Divine Justice

CHAPTER 68

WHEN SHIRLEY COOMBS left the courthouse it was already seven in the evening and the darkness had fallen solidly on mountain-bound Divine. She stopped at one store, and when she came back out she toted a plastic bag full of wine bottles. She put this in her car and then walked into Rita's. When she came back out a couple hours later she climbed in her late-model red two-door Infiniti where it was parked behind the courthouse. Apparently so absorbed was the woman in her thoughts that she never saw the white van behind her as she pulled on to the road and sped off.

She arrived home and went inside, staggering slightly.

Caleb pulled the van to a stop a little ways down from the house. Shirley Coombs lived in a one-story vinyl-sided house with a small front porch decorated with tubs of pansies. A gravel drive led to a detached garage. Twenty yards behind the house was thick forest. In a side yard a vegetable garden had been laid out, though the only things planted in it now were a couple of bare and leaning tomato stakes. A pile of rusted lawn chairs and a stack of firewood dominated the small backyard. The lady had no neighbors; hers was the only house down here.

Reuben hunched forward between the two front seats and stared at the house as lights came on inside.

"Do we wait till she passes out and search the place?"

"Why don't you go and see if you can get a look inside one of the windows," said Annabelle.

"I'll go with him," said Caleb.

"Why?"

"Four eyes are better than two."

They slipped out of the van and headed to the house, keeping to the tree line until they neared the house. Then the two made a beeline for the back porch.

Five minutes later they were back in the van.

"Talk about your diamonds wrapped up in a tin can," said Reuben.

"What do you mean?" asked Annabelle.

"What he means is the inside of Shirley Coombs' humble abode hardly matches the outside. The furniture is all high-end, the paintings on the walls are real oils, a couple by artists I recognized, the rugs are authentic oriental, and she's got at least one sculpture that is museum quality."

"Shirley the small-town court clerk is living high on the hog," added Reuben.

"But not so anyone can see it," said Annabelle. "Crappy on the outside and I bet she doesn't encourage visitors."

"She must just like to be surrounded by nice things," ventured Caleb.

"I'd like to get a look at her bank statement," said Annabelle. "What do you want to bet it shows she's loaded?"

"And still staying in this place," said Reuben. "Why?"

"Greed," said Caleb, and they both stared at him. "She's doing something up here, something at that courthouse, and she's getting paid for it. But she wants more and she won't get it if she leaves."

"I bet you're right, Caleb. Nice deduction. She did strike me as the greedy type."

"The thing is, do we know it's connected to whatever happened to Oliver?" asked Reuben. "We could be wasting time with her and meanwhile Oliver might be in serious trouble."

"I think they are connected, Reuben," said Annabelle. "From what the sheriff told me, Oliver was right in the middle of all this stuff. I can't believe a small town like this would have two completely unconnected major secrets. Whatever Shirley's got going on has to be tied to all the other stuff. It has to. It's the only thread we've got."

An hour went by and then another. Finally, the front door to the house opened and Shirley came out. She was dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved blouse and flats and carried a bag. The way she meandered to her car indicated that at least some of the wine she'd purchased had made its way down her throat.

"She's going to drive like that, up here?" Caleb said worriedly.

When Shirley shot out of her drive, Caleb followed. They headed back to town and through it. Shirley finally turned off and drove up a dirt road, pulling the car to a stop in front of the demolished trailer.

She popped open the car door, grabbed her bag, and staggered up to what was left of the front steps and sat down. She opened the bag, pulled out the bottle of wine and chugged it. It went down badly and she ended up throwing most of it back up. She tossed the bottle down and lit up a cigarette. Then she started to weep, her head resting on her knees.

"Willie! WILLIE!" she sobbed.

"Can I help?"

Shirley jerked up and saw Annabelle standing there. She wiped her face with her sleeve, stared at her suspiciously for a moment and then shook her head wearily. "Nobody can help me, not now." She indicated the destroyed mess behind her.

"Was this where your son…?"

Shirley nodded and dragged on her cigarette. "What the hell are you doing here?" she slurred.

"Just driving around looking for my dad and heard someone crying. I'm sorry, Shirley, I really am. I know how you feel. The loss and everything." Annabelle sat down on the steps next to her.

"Why come here?"

"The sheriff told me my dad had helped Willie. I don't know, I thought there might be some clue here. At this point I'm basically grasping at straws."

With this earnest explanation Shirley's suspicious look faded. She flicked her cigarette away and rubbed at her eyes. "He was curious about what happened to Willie," she said slowly. "Came to see me about it."

"He did?" Annabelle said quickly. "I thought you two hadn't spoken."

"I lied to you," Shirley said bluntly. "I didn't know who you were and all," she added vaguely.

"Sure, I understand that."

Shirley's hands nervously slid back and forth over her thighs. She pointed straight ahead. " Lot of things out there in the dark, can't see 'em till it's too late."

"Right. What did he talk to you about?"

"Said somebody had tried to kill Willie. Said they'd put stuff in his Tylenol. I think he thought I did it. But I never would've done that to Willie. I even went to Willie's trailer one night to check on what pills he had there. I was thinking somebody was trying to get some crap in Willie's system that shouldn't be there. That's when I ran into your daddy, and he got all suspicious. But I loved my boy. Never would've done anything to hurt him."

She started sobbing again and Annabelle put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure my dad was just trying to help."

Shirley wiped her eyes dry and sucked in some fresh air, calming down. "I know that now. And he was right. Somebody killed Willie, sure as I'm sitting here talking to you."

"Do you have any idea who would've done that?"

"I got ideas, sure." Shirley's cheeks quivered.

"Can you tell me?"

"Why?"

"Shirley, whoever killed your son might have gone after my father because he was trying to help Willie."

"Sure, that makes sense, I guess. Oh, I don't know. Just don't know anymore."

"I'll try to help too. If you can just trust me."

Shirley gripped Annabelle's hand. "Lord, girl, do you have any idea how long it's been since I trusted anybody around this damn place?"

"Trust me and I'll help you. I promise."

Shirley glanced back at what was left of Willie's trailer. "When my daddy got buried up in that mine cave-in, we were all sick in our hearts. People die, sure, but you get to say good-bye, bury 'em proper, at least you're supposed to. But not with cave-ins. You know what you get? A condolence letter from the mining company that some damn lawyer wrote so a company executive wouldn't say anything actionable or that could be used against them. You know, admitting liability? I work for a judge, I know about that crap."

"Absolutely, it's terrible," Annabelle said encouragingly, continuing to hold the older woman's hand tightly.

"Mining company wouldn't do nothing, so the rest of the miners got together and dug a parallel shaft up there with the idea that maybe they could cut over to where the trapped miners were. They worked day and night, borrowing and begging equipment from everybody they could. This was long before the Internet and most folks up here didn't even have TVs or nothing, and there weren't any news trucks with satellite crap or nothing like you see everywhere when some movie star gets drunk and goes to court. So nobody knew what was really going on. My momma and I and all the rest of the women set up a kitchen and laundry and had cots and such for the men while they dug. And God did they dig. Ran a shaft all the way up there and were about to cut over when there was an explosion in the other shaft. Probably methane. Half the mountain dropped on top of my daddy and the others. After that, you couldn't risk it. And we all knew they were dead anyway. Nobody could've survived that blast. So they just sealed it up and built a damn prison on top of it. Some damn grave marker for my daddy that was.

"And when my husband Josh got a job there, I didn't like it one bit. But like he said, it was either the prison or the mines. And I sure as hell didn't want him digging for the same black rock that killed my daddy. So the prison it was. He wanted to get Willie a job up there too, but the boy went into the mines instead. Josh was working hard on him to get him out when he got killed."

"You said it was an accident?"

Shirley snorted. "Accident? Yeah, it was 'bout as much an accident as this was." She pointed to the trailer's remnants.

"You're saying your husband was murdered? Who? Why?"

Shirley stared at her, bleary-eyed. "I shouldn't be telling you this. I shouldn't be telling anybody this. It's been a hole in my heart for two years now."

"I just want to help. I just want to find my father. You've lost your son and your husband. Shirley, it's time the truth came out."

Come on, lady, tell me.

"I know you're right. In my heart I know you are."

"Then you know you should tell me."

Shirley took a deep breath. "I'm just so tired. And this has gotten way out of hand."

"Please, Shirley."

Shirley's red eyes seemed to finally focus as she stared out into the black night. "We get big shipments at the courthouse all the time. Lots of boxes. But the manifest and the boxes never match up."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean if the manifest says fifty boxes, there's only thirty that show up."

"Do you know why?"

"I'm not looking to get into trouble."

"I'm not the police, Shirley. I just want to find my dad."

"I've been poor all my life. You see this town now, it's doing good. Everybody is happy. Why shouldn't I get my piece? You know."

"I know. It's only fair."

"Damn right it is. I wanted to go to college. My brother got to but not old Shirley. We didn't have the money."

"I'm sure," Annabelle said patiently.

Shirley took another swallow of wine. Now she didn't even appear to remember that Annabelle was there. She seemed to be talking to herself. "And was I supposed to know that Josh would get killed when he went hunting deer? Rory just said to make Josh go and then call him. And so that's what I did. How was I to know? You tell me that."

"You certainly couldn't have known. But about those boxes?" prompted Annabelle.

"There's a big drug addiction problem up here. People'll do anything to get their pop."

"Is that what's in the missing boxes. Drugs?"

If Oliver ran into the middle of a major drug ring he's probably already dead. But if he isn't, he might not have much time.

"Prescription pills. Throws off a lot of damn cash."

"How are they transferred? I mean from the missing boxes with the pills to wherever they're going?"

Shirley lit up another cigarette and eyed Annabelle shrewdly. "Missy, we got us a bunch of drug addict miners go to get their methadone pop over at the clinic every morning so they can get back and hit seven a.m. shifts at the mines."

"Okay," Annabelle said. "But how does that tie in with anything?"

"They start out about two a.m. I know that because I've seen 'em. It's less than an hour drive each way, and it takes about a minute to get the pop. Anybody sees them and asks why so early, they tell 'em they can't sleep, just go to the clinic and shoot the breeze. But I know for a fact that doesn't happen. What happens is those boxes get driven a good ways from here and are dropped off at designated spots."

"Okay, but where do they pick them up?"

Oliver might have found that out and gone there.

Shirley stood and stumbled down the blackened timbers to her car.

"Shirley, where are you going?"

"Where I'm going is getting the hell out of here. I'm done with Divine. Should've left a long time ago."

Annabelle raced after her, grabbed her shoulder. "Please, Shirley, it's my dad. Please. He's all I've got left."

"I already said way too much. Booze talking."

"Can't you tell me something? Anything? To at least point me the right way?"

Shirley hesitated and then looked at the ruined trailer and then back at Annabelle.

"Okay. But you'll have to think about it real good."

"All right."

"When is a bottom changed into an ass?"

Annabelle immediately looked puzzled. "What?"

Shirley let out a drunken giggle. "Like I said, you think about it. When is a bottom changed into an ass? You want to find your daddy bad enough, you'll come up with it."

She staggered to her car and got in.

"Are you okay to drive?"

Shirley poked her head out the window. "Hell, honey, I been driving drunk since I was thirteen."

Shirley peeled off and Annabelle raced to the van, which was hidden down the road and behind some trees. When she got there she found four men waiting for her instead of just two. And the new pair had guns.