Fire Within - By Ally Shields Page 0,28

out. As if it could! So I told him my plans. I wasn’t going to let that vampire…that vermin…ruin our family. Do you understand? Jules was stealing my daughter’s life. Worse than killing her.” Mrs. West’s look was defiant. “I practiced killing him in my head. Just like shooting rats at Granddaddy’s farm, and I’ve had plenty of practice at that.”

Ari was speechless. She’d never expected such bitter hatred from this woman. The flat voice made the confession even more chilling.

Mrs. West looked away for a moment, then brought her focus back to Ari. “I’d do anything to protect my children, and shooting him was the only way to save her. Eddie had every reason to believe I shot that…thing. I needed to save Lorraine from herself. She was bound to a godless creature, and she…she wanted Jules to make her one of them.” The woman shuddered at the thought. “I didn’t want my only daughter, my baby, to burn in hell.” Her voice caught on the last words, revealing the first sign of her underlying conflicts.

“Tell me exactly what happened the night Jules died.” No matter what Ari thought of the things she was hearing, she wanted to keep her talking.

Mrs. West regained her composure. Her voice was calm again, resigned, as if she was determined to face whatever was coming. “We’d had a family Fourth of July picnic, but Lorraine had left early to meet him. Eddie and I argued, like I told you before, and I ran out of the house with his father’s gun. Eddie knew I had it, because he searched the house. I found the open drawers when I got home. That’s why he confessed. He believes I killed Jules.” She lifted her chin. “I planned it. Bought the silver bullets. And I waited outside Lorraine’s house.” She hesitated, and her shoulders slumped. “But I kept thinking what it would do to her to witness that. God help me, I failed. I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough to face my daughter afterwards. So I walked down by the river and then went home.” Her jowls trembled, and she avoided looking at Ari. “Someone else saved my daughter,” she said, so quietly Ari barely heard her. Mrs. West covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

What the hell? Ari stared at the older woman. Mrs. West had gone from an apparent confession to denial in seconds. Was this the truth or an attempt to get both herself and her son off the hook? The woman appeared more than capable of pulling the trigger, and Jules might have let her get close enough, but how would she get away without being seen? Unless Eddie and his mother were covering for each other. Hmm. It was worth considering, but by Mrs. West’s account, she was outside Lorraine’s home and never at the Woodland Inn.

“Where’s the gun?”

Mrs. West opened the straw handbag and took out a pistol, encased in a plastic zip bag. Ari took it, so Ryan and the police lab could do their thing. They had nothing to compare it to, no bullets, but the lab could at least tell if it had been fired recently.

“I don’t see how this clears Eddie,” Ari said, as she placed the baggie in her drawer. “What makes you think he didn’t shoot Jules to keep you from committing murder?”

Mrs. West’s face pinched in alarm. “No, no. Eddie was angry, but not filled with hate. Someone else did this. And I hope he or she gets away. I know it’s wrong, but I will bless that person every day of my life.”

Ari ignored an urge to argue with her, and there wasn’t much else to say. Ari was used to bigotry, had heard a lot of anti-Otherworld comments her whole life, but never out of the mouth of a motherly, middle-class woman like Thelma West. Ari was glad it wasn’t her job to judge the love and hate that warred inside this woman. Mrs. West’s confession was ugly, but if it turned out to be accurate, the law wouldn’t be holding her accountable. It didn’t punish evil thoughts. Ari watched as Eddie’s mother left the Cultural Center, her back straight, her head held high. Human beings were a strange lot.

Ari called Ryan and repeated the entire conversation. He wasn’t impressed and said it didn’t change anything. Since she’d expected that reaction, she wasn’t disappointed. Still, it was good news as far as she was concerned.