The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

“I’m so… sorry.” She sniffled as her heart broke, something she never thought it would be able to do again. She took a deep breath. “Before that though, you hadn’t had a drink in a long time, had you, Dad? What, twenty years or so?”

He scowled. “I don’t want a lecture.”

“No, Dad, no lecture. I was just so proud of you.”

The sunlight streaming through the front window caused her father’s watery eyes to sparkle. He had his hands balled into fists on the arms of his chair.

“That’s amazing. And all one day at a time.” She was stalling, but this would be one of the toughest things she’d ever have to do in her life. “You called me after Chad Palmer’s murder.”

“So? I figured maybe you’d finally be able to put the past behind you and return to your family. Your mother encouraged me, but I’m wondering if I did the right thing given the way you’re looking at me all disappointed.” His gaze cut to the window.

She followed the direction he was looking and watched a cardinal perched on the porch railing.

Her mother came into the room holding a plastic, lime-green tray with three mugs. “I hope you still like it the way you used to? Two sugars and milk?”

“Yes,” Amanda told her. Tea was exempt from the “drink it black” philosophy.

“Good, good. Take that one there.” She indicated with a jab of her chin for Amanda to take the mug closest to her. “Nathan,” she prompted when she moved in front of him. Her mother set the tray on the long rectangular coffee table and sat on a reclining chair. She lifted her mug in a toast, blew it, and took a cautious sip. “That horrible man finally got his due, wouldn’t you say, Nathan?”

Her father was back looking out the window again. Amanda’s heart nearly stopped in her chest just thinking about the question she had to ask him.

Her mother rubbed her knee and continued. “He was a drunk and took out two of the sweetest people that had ever walked the planet, and you—he ended up taking you away from us too. I might never understand why you pulled away, but I respected you enough to let you have your space.” She looked at Amanda as if seeking an explanation now.

“It’s just… It hurt too much to be around you.” She pointed to her mother’s massaging hand. “What’s wrong with your knee?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just my arthritis acting up these days.” Her mother tossed that out like it was nothing of consequence, but it had Amanda’s mind whirling.

The perp who had attacked Palmer in the Happy Time parking lot had favored their left knee. Surely her mother’s ailment had to be a coincidence. That along with the fact her mother was the right height to be the person in the hoodie. Maybe they’d been wrong to assume it had been a man. And her father would have seen the accident report and known that Palmer’s drink of choice had been vodka—unless it slipped his mind like it had hers temporarily. But Amanda didn’t think that was the case. Her throat stitched together when she asked, “Mom, is there something you should be telling us?”

Her mother bit her bottom lip and shook her head, her gaze drifting about as if she were lost in her thoughts. “Just such a horrible man. He certainly got what he deserved.”

“And that was?” Amanda squeaked out.

“Well, the papers are saying he was murdered. Hogwash, and to slap a defamatory spotlight on you, the Steele family. Disgusting. That man likely drank himself to death, choked on his own vomit.”

Every bit of Amanda’s body sparked. It had never been made public how Palmer had died. “How do you know he drank himself to death?”

Out of her peripheral vision, she caught her father turn toward her mother.

“Mom,” she prompted.

“Well, it makes sense to me. He was a drunk.” Her mother’s face knotted up and turned a bright red. “Probably drowned himself with whiskey.”

“Palmer’s preferred drink was vodka, but Dad’s is whiskey.” She looked at her father.

“Don’t go accusing your father of anything,” her mother hissed.

“I’m not, Mom.” Amanda’s heart pounded in her chest as she leveled her gaze at her mother. “Did you kill Chad Palmer?”

“Why I— I can’t believe—” She rubbed at the back of her neck.

“Julie,” her father moaned with heartbreak.

“He took everything from me,” she spat. “And I’m not sorry he’s dead!”

“What did you do?” Nathan cried out. “Is that where you were last weekend? You didn’t spend it at Fee’s?”

Her mother’s older sister, Fee, lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, over five hours away.