After breakfast, Lillian took a shower, and I called Sophia who was elated to hear from me. She vowed she’d turned the heat down last Tuesday after cleaning the house. It took at least five minutes for her to conclude she understood exactly where Rachel’s diaries were located, how many there were, and the exact mailing service I wanted her to use. I could tell she was a little frustrated with her English skills, but mostly her concerns were overdoing exactly what I wanted. She agreed she’d do this just as soon as school was out. Her elation returned when I promised to add an extra hundred dollars (plus shipping cost) to this week’s pay.
In the same two seconds, I said goodbye and received a call from “Unknown.” If it had been an 800 number, I wouldn’t have answered. Sometimes I wasn’t logical. “Hello.”
“Mr. Harding?”
“Yes.”
“This is Avery Proctor. We met yesterday.”
“I remember.” It was DA Garrison’s chief investigator. “What can I do for you?”
“The DA wanted me to call and ask a favor.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“Do you think you could take a photo of Ray Archer’s tag? The stills you brought don’t fully disclose the tag number. He parked the Vet at a weird angle.”
“You’re referring to the red corvette?” I could hear others talking in the background.
“That’s right. Pam is an absolute stickler for details. But she wanted to stress you shouldn’t take any risk.” My first thought was to decline. I assumed Ray parked his Corvette at the Lodge, inside the garage. I quickly concluded, based on all that Ray now knew, it could be dangerous going to his home. “If she wasn’t so crunched for time, she wouldn’t ask, but our entire team has a conflict: me, Mark at the Sheriff’s office, your investigator, even Joe and his assistant.”
“Well, I can try. Maybe I’ll get lucky. By the way, what’s my deadline?”
“I’m sure Pam prefers you not to look at it that way, like it’s imperative. However, her plan is for ADA Vincent to be at the Magistrate’s office ready to apply for warrants no later than 3:00 PM today. Again, don’t put yourself in a confrontation position.”
Investigator Proctor said it would be okay to send him a digital copy and not to worry about having the photos developed. He gave me his email address and again strongly advised me to, “think before you shoot.” Neither the joke nor laughter created an apple pie and football image.
He ended the call just as Lillian descended the stairs dressed in tight jeans and a baggy, crimson-colored sweatshirt. I shared DA Garrison’s requested favor and received a puzzled look, scrunched forehead, and squinted eyes.
Lillian’s response surprised me. “Good news. We can go to the Lodge after we leave Ray’s office.” She removed a scrunchie from her jeans and returned to the kitchen table. There was something mesmerizing about watching her pull back her silky brown hair.
“Maybe the corvette will be at his office.”
“No way. It’ll be at the Lodge. He always drives the Suburban to work.” Lillian scanned her iPhone for a long minute. “He’s at the office or will be shortly.”
“How do you know?”
“Facebook. Anna. Ray’s secretary. She’s like a fountain, always spewing subtle clues. Today’s post, ‘Workday,’ along with a GIF of a man operating a jackhammer, means she’ll be busy and not play Solitaire or surf the web like she loves to do.”
“Whatever. Grab your camera while I take a quick shower. Let’s get this done.” Maybe I was taking this too seriously. Lillian had half-a-century with the son-of-a-bitch.
“I see you’re worried, so I’ll verify.” Lillian shushed me toward my bedroom and finger-tapped her iPhone. Halfway down the hall, I heard her tell somebody she was coming by and to make sure her check was ready. I showered and changed without finding an answer to my nagging question: how would Ray respond to me spending so much time with his wife? I couldn’t wait until his arrest.
***
Lillian insisted we take the Aviator. There were several boxes of books she’d left in Ray’s garage. She insisted I drive. “You drop me off in front of Ray’s office and circle the block. I’ll be outside before you complete one loop.” I’d seen his building when Kent and I tried to visit Jackie Fraiser on Thanksgiving.
Turning onto Mcville Road, I remembered the corner building had been a church when I was growing up. The post office was next door. The Sand Mountain Bank was beside it. “I’m such a lucky woman.” Lillian said, as I crawled through the stop sign at Beulah Road.
“Uh?”
“Few wives get paid when their husband screws another woman.” I didn’t know how to respond to the shocking statement. I glanced toward the Jane Seymour look-alike but didn’t tarry. “Micaden Tanner’s idea.”
I stared at the road and sped up, barely secreting an “uh-mm.” Lillian would fill in the blanks if she wanted to.
“He’s brilliant. We’re fortunate to have him on our team.” I couldn’t disagree with that assessment.
“I agree, Micaden is impressive.”
“If you didn’t know, Ray’s always been a philanderer. My opportunity came when he was on the verge of selling the pharmacy chain. He was in the spotlight, and I was ready to get out, at least to cause him some pain. Micaden suggested I demand a redo of our prenup. Long story short, Ray loved his reputation more than his money. He promised, in writing mind you, to pay me $50,000 every time he had an affair. That’s when I hired Connor Ford to keep tabs on my pussy-loving husband.”
“You paint a vivid picture.” And I thought I’d met some interesting characters in the thousands of cases I’d read over the years. Lillian was head of the line.
“Today’s check is $150,000. It should be 200K, but I gave him a twenty-five percent discount.” I cut my eyes her way and nodded. We rode the remaining few miles in welcomed silence.
Ray’s dark blue Suburban was on the street in front of his office. I stopped without pulling into a parking spot. “I’ll drive at normal speed. Be careful.” I still didn’t like the idea of Lillian confronting Ray, especially over money. Hopefully, it won’t be that big of a deal.
In less than three minutes, I returned. Lillian was waiting behind the Suburban. She hopped in, holding a number ten envelope in her hand. It was already open. “When Ray’s arrested, I’ll treat you to a steak, but we best go out of town.”
I smiled. Sort of. “Any trouble?”
“No Ray in sight. Anna handed me the envelope and volunteered her boss was with Mayor King at City Hall.”
“Good. Ray may be near seventy but he’s still a powerful man.” I crossed Highway 168, remembering how he’d stabbed my forehead at the Hunt House with his long-pointed finger. I imagined he would have beaten me to a pulp if it hadn’t been for Ted King.
***
I’d never been to Skyhaven Drive. The mountainside subdivision was three miles south of Boaz. Charles Cooley, a high school classmate’s father, developed it in the early seventies. The Lodge set at the peak and provided an enviable view of Pleasant Valley below.
I took the right fork of the concrete driveway that led to a three-car attached garage along the north side of the rock and cypress house. All three doors were closed. There was another garage, this one detached, a hundred feet to the west and down a gently sloping yard.
“The corvette will be there.” Lillian said, cocking her thumb to her right toward the detached garage, with its two doors similarly closed. “Come on.”
I exited the Aviator and followed her across the yard. “Are they locked?” I said as she walked around the side of the building and disappeared.
I heard her say, “Wait.”
In less than a minute, I heard metal clanking and saw the right-side door opening. The corvette’s rear tag appeared. Lillian started snapping photos with her iPhone, including several random ones around the inside of the garage. She must have noticed my puzzled look. “No need for my fancy Nikon.”
“That’ll make it easier to email the photos to the DA.”
She lowered the door and disappeared again. When she walked around the corner, she motioned me to follow her up the hill to a sidewalk that led to the rear deck of the house. “I want my books.”
“I thought you said they were in the garage.” Lillian ignored me and started punching buttons on the security pad next to the back door.
“They are, but those three doors are locked. Plus, we need to grab my recorders.”
“Whoa, whoa. This isn’t a good idea. What if Ray shows up and we’re inside the house?” It was a dumb question. One I already knew the answer.
“It won’t take but a minute, now come on.” For some stupid reason, I ignored my best judgment, any judgment, and followed Lillian. She opened a set of bottom cabinet doors in the middle of the kitchen island before I could walk fully inside. She first knelt and felt around the underside of a stainless-steel sink, then transitioned into lying flat on her back and inching her head inside the cabinet. “Here it is. Whew, I thought he’d found it.”
“Hurry. Where’s the other one?” I knew Lillian said she’d hidden two devices. She held up her right hand for my help in standing. With her left, she tossed me the cell-phone sized device.
“It’s in the master.” The teenager acting woman was around the island, across a giant great room, and circling a spiral staircase when I heard a deep baritone horn.
“Shit.” I again followed Lillian and the direction of the outside blare. I peeped through the blinds next to the front door.
“It’s just the UPS guy.” I kept following my ears down an L-shaped hallway into an over-sized bedroom. Lillian was atop the bed on her knees, reaching behind a row of leather-wrapped biographies.
“Risky place to leave a bug.”
“Not really. Ray’s not a reader. These are all for show, whose I’m not sure.” I could see inside two connecting rooms. One was the master bathroom. The other looked like an office or study, given the large wooden desk and chair.
Lillian clutched the recorder and rolled to the other side of the king-size bed. “We need to do one more thing. Come on.” Oh my god, wonder woman trolling for trouble.
This time, I eased to a window and its opened wood blinds. All I could see was a circular drive and a forest of trees beyond. When I found Lillian, she was sitting at Ray’s desk prowling through the bottom right-hand drawer. “What are you doing? Let’s get your books and go.”
I scanned the room while Lillian ignored me. There were no windows, but two mounted deer heads cast a dark light from the wood-paneled walls. Although the photons weren’t real, my thoughts were. It takes a dark individual to kill other sentient beings and showcase them, even inside a private room.
“Okay, got it.” She slammed the drawer and grabbed my hand as she jogged past. “Come on. I thought you were in a hurry.” I obeyed.
We exited the master, made a U-turn around the spiraling staircase and jogged down another hallway lined with photographs, paintings, and plaques of the only person I hated. “Ego walls,” I noted.
The moment we entered the laundry room, we both froze at the sound of an automatic garage door. “Oh shit, it’s Ray.”
Lillian’s transformation was instant. She turned to me with a gapping mouth and hollow eyes, her face ghostlike. Shocked was the best description. “Okay, here’s the plan.” My quick decision reminded me of long-gone days in court: objections or follow-up questions rooted in seconds, not minutes. “I’ll go out the back door while you distract Ray.” I eased backwards and scanned the ego wall for the framed newspaper article, including a photograph of Ray and Lillian. “Here, tell him you’re sorry for not asking, but you wanted this picture.” I nodded affirmatively while retreating to the kitchen. “You can do this. Go now, I’ll be hiding in the Aviator.”
Lillian finally gave me a weak thumbs up and opened the door to the garage. I turned and hustled to the kitchen and outside to the rear deck, descending the steps two at a time. My ears were on alert as I raced the sidewalk to the north end of the house. Maybe I expected screaming or gunshots, but there were neither. Exhausted, I eased into a row of shrubbery at the corner. In this position, I could hear Ray’s loudmouth from inside the open garage but couldn’t understand his words. I turned the corner and hugged the wall towards Ray’s Suburban parked halfway inside the garage’s nearest stall.
“And what the fuck were you and that dumb ass Lee Harding doing at Ted’s cabin Friday night?” I peeked around the wall and saw Lillian standing at the bottom of the utility room stairs, holding the framed picture. There weren’t two feet separating her and Ray. He loved to intimidate. No doubt he was angry. Both hands were by his side, rapidly opening and closing like he was preparing to fight.
Wonder woman lost her cool. “I’ll answer if you tell me why the fuck you burned down the Hunt House.” Oh my gosh Lillian. What are you doing? I thought about sprinting around Ray’s Suburban and on to the Aviator. I leaned back against the outside wall, shook my head sideways, and stared into the beaming sun.
“Don’t you fucking accuse me of anything.” Fuck was a popular word. Then, I heard glass breaking. I peeked again. Ray had grabbed the framed article and slammed it against the stairs. He hurled the twisted remains against the rear wall and rammed his right index finger into Lillian’s forehead. Much harder than he had me outside the Hunt House. She fell backwards and awkwardly slid down the steps onto the garage floor.
I didn’t hesitate half a second. I ran as fast as I could toward Ray. He heard me coming and turned just as I did my own ramming. It was like hitting a stone wall, but my momentum caught him off guard just before he could brace. The two of us tumbled ten feet and crumbled to the floor before impacting the wall. My shoulder cried out in pain, reminding me it was nowhere near healed. Ray was fast to be so big. He was on his feet in no time. His right foot centered on my upper stomach while I used all fours to stand. If it hadn’t been for Lillian, the beast would have killed me.
Later, she told me the moment she saw me running towards Ray, she’d seen a set of golf clubs leaning against the wall beside the steps. She’d grabbed a six iron and shellacked Ray’s neck before he could kick me twice. She’d used her best baseball style swing.
We waited ten minutes to determine whether Ray would live or die. He lived but moaned and groaned a lot as he labored to reach a sitting position against the wall. “Don’t you ever lay a hand on Lillian, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.” My anger, boldness, and growing stupidity prompted Lillian to demand our withdrawal and exit.
During the drive to Kyla’s, I kept verbally kicking myself for allowing this to happen. I knew there could be multiple consequences, one being mine and Lillian’s arrest, another being Ray’s next murder.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue. I’ll never forget.” Lillian said as we turned right at Walgreen’s.
The Pencil-Driven Life 