Sophia pulled in a deep breath, then let it go. She and Bitsy shared a look. “Cora, there’s only one solution for this, one that we’ve told you before. You’ve got to get a job. Make your own money.”
Cora’s shoulders sagged. “What am I supposed to do, Sophia? I’ve got no skills. I’ve been a housewife for thirty years. Aside from cooking and cleaning, what am I qualified to do in today’s society?”
“Well, I don’t know, but there’s got to be something,” Bitsy pointed out. “You make the best cakes this side of the Mississippi, have taken first place at the county fair for as long as I can remember. That’s certainly a skill.”
“That’s right,” another lady pointed out. “Your fondant icing brought tears to the judge’s eyes last year. ‘Seamless,’ he’d called it. ‘Absolutely perfect.’”
“Why not see if Dilly’s Bakery needs some help?” Jolie suggested. “She was covered up the last time I was in there. I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t welcome an extra pair of hands, and she certainly does enough business to support another employee.”
Cora frowned thoughtfully, seemingly mulling it over and when she looked up at Jolie there was a hint of hope in her melancholy eyes that hadn’t been there before. A tentative smile shaped her thin mouth. “I do know how to bake,” Cora confessed rather shyly.
“Well, of course, you do,” Meredith told her. “If you think the fact that you’re married to a tight-assed old bastard was the sole reason we invited you into the club, then you’d better think again,” she teased. “We wanted your baked goods.”
Startled, Cora chuckled.
“You did bring a cake, didn’t you, Cora?” Sophia asked, her keen gaze zeroing in on the dining room table. A line emerged between her brows.
“I did,” Cora said with a wavery smile. “But it’s all gone.”
Sophia’s shoulders fell and she let go a heavy, lamenting sigh. “Five minutes late and I missed it.” She grinned warmly at Cora. “Now that’s a marketable skill. Do as Jolie suggested and check with Mary Dilly.” She nodded succinctly. “Dollars to donuts she puts you to work. Then you’ll have your own money and you can tell that stingy husband of yours to shove it up his ass.”
“Won’t be easy, though,” someone pointed out. “It’s too damned tight.”
The remark drew a hearty laugh from around the room and the pleasant sensation of being able to help another person settled warmly over Jolie’s heart. Poor Cora, bless her heart. She couldn’t imagine being that dependent on another person. Granted Chris had stolen money from her mother and their investors, but she still earned a salary at Marshall, Inc. Still had her own money.
Sophia cleared her throat. “Well, ladies, we should probably wrap things up for tonight. We’ll see you all again next week. Until then.” Her lips twitched. Your undearly departed--
Jolie grinned. She was ready this time, lent her voice to the mantra.
--may he never rest in peace.
CHAPTER 10
Sophia waited until the last member walked out before turning to Meredith and Bisty, and grinned. “She’s coming along well, isn’t she?”
Meredith nodded and her eyes twinkled with humor. “She certainly is. Jumped right in and started getting things done.”
“Just showed how much she needed us,” Bitsy said. She pulled a face. “I heard a little more about that husband of hers this week.” They made their way into the dining room, took their seats around the table.
Meredith arched a brow, dragged a cracker through a cheese ball. “Oh, really? Do tell.”
Bitsy poked her tongue in her cheek, then shot them both a you’re-not-going-to-believe-this look. “Suffice it to say that he’s been seen coming in and out of the sheriff’s house.”
Sophia and Meredith frowned.
“When the sheriff’s not at home,” Bitsy said meaningfully, playing her trump card.
Sophia felt her eyes widen and Meredith gasped sharply. “He’s sleeping with Sheriff Dean’s wife?” she asked incredulously.
Bitsy nodded, pursed her lips. She selected a tea cake. “That’s what I’ve heard.”
“He must enjoy pain,” Sophia said, struggling to comprehend that sort of stupidity, a wedge of cantaloupe forgotten in her hand. “If Dean finds out, he’ll tear him apart.”
“Yeah, and he’s already gotten his nose broken this week,” Bitsy said. She waggled her brows. “I overheard a little talk down at The Spa. Jake Malone accidentally-on-purpose opened a door into his face.”
Sophia smiled, nodded. She’d heard about it from Fran, who’d been eternally grateful to Jolie’s old boyfriend for quietly coming to her daughter’s defense.
“Jake Malone?” Meredith asked, evidently baffled. “Who’s he? Somebody else’s husband?”
Sophia shook her head. “No, he’s Jolie’s old boyfriend. He’s a detective with the sheriff’s department. They were together for years--since third grade according to Fran--but things went bad after her dad died. Her mother’s not altogether sure why--Jolie’s never really talked to her about it--but she’s hoping that they’ll eventually get back together.”
“Well, they can’t until that bastard she’s married to is out of the picture,” Meredith pointed out.
Bitsy popped a cherry tomato into her mouth. “Heard a little more about that, too. Three months.”
Meredith’s brow folded. “Three months until what?”
“Until she’s got her mother’s money back. Until she files for divorce.”
Impressed, Sophia cocked her head. “How do you find these things out?”
Bitsy just grinned. “I have my ways.”
CHAPTER 11
With every inch that put her closer to home, Jolie felt the dread of her return sucking at her, dragging at her spirits and generally making her miserable, but she’d put if off as long as she could. After leaving Meredith’s, she’d gone to Sadie’s. Rob had been pulling a double shift at the steel mill, so it had been just her friend and the girls at home. They’d had the television in the kitchen tuned into The Pioneer Woman had been icing cupcakes and screaming happily at the top of their wee little lungs.
While other kids were interested in Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney, Sadie’s girls--little curly-haired miniatures of their mother--were watching the Food Network, HGTV, and the Style Channel. Jolie felt a smile tug at her lips. They were undoubtedly going to be a force to be reckoned with when they grew up.
Jolie had hung around and pitched in, then helped clean up the kitchen, bathed the girls, and put them to bed. Tucking them in had been particularly bittersweet, their little round faces luminous in the glow from their angel nightlights. It had conjured back-burner dreams of having her own family, but she couldn’t help but be eternally thankful that she hadn’t brought a child into the mess she’d created with Chris. In addition to everything else, she didn’t think that she could bear the guilt of making such a poor choice for her child.
After the girls had gone to bed, she and Sadie had talked about her meeting, her plans for after she left Chris--which had gotten Sadie’s enthusiastic stamp of approval--and regular Bless Her Heart gossip.
Sadie had updated her on the continuing problem the mayor had been having with skunks--reeking of skunk perfume and tomato juice, the mayor’s wife had come into The Spa for her regular set and had bemoaned her lack of sleep due to the “screeching, howling and humping” going on beneath her house. Evidently the mayor had called in the county agent and, after investigating, he couldn’t find any particular reason why the odiferous animals had decided to burrow beneath the mayor’s home, nor could he offer any further technique of removing them that hadn’t already been employed.
As for the continuing debate over the restoration of the statue in the town square, the city council and Civic Club were engaged in the proverbial Mexican standoff, with neither party inclined to acquiesce. In the mean time Jebediah’s stately bronze body was slowly oxidizing, turning black, a result of the process. Jol
ie figured the Civic Club would blink first. A feeble smile caught the corner of her mouth. They’d been too proud of him to let him stand there and ruin.
Jolie wheeled her car onto her street and winced when she saw Chris’s BMW in the drive. “Damn,” she muttered, supremely disappointed. She’d hoped that he wouldn’t be home--he usually wasn’t after all--but, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. What the hell, she thought, unwilling to let him wreck what had been a nice evening. She’d just do what she usually did--burrow in her room, curl up with a good book, a block of chocolate and try to avoid him. If he annoyed her too much, she’d pack her bag and spend the night in Sadie’s apartment.
She didn’t remember locking the door when she’d left earlier this evening, so evidently he’d been out, she decided as she let herself into the house. With luck, he’d be passed out, sleeping off whatever he’d managed to get into tonight. A quick look in the living room confirmed that he wasn’t holding down the couch--his preferred pit-stop after a night of drinking and whoring, she thought with an uncharitable smirk--and her first thought was that he’d probably gone on to bed. But then a curious sound reached her ears. Jolie stilled.
The shower.
Again? Jolie thought, her brow folding into a puzzled frown. Granted Chris was rather meticulous when it came to his daily grooming habits, but three baths in one day was a little excessive, even for him. Jolie didn’t know why, couldn’t account for it, but the oddest sense of foreboding shivered down her spine. Her gut hollowed, then filled with a combination of fear and dread. Oh, God, she thought. What had he done this time? She carefully set her purse on the couch and slowly made her way toward the back of the house to the master suite.
The first thing she noticed were the clothes he’d carelessly discarded before she’d left. They were left in an untidy heap at the foot of the bed. His wallet, too, didn’t appear to have been moved from the dresser.
In the nanosecond it took to make this comprehension, her gaze darted to the bathroom door, from which no steam billowed out, and she noticed something that did look different. The bathroom door--which had been slightly ajar--was wide open...and from her vantage point she clearly saw something that made her stomach lurch with alarm.
Chris’s leg stuck in an unnatural angle outside the shower stall door and a puddle of pink water had pooled on the floor.
Unable to stop herself, she gravitated toward the bathroom, moved though she suddenly couldn’t feel her feet, could barely remember to breathe...and the rest of the scene came into view. The shower beat down on Chris’s prone body, his eyes were open, unblinking, and a small hole cut through his chest. A silent shriek formed in the back of her throat, then her voice caught up with the horror and she screamed and bolted from the room.
* * *
Since being promoted to detective, Jake had handled exactly three homicides, two of which had been crimes of passion, the other a drunken family dinner in which Frank Bolen shot and killed his older brother Amos over a tub of butter. Amos hadn’t passed it quick enough to suit Frank, so rather than merely waiting, Frank had reached for the snub-nosed thirty-eight he kept handy in the back of his jeans. Frank had later claimed the shooting had been an accident, but according to other family members present, he’d calmly buttered his corn afterwards, then asked for the salt and pepper.
When tonight’s call had come in, Jake had been finishing up in the barn, his preferred after-work hang out. He’d spent a little extra time watching Marzipan, had thrown a little extra feed into her bucket. This was her first foal and while Mother Nature usually didn’t need any help, he’d still feel better if he could be there during the birth in the event there were any problems. She’d started bagging up, so foaling was imminent. It was merely a question of when. Less than a week, he felt confident.
Mike had taken the initial call, had arrived on the scene, then per protocol, had contacted the detective on call--Jake. He’d been grim and direct. “Chris Marshall is dead. Poplar Street. You need to get over here.”
Jake had walked past Jolie in the living room, her face a white mask of shock, had followed Mike back into the master bathroom. Various men’s toiletries littered the counter and shower stall, and the metallic scent of blood hung in the air. Chris Marshall lay sprawled in the floor of the shower, his brown eyes open and blank, a single gunshot wound to the chest, right through where his heart should have been if the bastard had had one. But that wasn’t the most startling injury.
Jake blinked, certain his eyes had deceived him. “Where’s his dick?”
Mike passed a hand over his face. “We, uh... We don’t know. It’s gone.”
“Gone?” Jake repeated, unable to make the information process. He looked at the neat cut where Marshall’s penis used to be, then back at Mike for an explanation.
“This is how we found him,” Mike said, equally baffled. He scratched his head. “All I did was turn off the water, call you and the coroner.”
Okay, Jake thought, numbly shocked. So their killer had taken a trophy. And a sick one at that. “Have you had a chance to talk with Jolie yet?” he asked, unable to look away.
“Just briefly. She made the call. Said he’d been in the shower when she left. She’d come home, heard the water still running. Then walked back here, found him, and called us.”
“Any sign of forced entry?” Jake asked.
“Not that I noticed, but I haven’t done a lot of poking around. Jolie said she hadn’t locked the door when she’d left, but it was locked when she got back. She’d assumed that Marshall had been out.”
Jake nodded, mentally running down everything that needed to be done. The sheriff should be there any minute as well as the evidence tech, Nathan Todd. Jake imagined the only reason he’d beaten them there was because he’d all but flown to the scene.
Sporting pillow creases and mismatched socks, Leon Turner, the county coroner, shuffled into the crowded bathroom. “What have we got?” he croaked tiredly, evidently suffering from a head cold. “Tell me it’s natural causes. I’m too sick to handle a homicide.”
“Sorry, Leon,” Jake said. “I hope you brought your vitamin C. We’re in for a long night.” In homicide cases, the coroner and law enforcement worked closely together, had to as it facilitated preserving the evidence, which led to solving the crime.
Leon sighed resignedly, passed a hand over his feverish cheeks. “Shit. Oh, well. I couldn’t sleep anyway. Hard to sleep when you can’t breathe. Gun-shot wound, eh?” He squatted down, inspected the body, then his ruddy face went slack. “What happened to his--“
“It’s gone,” Mike said again. “Gone when we got here.”
Leon blinked, seemingly certain he’d misunderstood. “I... Hmmm.” He frowned, looked closer at the body, at the hole in Marshall’s chest, then gingerly tilted him to look underneath the body.
“Good one,” Mike said amiably. “We didn’t think to check up his ass.”
Though he knew it was inappropriate--the man was dead, after all--Jake had to smother a laugh.
“I’m not looking-- I--“ Leon stammered, flustered. The top of his balding head turned pink. “I’m checking for lividity.” He pointed to some purplish discoloration on Marshall’s left butt cheek. “See this?” he said. “He’s been dead for hours. Long enough for the blood to pool and mild rigor mortisto set in.” His thick brows formed a line. “Seems like there’d be more blood loss,” he remarked thoughtfully.
“The water was left on,” Jake pointed out. “Most of it most likely went down the drain. What’s your best guess on time of death?”
Leon shrugged, let go a sigh. “Leaving him in a cool shower’s gonna throw his core body temperature off. Based on what I see here, four to six hours, but the M.E. will be able to tell you more.” He grunted as he stood, arched a brow. “Who found him?”
“Jolie,” Mike said. Jake listened to him repeat the story.
“Well, he was alive when she left and dead when she got home,” Leon said. He glanced back at Mar
shall’s prone form. “Based on my best guess, that’s consistent with what I see here.”
Jake and Mike shared a brief look. Leon’s shrewd gaze bounced between them and then his watery blood-shot eyes widened. “You don’t think she did it?” he accused, his voice suggesting the very idea was blasphemous.
Did he think she did it? Jake thought. No. He couldn’t imagine her ever being so angry as to kill someone. Knew instinctively that it wasn’t in her nature. Hell, he’d seen her step over ant trails, nurture baby birds. As a girl, she’d taken in every stray, every unwanted animal--be it the two-legged or four-legged variety--and though he didn’t know if she still did it or not, she used to volunteer at the local animal shelter. She hadn’t killed him--couldn’t have. She had too much respect for life, even Chris Marshall’s, though he certainly hadn’t earned it.
Nevertheless a good detective had to ask the hard questions, examine the evidence, and in most cases when a spouse was murdered, sadly it was the husband or wife--whoever stood to benefit the most--who was responsible. And unfortunately, everybody in town knew that Chris has given Jolie many reasons to want to see him dead. Jake grimaced.
Then again, that could be said of many people aside from Jolie as well.
He and Mike shared another look, one that Jake knew suggested that they’d each reached simultaneously--Sheriff Dean.
Christ.
“We can’t rule anyone out just yet, Leon,” Jake told him, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Hell, you know that.” He could already feel the tension creeping into his skull. This was going to get nasty. Be an absolute nightmare.
Leon leveled a hard look at him and despite the fact that he bore an unfortunate resemblance to Boss Hogg, he looked quite impressive in that moment. “Just like you know she isn’t capable of this.”
The Future Widows' Club Page 8
