Stop Me (Last Stand #2)(38)
Author: Brenda Novak

It was exactly how Jasmine wanted to do it. “Thank you.”

“I can’t believe someone stole your purse and locked you in a cellar,” Tattie said as they walked to the front door. “It’s broad daylight. You’d think you’d be safe.

For the most part, this is a good neighborhood.”

And yet, a man who was, at the very least, a child molester had once called this “good neighborhood” home. Jasmine wondered how long Tattie had lived next door, and if she knew about Francis Moreau. But she didn’t comment. Tattie’s questions were mostly rhetorical, anyway.

“It’s just as well I had to run to the library and happened to hear you,” she went on. “You could’ve been down there for hours! Maybe all night. Beverly couldn’t hear a thing above the TV. Isn’t it lucky I came out when I did, Bev?”

Mrs. Moreau, who was following them to the door, said it was lucky indeed.

But Jasmine doubted she truly felt that way. She was lying about the TV. Jasmine had knocked, gone around the house and spent the past hour or more in the cellar. If the TV was so loud, why hadn’t she heard it?

What had this elderly woman planned for her? Was it Mrs. Moreau who’d killed the man buried in that muddy corner? Or was she covering up for the person who did?

“Thank you for coming to my rescue,” Jasmine said to Beverly as she stepped outside. She knew Mrs. Moreau wouldn’t have done anything without Tattie’s interference, but she wanted to spark a reaction.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, her smile unwavering. “It could’ve ended so differently.”

Like it had for the poor man wearing the white button-down shirt. “If not for Tattie,” Jasmine murmured.

“If not for Tattie.” She nodded and held the door open for them. “You might want to be more careful in the future. I don’t think it’s safe to go poking around other people’s houses, do you?”

Jasmine froze where she was. “I thought you didn’t know I was here.”

“I didn’t,” she said. “That’s just general advice.”

Tempted to pursue it, Jasmine hesitated. But someone shouted from upstairs, distracting everyone. “Mom? Are you coming? Mom? What’s going on?”

Beverly’s eyebrows knotted in concern. “I’d better go,” she said abruptly and pulled the door shut.

“That family’s gone through so much,” Tattie confided as they walked to the blue house next door.

Jasmine was anxious to lead the police to the body in that cellar, to see what Mrs. Moreau had to say then. She could scarcely think of anything else. But she was also interested in what Tattie could tell her, so she forced herself to listen.

“What’s wrong with Dustin?” she asked.

“He has some neurological disorder. The doctors can’t figure out what it is.

They thought it was multiple sclerosis, but he doesn’t have the telltale lesions on his brain. Then they thought it was lupus. Now I don’t know what they’re calling it.”

“So he’s an invalid?”

“Basically.”

“And Phillip?”

They passed two wire reindeer in the yard. “He’s fine, thank goodness. He’s actually the only normal boy of the three.”

“Then you know about Francis.”

“Of course. Thanks to the media, everyone does.”

They’d reached Tattie’s porch. Jasmine held the screen while the other woman unlocked the front door. “Did you know him?”

“Not very well.”

“Do you think he killed Adele Fornier?”

“Probably. On the surface, he was as mild-mannered as they come. But he wasn’t right in the head. You didn’t have to be around him very long to realize that.”

Tattie motioned for Jasmine to precede her inside. “Can you imagine what it’d be like for a mother to have a child murderer for a son? That’s got to be harder than anything.”

Under other circumstances, Jasmine would agree. But Beverly Moreau wasn’t an ordinary mother.

Beverly Moreau stood near the recently disturbed earth under her house and used her cell phone to call a man she’d been taught to call Peccavi. She knew the word was Latin, knew from past church attendance that it had something to do with sin, but she didn’t know the exact meaning. She’d asked him once and received no answer—just the barest hint of a smile.

“I’m coming,” he snapped without a greeting. “Do you know how hard it was for me to get away this time of year? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Beverly examined the camera she’d discovered near the door. It was covered in mud but it still worked. “We’re in trouble,” she said as she went through the pictures Jasmine Stratford had taken.

“Don’t panic. Everything will be fine.”

As usual, impatience rang through his voice. “It’s not going to be fine!” she snapped, responding aggressively for a change. “She found Jack while she was here.”

Beverly almost used Peccavi’s real name but caught herself at the last second. He’d decided it was safer if he went by a nickname. It wouldn’t have pleased him had she slipped up, especially on the phone. But it was difficult to remember such an odd name when she was this upset.

His voice turned to a threatening growl. “What do you mean, ‘while she was here’? She’d better still be there.”

Bev wiped some of the mud off the camera. “She’s not.”

The foulness of the curses that streamed from his mouth made her wince.

“What happened?”

Anxiety gnawed at the ulcer she treated with handfuls of antacids every day.

“My next-door neighbor heard the screams. With her standing in my kitchen, I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear them, too.”

More cursing. “That bitch neighbor is too nosy for her own good.”

Beverly liked Tattie. She was a busybody, but she meant well. She was the only one in the neighborhood who’d shown any sympathy for her when Francis was shot. “So what are you going to do? Kill her?”

“Shut up! We’re on the phone, for God’s sake. I’m just saying Phillip should’ve taken care of the problem before the neighbor got involved.”

“He locked her in the cellar. That was the best he could do.”

“The best he could do?”

“Taking care of that kind of problem is your forte, not ours.”