Miranda arrived at the hospital in Marietta, Georgia about 4:30 A.M., and found Fay asleep in the waiting room. She was told by the nurses that Kay was doing fine. The doctor would be in to see her in the morning. Miranda went to Kay"s room and watched her sleep for awhile, then got in a recliner and went to sleep herself. She had had a long, long day.
The doctor finally came around at almost noon, and examined Kay, and told her she was good to go home, so she was checked out. Miranda went with her girls back to their apartment, near the Georgia Tech campus.
They examined their car, and found that it was still safe to drive, though it did not look so good.
Fay couldn"t believe what she was hearing. "Mom, we can"t be seen driving a piece of junk like that! Can"t we just get a new car?"
"No, this one is still new, and it"s drivable, so make the most of it."
"But Mom . . ."
"It"s either drive this car, or walk! The choice is yours. The insurance will pay for the repairs, and for a replacement car, while this one is being repaired, so live with it!"
"What good is it to be rich, if you don"t want to use the money, Mom?"
"I"ll use the money, but I"m not going to throw it away foolishly! Sometimes you have to remember how things were before you got the money, and make prudent decisions, based on common sense."
Both her daughters rolled their eyes. Kay said, "Whatever!"
With both her daughters safe, Miranda knew she had to get back home, because she was worried about how the pool project was going. She took her girls out to eat lunch, then left at 2 P.M., heading back to Alabama. She sensed that it was best not to mention the fact that she was having a pool put in (and especially the fact that she was putting it in to hide a body), so soon after denying their request for a new car. Her daughters already accused her of using the word prudent only when she wished to deny something to them, and then forgetting the meaning of the word, when she wanted something. And they were probably right, but life was unfair sometimes. She had been on the short end so many times, that she wasn"t going to let her own daughters shame her into not using the money for what she wanted.
As she drove back to Alabama, she worried that in her brief absence, someone had somehow found the body she had buried in the floor of her pool. Because she was not there to watch over the site, she imagined all kinds of scenarios in which someone would just happen to stumble across it. Desperate for news one way or the other, she turned on the radio and tuned it to a Birmingham station, thinking that perhaps if the body was found, it might already have made the news. And if it had, what would she do? Go into hiding? Deny any knowledge of it? Make a run for the border? There was not much she could do, other than just go on home and face the music. She couldn"t run from the law forever.
Listen to her! Already conceding that she was caught! Most likely, no one had been to her house, and the body was still safe. If things had gone as scheduled, the cement had already been poured, and now it was history! All she had to do was clean up the mess in her freezer, and back porch (or better yet, dispose of the freezer, and the chain saw. Let"s not forget the chain saw!), and there would be no link between her and the missing Judge.
But even if the cement had already been poured, how did she know that the Judge"s remains were still there? How did she know that someone did not, for whatever reason, dig him up? What a silly, and paranoid thought! But once again she had to concede that Travis was right. She needed the peace of mind that she could only get from watching the cement flow over the Judge"s burial spot. She needed to know that he was really there, and that he was going to stay there! Kind of like the closure one got from being able to bury a loved one"s remains, she needed the closure of knowing he would never be found. What a time for her to get a call from her daughters! At one in the morning, right in the middle of burying a body, she gets this call! What were the chances of that happening? It was setting an uncomfortable tone for this whole mess. It was the confirmation of Murphy"s Law, that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. It was starting to happen, and she had the uncannily disturbing feeling that it was going to get worse.
It was almost 5 P.M. when she exited the interstate at Bessemer, and made her way to Kellerman, anxious to see about the progress on her pool. As she pa.s.sed the home of her r.e.t.a.r.ded neighbor, Lennie, she saw the reflection off a pair of binoculars in the front window. She wondered if Lennie was watching her at that very moment. Most likely, he was, because he simply had nothing better to do than keep up with what happened in the neighborhood. Within five minutes after she got home, the phone would ring, and it would be Lennie, because she knew he was watching.
When she drove up to her home, she saw that the contractors were still there. She unlocked the door and went through her house, and out the back door, on to the deck, where she could overlook the progress on the pool.
She was amazed. Yes, the cement had already been poured, and now the workers were cleaning and landscaping the sides of the pool, while the tile men were busy hauling in their tile for the next phase of the construction. She saw the supervisor talking to another man, and went down to pool side to talk to him.
"Oh, here is Ms. Monroe, the owner. Ms. Monroe, this is the man from Arlington Tile, who will be doing the tile work, starting tomorrow, after we remove the cement forms."
"It looks great! When I left, it was just a hole in the ground. Now it looks like a swimming pool!"
"I looked for you yesterday, but no one was home."
"Yes, I had to go to Atlanta unexpectedly for a family emergency. But I"m back now. Everything is fine."
"Good to hear that. We needed to get your approval on the tile colors. Since you were not home, I told them to use light blue on the bottom, and white on the sides."
"Is that an often used color?"
"Yes, it is more or less the standard for hotel pools. I didn"t know if you wanted your pool to be different."
"No, standard colors will be fine. I just need it finished before next Sat.u.r.day."
"Yes Ma"am. Then the tile laying will start tomorrow morning."
"My, your people work fast!"
"We have big incentives!"
"But you are not sacrificing quality for speed, are you?"
"No Ma"am! This pool will meet all the standards that any of our pools meet. And our satisfaction guarantee is exactly the same. Any problems related to construction for the first three years, we come back and fix free, even if we have to dig it completely up, and start again!"
"Let"s hope you don"t have to do that." (She really hoped they didn"t have to do that.) "Oh, by the way, this morning when we started pouring cement, we found a couple of digging tools in the bottom of the pool. My guys said they didn"t belong to them. Are they yours?" He pointed to a digging fork, and a pick, propped against her deck.
Miranda"s heart skipped a beat. They were her tools all right, but she couldn"t claim them. She had overlooked them in her mad scramble to get the body buried and get over to Georgia.
"No! Not mine! Why would I leave my digging tools in your pit?"
"Then that"s strange. Who would leave digging tools in our pit?"
"I don"t know. I wasn"t even here last night after you guys left. My daughter called from Atlanta and told me that they had been in an accident, so I left for Atlanta immediately."
"Then that is definitely a mystery. Someone, for some reason, was in your back yard after you left last night."
She couldn"t claim the tools, or she would be admitting that she had been down in the hole burying something. She couldn"t have that. She had to throw suspicion away from herself, so she asked: "It could have been local kids doing one of their pranks. Did they do any damage?"
"No, nothing that we could tell. Was there anything stolen from your house?"
"I haven"t looked, but I will."
"Wait a minute, there was someone out here this morning, while we were pouring cement! He rode up on a bicycle and knocked on the front door. One of my guys talked to him. Hey Jake! Come here a minute! I think Jake went and asked him what he was doing here."
Jake was wiping sweat as he walked up.
"Jake, you talked to that guy that showed up here on the bicycle this morning. Do you know who he was?"
"He said his name was Lennie, and that he was looking for Mrs. Monroe. I suggested that he knock on the back door, so he did. But I was watching him the whole time. When he didn"t get an answer at the back door, he left."
"Yes, I know a Lennie. He"s a r.e.t.a.r.ded man who rides a bicycle around our neighborhood. But he"s harmless. He wouldn"t steal anything."
"Think those might be his digging tools?"
"Who knows with Lennie? He might have had a crazy idea to help you dig the hole! He gets crazy notions in his head sometimes. Leave the tools there. I"ll ask him, the next time I see him."
"Okay, mystery solved! A crazy neighbor."
Miranda breathed a sigh of relief as she dodged that bullet. So far as she knew, the body was under that pool, and no one knew about it. She was home free! All she had to do now, was clean up the other evidence that the Judge had been there. She had to clean out and sterilize her freezer, and then sterilize her back porch, where she had dismembered the body. She had already disposed of the electric chainsaw, the same day she had used it. She had shoved it deep into her garbage can, and then watched later that day, as the garbage truck came by, its mechanical arms reached out and grabbed the garbage can, and lifted it up and over the opening in the back of the truck. She listened to the hydraulic crushers, as they compacted the garbage, crushing the chainsaw as well. The crushed saw was probably already in the county landfill, and there was no way it could be traced back to her. Even when she had purchased it, she was careful to use cash, so there would be no credit card record that she had purchased a chainsaw. She had also paid for the freezer with cash. Wasn"t she smart? As far as she knew, there was no record at all of her purchasing anything that she had used to dispose of the body. After sterilizing the freezer, she would call the Jimmy Hale Mission, and make an anonymous donation of one new freezer.
As the men worked to finish up the cement work and landscaping for the day, Miranda went into the house to get her cleaners and scrubbers ready to sterilize the freezer. Being a neat-freak, no one would think it strange that she was so diligent in her cleaning. She intended to leave no DNA evidence at all, that the Judge had been at her house.
As she was filling a bucket with hot water from her kitchen sink, the phone rang. The caller I.D. said it was Leonard Kellerman, so she picked up.
"h.e.l.lo, Lennie."
"h.e.l.lo, Miranda! I"m glad to get you on the phone, finally. I thought something must have happened to you!"
"Why would you think that, Lennie?"
"Well, you disappeared while those men were putting in your pool, and I thought, why would she go somewhere while they are working on her pool? I figured you wanted to be there to be sure it was put in right."
"Oh, yes, you"re right Lennie. I did go to Atlanta late last night. I got a call from my daughters. They had an accident last night. One of them was hurt, so I went over there to see about my babies!"
"Gracious be! Are they okay?"
"Yes. Bruised, but okay. The teen-age boy who hit them was killed though."
"That"s bad."
"Yes. Well, why are you calling me, Lennie? I have a lot of cleaning to do."
"I was wondering how your pool is coming along?"
"Who even told you that I was putting in a pool, Lennie?"
"I saw all the digging machines going up Kellerman Road, and I knew something was up. I rode my bike out there and saw it was you. I went out there this morning and saw them pouring all that cement! It looks nice, real nice!"
"Well, maybe you"d like to swim in it after it"s finished?"
"Could I?"
"Sure, why not?"
"I"d like that! Only one thing, though. I don"t know how to swim!"
"That"s okay. It will have a shallow end. I can teach you how to swim, how about that?"
"Would you really?"
"Sure, why not? Everyone needs to know how to swim."
"That would be great! I knocked on your door this morning, but no one was there. One of the worker dudes told me to knock on the back door, so I did. I saw your freezer door was open, so I closed it."
The hair seemed to stand up on the back of her neck.
"Oh? The freezer was open? How much?"
"Only about an inch or so."
"Well, thank you, Lennie." This made Miranda wonder if she had left it open, or had someone else been in her freezer? Had someone been snooping? If so, did they see the bits of bone and flesh left by the chainsaw? It was a good thing the body was no longer there, or else she would be in panic mode right now.
"I enjoyed eating lunch with you last week. I don"t get to go to town very often."
"I enjoyed it too, Lennie."
"Really? Maybe we can do it again sometime?"
"Yes, maybe. But I"ll be pretty busy for the next few days."
"Maybe next week?"
"Maybe. I"ll let you know. So, what else is happening on Kellerman road?"
"The Dawson"s have got a new dog. A Doberman! I thought he was going to tear through the fence to get at me the other day! He scared me so bad, that I wrecked my bike!"
"Oh my."
"Mrs. Olson had to call 911 for her husband. They thought it was a heart attack, but it turned out to be just gas."
"I see."
"Your next door neighbor, Judge Rosewood, is still not home. I noticed that his mail is starting to back up in his mailbox. I guess he didn"t think to call and have his mail stopped at the post office before he left."
"I guess not. You know what? I"ll bet he would appreciate it, if you would collect his mail for him while he is gone."
"Do you think so?" Lennie asked.
"I"m sure he would. Just put it all in a grocery bag and give it to him when he gets back."
"Or you could do it for him, Miranda, since you are right next door."
"Whoever gets it for him, I am sure he will appreciate it. If you do it, he might pay you for doing it."
"Do you think so?"
"If I were him, I would."
"But what if he thinks I am trying to steal his mail?"
"I"ll tell him otherwise. He"ll probably be grateful to you for doing it. You can give it to him, or his wife, whichever one gets home first."
"Yes, I can do that! I"ll go get it right now!"
"Lennie, was anything thawed out?"
"Huh?"
"In my freezer. Was anything thawed out?"
"Oh, I don"t know. I didn"t look in, I just closed it."
"Well, thank you again, Lennie!"