Dying to Get Her Man

by Judy Fitzwater

  "So you found the ring."

  "I called around this morning, from work. Astor's didn't have a record of any jewelry purchase by either Richard Hovey or Suzanne Gray. So I phoned every other legitimate jeweler in Macon."

  "And they told you right over the phone?"

  "I said an order for a ring had been found among Hovey's belongings, and we were trying to determine if the ring had been received and the bill paid as part of settling his estate."

  "How do you sleep at night?"

  "I'm a storyteller. It's a God-given gift. Surely He expects me to use it. Besides, how else are you going to find out anything?"

  "I thought you might just ask."

  "Never work."

  "And this did?"

  "Like a charm. Richard Hovey purchased a three-carat diamond engagement ring, which he had sized and then picked up himself two months ago. The main stone is a marquise-cut, two-carat, colorless stone with a clarity of IF, surrounded by a cluster of smaller diamonds, all set in platinum."

  "No one has found that ring," Jennifer pointed out.

  "Exactly. Do you think it was stolen?"

  "That's my guess. What else could have happened to it?"

  Leigh Ann pulled Jennifer inside the small shop. The glass cases were laid out in a horseshoe with a repair and adjustment booth just past the farthest counter.

  "I slipped over here during my break this morning. It's not exactly like it," Leigh Ann explained. "This one's not quite as expensive, but just look, third one in." She pointed at the back row of the second counter.

  It glowed, catching every spark of light in the store and throwing it back with flashes of pink, yellow, and blue. Absolutely breathtaking.

  "You'd have to love someone a whole lot to lay out that kind of money on a ring," Jennifer observed.

  "Yeah. But isn't it spectacular? It's like one stone tosses the light to the next. Can you imagine the dance as you moved you hand back and forth?" Leigh Ann laid her hand on her shoulder, closed her eyes, and swayed. "Someday I want a ring just like that, don't you?"

  "No. I'd be afraid to wear it out."

  Leigh Ann's eyes popped open and she leaned forward for another look. "Maybe that's why no one ever saw Suzanne wearing it."

  "I suspect you're right. That or maybe she—or he—wasn't quite ready to explain to everyone that they were getting married. He might have asked her to keep it quiet until he'd made things right with his family, broken the news to Ruth and his children. In the meantime she probably hid it in her drawer or more likely a safe deposit—"

  "That one's quite wonderful. Would you like to see it?" The speaker must have been the store owner. He was a tall, slender, graying man dressed in a suit and wearing an unbelievably large, square-cut diamond set in a wide gold band on his right ring finger.

  Leigh Ann's head bobbed up and down, but Jennifer said, "No, thank you. We're just looking."

  Leigh Ann nudged her in the side. "We could just look up close."

  "Aren't you late for work? It's almost two o'—"

  "Oh my gosh! Can you drive me?" Leigh Ann pulled Jennifer out the door without so much as a thank you to the shop owner. "I won't have time to even park my car, let alone pick it up at the bridal boutique where we left it. If I'm really lucky I might just squeak in before my boss gets back."

  Jennifer unlocked the doors to her car and Leigh Ann dove in, buckling her seat belt before Jennifer could get herself inside. She cranked the car and off they went with Leigh Ann leaning forward, tapping her fingers impatiently on the dash. They were less than a five-minute drive away. If the god of green lights was with them, they just might make it.

  "Somebody's got that ring," Jennifer said, just squeaking through a yellow light. "If Suzanne was wearing it when she died, and I would think she would have been, what happened to it?"

  "You find that ring," Leigh Ann promised, "and you'll find Suzanne's murderer."

  Chapter 24

  "Okay, okay, Teague," Jennifer growled. "Would you please stop gloating long enough to answer my question?"

  She'd much rather have put off the call to Teague until evening, but with Belle staying at her place, privacy was at a premium. And Belle had been out when Jennifer got back from dropping Leigh Ann at work.

  "Hey, you called me, Marsh. Your little finger punched in my phone number, and you asked to speak to me. I knew you'd come crawling."

  She hated that man, down to his scrawny little toes. How could someone so young—he couldn't possibly be more than twenty-five—have become so jaded?

  Writing lies for a living for the Atlanta Eye. That's how.

  "I have a hang-up device on this little phone of mine," she reminded him.

  "Okay, Marsh. I'll stiffle the gloat factor. So. What do you want to know about my esteemed colleague Belle Renard?"

  "Belle decided to play detective. She apparently got in Simon DeSoto's good graces before he was brought up on charges, actually dated him for a while, maybe even—"

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who told you all this?" Teague asked.

  "She did."

  Jennifer could hear his cackle over the phone. "This is rich. That Belle. Always working every angle of every story. You know I'd really rather be telling you this in person. Over dinner perhaps. I could bring the beer. We could order in at your place. I'll be there as soon as I can get out of the office, say, about two hours."

  "Teague, if you ever want me to speak to you again—"

  "Speaking isn't all that essential."

  Yuck. Why she ever talked to that man. "Tell me or—"

  "Or what? Physical threats? What'd you have in mind? Rough's okay with me."

  She paused, ready to slam the phone down with one more comment.

  "You love him, don't you?" Teague asked. No sneering, nothing lewd about it. A statement of fact.

  "I don't know," she said.

  "Yes, you do. You know. You just haven't told yourself yet. And Belle Renard is not someone you want around him. She uses people, even people she cares about. I'm going to tell you this even though I probably shouldn't. And if she ever finds out I did, I probably won't survive the aftermath.

  "She did correspond with DeSoto, but after he was convicted and sentenced to prison. She wrote him, hoping to get something in his handwriting, a confession she could use as the basis for a major story. She never lived with him in his apartment, if that's what you were about to say. Hell, she never even met him face-to-face, Marsh. And she never, in a million years, thought he'd get that conviction overturned."

  "So she really is frightened?"

  "Hell, I don't know. But if you wrote the kind of stuff I suspect she put in those letters to a man who killed his wife, you'd be more than a little unsettled when he got loose, too. That Belle—she's got one hell of an imagination."

  Terrific.

  "I don't suppose you were in the office when DeSoto showed up Tuesday morning?"

  "Lucked out with that one. Watched the man make one spectacular fool of himself, wanting to know where Belle was. Even got a photo that will be out in today's paper. Unfortunately he declined an interview, and the big honcho here nixed the story I wrote to go with it. He found it inflammatory."

  "Yeah, right. Scared of a law suit, huh?"

  "Absolutely and he doesn't scare easily. DeSoto has the best of the best defending him.

  "By the way, I knew it was bogus," Teague added.

  "What?"

  "The engagement announcement. Belle told everyone in the office about it the Friday before it came out. I knew it wasn't true, that she'd had it put in the newspaper without his permission."

  "How did you know that?"

  "Because if I know anything, I know that Sam Culpepper is in love with you."

  And for some reason when this pariah of human life said those words, they really seemed true. What was she going to do?

  "But, hey, that doesn't mean you and I can't have wild sex. I wasn't exactly looking for a lifetime commitment, you know.
You get bored with Sam, and all you have to do is whistle."

  "Thanks, Teague."

  "You don't have to thank me. Teague's twenty-four-hour love service is at your command."

  "Right." So much for a tender moment.

  "Like I said, watch Belle. She plays every angle."

  "Was she ever involved with anyone that you know of?"

  "You mean seriously? That I wouldn't know, but I do know it'd take one hell of a man to rein her in."

  "Do you think DeSoto will do her harm if he finds her?"

  "Don't ask me to guess, Marsh. Anger is one of those things. I don't know the man, and he really wanted to talk to her."

  It made her shudder to think about it, even though Belle had created her own mess.

  "One more thing," Jennifer said. She wasn't likely to call him back. "Your paper printed a story about Suzanne Gray and Lewis Spikes."

  "Yeah, that gal that froze herself solid. Great copy. The Spikes story, one of the other guys dug that one up. The editor made him soft-pedal that one, too. Felt too much sympathy for the deceased might make for a backlash, but she was pursuing this guy in high school like nobody's business. He had to take a restraining order out against her. She was so in loooooove with the dude that she wouldn't leave him alone. Embarrassing for all parties involved. Something for you to remember, Marsh. A woman throws herself at a man, some get a restraining order. Others are more than happy to give in. Like I said, you watch Belle around your man. She still staying with him?"

  "Nope. She's staying with me."

  Teague let out a belly laugh. "Marsh, you've got to be kidding me. That's your biggest flaw. You don't know how to blow people off."

  Oh, yes she did. "Thanks, Teague. Later." And with that she hung up the phone.

  Chapter 25

  "Okay, let's lay it all out." Monique handed out small pads of paper. First to April parked in her customary spot on the sofa, next to Leigh Ann buried in the pillows of the corner sectional, then to Jennifer sitting next to her, and lastly to Teri sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  "What's this for?" April asked.

  "To take notes," Monique explained. "Jennifer is the only true mystery writer in the group. I thought it might help the rest of us to keep up with what was going on."

  "You mean like in the game Clue," Leigh Ann suggested, tucking her legs up under her, "where you write down where Miss Scarlet was when and what happened to the rope and the candlestick."

  "Exactly like that." Monique's voice could not have been more sarcastic.

  "So, Teri, you had the florist."

  Teri pulled a card out of her pocket. "Twenty-four centerpieces, all in fresh-cut flowers in hues of dark purple to the palest pink, with huge white mums sprinkled throughout. Three giant arrangements of gladiolas and mixed flowers for the altar, another for the main reception table. The bride's bouquet was to be white roses accented in the palest pink and the boutonnieres were to be in the dark purple to maroon range. You don't even want to know what it was going to cost."

  "Was the final order ever put in?"

  Teri shook her head. "No date was set. No deposit was made, only the estimates. Suzanne was in there making the arrangements last month."

  "April," Monique said.

  "Do you know they have actual samples of every cake they make at Lazy Susan's? I wish I'd skipped lunch. The kids had a ball."

  "You took them with you?" Teri asked.

  "I couldn't very well leave them at home, and I can't afford to get a babysitter just to run down to the bakery. Besides, they loved it. The lemonade cake was Jonathan's favorite. Colleen liked the chocolate dream cake best."

  "Of course she would. Chocolate is essential to every woman's diet, even when she's only a year old," Leigh Ann said.

  "So what was the final order?" Jennifer asked.

  "A strawberry chiffon with cream cheese icing in four tiers. Enough to serve 300 guests plus two backup sheet cakes in the same flavor. Personally I would have gone with the peach delight. It had a much better flavor, but I suspect Suzanne wanted the pink. And she selected a groom's cake of mint chocolate with fudge icing. Mint. Not everybody likes it, you know."

  "Deposits?" Monique asked.

  "No. Not until the date was set. Sometime in June. She was to come back early this week to make the final arrangements."

  Monique nodded. "Same thing at the stationers. Five-hundred invitations. Colorful, floral on heavy white stock with script lettering. No final order. No deposit.

  "I did check at Talley's Travels," Monique added. "Suzanne had been in, but she didn't book anything. On an off chance, I asked my own travel agent to see if she could find out if Richard Hovey had."

  "And..." Jennifer sat up.

  "A cruise for two to the Bahamas, slated for August."

  "Really," Jennifer said. "But not through Talley's."

  "No," Monique assured her.

  That would have been about the time the newspaper article implied that Ruth and Richard would be getting remarried.

  "Did he give a name for his traveling companion?"

  "Yes. Mrs. Richard Hovey."

  Jennifer looked around the room, from one face to another, as though she was beginning to see the picture for the first time. "You all do see what's missing here. Did Richard Hovey show up at any of the places you visited?"

  The group gave a collective shake of their heads.

  "Not once? Other than the travel arrangements and the ring, had any of the people you spoke with actually had a conversation with Hovey?"

  Again the shake.

  They all looked at each other. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Jennifer asked.

  "Saying something doesn't make it so," April declared. "Was Suzanne Gray really marrying Richard Hovey or—"

  "Just a minute! I'm not sure what you're implying," Leigh Ann said, "but a woman killed herself—"

  "Over a man who may not have even known she was alive," Jennifer finished.

  Chapter 26

  As soon as Jennifer got home, she swept past Belle, who was sitting on the sofa, eating popcorn and watching TV, and grabbed the phone book from under the end table. Muffy, not about to miss out on any possible excitement, followed her straight to her bedroom where she closed the door. She had one more lead to check before she wrote off Suzanne Gray as Richard Hovey's Juliet.

  Lewis Spikes. Some trouble back in high school with Suzanne. If there was a juvenile record, it'd be sealed, and she knew better than to trust the Atlanta Eye's account. But sealed or not, Mr. Spikes, assuming she could find him, was under no obligation to keep what he knew to himself.

  She dumped her purse on the bed and flipped through the telephone book to S. One thing about Macon, a lot of folks who were born and brought up there continued to make it their home. Her finger ran down the page. Spainhour. Spencer. Spikes, Jeffrey. Spikes, L. B. Spikes, Lewis.

  Jennifer punched the number into the phone.

  "Hello." A woman's voice. Darn it all.

  "Mrs. Spikes?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Jennifer Marsh. I'm trying to contact a Lewis Spikes who attended Sherwood High School about twenty years ago."

  "Could you tell me what this is in reference to?"

  "Of course, but I'd prefer to speak to Mr. Spikes."

  "He's not home. Were you one of our classmates?" the woman asked.

  Our. "No, but maybe you can help me after all. Did you know a Suzanne Gray?"

  Jennifer could hear the woman's breathing right across the line.

  "What of it? She's dead."

  "Can you tell me about her relationship with your husband? Mrs. Spikes, it's really important." Jennifer took a deep breath. "Did Suzanne ever claim—"

  "It was all lies. Every bit of it. She had the whole school believing they were dating when she was chasing him night and day. There's no other word for it. She made our lives a living hell. And that's all I intend to say about it. Don't call here again."

  The phone b
uzzed in her ear.

  Lewis Spikes twenty years ago. Richard Hovey this year. Had there been others in between? What was Richard's relationship to Suzanne really like?

  She hung up the phone and then scooped it right back up, punching in Sam's phone number. He sounded groggy, as though she'd caught him in the middle of a nap. "I think Richard Hovey and Suzanne Gray were never involved. Heck, I'm not even sure he knew her."

  "Jennifer..."

  "Listen to me, Sam. Suzanne flat-out stalked some guy in high school. All those wedding preparations, all that talk, she—"

  "Her fingerprints were in his bedroom. And his bathroom. His kitchen."

  "Oh." Jennifer slumped back on the bed. Another theory down the tubes. "When did you find that out?"

  "Late this afternoon. I asked them to run a check."

  Sam had friends in the police department. He'd helped them more than once, and they'd learned to listen to him.

  "They took fingerprints from the scene before Hovey's death was ruled an accident," Sam assured her. "It's routine. I knew they'd have Suzanne's from the autopsy. And I knew you'd eventually be calling, asking me just that. Suzanne was in his house, many times from the look of it. Whether they were actually engaged or not, I couldn't tell you."

  She let out a loud breath. "He didn't show up anywhere to help her select wedding arrangements."

  "So?"

  Men. Even Sam, who was so with it, could understand a man's willingness to sit back and let someone else make all the decisions about his wedding day.

  "Never mind. I'm sorry I bothered you. It's just that..."

  "What?" Sam asked.

  "It's just that the more I learn about Suzanne, the more I can't see her with Richard Hovey."

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Let me tell you about a secret only we men know," Sam said. "When we fall in love, we fall hard. A lot of us don't ever fall completely out, no matter what happens in the meantime. And we fall for a certain type of woman. If he once loved Ruth, he might have loved Suzanne, don't you think?"

  "The only characteristics Ruth Hovey shared with Suzanne Gray were age, hair color, and a similar body type. I suspect personality-wise they were entirely different people. And there's one more flaw to your theory: Richard had to have once loved Ruth, not just her money, loved her so much he wanted to re-create that love."