A Life for a Life by Lynda McDaniel (win 10 ebook reader .txt) đź“•
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- Author: Lynda McDaniel
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Seemed that silly woman, Cassie, Gregg’s assistant, found something inside a book that scared her. Della said it was some kind of copy of Lucy’s suicide note—like he’d been practicing making it or something. Anyway, when Cassie saw that, she called Brower because she said it was her Christian duty.
Man, I’d heard that kind of thinking my whole life. She went to our church, well, the church Mama still went to, and that’s what folks said when they wanted to justify doing somethin’ mean. I’d heard that her and Gregg didn’t get along all that great because of her Bible thumping, and I guessed that had come back to bite him in the ass. I mean, even if Della came out of the store with a smokin’ gun and blood all over her, I’d still wait to hear her side of the story. But no, little Miss Christian had to go running to the sheriff. Never mind that Gregg was one of the nicest guys around. I hoped she’d get fired oncet Gregg got cleared.
While we was outside talking, a few customers drove up, so Della had to go inside. That’s when Cleva asked how I was doin’. She went on to say that she wondered if I thought I might go back to school. Her question surprised me—and made me choke up a little, grabbing my throat so I couldn’t speak for a minute. She was surprised, too, and started fussing over me, saying, “Oh, Vester, I’m so sorry I upset you.”
I really liked her and didn’t want her to feel bad, so I got myself together and told her I’d love to go to school, and if she could find a way to help make that happen, I’d be obliged to her for the rest of my life. I don’t know what made me say that. It just slipped out. By then, I think she was kinda choked up, too.
“I don’t understand why you went straight to Brower.” I was standing in front of Cassie’s desk at the Forest Service office. She just sat there with her tissues and trembling chin, determined not to be cheated out of her pity party.
“I was afraid to ask Gregg about it because it seemed like he was some kind of monster. Make that is some kind of monster. How else did those so-called suicide notes get inside that computer book? He probably thought no one would look there. Listen, Della. I was scared, scared through and through.”
I couldn’t think of a good argument for her, other than the fact that we both knew Gregg. But I had to admit that a strange series of seemingly unrelated events had conspired to land Gregg in jail. She went on to explain that an electrical outage started it (a common irritant around there). That interrupted her work on a flyer for her boyfriend’s band while Gregg was away at a Forest Service meeting in Asheville. I recalled that the band had a ridiculous name—The Naked Outlaws—especially since they weren’t naked when they performed (though who knew what happened during rehearsals), and they weren’t outlaws, unless being a Christian rock band was considered a crime against music.
The outage crashed her computer, which refused to reboot once the power was restored. She said she called someone she thought could help, but that person was at a loss, too. They figured her only bet was the computer manual, which led her to Gregg’s office. While she flipped through the pages, the notes fell out. As she told it, her hands started shaking when she opened one, read it, and screamed for help.
“I couldn’t believe it. They were exactly like the note everybody’s been seeing around town, word for word, but one had some cross-throughs, as though he’d been practicing. And the second one was the same—only perfect. Like he’d got it right. In that poor girl’s handwriting.”
“Why would Gregg leave something incriminating like that lying around?” I asked. “Especially if anyone could go snooping around and find it.”
Cassie stomped her foot. “I wasn’t snooping. I was honestly trying to work on something, and one thing led to another.”
“Honestly working on your boyfriend’s flyer, you mean.”
Cassie gave me the most unchristian look. “Well, if it weren’t for the power outage, I would have been doing my regular work.”
That didn’t make sense since her work on the poster was interrupted by the power outage, but I could tell Cassie wasn’t going to offer anything useful. “Something stinks, Cassie.”
“Hey, whose side are you on?”
“To be honest, Gregg’s.”
“Listen to me. That note was in Gregg’s office. Hidden in a book he figured no one would ever look in because he hadn’t in the two years since we got computerized. I rest my case.”
“Well, good for you. You’re the only one who can rest. You’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest and put someone in jail who I seriously doubt was stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence lying around his office. Who else has access to his office?”
“That’s just it. No one. Except me, and I sure didn’t kill that girl.”
“I know you didn’t, Cassie. But someone must have planted that evidence. Who cleans your offices?”
“I do,” she said, with an angry tone I couldn’t blame her for. Just hire the little lady to do everything.
“Well, I’m sure Brower won’t care about the unlikely details of this, but I sure do.” I may have stomped my foot, too, before I slammed the door and left Cassie sniveling.
––––––––
I headed over to the jail and caught Brower in another relatively good mood. I guessed he was basking in the thrill of having caught a dangerous outlaw. He let me in to see Gregg without so much as a smirk. “What’s with him?” I asked Gregg, once Brower had locked me in the jail area.
“I think he’s enjoying his new status—capturing a bad guy.” Gregg looked pale, a two-day growth and tangled hair making him look like a stranger.
The evidence against him was piling up. When Lonnie checked Gregg’s truck for fingerprints, he found Lucy’s underpants under the passenger seat. Gregg insisted they must have been planted, which seemed obvious to me, too. I told Brower (who did have a smirk on his face that time) that since she hadn’t had sex recently when she was murdered, they were irrelevant. Brower counter-argued that the underwear was likely left behind at an earlier date and showed that Gregg knew her quite well. And who better than a forest ranger to know the perils of hemlock, he added. They saw it as a crime of passion when Lucy spurned Gregg’s attention.
At first, I wondered how they knew the underwear was hers, but then I recalled the laundry she’d left at Blanche’s—which I’d turned over to Brower. Everything had the initials LS on the elastic, including the pair in Gregg’s truck.
And Lucy’s fingerprints were in his truck; those couldn’t have been planted.
“Oh for God’s sake, I gave that girl a ride,” Gregg told me, his arms thrust out as though he were pleading for his life. “She was walking to the campsite, which was over a mile away, but not far from my office, where I was headed. Big damn deal. Arrest me for breaking Forest Service Code 666, but I didn’t harm that girl.”
“Anyone with any sense knows you’re no killer, Gregg.”
He sat back down and held his head in his hands. He sat like that for a long time, then finally looked up. “Hey, listen, Della. I’m really sorry about being so harsh on the phone a while ago. It kinda stung that you’d turned me down, but I know you’re a good friend. If the offer still holds, I accept—and not just because I’m in this mess.”
“You bet, Gregg. I appreciate that. So who has access to your office beside Cassie?”
“Anyone who can pick a lock,” he said, “and I’m sure there’s no shortage of folks around here who could do that. But why me? Why pin this on me?”
“Have you gotten into it with anyone about the wilderness area?”
“You mean those Green Treatise idiots? Yeah, we’ve gone toe to toe a time or two.”
“Anyone else?”
“Oh, hell, there’s always someone who’s trying to steal or poach or burn something down.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, looking ready to break.
“We’ll figure something out, Gregg. I promise.” As I stood to leave, I couldn’t resist asking, “Is your relationship still going well?”
He grimaced. “It lasted about as long as our phone call.” I slipped out the door to avoid embarrassing him any further.
When I got home, I started my search the same way I did the last time—contacting Nigel. I mailed him copies of the traced notes and the details surrounding them. (At least Cassie had done something right—she’d made copies of the notes before Brower got his hands on them.) As I dropped the envelope in the out-of-town slot at the post office, I wondered when or if he could help me again.
“At first I thought Gregg couldn’t have done it. But then I remembered how mad he got when I broke it off.”
Kitt came back the next day, right at closing time. I had a special shit list of people who did that. She was pacing around the store, ringing her hands, picking up cans and putting them down in the wrong place.
“I didn’t know you knew Gregg that well,” I said.
“We went out a few times, but it didn’t go anywhere. I thought he was a good catch, but then something seemed off. And like I told our dumbass sheriff, he got so mad when I told him I didn’t want to go out anymore that he scared me.” She punctuated that by slamming a can of beans down in the soup section.
At first, I didn’t take her opinion of Gregg very seriously. I knew this guy, right? But then I recalled how unlike himself he sounded when I basically told him the same thing. Maybe we didn’t know him that well, after all.
Kitt interrupted my thoughts. “You know, everyone’s been wondering why you’re so concerned about this girl. I mean, none of us knew her.”
“I just care, like any red-blooded human being ought to. And I’m a nosy reporter.”
“What have you found out?”
“I have my sources.” I’d used that line a time or two in my career. “Which, now that we’re talking about this whole mess, maybe you could tell me why you were at a recent Green Treatise meeting.” She reeled around and almost knocked over my display of homemade jams and relishes.
“What are you talking about?” Lame. She was stalling.
“The Green Treatise meeting a couple of weeks ago.”
“Were you there?”
I ignored her question. “You just don’t seem like a good candidate
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