Vendetta Stone (1) Page 9

  Jackson comprehended he must remain calm on an emotional day for everyone. He and Christine often butted heads, but he didn’t want a scene with the cameras there to make matters worse.

  “I know it doesn’t make much sense right now, but please believe I’m doing this for Angela.”

  “I can’t make any sense of this,” Angela’s father fumed as his wife Mona wiped her eyes. Jackson’s brother shuffled like he needed to go to the men’s room.

  “Look, Fred, it’s something I—”

  A welcomed knock at the door broke the growing tension.

  “Excuse me, Mister Stone. I hate to interrupt, but I need a moment.”

  “Yes, Mister Greaves?”

  “There are some members of the press outside asking to speak to you or a representative of the family.”

  “I’ll go,” Patrick said, but Jackson stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

  “No, I’ll handle this. I’ll be right back, but let’s get through this day for Angela’s sake. Please, all of you must believe I’m trying to do right by her. I cannot bear thinking of spending the rest of my life without her, and I need your support,” he said, choking back his own tears as he again glanced at the coffin.

  Several other media representatives had gathered by the time Jackson and Greaves approached. The funeral director whispered something to Jackson and left to attend to other details. Jackson spoke softly, even warmly, but his mesmerizing eyes spoke sharper.

  “I don’t have any comment now, but I’ll speak after the funeral. I understand you think this is worthy of coverage, but please respect our family’s wishes and allow us this time to grieve and say a proper goodbye to Angela. I don’t want the services taped, but I’ll allow one pool photographer and one videographer access to the visitation for thirty minutes. I’ll allow reporters access for the first thirty minutes of visitation, and you may attend services as long as you’re discreet. If any of you don’t adhere to this, Mister Greaves will escort you all off the property. Are we clear?”

  I looked around at my fellow media members, who were taking the same inventory. Clarkston shrugged his shoulders, so I nodded. Jackson abruptly departed, shaking his head at the growing crowd of two-hundred-plus people gathered outside. A woman Jackson didn’t recognize called out his name. Another waved. Several people down on the street thrust homemade signs at arriving cars. Jackson expected his actions to stir the city and touch nerves, but this? Beyond anything he’d ever anticipated.

  But he’d asked for it.

  6

  The Stones and Angela’s relatives stood in a long row about ten feet away from the casket, wreaths, and beautiful flowers, greeting friends, even long-lost ones, neighbors, business associates, and many strangers moved to attend visitation after reading the morning paper or watching Jackson on television.

  A wrinkled, gray-haired woman and her granddaughter approached Jackson, and the old woman clasped his hand with her tiny, arthritic hands. The young girl stood close to her grandmother’s side.

  “I met your wife about a year ago at the Outreach center,” she said. “She was so sweet to us. So when I saw what happened I just wanted to come express my sorrow and share in your grief. I pray for her every night. I hope you find her killer.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Right now, I’m just coping one day at a time.”

  With a few variations, the conversation repeated over and over and over. Once in a while, he recognized somebody. The whole morning sped past. Maybe he’d process it all someday.

  Jackson glanced over his shoulder at the casket, looking lost when two large hands clasped his shoulders. “How are you, bud? Hanging in there?”

  Jackson turned at the familiar voice of his boss, Matthew “Marty” Martin. Standing behind Marty and his wife were several of his fellow ad execs and their wives, and

  all as somber as Marty. Tears welled in Jackson’s eyes as Marty pulled him close.

  “Oh God, I don’t know. I’m trying to smile and stay strong. I just don’t know how I’m going to go on without Angela.”

  “Yeah, I can’t imagine what you’re going through, bud. She was a sweetheart, and we’re all going to miss her.”

  Marty’s demeanor changed somewhat as he looked around the packed room.

  “Listen, bud, I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up, but I was a little surprised by what I’ve been seeing and reading. We need to talk, okay?”

  Louie the bartender gave Jackson a hug and asked him to stop by later for a toast to Angela while Pastor Robert Armstrong, who would soon be conducting the services, came by and spoke to each family member. Friends and strangers passed by to give sympathy and support for the Stone family, and a few bold ones spoke of his quest for revenge, offering unsolicited advice, either pro or con. A complete stranger said he “oughtta act more like a forgive-and-forget Christian.”

  Jackson finally hit an emotional wall, but in the end, all that mattered was Angela, whom he would never again hold in his arms.

  7

  Herb Fletcher arrived at ten a.m., surprised to see all the people lined up waiting to get inside and pay their respects to Angela’s family. He walked toward the front door to look for Jackson inside, but retreated to the end of the line after several people gave him dirty looks. He was absorbed in his own thoughts—about Angela and Jack, about himself and Sarah—when a guttural voice snapped him out of his fog.

  “Excuse me, didn’t I see you on TV last night?”

  Herb, quite pleased at the recognition from the TV interview, began telling his inquisitive acquaintance all about the Stones and himself. They chatted in the slow-moving line for about twenty to twenty-five minutes as the line grew ever longer.

  “And I just couldn’t believe it when I saw Jack coming out of his house the other day, not thirty seconds after the newscast,” Herb said. “Almost like he teleported from the television to his driveway, know what I mean?”

  “That’s pretty funny,” said the unsmiling man who reeked of cigarette smoke. “I notice your wife isn’t with you. Is she sick or something? You said she and Missus Stone were best friends. It seems like she’d want to pay her respects.”

  “Sarah has been so moody the last couple of months, but since Angela died, she’s been acting mighty strange. She doesn’t talk, doesn’t eat, doesn’t even leave the house. She’s always crying and looking out windows. It’s like she keeps expecting to see Angela out there. I tried everything to

  get her to come this morning, and she just stayed in bed, all curled up and crying. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Well, you might try to—”

  “Excuse me, aren’t you the Stones’ neighbor, Mister Fletcher?”

  Herb jumped at the unexpected intrusion as I came up behind him. Casey, off to one side snapping photos of the twisting visitation line, turned our way after Herb whirled around. The startled look disappeared from his face, replaced by a grin that gave way to a more somber look reflective of the sad occasion that brought them together.

  “Yes, I am. Herb Fletcher. And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

  “Gerry Hilliard from TenneScene Today. I saw you on Channel 11 last night and hoped we could talk about Jackson since you were the one person to speak with him. I also talked to Jackson last night. Well, I talked. He hung up.”

  “He’s in a lot of pain, you know what I mean?” Herb said. “I wanted to get a few minutes here with him today, but this is a pretty wild scene. We’re here for Angela, but we’re here for him, too. Look at all these people! I don’t see anybody I know.”

  Casey snapped a few shots of Fletcher, and then moved off to get some other scene-setting photos before our thirty-minute window ended. I got out my recorder after Fletcher agreed to an interview and held it below my notepad, scribbling his comments as we spoke.

  “So were you close to the Stones?”

  “We sure were,” Fletcher said, beaming. “Jack and I did some hunting and fishing together, and they
invited us to go out with them pretty regularly on their boat. My wife and Angela were best friends. They went everywhere together and were closer than me and Jack.”

  “Is your wife here? I’d like to get her insights as well.”

  Herb’s face darkened, embarrassed at her absence. “No, this has shaken her pretty bad, and she didn’t feel like she could handle it, so she stayed home.”

  I tried another approach, not wanting the interview to end.

  “So what does Jackson do from here? Does he leave the investigating to the police or will he still attempt to find his wife’s killer and avenge her?”

  “Mister, you don’t know Jack Stone and neither do the cops. Whoever did that to his wife should take him at face value. He’s told me some war stories and I’ve—”

  The funeral director walked up and tapped me on the shoulder. “You need to wrap it up now, sir,” Greaves said before heading for Clarkston, who interviewed two young camo-dressed men holding “Stone ’Em To Death, Jack” and “A Stoning Is What Angela’s Killer Deserves” signs.

  “That was so cool,” Herb said as he turned to talk to his new acquaintance. But a middle-aged couple now stood behind him.

  The strange young man had vanished.

  8

  Three blocks away from the funeral home, a wild-eyed Delmore Wolfe careened down the street as he sped from the scene in a state of near-panic.

  He cursed himself. “Damn me to hell! What were you thinking, going there this morning?”

  Wolfe had focused on Fletcher, sizing him up and trying to get as much out of him as possible, then I showed up. As soon as he saw our photographer, Wolfe brought his visitation hour to a close. No current pictures of him existed, and he hoped he’d gotten away in time. What if it was in the paper tomorrow? The panic rose to new levels and he almost ran up on the curb as he rounded the corner, just avoiding a couple of kids on their bikes. Wolfe started to feel nauseous, the bile rising in his throat.

  He pulled his Firebird to the side of the road to consider his next course of action. The hypnotic knocking of the idling engine caused him to close his eyes as he figured his next move. His head slumped, chin resting on his chest, breathing heavy. His mind raced, but he forced himself to calm the rising panic. He flexed his hands, spreading the fingers out and then closing them into tight balls again and again. Just as he regained control, a rap on the window sent endorphins spiking again. One of the kids he almost side-swiped. He rolled the window down.

  “Hey mister, you okay? Want me to go get my dad?”

  The freckle-faced boy backpedaled from the angry snarl.

  “Get outta here, you little snot-head. And you better stay off the road. Next time, I won’t miss.”

  Peeling out as the shaken kid scrambled home, Wolfe leered as he formulated a plan to solve most, if not all, of his problems.

  9

  Still curled up in bed, Sarah Fletcher prayed about the last week’s haunting events. Sarah kicked herself for lacking the courage to attend the funeral, but she couldn’t face Jackson over what she thought happened to Angela.

  Herb and Sarah had argued for the better part of a week over his inability to land a job, any job. Herb refused to take just any job, while Sarah said any job beat no job. And then it got personal, making her wonder if she could remain committed to the marriage. And in that instant, Sarah’s rash decision would cost first Angela and then others their lives.

  Sarah liked to party back when she was in her twenties, and now she decided she needed some companionship. Months had passed since she and Herb had sex. Herb started drinking more, and she grew distant and withdrawn. Angela, a sympathetic sounding board, didn’t want to offer advice that might cause either of them to blame her for what sounded more and more like an impending divorce. She hoped they could patch up their marriage. Sarah had called Angela the morning of her disappearance to see if she wanted a liquid lunch, but the phone went unanswered.

  “Screw it,” Sarah said. Angela always kept her cell phone close; they’d hook up later. The phrase echoed in Sarah’s mind. Yeah, a hook-up sounded like a fun way to spend an afternoon. Two job interviews would keep Herb occupied until five or six. Plenty of time to scratch an itch, and Herb would never be the wiser.

  So she locked up the house, jumped into her car, and went hunting across town for an afternoon boytoy who would ask no questions. Sarah ended up in Hillsboro Village, not far from the Vanderbilt campus, looking for a discreet fern bar that would not be too seedy. She wanted a certain type of man, one with loose morals and not-so-loose lips. Wolfe was prowling in the same neighborhood.

  A human chameleon, Delmore Wolfe cleaned up for this occasion and hungered, but not for food. He wanted some money and a higher-class victim. Wolfe spotted Sarah going into Darlene’s Hideaway Lounge, a quaint little pub off the main drag, and followed her in after a couple of minutes. She sat at the bar with her long legs crossed, dressed in a red skirt and blue top. Wolfe heard her order a mojito and smiled. He walked behind her and took a seat at the end of the bar near the flat-screen TV showing a replay of the Arkansas-Tennessee game from last season. He had shaved off his beard but not the mustache, his long hair tied back in a ponytail. The dark shirt open at the top two buttons revealed a hairy chest. He wore a tan blazer and Polo sunglasses—and an attitude that said he was the man all women wanted for a good time with no questions asked.

  Wolfe ordered a scotch on the rocks and lit a smoke. Within three minutes, Sarah asked for a light; within ten minutes, they were out the door. In Sarah’s blue Corvette, no chit-chat except for those first couple of minutes when Wolfe took a CD out of his blazer’s inner pocket and lecherously asked if he could stick it in.

  “Hey, I haven’t heard that in years. Turn it up, baby. Doo doo DOOdoo doo DOOdoo doo DOOdoo dooDOOdoo doooodooooo,” she sang.

  Sarah “giggled like a schoolgirl,” he would later write in his journal. Wolfe closed in and wrapped his muscular arms around her lithe, pulsating body. After a few minutes of heavy action in the front seat in broad daylight, Sarah wanted to go to his place to continue.

  “No good, baby,” he said. “I’m in town for a few days and staying with friends.”

  Sarah nipped at his ear and suggested a motel room.

  “Wherever you want it, baby.”

  After a few more minutes, Sarah hit fever pitch and suggested her place. Doing something crazy, why not go all the way? Wolfe pawed at her the entire drive home and at that moment she didn’t care who saw her.

  Wolfe exited the car first and opened the door for Sarah, playing the perfect gentleman. He paused long enough to take his smartphone out of the front pocket and push a button. The same song that had been playing in the car started, and he planted a lust-filled wet one on her full lips.

  “My favorite song,” he explained. “We’re the same age, both produced in 1982. It gets my juices flowing, baby.”

  That brought a smile to Sarah’s face, and they howled the refrain to Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf” in unison as they scrambled for the house.

  “Doo doo DOOdoo doo DOOdoo doo DOOdoo dooDOOdoo doooodooooo.”

  Inside the kitchen, Sarah began tugging at his pants as the song continued. Wolfe swept her off her feet, laying her on the kitchen floor, and he pulled at her bra. Sarah loved every second of it even if he started playing rougher and rougher by the minute. His bizarre diaries would reveal that Wolfe’s pattern was working himself into a state of “bliss” that ended with his taking a life just as she reached ecstasy.

  But he never achieved that moment of “bliss” in Sarah’s house, because of a noise at the back door. Horrified, Sarah looked up and saw Angela’s face in the window with her hand over her mouth.

  Transfixed and too shocked to move, Angela realized that the glows of inhuman pleasure on their faces meant Sarah wasn’t being victimized. She fled when Sarah’s eyes opened and locked in on her.

  “Ohmigod,” Sarah gasped.

  The magic spell b
roke, for Wolfe, as well as Sarah. Anger replaced blood-lust, followed by fear of a witness who might identify him if something happened to this woman now. Sarah crumpled on the floor crying, guilt-ridden. She felt dirty and disgusted with herself. She didn’t realize the high price she would pay.

  10

  The cameras departed and the media honored Jackson’s request to stay out of the way and act as silent witnesses to this private—yet most public—final tribute to Angela Stone. I watched the line weave through the funeral home for the visitation and recognized several people who would be staying for the graveside services. Jackson’s attorney shook hands with Chief King’s media relations mouthpiece, Darrin Jensen. I recognized a couple of councilmen, as well as several of Jackson’s friends and neighbors I’d interviewed over the past week.

  At 11:45 a.m., the funeral director announced the conclusion to the visitation and asked pallbearers to follow his assistant. Greaves gathered the family for a few final moments while media members began heading across the cemetery to the Stones’ plot about a quarter of a mile from the Davis Chapel’s main building. The Stones, Angela’s relatives, and about fifty other people from their work, volunteer efforts, and church attended the service.

  Angela’s father, Fred, said it was Jackson’s decision to hold a graveside service rather than over at the Stones’ church, Belle Rive Baptist. Jackson thought it would be more private, Fred explained. The sun beat down, and everyone sweated as the crowd gathered. The limos arrived and the Stone/Crosby clan filled the rows of plastic seats under the makeshift tent. Jackson was flanked by his sister-in-law Sheila on one side and his mother-in-law Mona on the other, each holding a hand. Tears streamed down the women’s faces, but Jackson’s eyes remained dry.