Page 15 of Justice Delayed

The conviction in her voice warmed his heart, but he needed to keep her at a distance while he chased down potential leads. After promising to call her later to set up a time for an in-person interview, he disconnected. He needed more background before he started questioning other people. Why not go directly to the source? If the source happened to be an attractive, single woman, well, who said journalism had to be all work and no play?

* * *

Ruby Thompson triedto put the encounter with Melender out of her mind as Velma kneaded the tight muscles in her neck, but she couldn’t shake the image of her niece having a job like a normal person.

“You are very tense today, Miss Ruby,” Velma said.

“It’s been a dreadful week.” Ruby closed her eyes as she lay on her back on the portable massage table in her sitting room. She would call the owner of Squeaky Clean and demand he fire Melender. Her niece shouldn’t be able to go about her business as if nothing had happened.

Velma gently turned her head to the side to work the muscles from hairline to shoulder. Ruby kept her eyes closed and attempted to relax. She’d had her husband call the prosecutor’s office each of the three times Melender came up for parole to ensure they would be able to attend the hearing to speak for Jesse, but all three times, Melender herself refused parole. Strange her niece would insist on serving her entire sentence. Certainly, it made her ultimate release more galling. What could you threaten someone with if you couldn’t send them back to prison?

“Turn over, please.” Velma held the sheet up for her to flip over.

A whisper of air tickled across her bare back as the massage therapist folded the sheet back, tucking it snug around Ruby’s hips. The scent of lavender permeated the room as Velma rubbed the lotion into her skin with long, sure strokes.

Even if Jesse’s body was found, Melender couldn’t be prosecuted for the same crime. Anger bubbled up inside her, undoing Velma’s calming technique.

It wasn’t fair. Melender should tell her where Jesse was. That revelation couldn’t send her niece back to prison, but it would, finally, give Ruby some peace. Lately, though, Ruby couldn’t shake the feeling her niece had no idea where her little cousin was buried. That Jesse was dead, she had no doubt. A mother just knew. When the ransom money disappeared without another word about Jesse, Ruby had clung to the hope the kidnappers might have given or sold Jesse to some couple desperate to have a baby.

Jesse had been such a sunny boy, always smiling. Even at fifteen months, he displayed none of the characteristics of a typical toddler. But hope faded when Melender had been arrested for his disappearance and eventually convicted of murdering Jesse. Ruby should have never taken that snake into her home. She should have known nothing good could come from mountain people. Bobby Ray had been an ideal older brother when he and Ruby were kids, protecting Ruby from their volatile father. Their mama worked herself into an early grave, dying in her mid-forties a worn, thin woman who faded into the rough floorboards of their cabin. At eleven, Ruby vowed she would not follow in her mother’s footsteps. Five years later, she left the hollow and never looked back.

Until social services called to tell her about a niece Ruby had forgotten existed who needed a place to stay. The small, thin sixteen-year-old who showed up in the dead of winter in a too-big tattered pea coat initially bore little resemblance to Bobby Ray. Then Melender had stared straight into her aunt’s eyes, and she had seen centuries of hardy mountain ancestors in that direct gaze.

“Miss Ruby?” Velma’s soft query yanked Ruby back to the present. “All done.”

Ruby didn’t move. Velma covered her shoulders with the sheet. She waited until the door clicked shut behind Velma, then rolled over, clutching the sheet to her naked body.

The unbidden thought came that she had failed Bobby Ray by repaying her brother’s many kindnesses and his assistance in her escape to a better life by not helping his only child. Nonsense. What was she supposed to do with a teenage niece she hadn’t seen in more than a decade? With a surly teenage stepson, a toddler under foot, and heavily pregnant with Jesse, she had done her duty to Melender, given the girl a place to sleep, food, and an education at the finest private school in the area. And the girl had responded with ingratitude and murder.

Yanking on her clothes, all the tension Velma had valiantly tried to erase came flooding back into her neck and shoulders. Ruby snatched her cell phone. “Siri, what’s the number for Squeaky Clean in Virginia?”

“That number is 703-555-2741,” the virtual assistant intoned. “Would you like to be connected?”

“Yes.”

Ruby thinned her lips as the recorded greeting for the cleaning company came on the line. If things went according to her plan, her darling niece would soon be out of a job.

* * *

“Mel?”

Melender turned from putting away her supplies to see Janice Butram’s assistant standing in the doorway of the supply room.

“Boss wants to see you.” The older woman shrugged as if answering Melender’s unspoken question. “And no, I don’t know what it’s all about.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll be there once I’ve finish here.”

“I’ll tell her.” The assistant disappeared, leaving Melender to finish restocking the caddy and slid it into the designated slot.

Melender hadn’t spoken face-to-face with the owner since she was hired. Slipping into the bathroom, she washed her hands, splashed cold water on her face, then used her damp hands to smooth back the hairs escaping from her single French braid. About as presentable as she could be after working a ten-hour shift.

Unable to shake the feeling that Ruby’s visit on Friday night had something to do with this summons, Melender went into a stall and locked the door. During her incarceration, Melender had wrestled with her faith, gradually coming to realize how much she needed God. Now, praying seemed as natural as drinking water.

Lord, thank you for this job. Thank you for Ms. Butram and her willingness to give me a chance. I pray that my work these past months would speak louder than any calls from Ruby or Quentin. Please help me to show your love to those who persecute me. Amen.

She exited the bathroom, then walked down the hallway to Ms. Butram’s office. The assistant, phone to her ear, waved Melender to go in.

With a knock on the door, Melender walked into the office, hoping she wouldn’t be thrown to the hungry lions.

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