Chapter 5
Andrews Farm
Vera sat with Luna in the living room while the paramedic and his partner did their job.
He would once again confirm that Jackie was indeed deceased and then they would load up the body and head to the morgue.
There was no reason to wait for the medical examiner to inspect the body at the scene since there were no discernible suspicious circumstances surrounding her death.
Except that Luna had called Vera instead of EMS to begin with.
Vera pushed the thought away. Didn’t mean anything.
Her little sister was not herself. She was seven and a half months pregnant and prone to absentmindedness and emotional displays.
Vera could only imagine how terrified she had felt when she walked into her home and found Jackie.
The poor woman had fallen down the stairs.
After all, she was in her mid-fifties and slightly overweight, carrying the bulk of said weight in her midsection.
Accidents happened. Losing her balance and then being unable to catch herself was a reasonable scenario.
It was possible she’d had some sort of medical event and had fallen.
A stroke, a heart attack. There were all sorts of feasible explanations an autopsy could very well confirm.
Thankfully by the time Jerome arrived, they had loaded the body onto the gurney. He didn’t have to see his mother lying at the bottom of the stairs with her face jutting forward as if she were a bearskin rug with the head still attached.
Jesus. Vera really had to get those thoughts and images out of her head.
Big, tall, muscled Jerome stopped at the gurney and stared down at his mother.
He leaned down and hugged her, his face against her chest, and his shoulders started to shake.
Vera felt terrible for all the bad thoughts she had entertained since arriving.
No matter how Jackie had treated Luna, she was the man’s mother.
He straightened, squared his shoulders and gave the waiting paramedic a nod, then Jerome turned to the living room. Vera held a sobbing Luna against her chest. The crying had started anew when Jerome entered the house.
Vera managed a nod in greeting.
He gave an answering nod, then knelt in front of Luna. “You okay, baby?”
Luna launched herself into her husband’s arms, giving Vera the chance to slip away.
She escaped to the entry hall, allowing the two some privacy.
Vera stood at the door and watched as the gurney was loaded into the ambulance.
Once the EMS folks had driven away, she closed the door and walked to the kitchen in search of Bent.
Not in the kitchen. She moved back into the hall and spotted him at the top of the stairs.
Stepping carefully as if the body were still draped there, Vera headed up to where he waited.
For a moment she only watched while he surveyed the landing and inspected the railing.
She wanted to ask if he had noticed something that didn’t fit but couldn’t bring herself to do so.
Instead, she studied the carpet for a potential loose spot that may have created a trip hazard.
The downstairs was hardwood, but upstairs was carpet with tile in the bathrooms.
“That must be where her head hit the wall.”
Bent spoke so quietly, Vera barely heard him. Her gaze followed his gesture toward the wall about midway down the staircase. A slight indentation was obvious from this angle with the way the light from the chandelier rained down on it.
They started down the stairs, pausing at the indentation for Bent to take a closer look. The treads of the staircase were not carpeted, so Vera looked for any sign of blood. No blood visible, but there was a crack in one of the spindles a few steps above the indented area on the wall.
Vera glanced up to the landing, then to the spot on the wall and finally back up to the cracked spindle.
It was possible the spindle had been damaged during installation and no one ever noticed.
She almost snorted at the idea. That would never have happened.
Luna would have noticed. Vera resisted the urge to run her fingers over the blemish.
Her mind played out the scenario necessary to create both the indention in the drywall on one side and the cracked spindle on the other. Jackie would have had to hit the spindle and then bounced in the other direction, damaging the wall, before plummeting the final distance to the floor below.
The way she landed, head facing forward and on her chin, seemed more logical with the bounce effect. It also indicated a good amount of momentum. As if the woman had been running when she pitched forward . . . or was pushed. Vera’s gut twisted with the thought.
The bottom line was that a body didn’t accidentally fall with that level of momentum unless there was a good, solid thrust of some sort behind it.
Vera kicked the idea out of her head and kept her mouth shut about the spindle. Who could say how long it had been that way? A mover may have caused the damage while bringing furniture up the stairs. A painter may have nearly fallen.
“Vee.”
She jumped, turned to Bent, who stood a step below her now. “Yes?” She hoped like hell he didn’t see the cloud of doubt in her eyes. She blinked a couple of times just in case.
“We should talk to Luna and Jerome and get out of their way.”
“We should. Yes.” She pushed a faint smile into place to hide the concerns that were piling up faster than flies on a corpse.
In the living room Luna and Jerome sat on the sofa, holding each other and sobbing. Vera wished there was some way she could help, but there was nothing. Losing a mother was heartbreaking—even if she was a know-it-all, unkind . . . Enough, Vee.
“Luna,” Bent said, “Jerome, we’ll get out of your way.”
Jerome cleared his throat. “I should . . . should call my father.” He let out a big breath. “I don’t even know what to say to him.”
“I can go tell him in person,” Bent offered. “Drive him over here, if you’d like.”
Vera’s heart lightened just a little. Bent truly was a good sheriff and a really good man.
He cared about the people in this county.
She was so grateful she had found her way back to him—no matter the bizarre circumstances.
Bizarre seemed to be an ongoing theme in the story of her life—of her sisters’ lives as well.
“I should tell him. I can drive over there.” Jerome extracted himself from Luna and stood. “But thank you, anyway.”
Luna started to lever herself up. Jerome gave her a hand. “I’ll go with you.” She swiped the fresh dampness from her cheeks.
A cell phone chirped a rapid-fire staccato. Vera recognized the sound as Jerome’s ringtone. She hoped his father hadn’t already heard the news some other way. He fished his phone from his hip pocket and made a face at the identity of the caller.
He glanced at Luna. “It’s Dad.” He stepped away and took the call.
Vera reached out and squeezed her sister’s hand. “Sweetie, you call me if you need anything at all.”
Luna managed a jerky nod. “Thanks, Vee.” She drew in a deep breath and worked up a trembling smile as she turned to Bent. “I appreciate you coming, Bent.”
“I’ll be right there,” Jerome said, his frantic tone drawing their collective attention to him. His gaze shot to Luna’s. “That was the hospital calling from Dad’s phone. He’s had a heart attack. It’s bad. We need to get over there.”
Good grief. What else? “Go,” Vera urged. “Bent and I will lock up here.”
When Luna and Jerome were gone, Vera turned to Bent. “I’ll trade you all this for your murder scene.”
He chuckled. “You might change your mind after you see it.”
She glanced around the entry hall with its clean, crisp painted walls and shiny wood floor. “There’s nothing else we can do here. I might as well go have a look.”
“I would sure appreciate it.”
Vera grinned. “Don’t appreciate it too much until after you see the bill I’ll be sending the county.”
While Bent checked the side door in the kitchen, Vera took a pic of the spindle and then the wall indentation. The idea that something wasn’t right wouldn’t let go, but she wasn’t saying it out loud. She righted the can of paint Luna had dropped when she came inside and found Jackie.
Hopefully that scenario was what actually happened.
Vera shook off any other concept. There was no way Luna hurt anyone. Not once in her whole life had she ever been a bully or one to fuss or fight. In the back of her mind, Vera couldn’t help thinking that maybe some errant gene Luna had inherited from her mother had suddenly surfaced.
No way. Luna was nothing like Sheree.
Why the hell was she even thinking about that woman? Sheree was dead and buried. And that long-ago secret as to what really happened to her had come out and shaken things up for a while. They had all, including Luna, moved on.
Vera was immensely grateful that Luna had forgiven her and Eve after they’d stuffed her dead mother into that cave on the farm all those years ago. And then kept it a secret for more than two decades. What kind of sisters did that?
No use rehashing the past.
Damn. Vera suddenly realized that she needed to call Eve. As a mortician at one of the top funeral homes in the area, she would not be happy if Jackie Andrews’s body showed up on her mortuary table without advance warning.
As Vera and Bent exited the house, she called Eve and filled her in. She didn’t mention her worries about what may have happened at the top of those stairs. Eve would agree that it wasn’t likely.
No way.
Vera cringed. Hopefully.