"That may be true but I doubt you have any recourse," Sam said. "An engagement has no legal standing under the law."
"I was afraid you'd say that." Marjorie stretched as though her back was giving her trouble. "I hope it wasn't too much of a bother me phoning you late like that. A person's supposed to honor the last wishes of the dead, but Suzanne never said one word to me about being cremated like was written in that note they found with her. And she said a whole lot to me about Richard. Guess I'll have to call the funeral home to go pick her up in the morning and then decide what to do."
"Did Suzanne tell you she and Richard actually planned to marry?" Jennifer asked.
"Of course. She talked about it all the time. I know she spoke to our minister about performing the ceremony, too, but I don't think they had a definite date picked out. I do know they were getting married no never mind what anybody says now."
"Did Suzanne have any close friends, someone else she might have shared her plans with?" Jennifer asked.
"You might talk to Kelli Byers, although I have to warn you she's an odd one. Suzanne and I weren't all that close. I mean she didn't tell me a whole lot, but I loved her. You've got to love family no matter what they do. It's just that we didn't have time to socialize much. Living on a farm requires that you be around. Animals don't understand it when you take a day off for lunch and a movie or go traipsing off to the mall, leaving them to fend for themselves."
"Do you know when she bought the dress she was wearing?" Jennifer added.
"I understand someone's gonna bring by her belongings sometime tomorrow. Until I see it, I won't know which one it was. When they asked me to come down and identify her, all they let me see was her face.
"I've got one more favor to ask of you," Marjorie told Sam, "seeing as how you're here and you've got these two women friends with you. I want to send a dress over for them to transport her in. It's not fitting for her not to have something to wear. Lord only knows what they wrap those bodies in. Only..."
Jennifer saw Sam steal a glance in her direction. She didn't say a word and, thank goodness, neither did Belle. If it was important to Marjorie to believe Suzanne's body would be clothed in more than a body bag, so be it.
"I don't think I can bear to go down to her house just yet, and I don't want Suzie down there either," Marjorie went on. "Do you think—"
"Absolutely," Belle jumped in. "Something simple and elegant."
"She's got a pale blue suit I plan to bury her in so don't take that, but there's a plain black dress I thought might be suitable—"
"Got a key?" Belle asked. Jennifer kicked her under the table, and Belle let out a loud "Ouch!"
"Was that your leg?" Jennifer asked. "So sorry."
"Where's her house?" Sam asked, ignoring them both.
"'Bout a half mile up the road. Vic built her a little place on land we signed over to her." Marjorie rose and plucked a key from a glass dish on the counter. She handed it to Sam. Then she held the door open as they filed outside.
Belle shook her hand and slipped her a piece of paper with her name and Sam's phone number. "I'm really sorry about your sister. I know you've already got this number, but call if you need anything, or if you just want to talk."
Right. Belle would be right at the top of Jennifer's list if she ever needed sympathy.
Marjorie nodded and then hollered after Sam. "There's one more thing. I don't really expect to win this fight with the Hoveys. They're prominent people after all, they own the plot, they have a heck of a lot more money for lawyers' fees than I do, and as you said, I don't have any legal standing. Looks like I'll have to make a decision in the next couple of days. I can have Suzanne cremated, which is what she said she wanted done in that note she left, or I can have her buried next to Momma and Poppa, if'n I can't get the Hoveys to relent. I'm just wondering what you thought might be best. Vic don't have no opinion one way or the other."
Jennifer turned back. "Bury her. Before this is all over, I suspect the only thing Suzanne wouldn't forgive your doing is having her body cremated."
Chapter 12
The short trip down the road to Suzanne's offered no time for Jennifer to cool down. She got out of her little Beetle, slammed the door, and headed up the gravel driveway toward the front steps where Sam already stood. She had more than a few words for Belle and she wanted to say every one of them. Girlfriend, indeed! Our place, hah!
Belle got to the door first.
"What was all that nonsense you were telling Marjorie when we arrived?" Jennifer demanded at the front of the modest little house.
There were no outside lights on, no streetlights, and the house itself lay in complete darkness. Sam held his pocket flashlight under his arm while he inserted the key Marjorie had given him into the lock.
"Belle knew I was with you," Sam said. "You heard what she said. She was afraid I'd turned off my beeper and my phone, and she didn't want me to miss the information from Mrs. Turner."
And if he believed that...
"No way," Jennifer insisted, certain that Belle was fully capable of defending herself. "And what was that 'call me if you want to talk?'" She threw Belle a nasty look. Too bad she couldn't see it in the dark.
Sam pushed the door open. "Can we talk about this later?"
So Belle had managed it. Here she was fighting with Sam, or at least having an animated conversation, while Belle, quiet, probably for the first time in her life, looked on. Drat that woman. "Later will be perfect."
Sam fumbled along the inside wall for a light switch and then, suddenly, the room was bright.
Jennifer threw Belle another look, in case she'd missed the first one, and got back one of those innocent smiles. Then Belle pushed past her to go inside.
Suzanne's house seemed normal enough. Tiny, one story, built on a slab. It looked to be only three rooms, a fairly large living room/dining room/kitchen combo with two doors leading off, most likely to a bedroom and a bathroom. The structure itself was made of cinder blocks covered with plaster. Simple, unpretentious, undoubtedly cold in the winter, not that Macon usually got all that cold.
The decor was drab and haphazard at best, but the place was fairly neat, except for a couple of dirty dishes in the sink, which was under a large window facing the street, and a drinking glass left on the counter. Surely Suzanne would have cleaned them and put them away before committing suicide. It was like wearing clean underwear while driving. If she knew she was going to die, wouldn't she want people to think she kept a nice house? Or was Jennifer the only one who would think of something like that?
The main room held nothing particularly out of the ordinary save for a vase of wilted roses, with a large red bow, placed prominently on the maple coffee table. The water had turned slime green. A sad reminder of what might have been.
The room was furnished with a simple, inexpensive, brown plaid sofa and chair, end tables with ceramic lamps that needed new shades, an area rug on the tile floor, and a really old TV set. Jennifer suspected there was a satellite dish in the yard out back. The only photo on any of the walls was one of Suzie Turner wearing a high school cap and gown.
Drab, however, ended at the bedroom door.
"Would you look at this?" Belle called from the doorway. "She saved the color for in here."
Jennifer and Sam followed her into the twelve-foot square room.
The double bed was spread with a purple satin coverlet with half a dozen matching throw pillows hiding most of the headboard. A white stuffed cat perched on the center pillow, and a pile of bridal magazines sat next to the bed. The walls were painted lavender, and the single window had artificial purple and pink flowers draped across a gauzy white swag.
But even more striking than the girliness of the room was the sheer volume of paper stacked about. The entire top of Suzanne's small desk was covered with what looked like brochures, and the oak dresser was mounded with swatches of fabric. A single poster of a beach at sunset proclaiming Barbados to be the most romantic
honeymoon destination stretched above the desk. And next to it hung a candid photo of Richard Hovey, enlarged to an eight-by-ten and framed.
"Admit it," Jennifer demanded.
"You were right," Sam conceded. "The woman was obsessed with getting married."
"Not obsessed," Belle corrected. "You obviously have no idea how much effort goes into planning a wedding."
"Oh, and I suppose you do," Jennifer said.
Belle gave her a long look. "Maid of honor twice. I'd say I have some experience."
Unfortunately not as the bride.
"But it's not for me," Belle went on. "I say keep things simple. I don't believe in long engagements. Justice of the peace, a little motel somewhere, a lock on the door, and lots and lots of room service, at least a week's worth. You like things simple, don't you, Sam?"
She could kill her here and now. Sam would be the only witness. Would he really testify against her?
Sam, wise man that he was, didn't utter a sound.
Focus, she ordered herself and, without a word, picked up a cluster of swatches, all samples of lace, from the piles on top of the dresser. She touched another bunch of satins and a third of silks ranging from eggshell to bright white in varying weights and quality. A fourth stack in the burgundy-to-pink families had to be for the maid of honor and bridesmaids' dresses. She noted the cardboard tag attached to each group: La Boutique Nuptiale.
"All of this planning for only twenty minutes?" Jennifer uttered, more to herself than out loud.
"That's just the core part of the ceremony," Belle assured her. "With a good vocalist and written vows you can stretch it another thirty minutes. But weddings are really weekend-long affairs these days, what with the dinners and the reception. And none of that includes the showers and the bachelor and bachelorette parties."
"What's all that cost?" Jennifer asked.
"Thousands of dollars," Belle assured her. "But what the heck, you only do it once."
Not according to the Census Bureau.
Sam stood shaking his head, in seeming shock. He was flipping through stationery samples on the desk. "Invitations. Brochures from florists. She's got everything here from romantic getaways in Savannah to world cruises." Jennifer joined him. She noted a business card: Talley's Travels.
"Hey, would you look at this," Belle offered. "She's even got pamphlets on china patterns."
"I wonder if she was actually registered anywhere," Jennifer said.
"So do you believe it now?" Sam asked. "She puts all this effort into her dream wedding and then the groom dies on her. You can't still think her death was—"
Jennifer stomped his foot, and Sam let out a loud yelp. He knew better. Not in front of Belle.
"Think it was what?" Belle asked, suddenly all ears.
"Think it was unrequited love," Jennifer said. "You heard what Marjorie said about the Hoveys' attitude. Suzanne may not have been what they had in mind for a daughter-in-law, but after looking at all this, I don't think anyone could deny the relationship. Shouldn't we at least look in her closet? That is what Marjorie sent us here to do."
Belle slid back the bi-fold door to a closet crammed full of clothes, which Belle immediately began pawing through. "I see things in here that date back at least to the eighties. Lots of lime green and orange. And, guess what, purple. And red. This woman must have never thrown away a thing."
"Just look for the black dress," Jennifer reminded her. "Do you think we should take anything else?"
"Like what?" Belle asked. "I think it's a remote chance in hell anyone will dress her. Do you really think they'd try to put pantyhose on a corpse?"
Before Jennifer could answer, the blare of police sirens filled the house, blue lights flashing through the windows.
"What the..." Sam began.
They abandoned the bedroom for the living room. Belle started toward the front door, but Sam yelled at her to stay put as pounding started.
"Open up. Sheriff's Department."
"Yes, sir." Sam motioned Jennifer and Belle up against the wall, out of direct line of the door, and then cautiously opened it.
Three deputies, their weapons drawn, entered. Both Belle and Jennifer's hands shot up. The first deputy looked about the room and then holstered his gun. "It's all right," he called to the men behind him and then spoke something Jennifer couldn't catch into a walkie-talkie. "Sam, what the heck are you doing here?" he asked.
"We're here at the invitation of Marjorie Turner, Suzanne Gray's sister." He offered the key Marjorie had given him.
"We'll have to check with Mrs. Turner. Sorry, but it's procedure. Wait here just a moment." He left the other two deputies inside. No one said a word. Heck, they didn't even breathe until he returned. "Okay. Mrs. Turner confirmed she authorized you being here. We had a report of suspicious activity—"
"Arrest them," a woman demanded, dressed in light blue stretch jeans and a shiny white plastic coat. Framed in the doorway, her chin high, bleached hair short and spiked, eyes circled black with liner, pink lipstick pale and shiny, and cheeks round and rosy with indignation, she looked like some strange comic-book version of an avenging angel. "Arrest them before they destroy the evidence."
Chapter 13
"Evidence of what?" Jennifer demanded. "Who are you?"
"That is none of your business, missy. Book 'em, Hank." The woman put both hands on her slender hips and glared.
One of the deputies leaned close to Jennifer's ear. "Her name is Kelli Byers. She's a Looney Tune. Lives just across the road. She's the one who reported the break-in."
"Excuse me?" the woman demanded. She looked young, probably in her early thirties, and she would have been striking in the soft light of a bar. Under normal light, which flashed off the studs and hoops circling one ear and most of the other, she looked more like a painted doll.
And so very out of place.
"Do you feel it necessary to converse with the enemy, Hank? My best friend on this earth, Suzanne Louise Gray, was driven to suicide by the likes of them." She pointed an accusatory finger. "And you officers of the law are doing nothing whatsoever to investigate." The finger—still accusatory—swung in Hank's direction. "Instead you let these Hovey hirelings come in here and destroy every trace of the greatest love this world has probably ever known." She let out a loud sob, but Jennifer noted there were no tears to go with it.
"Okay, we're done here." The first deputy held the door for the other two. "Just make sure you lock the place up good before you go," he told Sam and turned toward the door.
Kelli stepped in front of him. "Do something, Hank."
"Take it home, Kelli," he suggested, going around her and out the door. But the woman seemed firmly planted in place, her arms now crossed and her fingers tapping nervously against her sleeve. Her gaze darted back and forth from Sam to Jennifer to Belle, seemingly assessing the three-to-one odds.
"Let me guess. You're the maid of honor," Belle suggested.
"Would have been. In incandescent mauve shantung."
Nothing cut too low. Jennifer suspected a tattoo lurked here or there.
"You were Suzanne's business partner," Jennifer added.
"That's right. Bookkeeper, scheduler, product controller, investor. Suzanne was the talent. Now get out of here!"
She threw her hands up into something like a karate pose and hissed. The woman actually hissed. If she'd had a cross on her, Jennifer was convinced she would have pulled it out.
Sam, to his credit, smiled and offered her his hand. "Sam Culpepper, Macon Telegraph. Marjorie asked us to come by and pick up some garments for Suzanne's body when it's transported from the medical examiner's office."
"Oh." Kelli's cheeks grew an even brighter red. "She could have called me." She shook Sam's hand, making sure he couldn't miss her perfectly sculpted fake pink fingernails.
"We don't even know the Hoveys," Jennifer assured her. "We're really sorry for your loss."
"So you were friends with Suzanne," Belle said. "Did she t
ell you she planned to kill herself?"
Kelli glared. "Do you think I would have let her out of my sight if I'd known what she was going to do? Who will make the singing deliveries now? Her dying pretty much put me out of business, not that there was all that much business to begin with. Just what am I supposed to do with four hundred balloons and enough helium to float the coliseum?"
"Suzanne confided in you," Jennifer suggested. Kelli looked back and forth between Jennifer and Belle. It reminded her of the new girl at school being wooed by rival factions, only Jennifer suspected Kelli Byers wasn't used to being wooed by anybody. She looked like a loner.
"Only about the wedding. She met that man just months ago, and her life changed. Every breath she took was for Richard. I could hardly get her to the bowling alley anymore, and we had a standing date every Thursday."
And with those nails, too.
"It was off to this store and off to that one," Kelli continued. "She was way too busy. She kept saying Richard had standing in the community that he had to uphold. He had important acquaintances that all had to be invited. Their wedding was going to be the biggest social event that Macon has seen this millennium."
Of course this next thousand years was young yet.
Kelli took a soft pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and shook one out. She lit it with an orange Bic lighter, drew in a great lungful of air, and then half-heartedly offered the pack around.
"She was crushed when Richard died, of course," Kelli said, "but she never said nothin' to me about killin' herself." Smoke escaped from her mouth in a great puff. "If she had, I would have stopped her. Men come and they go—boy, do they go—but I've not met a man yet worth dyin' over, especially not that one."
Dying to Get Her Man Page 8
