OCAL WOMAN FOUND SHOT TO DEATH

IN OYSTER SHORES HOME

In the early morning hours of December 25, local woman Catherine Morgan was found shot to death in her home on Shore Drive. The forty-two-year-old woman was discovered by a neighbor, who immediately contacted police.

Investigators are continuing to gather evidence at the scene. Sheriff Albert Bailor has reported only that the death “appears suspicious,” and that they are “following all leads.” Sources outside law enforcement confirm that Ms. Morgan was shot in the chest at close range and that there was no sign of forced entry at her residence. Reports of sexual assault remain unconfirmed at this time. Anyone with information is asked to contact Sheriff Bailor.

—William Truman

Oyster Shores Tribune

Vivi Ann got out of bed slowly. In the last forty-eight hours she’d learned how to move quietly, to be both there and gone at the same time. Wrapping her terrycloth robe around her, she walked out into their living room and found Dallas exactly where she’d expected him to be: slouched over the kitchen table, rereading the newspaper accounts of the murder.

She put a hand on Dallas’s shoulder, felt him flinch. He cocked his head and looked up at her. There was a wildness in his eyes that made her want to draw back, but she knew how close to the edge he was and how much he needed her to keep him steady. She knew, too, that he was waiting for her to ask him if he’d done it. The whole town was talking about his connection to Cat. Rumors were running rampant about his late-night visits, his trips to the store for beer with her at his side. They knew this, both of them, although they hadn’t spoken of it.

“Today’s the funeral,” she said quietly. “We need to get Noah to the babysitter at eleven.”

“I don’t think I should go.”

“You have to go. People are talking—”

“You think I give a shit what these small-minded bastards say?”

“I think we have to care.”

“I should leave. Just leave. I never should have stayed.”

She grabbed his arm then, pulled him up to face her. “Don’t you dare say that.”

“They’ll come after me for this, don’t you know that?”

“No, they won’t. It’s just gossip. They need facts to make an arrest. It’ll go away.”

“Ah, Vivi,” he said tightly. “You’re so naïve... This will destroy us.”

He turned away from her and went into the bathroom and closed the door. She stood there a long time, staring after him. Her hands were trembling and she felt close to following him, but she didn’t.

They’ll come after me for this. He sounded so sure, as if he knew something she didn’t.

She wanted to brush it off, tell herself it meant nothing, but she couldn’t do it. Taking a deep breath, she walked through the shadowy cabin and went outside.

His gray truck was parked deep in the trees. Through the morning mist it looked like an old elephant, fallen to its knees in the shade. She slipped into the rubber boots by the door and clomped through the muddy grass. Opening the passenger door, she stared at the glove box, feeling panic rise like the fog around her. Reaching forward, she clicked it open.

The gun wasn’t there.

She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved, but fear remained, settled into a hard knot in her lungs. Moving stiffly, she closed the truck back up and went inside.

She found Dallas in the bathroom, dripping wet, wearing a towel slung low on his hips.

“Where’s your gun?” she asked, watching him closely.

He sighed. “I gave it to Cat.”

Vivi Ann closed her eyes. It felt as if everything were draining away—blood, hope; life.

“You told me to get rid of it, remember? And she had that guy who was harassing her last year.”

“That’s why you’re sure they’ll come after you.”

“It’s why I’m afraid.” He reached out, touched her chin. “Go ahead and ask me, Vivi. I know you want to.”

She heard the desperation in his voice, saw it in his eyes. All his life he’d been let down, and he expected it of her, but she knew him. Knew him. She knew how he looked at his son when he was sleeping and how he talked about their family. There was darkness in her husband’s past; but those days were behind him. Love wasn’t a surface emotion for Dallas, nor was friendship. No matter what he’d done wrong before, she knew he wouldn’t kill Cat. “I don’t have to, Dallas. I know you’re innocent.”

He seemed to deflate before her eyes. Saying nothing, he looked away.

“Now get ready. We’ve got to go to your friend’s funeral.”

For the next two hours, they went through the morning routine in silence, except for Noah’s nearly constant babbling.

At eleven o’clock, Aurora and Richard showed up, looking glum and concerned. Vivi Ann and Aurora stared at each other for a long moment, neither speaking, and then they all got into Richard’s rain-spotted black Suburban. They dropped Noah off at their house, along with Janie and Ricky and the sitter, and then drove to the church.

There, the pews were almost full of black-clad mourners.

Throughout the short, impersonal service, Vivi Ann held Dallas’s hand. She could feel his tension; sometimes he squeezed her hand so tightly it hurt. When the funeral was over, she got to her feet, pulled him up awkwardly beside her. Together, they merged into the aisle and went downstairs, where food filled the table and no one would make eye contact with Dallas or Vivi Ann. As usual, the women had baked their way to goodbye. People stood around, talking in small groups. There were no pictures of Cat set up on easels around the room, no sounds of weeping.

“Hypocrites,” Dallas muttered beside her. “Look at them. Those women crossed the street to avoid her if they could.”

“Don’t,” Vivi Ann said sharply.

Aurora, Richard, Dad, and Winona came up to them, closed in tightly. Vivi Ann felt a wave of gratitude for their support, but she could see by her dad’s face that he was not happy about being here.

And then, suddenly, Al was there, in uniform. “Come with me, Dallas Raintree,” he said in a loud, showy voice. “You’ve got some questions to answer.”

Vivi Ann clung to her husband’s hand. “Come on, Al. You can’t believe—”

Dallas pulled free of her. “Of course he believes it.”

Al took Dallas by the arm and led him away. The crowd parted, stunned into an uncharacteristic silence by the drama unfolding in front of them.

Vivi Ann followed Al and Dallas through the crowd, pleading with Al to be reasonable, but he didn’t answer, just dragged Dallas out into the parking lot and drove away.

Vivi Ann opened her purse and fumbled through the junk inside for her keys. Then she realized that she hadn’t driven here. She looked back for Aurora and saw people gathered together on the church steps, watching her. “He didn’t do it,” she yelled at them. Her voice cracked like an egg and the emotions she’d been trying to control spilled out. She knew she was crying and she couldn’t stop, couldn’t even manage the strength to turn away.

Aurora came up to her, put an arm around her. Winona was next. Together her sisters shielded her. Vivi Ann noticed that her father held back, staying where he was.

“Come on,” Winona said. “We’ll take you home.”

“Home?” Vivi Ann looked at them incredulously. “Take me to the police station. I need to be there for him when he’s done.”

Aurora and Winona exchanged a look.

“What?” Vivi Ann demanded.

“You’re making a scene,” Aurora said firmly. “Let’s walk toward the car.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll break one of your legs,” Aurora said, smiling at the crowd, saying loudly, “She’s fine now. No need to worry.”

“We’ll take you to the police station,” Winona said, and Vivi Ann let herself be led away.

The drive to the police station was over so quickly there wasn’t much time to talk, and Vivi Ann didn’t know what to say anyway. As soon as they parked along the curb, she got out of the car and ran into the station.

“I’m here to get my husband, Helen.”

The woman she’d known since childhood wouldn’t look at her. “He’s being questioned, Vivi Ann. Albert says he’ll return him as soon as he can. You can wait in the lunchroom if you want, but it might be a while.”

Aurora and Winona came up behind her and led her down to the lunchroom. There, they sat in molded plastic chairs at Formica tables, drinking bitter coffee from a vending machine. For the first two hours they talked about nothing; each tried to make conversation, but the black and white wall clock kept ticking past the minutes.

“You know about this stuff, Winona,” Vivi Ann finally said. “What are they doing?”

“Questioning him, but don’t worry. He’s too smart to confess to anything.”

Vivi Ann looked at her. “Innocent people make mistakes all the time. They think they have nothing to hide.”

“You need to be prepared for the worst here,” Winona said evenly.

“You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you, Win? You can’t wait to tell me you were right.”

“Vivi, don’t,” Aurora said. “We shouldn’t fight now.”

“I was right,” Winona said. “If you’d listened to me in the beginning, we wouldn’t be sitting in the police station right now. I told you Dallas would cause trouble. He’s been on the wrong side of the law his whole life.”

“Get out of here, Winona,” Vivi Ann snapped. “I don’t want you with me.”

“Vivi, you don’t mean that,” Aurora said.

“Dallas always said you were jealous of me. He was right, wasn’t he? You’re probably loving this.”

“Just because I knew this would happen doesn’t mean I’m loving it. What did you expect, with a man like him?”

“Of course you don’t understand. The only thing you know about love is how it feels not to have it. Has any man ever said he loved you?”

“Vivi—” Aurora warned.

“No. I want her out of here, Aurora. Out. If she thinks he’s guilty, she can go.” Vivi Ann knew she was screaming, that she was hysterical, but she couldn’t rein in her emotions.

Winona grabbed her purse and got up from the chair. “Fine. You want to be alone on this, go for it.”

Aurora reached for Winona. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying, Win—”

But Winona was already walking toward the door, yanking it open.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Aurora said when the door banged shut.

“I couldn’t listen to any more.”

Aurora got up slowly, sighing, and got them each another cup of burnt, old-tasting coffee. Doctoring both cups with lots of fake creamer and sugar, she sat down by Vivi Ann. “This is going to get ugly,” she said.

“It already is.”

“No,” Aurora said, stirring her coffee. “I don’t think we’ve seen the start of ugly yet.”

Hours later, Al finally walked into the lunchroom, looking worn-out and a little sad.

Vivi Ann got to her feet. “Where is he?”

“He failed the polygraph, Vivi Ann,” Al said.

“I watch L.A. Law. Those results aren’t admissible,” Aurora said, standing beside Vivi Ann.

Vivi Ann thought she’d been afraid in the parking lot, or when she’d seen the empty glove box and then found out what he’d done with his gun; she’d been wrong. That previous emotion was nothing compared to this, as different as falling was to flying.

“We arrested him, Vivi,” Al said. “Murder. You’d best find him a lawyer.”

Aurora swore beneath her breath. “Great time to piss off Winona.”

On the way home, Winona came up with one stinging comeback after another: Of course you know about love. If I’d gone slumming like you, I could have gotten laid, too. Or: He doesn’t love you. Why can’t you get that through your head? Oh, wait. I know the answer: you’re blond. Or: If that’s love, I’d rather have the swine flu.

At her house, she yanked the door open and went inside. The Christmas decorations were still up: the brightly festooned Douglas fir in the corner, the reindeer and sleigh on the coffee table, the ridiculously hopeful mistletoe hanging from the archway between rooms. She wrenched the mistletoe down and shoved it in the trash can, and then sat down in her window seat, staring out at the rain falling on the bare trees. From here, she could see people walking through town; they were probably doing some after-holiday shopping or coming home from church, as if this were a normal winter day.

But it wasn’t normal, might never be normal again.

With a sigh, she went into the kitchen and found a quart of ice cream in the freezer. Taking it back to the sunroom, she sat down, eating and thinking. With every passing moment, she felt her resolve harden: she would not let Dallas Raintree destroy this family. Vivi Ann’s passion for him had already cost them all too much. And now there was the Grey name to consider, too. Already people were saying that they’d been fools to let him into their home.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but it was long enough that the weather changed. The rain stopped and a hesitant sun peeked through the bank of gray clouds.

She heard a knock at the door, but didn’t answer. There was no one she wanted to talk to right now.

A moment later, Vivi Ann walked into the sunroom. Already, Winona could see changes in her sister: the panic lurking at the edges of her mouth, the desperation in her green eyes, the knotting together of her hands.

“You caught me,” Winona said, taking another spoonful. “I’m stress-eating.”

“You didn’t answer, so I came in.”

“I didn’t want to see anyone. I especially didn’t want to see you.”

Vivi Ann moved into the room, took a seat opposite her.

“I’m sorry, Pea,” she said quietly; Winona knew she was using the old nickname as a kind of shorthand reminder of all that they were to each other. Sure, they fought and said things they didn’t mean, but they were sisters. In the end, what mattered were not the breaks in the chain, but the links.

Winona took another bite. “How do you think Mom knew what we’d look like when she gave us those nicknames?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the bean, right? How did she know I’d be the round, fat pea?”

“They were just the veggies that grew in her garden, Win. That’s what she saw, what she wanted: us growing up together.”

“You were too young to know what she wanted.” Winona put the empty ice-cream container on the floor at her feet, with the spoon handle sticking up inside of it.

“I know she wanted us to stick together when times got tough.”

“Says the girl who just threw me out.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Of course you are. They arrested him, didn’t they?”

Vivi Ann nodded.

“And you just realized that he needs a lawyer, so here you are.”

Vivi Ann leaned forward. “It doesn’t matter that he failed the polygraph, right?”

“He failed a polygraph?”

“Yeah, but even I know that’s not admissible.”

“They might not be admissible, but they’re reliable. And he failed.”

“He’s innocent,” Vivi Ann said stubbornly.

“He has no alibi. He was sick, remember? Even though he was fine the next morning.”

“I’ll do anything, Winona. Please. Just help me save him.”

Winona stared at her younger sister, seeing how close she was to breaking. Vivi Ann had probably never begged for anything before, but Winona knew how that felt, that pathetic desperation, how your need warred with your ego, and you wanted to shout, Fuck you, even as you whispered, Please. “He needs a criminal defense attorney, Vivi. A good one. I’ll handle his arraignment if you want me to, but after that I’d be in over my head. I’m just a small-town civil lawyer—”

“I don’t care about all that. What he needs is someone who believes in him. That matters more than experience.”

And there it was, the thing Winona had thought about as she sat in her window seat staring out at the rain, the thing that would break their bond, but there was no way to avoid it. “I heard about the fight he got into at Cat’s,” she answered quietly, knowing her words would hurt Vivi Ann and unable to change that. This pain was inevitable. It had been moving this way slowly, advancing on them, probably from the moment Dallas took the job at Water’s Edge.

“What do you mean?”

“The night you had Noah, Dallas picked a fight with Erik Engstrom. Word was he almost killed him.”

“We thought Noah would die that night. He was scared.”

“He’s dangerous, Vivi. Everyone but you can see that,” Winona said evenly. “I tried to tell you...”

“Is that what this is about? I told you so?”

“No. I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to be a good big sister.”

“Do you actually think he killed her?”

“It doesn’t matter. This thing will break your heart, Vivi Ann. You’re not strong enough to—”

“Doesn’t matter?”

Winona wasn’t saying the right things, or in the right way, to make Vivi Ann understand. “I’m sorry, Vivi Ann. What I mean is, my opinion doesn’t matter. I can’t help Dallas. I’m not experienced enough. And there’s probably a conflict of interest. He needs—”

Vivi Ann stood up. “You keep talking,” she said. “I didn’t hear anything after ‘it doesn’t matter.’ Believe me, Win, I got your point loud and clear. You think I’m married to a murderer.” She turned and ran for the door, trying twice before she wrenched it open.

“Vivi, wait, please—”

Winona ran across the porch and out into the yard, but her sister was already gone.