tomorrow,” stammered Diane.

“You have to come now.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? What’s more important? Dammit, Diane, you have to get on a plane and come right now.”

“I had a medical procedure done yesterday. I can’t come right now, but I’ll leave as early as I can tomorrow morning. Mother’s had a bail hearing, hasn’t she? Are you at the house? Can I talk to her?”

“No, she’s not out on bail. I already told you, she’s in prison.”

“Is Dad there?”

“He went to bed early. I made him take a sleeping pill. We’ve both been trying to get you. Why don’t you ever check your messages?”

With the funeral and the stabbings Diane had forgotten to look at her answering machine. Damn. “I just got back from a two-week vacation. Why didn’t you call the museum? They would have gotten in touch with me.”

“I couldn’t remember the name of it.”

“You could call information and ask for the museum in Rosewood. There’s only one.”

Diane heard Susan expel her breath in the exasperated way she did when they argued. It meant that she wasn’t going to listen to anything Diane said on the subject.

“But that doesn’t matter; I’m here now,” Diane said. “Tell me what happened.”

“Mother didn’t come home last Tuesday. We’ve been frantic, calling hospitals, friends, the police, everywhere we could think. We thought she’d been kidnapped. She finally phoned this morning-from federal prison! They told her she robbed a bank!”

Diane ran her fingers through her hair, and the effort brought a pain to her arm. She winced.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Diane said. “Why do they think it was her?”

“I don’t know. We can’t find out anything. The police are witless and uncooperative. This is just awful.”

None of this was making sense. “What did Mother say?”

“She’s just as confused as we are.”

“What does her lawyer say?”

There was a long pause. Surely, thought Diane, they have a lawyer.

“Alan is trying to find out something,” Susan said.

“Alan? Alan who? Not Alan Delacroix?” Diane shot up off the sofa and paced back and forth.

“Yes, and don’t you start anything. You know he’s been friends with Mother and Dad forever. He’s always been like a son to them.”

“I didn’t know he was in Birmingham.”

“Yes, he is. Dad helped him get a job with a law firm down here.”

What a cozy little family, thought Diane. Her parents, her sister and her ex- husband.

“He only does wills and estates,” said Diane. Alan would be a fish out of water in criminal court.

“Alan is a good lawyer.”

Diane let it go for now. Arguing with Susan was a waste of time and energy. She sat back down on the sofa. “I’ll call tomorrow and let you know when to pick me up at the airport-you can pick me up, can’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Has she been arraigned? Do you know when she goes to trial-anything?”

“She’s not going to trial. They took her straight to prison. There’s not any talk of a trial.” Susan sounded exasperated. “Are you listening to me?”

“What? Susan, what country did she get arrested in?”

“Here, of course. Diane, you ask such absurd questions sometimes.”

“They can’t put you in prison without a trial.”

“Alan thinks she got caught up in this Homeland Security thing.”

“Are you saying they think she’s a foreign terrorist?” Diane was completely bewildered now. For the life of her she couldn’t imagine anyone in their right minds thinking her sixty-five-year-old, upper-middle-class mother was a bank-robbing terrorist. She was beginning to wonder if Susan had started drinking.

As she talked to her sister, Diane watched Star eating her pizza and listening to the conversation. Her dark eyes were as large as saucers. Diane thought that must be the way she looked too.

“I’m not saying anything. I’m telling you what’s happened.”

“Susan, they can’t send her to prison without a trial.”

“They can. It’s in that new Homeland Security act.”

“The act doesn’t give those kinds of powers, Susan.”

“Oh, so you know what it says.”

“I know about anything that concerns human rights. I still keep up with the law in that area.”

“You always think you are so smart. Well, you’re not. I’m telling you what has been going on with Mother and you’re over there smugly saying it didn’t happen, but it did.”

Diane felt her face getting hot and her jaw aching as she clamped down on her teeth. “Dammit, Susan,” she yelled into the phone. “Listen to yourself. Nothing you’ve said so far has made any sense. That’s why I’m skeptical.”

Star’s eyes got really wide as she stared at Diane.

“Alan says there are several ways they can put you in prison without a trial. He believes they are holding her as a material witness to a bank robbery that the government thinks was done by terrorists.”

Diane shook her head, though Susan couldn’t see it. “That doesn’t track.”

“ ‘That doesn’t track’? What does that mean? Just because Alan thought of it? It’s the only thing I’ve heard that makes any sense.”

Diane pinched the bridge of her nose, glad she hadn’t taken any Percocet or she’d probably wake up in the