She pulled that femme fatale hat off, ruffled her hair and let it fall loose around her shoulders. “I thought so,” she said with a satisfied sigh.
It was certainly homier than that sterile colonial she’d called home on Poplar Street, that was for damned sure. She gave him the guided tour, seemed to get more and more excited as they moved from room to room. Other than her bedroom suite and office equipment, she had no furniture to speak of. She ticked off decorating ideas, mentioned several improvements and upgrades she’d like to install.
“It needs a little TLC, but I can see myself here,” she said, rubbing a hand over the mantle. “I can see myself calling it home.”
A curiously unpleasant sensation twisted like barbed wire in his chest and an awkward moment passed between them. There’d been a time when they’d both assumed that they’d make their home together, namely the one he’d built after she’d married Marshall.
Though Mike had called him a fool and his mother had asked him to stop torturing himself, when it had come time to build his farmhouse, he’d carried on with the plans that he and Jolie had put together. Granted building it without her--not to mention living in it without her--had never been part of the plan, but Jake had genuinely liked what they’d put together and he couldn’t see changing it simply to avoid thinking about her.
That, he knew, was never going to happen.
Furthermore, there was no point in being unsatisfied with a house just because every time he pulled into the driveway he’d think about her.
Hell, that had always been a foregone conclusion. They’d grown up together, had been through every first together. There wasn’t a spot in this county that they hadn’t explored, a place on the planet where he could escape her. No matter where he lived, what he did, he couldn’t outrun his memories, couldn’t live without a heart. She’d had it since third grade and he didn’t anticipate ever getting it back.
Jake finally swallowed. “I’m, uh... I’m sure you’ll be happy here.”
Jolie toyed with the netting on her hat, glanced up at him. “I’m sorry I put you in a bad position with Dean,” she said. “That was not my intention. I just knew I had to get the money out before the accounts were frozen. That’s what I’d been working on, you know. Why I’d stuck it out. It was to return mom’s money, and the other investors, of course. If Dean’s sister mentioned that I’d cleaned out the accounts, then she had to have mentioned what I’d done with it.”
Jake nodded, rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t fault why she did it--noble intentions, he knew--but that didn’t change the fact that he wished she’d confide in him. Dammit, he hated being out of the loop. She needed to let him know what the hell was going on. How did she expect him to protect her otherwise?
“She did,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I looked like a fool. I can’t afford those kinds of mistakes--and neither can you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He watched her chest flutter with an awkward breath. “Yes.”
Jake pinned her with the full force of his gaze. “Then tell me what I need to know.”
Jake waited, watched a host of emotion race across her face, her mouth work up and down. “I--“
His cell chirped at his waist. He swore and checked the read-out. It was Mike, so he had to take it. “What’s up?” he asked, cursing the timing of this damned call.
“We’ve got a twenty on the penis,” Mike said grimly.
Jake blinked. “Come again?”
“We’ve found Marshall’s dick.” Something that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle sounded into his ear. “You’ll, uh... You’ll have to see it to believe it.”
CHAPTER 22
Ten minutes later Jake, Jolie, Mike, Dean and Todd, as well as a crowd of morbidly curious onlookers stood at the base of the statue of Jebediah Moon and, dour faced, stared in abject fascination at the sight in front of them.
“Somehow I don’t think this is w-what the City Council would c-consider an improvement,” Mike commented, once again sounding perilously close to laughter.
Dean shot him a firm look and Mike flushed. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Marshall’s apparently semi-frozen penis had been glued--with what, Todd would have to determine, thank God--to Jebediah in a position that, if not anatomically correct, then at least located in the general vicinity of where a penis should belong.
This case had just left Interstate Weird and exited onto Highway Bizarre.
“Who noticed it?” Jake asked, passing a hand over his face.
“Martin Mashburn,” Mike told him. “Said he was just strolling by and noticed a part of Jeb that wasn’t tarnished. Said he almost fell down when he realized what it was.”
He supposed so, Jake thought, still shocked. He’d had advance knowledge and it was still pretty damned hard to believe. Who in the hell could have done such a thing? he wondered. And more importantly, why?
Though he dreaded it, he knew he had to ask. He shot Jolie an uncomfortable look. “Is this--“ He cleared his throat. “Is this Marshall’s--“
Thankfully, she didn’t let him finish. “Limp and little,” she said coolly. “That’s definitely his.”
The comment drew a shocked chuckle from them all, most especially Dean, who smothered his laugh with an unconvincing cough. “Well, Todd,” said the sheriff. “I don’t envy your job on this one.”
Looking distinctly unenthusiastic, Todd grimaced. “Yeah, me either.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Mike wanted to know. “They’ve already buried him.”
Todd shifted uncomfortably, darted a hesitant look at Jolie. “I guess it needs to be given to Mrs. Marshall.”
“It’s Caplan,” Jolie corrected, much to Jake’s surprise. “I’ve taken back my maiden name. And I don’t want it,” she said, her face folded into a frown of disgusted distaste. “I don’t care what you do with it.”
Jake slid a veiled glance at Dean. He had a grim suspicion what fate awaited Marshall’s severed penis. “Er...don’t you need to process it first. Maybe see if you can figure out what was used to--“
“Yeah, I’ll do that. Though frankly, I don’t think I’m gonna find much.”
“Yeah, that happens when you don’t have much to work with, eh?” Mike jibed.
Dean’s brows lowered again, prompting Mike to make another red-faced apology.
“Mike, you want to help me start questioning?” Jake asked, looking around the square. “I’ll take one side, you take the other.”
Surely to God this time they’d find some sort of witness. No one could have possibly walked into the square and glued Marshall’s dick to Jebediah completely unnoticed. Someone had to have seen something. The square was the hub of Bless Her Heart commerce. It was usually packed, Monday being especially busy.
Though looking at the slowly thawing grayish penis made his stomach roil, this could actually end up being the break in the case that he needed.
Mike nodded. “Sure. So long as I don’t have to look at it anymore--or touch it--I’ll do whatever you ask me to.”
Jake turned to Jolie. “Do you need a ride to your Mom’s?”
“I’ll call her,” Jolie told him.
“No need,” Dean interrupted smoothly. “I’ll give you a lift.”
Though Jake didn’t particularly like the idea, he couldn’t very well object, and if Jolie was the least bit intimidated by riding with the sheriff, she didn’t betray so much as a blink of disquiet.
“I’ll be in touch later,” he told Jolie, a subtle warning that their interrupted conversation was by no means over.
She nodded and walked away with Dean. Jake looked back at Marshall’s drooping dick and shuddered. Whoever did this was either really sick...or had one supremely twisted sense of humor.
For whatever reason, he suspected the latter.
* * *
Jolie didn’t know exactly what she’d expected Dean to say to her when they were alone in the car, but th
e apology she got on behalf of his estranged wife was definitely not it.
“I know there was no love lost between you and your husband, but as far as my wife’s--soon to be ex-wife’s,” he corrected, “--part in it, I’m really sorry.”
Jolie blinked, somewhat stunned. “Well, I’m sorry for Chris’s part in it as well.” She stared at the radio, pretended to be interested in the other gadgets and gizmos she wasn’t accustomed to seeing in her own car. For reasons that escaped her, something about his sincerity made her feel worse instead of better. Then she knew why. “I should have come to you as soon as I found out, but...” Somehow telling him that shoring up her grounds for divorce over the decency of his right to know wasn’t very palatable.
“Jake explained,” Dean told her, letting her off the hook. “Don’t worry about it. It’s done.”
“Still... I’m really sorry.”
“No hard feelings.” He negotiated a turn and his dark brown gaze shifted to her. “I guess Jake told you she moved out.”
“He did.”
“Ah, well. It’s for the best.”
He was probably right, but agreeing felt like bad form, so she kept her mouth shut.
“He’s still in love with you, you know,” Dean said conversationally.
Jolie felt her heart trip, then race.
“It was against my better judgment to leave him on this case, but he’s convinced that you’re innocent and any other detective might not be so inclined to keep your best interests at heart.”
“I am innocent,” Jolie felt compelled to point out. “And I’m very thankful that he believes me.”
Dean flicked her a glance. “A thankful person wouldn’t let him get called on the carpet for things that he’s too close to the investigation to see.” He pulled into her mother’s drive, shoved the gearshift into park, then turned to face her. “I don’t think you killed Marshall, Jolie. Aside from your alibi, you were working too hard to get away from him legally without having to resort to murder.” A weak smile caught the corner of his mouth. “Besides, you protested dissecting a dead frog in biology--I can’t see you having the wherewithal to shoot Chris.” He shifted. “That said, there are other issues that make you look damned guilty and if there’s anything else that’s likely to crop up, you ought to have enough respect for Jake to let him know. He’s not the enemy. He’s trying to help you.” He lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug and smiled. “Just think about it. End of sermon.”
Slightly surprised by the unexpected lecture, Jolie nodded and moved to get out of the car. “I will. Thanks for the ride home.”
“Anytime,” Dean told her.
Her stomach knotted with tension, she straightened and watched him drive away. Good grief, what a damned mess, Jolie thought, wishing she had some idea as to how to fix it. She could either betray the FWC, or betray Jake.
Either way someone got hurt.
Aside from listening to him tell her not to do the things she’d wanted to do--like closing the accounts and business, putting the Poplar Street house up for sale and buying another--there was really no reason why she shouldn’t have told him she’d planned to do those things. Furthermore, after she’d shifted the money, there was really no reason--apart from catering to her own comfort-- not to tell him that it had been done.
By keeping those things from him, she’d indirectly escalated the importance of the one thing she had to hide--the Future Widows’ Club.
She could not--would not--out them, no matter how much Jake felt betrayed.
There was too much at risk for them, for past, present and future members. For women like Cora, Gladys and Margaret. The Officials--like her, Jolie realized with an odd start--didn’t have as much to lose. Their lives were their own now, their bastard husbands dead and buried.
But what about the Futures? It’s what made their lives bearable, what made them keep going from week to week. And the minute the group became public that would all be over with. Oh, there were some people who’d laugh it off, think that it was funny, even some she suspected who’d want to join.
But then there’d be a select few who had good decent husbands who wouldn’t understand and it would be those few who would turn the FWC and all of its members into social outcasts or morally bankrupt second-class citizens. The anonymity was its only protection, what made it especially unique.
Jolie shook her head, firmed her resolve as she walked up the steps. She wouldn’t be responsible for taking that away from them. Not to save her own skin and certainly not to spare Jake’s feelings. She was sorry, but that was simply the way it had to be.
Her mother stood at the stove stirring a pot of marinara as she walked into the kitchen. She’d been to see Sadie and a fresh new color had replaced the faded shade she’d had just the day before. A container of gourmet coffee sat proudly next to the pot, causing her lips to slip into a pleased smile.
“Looked like there was a big brouhaha down at the square when I came through,” her mother said. “I tried to call Sadie and see what was going on, but no one answered the phone at The Spa.”
Jolie sank down into a chair at the kitchen table. “I didn’t see her, but she was probably there. Someone, presumably the killer, glued Chris’s missing penis to the statue of Jebediah Moon.” Though she knew it was inappropriate, Jolie felt her lips twitch and she forcibly quelled a laugh.
Her mother stilled, then eyes wide, slowly turned around. Marinara dripped from the wooden spoon in her hand unheeded onto the floor. For a moment she appeared as if she’d been cryogenically frozen.
Then she burst out laughing.
Jolie felt her own eyes widen, then let the laughter she’d been holding back explode into a hysterical peal of guffaws that made her lose her breath.
“Oh, my God,” her mother wheezed brokenly. “I know it’s horrible, but I just think it’s too funny. He was always so proud of that p-penis and...there’s just something...poetic about him being buried w-without it.” She wiped her streaming eyes, struggled to get herself under control, but like Jolie, didn’t seem to be making much progress.
“Oh, Mom, it was horrible,” she told her. She pulled in a deep breath in a vain attempt to stem the humor still lingering in the back of her throat. She swallowed, could see his pitiful little dick stuck awkwardly to that statue. “It had been frozen.”
“Shrinkage, then,” her mom deadpanned. “What a tragedy.”
Jolie howled with silent laughter until her sides hurt. “Yes, well. That poor Nathan Todd was left to ‘process’ it, and Mike and Jake were charged with the duty of interrogating square patrons to try and determine who’d glued the penis to the statue.” She snickered again. “Should be interesting to hear how they tactfully broach that subject, huh?”
Her mother’s smile turned thoughtful. “It was glued, you say?”
“Yep.”
She hummed under her breath. “Wonder how they pulled that off. Must be some glue if it held a frozen penis in place.”
Jolie rested her head against her palm. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “I guess so.”
“Probably used that Mega-glue, you know that kind they show on the commercials that can hold a three-ton truck by a broken chain.”
Her mother turned back to the stove, tended to her sauce. “Has Jake gotten any more leads on who might have killed Chris? Is that what he wanted to talk to you about?”
“No. He’d gotten wind of some of my recent activities,” Jolie said drolly, “and wanted to express his displeasure.”
“Can’t blame him, can you?” she asked. “He is trying to help you.”
For the love of God, how many more times was she going to hear that today? “I know,” Jolie told her, trying to sound grateful rather than exasperated.
“I understand why you can’t tell him about the FWC,” she said lightly, “but there wouldn’t have been any harm in sharing the other stuff with him.”
Jolie felt her jaw drop.
Her mother turned around and
smiled benignly. “Who do you think encouraged your invitation?” she asked. “You know Sophia and I are friends.”
She did, Jolie thought, still shocked and dumbfounded, but she’d never put it together. Actually, come to think of it, she’d never really put any thought into why Sophia, Bitsy and Meredith had approached her. Nor had she thought anything about the entire FWC attending the funeral. Her mother hadn’t batted an eye...and no wonder, Jolie thought, her gaze swinging to her mom.
She’d known.
Undoubtedly everything, all along, she suddenly realized. And Jolie had gone to so much trouble avoid her, to hide the gruesome details that she couldn’t pick up at The Spa, at the Garden Center. In the nanosecond it took to make that deduction, the truth dawned and she gasped.
Sadie.
“Don’t be mad at her, dear,” her intuitive mother said gently. “She was just being a good friend.”
She knew, still... She and Sadie--who was ordinarily very trustworthy when it came to keeping a secret--were going to have to have a little talk about exercising discretion.
“Don’t you say anything to her,” her mother admonished, evidently reading her line of thought. “She knew I was worried about you, and you couldn’t look me in the eye.” Her mother tsked. “It was heartbreakingly dreadful.”
Jolie swallowed. “It was too hard, Mom,” she confessed. “I was so ashamed.”
“And I understood that, which is why I never pushed it.” She let go a sigh. “But I can’t tell you what a relief it is to put all of this behind us, and though I know it’s awful of me to say this--which is why you’d better not ever repeat it--I hope they never find who killed Chris.” She shrugged, turned back around. “Far as I’m concerned, they did the world a favor, and most assuredly did you one. Whether you’d divorced him or not, he’d have never been completely out of your life. People like him--soul suckers--they just hang around forever, feeding off other people’s misery.”
She’d never spoken it aloud either, but her mother had just neatly described how she felt about Chris’s killer as well. She hadn’t wanted Chris to die, had certainly never wanted him to be murdered, but she was not sorry that he was out of her life, and she was definitely better off as a widow than she would have been as a divorcee. Her mother was right. Divorce wouldn’t have been the end of it. He would have dropped back into her life, sprinkling the acid of his presence and infecting everything she ever touched. She knew it.
The Future Widows' Club Page 16
