2 On the Nickel

by Maggie Toussaint

My lungs burned for air. I took a shallow breath. I loved my mother. I did not want to do any harm here. The room spun a little. I had no choice. The truth was all I had. “Mama seemed off.”

  Britt’s interest level spiked. So did his eyebrows. “Off? How?”

  I looked away. I didn’t want to do this. Why wouldn’t he stop with the questions? “Off.” I gestured wildly with my hands. “Preoccupied. Fuzzy. You know. Off.”

  Britt sat very still. “What did she say when you asked her about her car?”

  My clammy skin flushed with heat. “She said nothing was wrong with her car. We went outside, and she was shocked by the damage.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. She clammed up on me.”

  “How did you get her to talk?”

  “I didn’t.” I shifted uneasily in my seat. “I’ve answered your questions. My turn to be the detective. What charges are you holding her on?”

  “I brought Delilah here under probable cause. She’s a person of interest.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The body of evidence points to Delilah.”

  The room spun faster. I wanted the body of evidence to point to someone else. “Is she under arrest? Do I need to post bail?”

  “You were doing good until then. As per police questioning one-oh-one, you only ask one question at a time.”

  I wanted to snatch him up by the collar of his snug navy-blue polo and shake him. Instead I counted to five and asked again. “Is Mama under arrest?”

  “Charges against her are pending.”

  “Is she free to go?”

  Britt frowned. “Yes. But she can’t leave town.”

  I couldn’t get her to go twenty miles to visit a retirement community. “Mama isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Just as well. I’d have to come get her if she left. This is very serious, Cleo.”

  As if I didn’t know that. “Can I take her home?”

  Britt nodded. “You’re both free to go. For now.”

  For now. Time was running out on Mama’s freedom. Fear ruled my heart, hammered through my veins. I needed more time to prove Erica’s death was an accident.

  Not murder.

  It couldn’t be murder.

  I flicked a quick glance at Britt. His cop eyes didn’t miss much. I had the nauseating feeling he knew what I’d been thinking.

  I wished that went both ways. All I saw when I looked at him was grim resolve.

  I stood up on shaky legs and grabbed the back of the chair to steady myself. “I’m not used to being interrogated.”

  Britt opened the door with a scowl. “You were interviewed. Big difference.”

  Easy for him to say. This whole experience had been harrowing. I wanted to get Mama out of here before something else went wrong. I followed him through another door, and there was Mama and Bud Flook. I rushed forward and took her hand.

  Mama’s face was pale. Too pale. She seemed very surprised to see me. “Time to go home, Mama,” I said.

  “I can go?” Mama’s gaze darted between Britt and Bud as if she thought her release was a cruel trick.

  Britt’s well-muscled body blocked the doorway. “Charges against you are pending, Delilah. Don’t leave town.”

  “Hmmph,” Mama muttered as she stood.

  Her legs seemed to be working better than mine. My mind raced ahead to resolve the next obstacle. I didn’t have any way to get us home. “Can we catch a ride with you, Bud?”

  “No problem,” Bud said.

  I put Mama in the back seat of Bud’s large car and then climbed in after her. I rubbed my face. “God, this has been a long night.”

  “Don’t start in on me,” Mama said. “This hasn’t been a pleasure cruise for me, either.”

  “You’re in trouble, Mama. Let me help you.”

  “I made this mess. I’ll clean it up.”

  “It’s my mess too, Mama. We’ll talk about this later,” I replied.

  Bud and Mama exchanged a glance via the rearview mirror as Bud eased out of the lighted parking lot. His Lincoln Town Car was older than dirt, but the back seat was spacious and clean, even if it did reek of cigars. I sighed with gratitude. We were finally headed home.

  By all rights, I should be playing underwear show-and-tell over at Rafe’s house. Not going to happen this evening. So not going to happen.

  Bud turned on the radio. Big band music blared in my ear the rest of the way home. “Thanks for the lift,” I said when he pulled up behind Rafe’s red convertible in my driveway.

  “Nice wheels,” Bud said, nodding towards Rafe’s car. “I would have turned pro years ago if I could have bought a ride like that.”

  Rafe must have been watching for our arrival from the kitchen. He came out and helped me get Mama up the steps and in the house.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Peachy.” Mama stopped and propped her fists on her hips. “Bud, you go on home. I can walk to my room alone, Cleo. You take care of your fella.” She clomped out of the room and up the stairs under her own power. Bud shrugged and left. Then it was just me and Rafe.

  I took his hand and led him to the living room. We sat on the sofa. “Thanks for your help, Rafe. I couldn’t have done this without you. The girls went to bed without any trouble?”

  “They sacked out a few hours ago.” Rafe kissed my hand. “Well?”

  My fingers itched to smooth his flyaway hair off his brow. “Well, nothing. This rates right up there with the worst evening of my life.”

  His gaze narrowed dangerously. “I thought you enjoyed dinner.”

  “I did.” I leaned back into the cushy sofa and his arm drew me in close. I needed his warmth. His strength. “It’s the other parts of the evening that stink.”

  “We could go upstairs and I could make everything better for you.” A wicked grin lit his face. Hope sparkled in his sexy eyes.

  “No. Not here,” I said with regret. He knew the rules. I didn’t sleep with him in this house.

  “Don’t shut me out, Red. I want to help. What happened at the police station?”

  He deserved to know, even though telling him would destroy any final illusions he had about my wacky family. I gripped my shaking hands in my lap. “Mama’s not under arrest. Yet. They are conducting forensic tests on her car.”

  Rafe whistled softly. “Sounds like you need a criminal defense attorney.”

  His comment infuriated me, even though my thoughts had been running along the same lines. “Mama didn’t murder anyone. You’ll see. I’ll get to the bottom of this, and then everything will be fine.”

  His features hardened. “I don’t want you getting to the bottom of this. You got lucky last time. You could’ve been killed.”

  Frustration sharpened my voice. “I can’t sit back and do nothing.”

  “Your mother is a grown-up,” he countered.

  “That’s what she’d like everyone to believe.”

  “Dammit, Cleo. Stay out of it.”

  Patience had never been my strong suit, and tonight’s adventure had exceeded my ability to cope. Rafe wanted me to be safe. But I couldn’t accommodate his wants and help Mama. I stood and gestured toward the door. “Time for you to go home.”

  He studied me from the couch. For a moment I thought he wouldn’t budge, but he surprised me by taking my hand and rising. “You aren’t coming home with me?” he asked.

  Perversely, that’s exactly what I wanted, to spend the night in his arms and let Mama’s problems run their course. I reached deep for the courage to turn him down. “I can’t. Not tonight. My family needs me. My family is important to me.”

  Rafe stopped in the doorway, his fingers skimming the side of my cheek. “You’re important to me. I don’t want your mother taking advantage of you.”

  I edged him out the door. The lock snicked in place. “You’re about thirty-eight years too late for that.”

  Chapter 9

  “Evan isn’t here today,” the perky blonde said.
I leaned forward to read her Mountaintop Gym name tag. Like the other the well-sculpted trainers at the gym, twenty-something Gen could easily drop to the floor and riff fifty pushups without breaking a sweat or a nail. She glowed with health and brimmed with good cheer.

  “He’s not?” I peered into the gym. Saturday midmorning usually was the time people like me showed up. The fitness junkies cruised through the place before eight. Usually. Today the median age appeared to be much younger, and fitter than me.

  Not one of them was sweating profusely or complaining. Drat.

  “The poor guy.” Gen’s radiant smile dimmed a bit. “Death in the family.”

  I frowned. “I heard, but Evan didn’t mention rescheduling when I saw him at dinner last night. Why didn’t someone from the gym notify me? I wasted a trip up here.”

  Gen jabbed both thumbs toward her perky chest. “Because I’m taking Evan’s client list today. Let’s get started.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t keen on having a kid like Gen tell me what to do. That’s why Evan Hodges was my personal trainer.

  With my sloppy gray sweats and my ratty workout shirt, I looked like a beached whale standing next to sleek, dolphin-like Gen. I wasn’t tanned. I wasn’t buff. And I certainly wasn’t fit. Although I was trying.

  I’m sure Gen had a different definition than Evan of trying. Machines whirred, rock music blasted, and I dithered. I could go home and bypass certain humiliation. Or I could tough it out. I should have developed some level of fitness by now.

  I should have called the gym first. Funny how clear that was now. But I’d been focused on talking to Evan about his mother, hoping he knew the underlying cause of the feud. I’d been focused on my family, not his. At least my mother was still alive.

  Gen bounced over to the tall metal file cabinet. There was a spring to her step that came from being new to adulthood. I told myself I wasn’t envious of her youthful vitality. I didn’t want to reclaim my childhood. That’s not why I worked out. I worked out so that I could be strong and flexible.

  The trainer pulled my chart and studied it briefly. I had the sick feeling she was laughing to herself over my lack of progress. “Do you need any help warming up?” she asked as a cute guy strolled in.

  “I can manage,” I said.

  Gen dropped me like a steaming sauna towel and bounced back to the front desk. I went through my stretching routine, then hit the treadmill for half an hour. I could have walked a couple of hours on that thing if it had gotten me out of my fitness appointment with Gen.

  I’d forgotten my headphones again, and there wasn’t much point in watching TV without them. Instead, I listened to the whir of well-oiled machines and the sounds of people using them. I tried reading the lips of the television actors, but no one said, “I love you” or “Hi, Mom.”

  Before long, Mama’s near-arrest hijacked my thoughts. Mama had insisted she didn’t kill anyone, but it sure looked like her car killed Erica. Britt believed Mama had murdered Erica. I believed Erica’s death could have been an accident. But Britt said Erica had been run over multiple times—

  This circular thinking wasn’t helping.

  Everything was too jumbled up in my head. I needed organization. The facts needed to be sorted like credits and debits.

  Mama had no criminal record. That went in the credit column. I thought some more. Mama had held down a job and been an active community volunteer for years. Another item in the credit column. Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with anything else for the credit side of the ledger.

  Her damaged car. The history of antagonism with Erica. Mama’s unaccounted time on Tuesday evening. Her odd behavior before and after Erica’s death. The verbal smackdown between the two women on Monday night. All of those things were debits.

  More than debits.

  They painted a picture I didn’t want to see.

  A terrible picture that had Mama behind bars for the rest of her life. The thing I kept coming back to was why now? Mama had butted heads with Erica for years. Why would she wait to do something about it?

  I needed more information.

  There must have been an inciting incident. All I had to do was dig deeper. Only, Mama and her friends were holding out on me. I couldn’t very well ask the dead woman, and chances were good her son wouldn’t humor me. Heck, he hadn’t even let me know he’d cancelled on me.

  Mama was in trouble, and nothing I’d done so far had helped. I’d failed to look after her as Daddy had asked. She’d messed up, but so had I. Fatigue hit me right between the eyes. I knew what it felt like to give up. I’d quit on life once before, letting my emotions paralyze me to the point of inertia.

  In the back of my mind I heard Mama’s voice. Stop that. Sampson women are stronger than this.

  She’d been there for me when I was down. Is this how I repaid her? By giving up on her? Where was my faith in the woman who’d given me life and nurtured me?

  A spark of hope touched my gloomy thoughts. What if I came at the problem from another angle? Sure, the body of evidence pointed to Mama. But what if that had been engineered?

  My pace slowed as the implications sank in. Mama could have been framed. She could be squeaky clean as she’d claimed all along. Well, not squeaky clean. She had a long history of run-ins with the victim.

  My blood chilled as the idea took hold. Mama was the perfect patsy. A killer could have taken advantageous of her outrageous, obstinate, and overbearing ways.

  Yes. My stride lengthened. That felt right. I was definitely onto something here.

  The treadmill timer rang, and Gen bounced over to my side. An hour later, I hobbled out of the gym bathroom and into the parking lot. Every muscle in my body had been stretched to its maximum endurance, every tendon strained.

  For what?

  So I wouldn’t look like a wuss in front of a woman I’d just met. Sad but true. It was barely noon on an overcast Saturday morning, and I needed a nap. I limped toward my car.

  I’d started this fitness program to improve my golf swing. At the rate I was seizing up, I’d be lucky if I could even swing my nine wood by the next ladies nine-hole outing on Wednesday.

  Home beckoned, as did a long soak in the tub. With Charlie taking the girls this afternoon, I’d have plenty of time to talk to Mama. She might not want to talk, but I’d be firm.

  “Cleo. Wait up.” Darnell Reynolds huffed over to intercept me. He wore a dark business suit, a blue tie, and a white dress shirt. For our mayor, it was business as usual on a Saturday morning.

  “Hey, Darnell. What’s going on?” I thanked God for showers and deodorant. Otherwise, I’d be standing here in this herd of brightly colored cars, smelling like the queen of funk. As it was, my jeans and white polo shirt struck just the right note of Saturday casual. Shower-dampened hair cooled my head.

  Darnell was my wealthiest accounting client, and he’d steered a lot of business my way over the last five years. I appreciated his efforts, even though I privately thought he was a pompous ass. I hadn’t missed a quarterly appointment with him, had I? Or worse, he wasn’t going to ask me out, was he? I held my breath.

  He glanced around furtively, his odd behavior ramping up my nerves. What was going on in this town? Who was the mayor hiding from?

  Did he expect the IRS to be skulking in the gym parking lot? I had it on good authority that the IRS only cared about people’s financial fitness. They could care less if I worked out or spoke to my clients about nonbusiness matters.

  “I need to talk to you,” Darnell said. “Right away.”

  “Here I am.” I shrugged as I spoke. The slight motion had me wincing at the lactic acid built up in my shoulder muscles.

  He leaned in a bit closer. “This is a private matter. Follow me to my office?”

  Dang. A client request. He had me there. “Okay.”

  Darnell drove his pickup like a man possessed. I was thankful to be following him in the sturdy Gray Beast instead of inside his very large, swerving vehicle. Every muscle
in my body pulled when I got out of my car.

  I limped to his office in the stately city hall building. He scurried behind the carved oak desk that had belonged to his grandfather and stopped between the twin oils of the mountain ranges guarding our valley. “What’s this about, Darnell?”

  “That g.d. housing development, that’s what.” He closed the door behind us and paced around his office.

  There was only one new development in Hogan’s Glen. White Rock. Darnell had gone in with the late Dudley Davis and put together an upscale community on the edge of the city limits.

  Houses were already under construction when the state issued a building moratorium because of water availability, halting construction. Consequently, White Rock was a ghost town.

  “I thought you were working with the state to get the moratorium lifted.”

  “I am. The town bought the Stewart farm to protect our wellheads. We’ve got new wells coming online soon. We’ve got great water reuse ideas in the pipeline. Lots of water plans in the works. It’s coming along, but it can’t happen tomorrow. Bureaucracies don’t move that fast.”

  I eased into the brown leather chair across from his desk. “How can I help you, Darnell?”

  Darnell halted in front of the Maryland flag next to his desk. The redness of his neck and face worried me. His complexion wasn’t usually that florid. His neck seemed unusually thick and rigid, too. Not a good sign. Something big was bothering Darnell.

  “One of my silent partners wants out. Today. I don’t have the money until I sell the lots and build the houses. What am I going to do?”

  “Why don’t you sit down with your partner and explain the situation to him or her?” Was it Dudley’s ex-wife who wanted to sell? I’d known Bitsy Davis for years, and if she was the problem, I could see how Darnell thought I could persuade her to wait.

  I’d drawn up the original financial information for the investors in the development. There had been another key investor, only I couldn’t remember who it was.

  Darnell rubbed the back of his neck. “Did that. Didn’t help.”

  My brain slid into accounting mode. “Show your silent partner the balance in the bank account.” Money always talked. So did the lack of money.