“Of course. Does he remember anything? Where he got the arsenic? Who may have given it to him?”
“No, but he’s adamantly insisting that Celia isn’t the one.”
“I wish I could be that sure,” Sid said, and Bart didn’t reply. “Mr. Shepherd, I’ll be there as soon as I can catch up with Jim, all right? Tell him we’re glad he’s awake, and that it’s about time.”
“I will.”
He hung up the phone and punched the air, then got to his feet, doing a little dance. “Stan’s awake! He’s awake!”
The room erupted into cheers as Sid sashayed into the chief’s office. Jim was on the telephone. He looked up at Sid, rubbed his eyes, then looked again. He put his hand over the phone. “What’s going on?”
“Stan’s awake, man! He wants to see us!”
Jim’s mouth fell open, then into the phone, he said, “I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone and got slowly to his feet. “Awake? Really?” He laughed out loud and high-fived Sid. “I don’t believe it.”
“That’s right,” Sid said, still strutting. “This ain’t a homicide.”
“Thank God.”
“We gotta go, man. He wants to see us both, if you can break away from your chiefly duties long enough.”
“You bet I can. Why does he want to see us? Does he remember anything pertinent?”
“I don’t know,” Sid said. “His daddy called and told me he was upset about Celia. Insistin’ she didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.”
Jim hesitated, and his grin faded. “Then this isn’t a social visit. He wants to see what we’ve got on her.”
Sid stopped dancing and stared at Jim as the unpleasant task before them sank in. “Guess you’re right.”
Jim got his keys off of the hook on his wall. “Sometimes we’ve got to play the bad guys,” he said.
Stan heard the voices at the door, and he struggled to open his eyes. He saw the IV bag hanging next to his bed, felt the tube under his nose supplying oxygen, heard the beep of one of the monitors next to the bed.
His gaze drifted beyond the machinery to the door where his parents were talking quietly to someone. He squinted to make them out, and saw Sid and Jim standing just outside the door.
“Sid.” The word was so weak that he could barely hear it himself. He tried to raise up. “Sid.”
His mother turned around and saw that he was awake, and her tired face came alive. “There he is,” she said, rushing to his side. “See, I told you he was awake. Stan, Sid and Jim are here like you asked.”
“Help me sit up,” he said.
She pressed the button that raised the bed up, and Stan reached out to shake his friends’ hands. “Thanks for comin’,” he said.
“Man, it’s about time you woke up, givin’ us the scare of our lives,” Sid said. “I don’t ever want to have to come find you on the floor again. What do you mean almost dyin’ on us like that?”
“Sorry, man. Call me inconsiderate.”
Jim was more staid as he stepped closer to the bed.
“Chief, how’s it goin’?”
“Better, now that we don’t have to upgrade this to a homicide.”
“You’ve got the wrong person,” Stan said. “Celia didn’t do it.”
Jim looked at Sid, and Sid shrugged. “We knew you’d think that, Stan. Nobody wants to think their wife did somethin’ like this.”
“You know Celia. How could you think that about her?”
“Too much evidence,” Sid said. “There’s nothin’ else we can think.”
He felt his pulse speeding up, felt his breath coming harder. It seemed to have a hair trigger. “You can’t call yourself my friend…and try to set my wife up for something like this. There’s a killer out there.”
Sid sighed and pulled up a chair, turned it backward, and straddled it. “Look, man,” he said, resting his chin on his fists. “If you want to know what we’ve got on her, we’ll tell you. But it ain’t pretty, Stan. It’s gon’ hurt you.”
“What hurts me is that my wife can’t come to see me. That she’s probably worried sick. That she’s being set up for the second time.”
“Do you want to hear what we’ve got, or not?” Sid asked.
Stan looked his friend in the eye and realized how tired the man looked. He wondered if Sid had gotten any sleep at all since Stan collapsed. Had he spent all this time looking for the killer, or simply trying to build a case against Celia? “Yes, I want to hear,” he said. “What do you think you have?”
“First, and most obvious, the fact that her first husband died the same way.”
“He was murdered.”
“Of course he was. And she was charged with that crime.”
“And those charges were dismissed.”
“Only due to a technicality. You know as well as I do that guilty people get off on technicalities all the time.”
He was having trouble getting a breath, and his hands were shaking. He tried to calm down. “Look, my wife is as innocent as I am. She didn’t kill her first husband, and she didn’t try to kill me.”
“There’s more, Stan,” Jim said. “Have you ever heard the name Lee Barnett?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because he’s one of Celia’s old flames. Before she was married the first time, she was involved with him. He wound up in prison for manslaughter, barroom brawl sort of thing, and he got out two weeks ago.”
“So have you checked him out? Maybe he poisoned me somehow.”
“Maybe. Turns out that he came to Newpointe where he had an apartment waiting. He claims that Celia sent him a letter by way of a priest—”
“Celia?” he cut in. “He says she wrote to him? What priest?”
“We don’t know. But he says she sent him a letter saying that she had an apartment here for him, and that he could get the key in a locker at the bus station, along with a check for $200.”
“He’s lying,” Stan said without doubt.
“Marabeth Simmons said the deal was made by phone. The check that was sent in was one of your and Celia’s checks. We saw it ourselves, Stan. It wasn’t counterfeit.”
“Lee Barnett is a liar. I don’t know where he got the checks, but I can guarantee you that Celia did not write it.”
“There’s more,” Sid said. “We searched your house again last night, looking for the checkbook, since Celia claims she doesn’t have it. Do you know where it is, by the way?”
“No,” he said. “If I had it, it would have been over the visor in my car.”
“We searched your car, top to bottom. Not there.”
“I don’t know where it is,” he said. “Maybe Lee Barnett has it. Stole it and forged her name.”
“It looked like her signature, Stan.”
His chest tightened, and a bead of perspiration rolled into his eye. “You said there was more.”
“The arsenic. We found it in your attic, Stan. A brand new box. Hadn’t even collected dust. It was rat poison, sitting behind a beam in your attic.”
He tried to rise up. His face grew hot with the strain. “She didn’t put it there,” he said. “Celia’s afraid to go in the attic. It gives her the creeps. I don’t think she’s ever been up there. She wouldn’t have done it.”
“Not even to cover up a murder?”
“Why wouldn’t she have just flushed it down the toilet, burnt the box? Why would she bother to go hide the box in a place she would never have gone before?”
“We don’t know why she did what she did, Stan. None of it’s logical.”
“Think like a cop,” Stan said through his teeth. “If someone were going to set her up, he’d leave it where he knew you’d find it. Maybe it’s this Lee Barnett. Go with the most obvious first, man.”
“Celia’s the most obvious,” Sid said.
“Not to me! Not to anyone who knows her!”
His mother came to the bed and tried to push his shoulders back down. “Stan, you’ve go
t to calm down,” she said.
“No!” he said, intent on making his point. “Sid, Jim, you’ve got to listen to me!”
Sid got up and leaned on Stan’s bed rail. “Stan, Lee Barnett says she set him up so he’d take the fall when she poisoned you.”
“I told you, I don’t know who this guy is, but Lee Barnett is a liar.”
“Maybe. He could have done all of this. But if that’s the case, Celia may have put him up to it.”
“No way!” He sat all the way up of his own volition and waved a shaky hand at Jim. “Jim, you get him off of her. You tell him that he’s on the wrong track!”
His mother fought to lay him back down. “Stan, please—”
“Tell him he’s wasting police hours going after the wrong person! My wife is a victim!”
Jim looked miserable. “Stan, we’re exploring every avenue. We’re not leaving any stones unturned.”
“I don’t want clichés, Jim! I want my wife. She’s out there like a sitting duck, just waiting for this maniac to strike. I want her protected.”
“Protected?” Jim asked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I want someone watching her. Twenty-four hours a day. I don’t want anyone to go near her that isn’t seen.”
“Stan, we don’t have the manpower for that. With you out—”
Stan grabbed Jim’s collar and jerked his face close to his. “I’ve put years on this police force…” He stopped to catch his breath “…and I’ve never once complained about having to work around the clock to solve crimes. I’ve been a good detective for you, Jim, and I’ve put my life on the line over and over. Now I need a favor. I want my wife protected. You owe that to me.”
Jim took a step back, red faced, looking at him as if he was crazy. Stan supposed that arsenic poisoning gave him more license than usual. Instead of firing him on the spot, Jim only glared at him.
Stan blinked back the mist in his eyes. “What do you want, Jim? You want me to get down on my knees?”
Sid seemed startled by Stan’s passion, and finally, he turned his long, dark face to the chief. “Jim, I could watch her.”
“No,” Jim said. “We don’t have a detective. You’re the most qualified evidence technician we’ve got. I need you on the case.”
“We could take turns. Everybody could watch for a couple of hours each day. Get twelve of us to do that, and you got the whole day and night covered. We could do it, Jim. Then, if she is guilty, we’ll see who she talks to and where she goes. It could work in our favor.”
Stan ground his teeth together and shook his head. “I don’t believe you guys.”
Jim rubbed his stomach, a habit he’d developed shortly after becoming police chief. “Stan, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Do better than that, Jim,” Stan said, “or you’ll have to find yourself another detective.”
“You wouldn’t quit,” Hannah cut in, laughing nervously. “Stan, you love your job.”
“Watch me.” His tone brooked no debate. “Promise me you’ll put someone on her right away.”
“I said I’d do what I can,” Jim said, but both Stan and Sid stared at him, waiting for more than that. “Okay,” he said finally. “I promise.”
Stan relaxed back into his pillow, feeling suddenly tireder than he had felt since he came out of the coma. “Thank you.” He tried to slow his breathing. “One other thing. I want to see her. This stupid court order…Tell the judge to let her come. Tell him he can send a police escort, an armed guard, whatever. I just want to see her. I have to see her.” His last words faded out on a whisper.
Sid and Jim stood looking at him as he tried to fight the heaviness in his eyelids.
Sid reached over and touched his limp hand. “I’m glad you’re okay, man. Really glad. Even if you do hate my guts.”
“I don’t hate your guts,” Stan whispered. “I hate what you’re doing to my wife.”
“And I hate what she did to you, if she did it.”
Stan grabbed his hand and opened his eyes again. “Sid, you promise me that…you’ll work as hard…to prove her innocent…as you’re working to prove her guilty.”
“Sure, man,” Sid said. “Believe it or not, I don’t want Celia to be guilty.”
He wanted to say more, but that heaviness was too overwhelming, and his eyes wanted so desperately to close. He told himself that they would keep their promises…they had to. They would watch Celia, even if they thought she was guilty. She would be protected.
Knowing that, he let go and drifted back into the vortex of sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Celia stood in front of the mirror, brushing her hair up into a ponytail. She had no makeup on, and no inclination to use any, and her blue eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot from crying. The news over the last twenty-four hours seemed to have come in waves. The things about Lee Barnett and the letter and the checks and the apartment. Her arrest. Her pregnancy. Finally, the news about Stan.
She had tried twice to call his room, but his parents had refused to put her through. They had claimed he was sleeping, which may have been true. But she knew from the chill in their voices that they wouldn’t put her through even if he was awake. Who could blame them? She had been arrested for his poisoning. His parents saw her as a threat to Stan’s life. Until she could prove to them—to everyone—that she was innocent, she had no hope of getting through.
Her blood pounded through her veins, and she trembled as she pulled her sunglasses from her purse and shoved them on. Would anyone who saw her recognize her? Would they know her from her pictures in the newspaper? The notorious, murderous wife?
She almost didn’t care who saw her, but part of her knew that it wouldn’t pay to be seen. She had a mission, and she intended to carry it out.
She grabbed her purse and started down the stairs. Aunt Aggie had gone to the fire station to cook for the men who claimed to be starving to death without her, and David was moving and shaking the oil business by phone downstairs. Maybe she could slip out without being noticed.
But David was off the phone and was sitting at the telephone table, poring over a photo album that Aunt Aggie kept there. It was futile trying to slip past him, so she stopped and looked over his shoulder.
He was staring down at a picture of them as children, sitting in a sandbox with little plastic buckets. Above that were three pageant pictures of her at age four or five, made up like a starlet and striking a pose in a thousand dollar dress with layers of petticoats. She must have been a winner, because she was wearing a tiara.
“Little Miss Southeastern Hinds County Magnolia Blossom…or some such nonsense. What a racket.”
David nodded pensively. “You won everything. How many trophies did you have?”
“A roomful, for what it was worth. Does Mom still keep them out?”
He shook his head. “She boxed them up years ago.”
Though the idea of such awards seemed so silly, they had been her identity for the first eighteen years of her life. The reminder that she’d been relegated to an obsolete memory in the attic only strengthened her resolve to go where she had to go.
He looked up at her and frowned at her ponytail and sunglasses. “Celia, where are you going?”
“Out for a little while,” she said. “I just want to run a few errands, get some air.”
He stared at her for a moment, then asked, “What are you driving?”
She wilted. For all her planning, she had forgotten that she didn’t have her car here. It was still at her house.
“Uh…Well, I guess I forgot…”
He reached into his pocket for his keys. “Take the Beemer. No problem.”
He tossed them up, and she caught them. “Are you sure it’s all right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? Want me to go with you?”
She shook her head and wondered if she should tell him where she was going. It was only fair…But then she decided against it, because he would surely talk her out of it. “No
, I want to be alone.”
“Okay. The court order didn’t say you had to stay locked up in a house all day, did it?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“You’re not going to see him, are you?”
“Who?”
He frowned, as if her question surprised him. “Stan, who else?”
She rallied and shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
“All right then.”
She left him alone and went out the back way, got into the big car that was a far cry from her little Civic. There had been a time when she had driven a Mercedes Roadster. It had been her first car. Funny how she hadn’t missed it at all.
She backed out of the driveway, thankful that the photographer seemed to have left. He was probably back at the newspaper processing new pictures of Aunt Aggie’s front door, and manufacturing new stories to tell the people of Newpointe about what was happening behind it.
She headed for the Bonaparte Court apartments, where Jill had said Lee Barnett was staying. She had thought about this all day—about the fact that Lee probably wouldn’t hang around forever, not unless the police had warned him not to leave. She had to get to him before he left Newpointe. It was crucial.
She pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, found a space, then peered up at the doors and windows, wishing she had some idea which apartment he was in. No one had said.
She got out of the car and headed to the row of mailboxes beside the sidewalk, hoping to find some clue there. Most of them had last names on them, but some didn’t. There wasn’t a Barnett. Frustrated, she looked around the parking lot for something familiar, maybe his car…a Mississippi plate…
There it was, a Mississippi tag on an old silver Grand Am—the same one he’d driven when she’d known him.
It was in front of the B Building of eight apartments, so she went back to the mailboxes, found the Bs, and saw that only one of them didn’t have a name. B-5. That had to be him, and if it wasn’t, she’d just try another one.
She heard a door close downstairs, and Marabeth Simmons clomped down the walk back into the office. She hurried up the steps of the B Building before the woman could see her. When she was sure Marabeth had gone inside, she found B-5. Inside, she heard the sound of a radio. She knocked on the door and straightened her sunglasses.
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