Stand By Your Man mr-2

by Nancy Bartholomew

  Stand By Your Man

  ( Maggie Reid - 2 )

  Nancy Bartholomew

  Beautician-turned-country singer Maggie Reid is getting too famous for her own good. Since her endearing if good-for-nothing former husband. "Satellite Dish and Mobile Home King" Vernell Spivey, vanished along with millions, everybodyseems to be interested in the ex-wife he left in the lurch...including some very bad people called "The Redneck Mafia." Drop-dead gorgeous Detective Marshall Weathers and his police cronies want to know what Maggie knows as well, since they have a murder on their hands that has Vernell's name all over it.

  Maggie knows this much: there are many negative appellations you could pin on old liquor-loving, skirt-chasing Vernell, but "killer" isn't one of them.

  And though it means courting a mob hit and the extreme attentions of a sturdy bike p.i., the determined d-i-v-o-r-c-e-e is going to find her missing ex and prove him innocent...or die trying!

  Nancy Bartholomew

  Stand By Your Man

  For my brother, John - the one who keeps the music and wisdom alive in our family, and to his beautiful family: Vicky, Jimmy, and Emily.

  I love you.

  Acknowledgments

  My books couldn't happen without the support and encouragement of my family. My boys are all the world to me and I want to thank them once again for eating lots of noodles! Thanks to my husband for being the first reader, no matter that he hasn't gotten to put his briefcase down or loosen his tie!

  Thanks also to my incredible editor, Jeffery McGraw, who sees the vision and pushes me forward. And to my agent, Donald Maass, for keeping my feet on the ground and my fingers on the keyboard. I would also like to thank my critique group for their unflagging support.

  Now for the real scoop… Thank you, Town and Country Cloggers: Miss Patsy, Susan, Caroline, Kenny, Christine, and the gang! And Wendy, thanks for pretending to be my publicist and for giving so much of your time, energy, and love!

  Chapter One

  The first time I laid eyes on Detective Marshall J. Weathers of the Greensboro Police Department's Homicide Unit, I heard Mama's voice echoing in my head. "It's the fire that'll burn you, sweetie, not the smoke." Marshall Weathers was pure fire, from his icy blue eyes and handsome tanned face right down to his tight, faded jeans. But trying to bring the two of us together was like trying to put two angry porcupines in a Coke bottle-a sticky proposition on the best of days.

  It was no different when my ex-husband, Vernell, disappeared. Marshall Weathers was the first person I knew to turn to, but he should've been the last. Despite his handsome ways and that thick cowboy mustache of his, I figured Marshall Weathers was just a lowlife snake in the grass.

  I jammed a quarter in the meter across the street from the police station, knowing full well that I shouldn't go see the man, but where else could I go? Vernell Spivey, North Carolina's self-proclaimed King of the Satellite Dish and Mobile Home Kingdom, had been missing for two days. His bank accounts were as dry as his liquor cabinet, and I was worried half out of my mind. So I figured it didn't matter that Marshall Weathers had promised to call. So what if it had been two months? So what if I remembered the way he held me out on the dance floor, with a look that promised forever and a touch that said tonight? This was an emergency.

  "Detective Weathers," the receptionist said into her little headset, "a woman is here to see you. Says her name is Maggie Reid. Says she knows you."

  Why did they always make it sound like you were a liar? I stalked over to the waiting area, picked up Guns and Ammo Magazine, and held it in front of me, my face flaming nearly as red as my hair.

  He'd accused me of murdering my brother-in-law a mere two weeks before he two-stepped me around the floor at the Golden Stallion, the club where I sing with the house band. He'd kissed me that night and disappeared. So, what the hell was that? Now Vernell was gone. A smarter woman would've seen the trend, but not me. I'm an optimist. I figure one day God'll make a model that doesn't rust out and holds true to its promises.

  I closed my eyes for a short second, feeling his lips on mine, smelling his cologne, and remembering the way his arms had squeezed me close to him. My heart started to pound and I could feel my face turning redder at the thought of what might have happened if only I'd had half a chance.

  "If you're napping, I can come back," a deep voice said. I hadn't heard him coming.

  I jumped up, threw the magazine down on the coffee table, and got ready to launch right in. All right, so he hadn't called. He didn't need to think I gave a good fig about it.

  "I need to report someone missing," I said.

  He had the nerve to just stand there, smiling and staring at me in that way of his. I was having trouble looking at him, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of breaking off first, either. He wasn't going to best Maggie Reid.

  "All right, Maggie," he said finally, "let's talk."

  He turned and walked off, with me following behind and studying the back of his neck. What had I done to lose this one? One minute he was holding me in his arms, the next he had vanished. And don't go thinking I didn't want to call him, because I surely did, but pride kept watch over my impulses, holding me back from a short waltz with foolish desire. I wasn't going to chase him like a silly schoolgirl. Whatever was keeping him away from me could just remain a mystery. My days of chasing after scoundrels were over, that is, just as soon as I found out what happened to Vernell Spivey.

  Marshall Weathers led us right past the hallway where his office was and on to a small interview room. I stared up at the one-way mirror and back at him.

  "Well," I said, "this is certainly familiar. Are you thinking perhaps Vernell is dead and I killed him? 'Cause if you are…"

  I was geared up for a confrontation, but Weathers just chuckled and held up his hand like a traffic cop.

  "Maggie, they're painting my office. I don't have anyplace else to go." He walked around the big metal desk that occupied half the room and sat down in a chair. "Now, what's this about you killing Vernell?"

  "I didn't!" I shrieked. "What makes you think I'd do a thing like that?"

  He was laughing to himself. "I don't, Maggie. You're the one who brought it up." When he saw that I was serious, he stopped. "Okay, Mag, sit down and tell me what's going on."

  I slid into the chair across from him and to my complete surprise and consternation, lost my cool and began to cry.

  "Vernell has been gone for two days," I said, tears sliding down my cheeks. "I don't keep tabs on him usually, but what with him and Jolene getting divorced, and Sheila moving back in with me, well, I just figured it was better if I checked on him."

  Marshall was listening, leaning back in his chair, tipping it up off the ground like always. He had rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and was tapping a pen on his thigh.

  "He's been drinking pretty steadily, too," I added. "So, when his manager at the mobile home lot called and said Vernell hadn't been in for two days and he needed his signature on the paychecks, I went over to his house." I looked up at Marshall. "I figured he might've been drinking so much he'd gotten sick, but he wasn't there. His truck was gone too."

  Marshall started to say something, but I kept on going. "I know what you're thinking. He might've just run off for a couple of days. Well, I thought that too. So, I went over and signed the checks. I can do that with the mobile home lot, on account of Sheila and me owning almost half of it." I rushed on: "But the checks all bounced. Vernell's gone and so is his money. The bank said he withdrew almost everything two days ago. I've got to cover it, too, or we'll be arrested for bad check writing. I can't cover that kind of expense!"

  Marshall Weathers was frowning. He reached inside his s
hirt pocket, pulled out a little notepad, and scribbled something on it.

  "What bank does he use, Maggie?"

  "Wachovia," I said, "on Church Street." I watched him writing more on the tiny pad. "Vernell didn't run off. He wouldn't do us that way, ex-wife or not. I think something bad's happened to Vernell. I want you to find him."

  Marshall looked up at me, his eyes softening. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to me.

  "Maggie, have you thought that he might be very depressed over his second marriage ending? That he might've wanted to hurt himself?"

  I thought about the Vernell Spivey I knew. When Jolene and Vernell first split and he saw her for the woman she was, even right after she went to prison, maybe then he could've felt suicidal, but not longer than ten minutes. Vernell was too pitiful to kill himself. And he had enough hope in him to know another woman would come along.

  "Nope. Vernell's not the type," I answered.

  Marshall's eyes hardened a little as he asked his next question. "Did it occur to you that he drained his accounts and ran off? I mean, face it, Maggie, the man's not exactly reliable. He ran out on you. What makes you think he hasn't done it again?"

  That stung. I sat in silence for a moment, my throat closing with pain and not trusting my voice to speak.

  "Vernell Spivey is many things," I said slowly. "And true, his zipper flies up and down like a flag on the opening day of a Boy Scout jamboree, but he wouldn't leave his little girl, even if she is almost grown. Vernell doesn't get in trouble because he's mean. He gets in trouble because he's stupid and believes the best about women, even when the evidence lies to the contrary." I looked Marshall squarely in the eyes and continued. "Sheila's birthday was yesterday and Vernell missed it. He's never done that. He'd never do that."

  Marshall Weathers slowly closed the notebook and put it back in his pocket. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He was putting off saying what was on his mind.

  "Maggie, my guess is that Vernell's fine. I know you don't think so, but most times, the simplest explanations are the best. I think he's run off, but I'm going to see what I can find out. It would help if you could go over to his house and see if you can find anything at all that might give me some more information."

  I nodded. "Will you do the missing persons thing?" I asked. "You know, tell everybody to look out for him? Let other departments know?"

  He sighed again. "Honey, I don't think it'll do a lot of good, but of course I will. But I'm betting he's holed up in a hotel room somewhere, drinking. I don't think he wants to be found."

  I stood up and stared down at him. "Thank you," I said, "I'll be in touch." I said it with all the dignity I could muster. I said it when I wanted to ask him a thousand other questions. Then I turned to leave.

  "Maggie?" His voice rolled over my shoulder, a plea, not a command.

  I turned around, waiting, my hand still clutching the door handle.

  "I know you're wondering…"

  I was. I was so wondering, but the doorknob suddenly lurched in my hand. I turned back, reacting to the movement, and felt my world dissolve into a fiery explosion of red, black, and pain.

  Chapter Two

  I grabbed my nose, the world went starry and black, and I was propelled backward into the desk.

  A voice said, "Oh, man!"

  Marshall Weathers was suddenly right there, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me right back into the chair I'd just come from.

  "She's bleeding," the door pusher said. "I'll get some paper towels and ice. Oh, man! I'm sorry." My attacker was a female, a sumo wrestler, if the strength of her pushing was any indication.

  My hands were covering my face. I could feel blood seeping through my fingers as my nose started to swell. Great. This was all I needed.

  "Maggie," Weathers said, "just lean back." His hands tenderly brushed my curls out away from my face. "Do you think it's broken?"

  "It can't be," I wailed. "I've gotta sing for a living!"

  Marshall slipped his arm around my shoulders and pulled my head to his chest.

  "Shhh," he said softly, "it'll be all right."

  I wanted to cry, partly because I hurt so bad and partly because it took a broken nose for him to take me in his arms again, but I was cried out. Telling Marshall about Vernell and hearing the reality of the situation had drained me.

  The door swung open, cautiously this time, and the pusher stepped back into the room. I looked up and took in the fresh-scrubbed, young, blonde officer, carrying a roll of paper towels and a bucket of ice.

  "I'm so sorry," she said again.

  "Me, too," I said, before I could remember my manners. "But I'll be fine."

  She was staring at Marshall Weathers the same way I had when I first met him. I could tell right then and there that she was smitten. Marshall smiled up at her, took the towels and ice from her hands, then said, "Thanks, Trace."

  She blushed. "I was just coming to see if we're still on for tonight," she said softly.

  Weathers looked at me, then back at her. "Um, yeah, sure."

  "Five thirty okay?" she asked.

  He nodded and I jumped up out of my seat, a paper towel jammed against my nose.

  "I'm fine," I muttered through the thick cloth. "And I have to go. Right now. I'm late."

  "Maggie, wait," Marshall said.

  I favored him with my nicest glance, considering that all he could see was eyes and a blob of white towel. I wasn't Einstein, but I wasn't stupid, either. "Let me know as soon as you find out about Vernell," I said. "Be sweet."

  "Be sweet." That's southern for "curl up and die, you idiot!" A true southern woman never betrays her temper. Instead, she kills you with kindness. She lowers her voice almost to a whisper, looks you straight in the eye, and wishes you to stay as sweet as you are. It's her eyes that tell you the true story. Marshall Weathers was a Southerner. He knew exactly what I was saying.

  I walked off through the Homicide Unit, weaving through the gray partition walls, heading for the lobby and the outside exit. People glanced up, then just as quickly looked away. I was guessing they didn't want to think too hard about what had happened to the Reba McEntire look-alike who had only minutes before strolled past with Marshall Weathers.

  I wasted no time walking to my aging white VW Beetle and taking off. I drove through Greensboro's rush-hour traffic, heading for College Hills and my tiny Victorian bungalow. I hardly noticed the five-minute trip home or the beautiful fall colors that accented the tree-lined streets; I was too busy thinking. Besides, my nose ached and I just knew I was going to have two black eyes.

  What was I going to tell Sheila? She was probably home, waiting for me. I hadn't let her in on how worried I was about her daddy, but now I was going to have to tell her.

  When Vernell left us two years ago for Jolene, the Dish Girl in his satellite dish commercials, Sheila was just turning fifteen. I was a beautician and co-owned the Curly-Que Beauty Salon, and while it wasn't enough to keep us in luxury, it did afford me the little cottage off Mendenhall Street. Sheila hated the house, said it was a dump, but I loved it. It was full of character. It was just like me, waiting to be rediscovered and loved.

  Sheila couldn't see that. No, she took up with a dope dealer down the street and eventually ran off to live in her father's pressed-cement, nouveau riche mansion in snobby New Irving Park. Time won out, though. Money can't buy a mother's love, especially when your stepmother is a greedy schemer bent on separating you from your father and his money. Poor Sheila.

  I thought about Vernell for a minute. After his brother died, Vernell had started back drinking the hard stuff on a daily basis. I remembered sitting on a sidewalk curb one night, Vernell sick and crying beside me, and realizing that for all his restless meandering, Vernell truly loved me. He just couldn't live up to it. And try as I might, I couldn't hate him for that. Vernell was a just a junkyard dog trying to live indoors.

  I drove down the alleyway and up into my s
mall stamp of a backyard, trudged up the steps, and unlocked the door that opened into my bedroom, a converted sleeping porch. Sheila was lying across the bed, her head on her arms, wailing. From the sound of it, she'd turned up the volume as she heard my key fit into the lock.

  She raised up slowly onto her elbows, her stick-straight red hair spilling around her freckled, tear-swollen face. She was a mess, but she stopped in midcry when she saw my face.

  "It's not nearly as bad as it looks," I said.

  "Oh my God! Who did that to you?" She drew her lanky frame up into a lotus position in the middle of Mama's yellow wedding-ring quilt. She was using her affected New York accent.

  "Pride," I said, knowing she wouldn't let it go at that.

  "Pride? You know somebody named Pride?"

  I slung my purse down onto the dresser and looked into the mirror. My nose stood out between my green eyes like a Mercedes on a sucker lot. The skin around my eyes was puffy and starting to glow red and a bit purple. I touched it gently and winced. It hurt, but it wasn't broken.

  "It was an accident. I ran into a door at the police department."

  Sheila started to smile. "I knew you'd go see him," she said. "And after you gave me that big lecture on waiting for the boy to call you!"

  That was when I knew for certain my concern for Vernell hadn't spilled over onto Sheila.

  "You didn't go to school today, did you?" I asked, not quite ready to broach the Vernell subject.

  Sheila's eyes narrowed and her face flushed the telltale way it does when she's done wrong.

  "Did the headmaster call you?"

  Sheila attends the Irving Park Country Day School because her father insists. He sees it as yet another way of clawing up into Greensboro society. I try to tell him that money can't buy breeding, but he wants his picture sprawled across the newspaper's society page, hobnobbing with the la-de-dahs at the Heart Ball.