The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

Her mother twisted the hem of her shirt and wouldn’t look her husband in the eye.

“Mom.” That’s all that wo

uld come out of Amanda’s mouth.

“I’d been following him since his release from prison last Friday afternoon. I knew he was going to drink and drive again—and sure enough I was right. The night I killed him, I stopped him. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone again.” She tilted her chin up.

“You wanted some time with your sister,” her father mumbled, chewing on his wife’s betrayal, seemingly wanting to avoid her confession.

“I only lied because it was necessary.”

“It was—” Her father clenched his teeth.

“Where did you go, Mom?” She didn’t want to hear any more; every word from her mother’s mouth was another stab to her heart. And the way she had so callously tossed out “killed him” stole her breath.

“I stayed at a hotel in Dumfries last weekend, starting Friday night, and had it booked through until Monday morning. I figured it wouldn’t take longer than that.” Her mother drank some of her tea. “It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be.”

Amanda swallowed roughly. Killing a man hadn’t been difficult…

Her mom continued. “I planned out what I was going to do and just waited for the right moment.”

“Shit, Jules, that’s premeditated.” Her father’s face contorted in anguish.

Her mother continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “I bought the whiskey and kept it in the trunk of my car. I also had one of your dad’s guns with me, along with his sobriety coin.”

“Why?” her father asked.

“To remind me of what else I’d lost all those years ago. I lost my husband.” Tears fell, but she didn’t stop to weep. “You’re not the same person when you drink. You’ve got a short temper; you’re distant.”

Her father’s gaze hardened and blanked over.

Amanda’s chest was in a knot. She’d made everything worse by taking off at a time when family should come together.

“And I lost the coin.” Her mother met her gaze. “Guessing maybe you found it and that’s what led you here?”

Amanda briefly pinched her eyes shut. “Just tell me what happened.”

“He came out of that bar and I confronted him. The fast and dirty version is I thwacked him on the head with the butt of the pistol, drove him to the crap motel he was holed up in, and forced whiskey down his throat. I wasn’t going to shoot him; your father’s gun would probably be in the system. But it worked to coerce that sack of shit into doing what I told him to.”

Maybe to get him back to the motel… “How did you force Palmer to drink?” Amanda went numb. Her mother had been the up-until-then faceless psychopath hanging around waiting for a man to die.

“At gunpoint. I had him zip-tie his ankles and one wrist to a chair in the room. I tied his last one, while keeping my eye—and the gun—on him.” Her mother paused and inserted a tiny smile. “It was a good use for some zip-ties that were just sitting around here.”

“How did you get him to drink?” Amanda repeated, feeling like she was watching this all unfold from outside herself. Her mother had fully planned and executed everything.

“I stuck a funnel in his mouth, something I’d grabbed from here too, and taped it in place. I squeezed his neck, held his head back and just kept pouring. He bucked a bit at first, but his fight died really fast. He probably believed he deserved to go out that way. When he passed out, I dragged him onto the bed—that part wasn’t easy. Dead weight is no joke.” She met Amanda’s eyes—searching for empathy or understanding?

She went on. “I staged the room and hoped it would just look like he’d drank himself to death. Maybe I should have just waited it out, let him do it to himself, but he was going to drive drunk again! Just seeing him, knowing what he intended to do…” Her mother paused and clenched her jaw. “Set me off.”

“You stayed by his side for hours waiting for him to die, watching him… choke… and…” As Amanda spoke, she felt for what Palmer would have suffered. “I don’t know what you expect me to do here, Mom.”

Her mother shook her head and fired a glare at her husband. “You just taught her too well, Nathan. She saw through the scene, knew he was murdered.”

She couldn’t take all the credit as Trent had obtained the AA records that had brought her to her parents’ door, but she had been the one with the idea to get the records in the first place—little had she known…

There was one other piece from that night that needed clarity though. “Mom, his car, your car, the logistics. How did you—”

“I assume you found it?”