Love and Suspicion

by Marti Talbott

  “Such as?”

  Michael slowly ran his fingers through his hair and then turned to face his son. “Those were crazy messed up days. Dad hated me for getting your mother pregnant and I hated him for not getting off my back about it. Whatever Earl wanted, Earl got, but even marrying Pamela wasn’t enough. Then I find out he wasn’t as perfect as he pretended to be. Babies take nine months, but not his. The baby was full term, at least that’s what Mariam said. Before Mariam was our housekeeper, she was a volunteer in the children’s ward at the hospital, so when Shelley brought the baby home, Mariam knew right away Tiffany wasn’t a preemie.”

  “Did you ask Earl about that?”

  “Ask him? Are you kidding? His private life was none of my business, and since he stopped talking shortly after the kidnapping, it’s still none of my business.”

  “I always felt sorry for Earl. His daughter was kidnapped and both his wives died. Maybe I should have spent more time with him.”

  “Maybe you should now,” Michael said as he returned to the chair behind his desk.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we need to know what’s going on in that house. Earl married once without telling anyone in advance and he could do it again.”

  “Marry who – you mean that girl?”

  “Why not? And if he marries Tiffany Clark, she gets half of everything when he dies.”

  “Seriously, Dad, he...come to think of it, Earl did watch her constantly at the picnic.”

  “Yes he did. He even laughed when she ate the beans.”

  “So what do I do, just walk up to the door and say, hi Grandpa, I’m here?”

  “You could date Tiffany.”

  Annoyed, Alex tightly gripped both of the armrests on his chair. “Date her? You have got to be kidding. She’s not even close to my type.”

  “Your type acts more childish than Gloria.”

  “True.” Alex snickered, “Tiffany really got to Gloria yesterday. My precious half-sister cried for nearly an hour after the picnic and went home...alone.”

  “That’s a switch.”

  “Guess she hadn’t heard about genital warts.”

  Michael wasn’t laughing. “So will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Date Tiffany?”

  “If you must know, I tried and she turned me down,” Alex admitted.

  “Really? I’m amazed.”

  “I’m not.” Alex stood up and headed for the door.

  “You don’t see her as some sort of challenge?”

  “Dad, I don’t need a challenge. Besides, Ben gave me one of those ‘she’s mine’ looks.”

  “That never stopped you before.”

  “I know, but last time I got in his way he threatened to break my neck.” Alex grinned. “I did enjoy taking her away from him.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “What was her name?”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  Alex opened the office door and then turned around to face his father. “I’ll do it on one condition?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I get half of your inheritance.”

  Michael chuckled. “You may think Tiffany Clark is innocent, but I know her kind – I married three of them. If you don’t come between she and Earl, innocent little Tiffany Clark will make sure neither of us sees a dime of my inheritance.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, TIFFANY was worried. Mariam might not be pleased with the way she treated Gloria at the picnic. Since Mariam seemed to favor Michael, Tiffany could even lose her job over it.

  However, when she arrived at the bookstore it was clear Mariam had other things on her mind.

  “I just don’t know how we’re going to mend all the broken fences this time,” Mariam complained. “I doubt you know this, but Blue Falls nearly suffered extinction before more companies came here, and all our livelihoods depend on the new people.” Mariam paused just long enough to draw in a deep breath. “I wanted to hit Michael myself when he went after Jerry. They ruined a perfectly good picnic and I have no doubt we’ll have to put up a fence between the two sides next year.” When a customer came in, her frown turned to a smile, and she happily greeted the woman. When the woman said she was interested in thrillers, Mariam led the way to the proper bookshelf. She had just returned to the counter when two of her friends came in to gossip.

  “As I was just telling Tiffany,” Mariam went on, “Mrs. Terrell, was quite upset, as was everyone else”

  Tiffany decided she should stay out of the conversation completely, grabbed a stack of books and went to put them away. Even so, she cringed when the next subject came up.”

  “Gloria started it,” Mariam continued. “Why she isn’t pregnant by now is beyond me, and oh, what she wore!”

  “Scandalous,” said one of her friends just before she hurried off to make it on time for her hairdresser appointment.

  “Mariam,” the woman interrupted, “about that deputy. You said he talked to you last Friday?”

  “Yes he did, and he was very considerate.”

  The woman lowered her voice. “You didn’t tell him about me, did you?”

  “Of course not,” Mariam answered. She glanced toward the back of the store, but Tiffany was nowhere in sight and the woman looking at cookbooks wasn’t paying any attention to them. Even so, she lowered her voice to a whisper as well. “Samantha, you worry too much. No one knows but me, right?”

  “Well, I might have mentioned it to Birdie.”

  Aghast, Mariam couldn’t help but raise her voice. “Birdie? Why on earth would you tell her anything?”

  “I was upset.”

  “You got drunk, you mean.”

  Samantha hung her head. “Yes, and I had every reason to get drunk that night, didn’t I. That was the night Frank threatened to leave me if I didn’t clean the house and keep it that way. The thing is, I don’t remember if I told Birdie or not. What should I do?”

  The two of them stopped talking when the first customer brought her selection to the front, paid for the books, and then left. By then, Tiffany had worked her way halfway up to the middle of a shelf where she could hear better.

  Mariam sighed. “Maybe Birdie won’t remember. If she does, she probably won’t tell the deputy anyway. Birdie has always been the secretive type.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I’m sure I am. Why don’t you pick out one of the cookbooks, go home and make something wonderful for your husband tonight? Oh here, I know just the one.” Mariam marched to a shelf, grabbed a book with a colorful picture of a three-layer chocolate cake on the front, came back and handed it to her friend. “Go on now and try not to get yourself all worked up. Your heart, you know, and bring the book back when you’re done with it.”

  After Samantha was gone, Mariam waited until Tiffany came to the front. “She won’t bring the book back, she never does. I bet she has a hundred dollars’ worth of my books in her house she’s never paid for. Someday I might have to go over there and collect, although I don’t know where we’d put them. There, you see, we need more customers and I had hoped to make many a new friend at the picnic. I had cards to give and handed out several, but who knows when they’ll feel like reading a book now?”

  Tiffany finally smiled. “When I’m upset, I like to watch a movie where something blows up. The bigger the explosion, the better I feel.”

  “I might just try that myself one of these days. Even I get tired of reading books sometimes.”

  While Mariam said nothing about the things Tiffany said to Gloria, a couple of her friends were not that generous. As often as she could, Tiffany left Mariam at the counter chatting, while she tried to disappear in the back. More friends came and went, all with something to say about the picnic, and all hoping to learn something they didn’t already know. Yet, right before noon, one woman said Tiffany accomplished the most magnificent dressing down she had ever heard. Mariam agreed.

  After that, Tiffany felt much better.

  Assured that her job
was still safe, Tiffany decided to go get a second suitcase out of her car on her lunch break. When she got to his garage, Ben was in his office waiting on an older man wearing a backward baseball cap the way a lot of men preferred. Tiffany spotted a candy machine, opened her purse to get some money. and went to make her choice. She didn’t pay much attention, waited while Ben sold a battery, and the customer left. It wasn’t until she heard a truck door slam and glanced out the window that she saw the beat-up blue pickup truck. Unfortunately, the man was already hidden behind his tinted windows.

  “Crazy Eddie?” she asked.

  “The one and only.”

  “Why didn’t you introduce me?”

  “Because he likes being incognito and he pays me a lot to keep that old bucket of his on the road.”

  “He doesn’t look like he can afford much at all.” She put a dollar in the machine, made her choice, and then lifted the lid and recovered a package of peanut butter crackers.

  “Don’t let him fool you, he’s loaded.”

  “Then why doesn’t he just buy a new truck?”

  “He’s saving his money in case he needs it someday. That’s why they call him crazy. He did buy a house for his ex-wife, though.”

  “That was nice of him.” Just then, she remembered why she came. “I need the keys so I can get something out of my car.”

  He dug the keys out of his pocket, opened the door for her and then followed her out. “The part came in this morning.” He went to her car, handed her the keys and waited while she opened the trunk.

  Although she had no idea what Ben was talking about when he described how difficult it would be to fix her engine, she fully understood that it might take a few more days. “Tell the truth, Ben Coulter, are you trying to get me to stick around?”

  “Yes I am. If you’ll tell me how much you have in the bank, I’ll raise my price accordingly.”

  “Very funny.”

  He leaned against the back door of her car and folded his arms. “I meant to thank you for getting Gloria off me yesterday.”

  “I might have gone too far. Everyone seems to be talking about it, and...”

  “Everyone talks about her anyway – that’s why she does it, that and to make her father mad.”

  “Twyla Thomason.” Tiffany muttered as she pulled a small suitcase out of her trunk and then closed the lid.

  Ben couldn’t help but grin. “Go on. I can’t wait to hear this one. Who is Twyla Thomason?”

  “There’s not a lot to tell. Twyla never had a good reason to be mad at her parents except that she thought they were too strict. They wouldn’t let her stay out all night when she was fifteen or even sixteen. Everyone else got to stay out, or so she claimed.” Tiffany sighed. “She got invited to a party and it turned out only three others showed up – all of them older boys. Even so, she had a good time until one of them got so drunk he threw up all over her.”

  “Did that cure her?”

  “That and being grounded for two whole months. She couldn’t even go to the junior prom.”

  He enjoyed yet another of her stories. “Do you have plans for dinner tonight?”

  “I do. Beverly is making a chef’s salad, which happens to be my all-time favorite and then I’m curling up with a book.” She dropped the keys into his open hand.

  “Tomorrow night?”

  Tiffany considered it. “Okay, but I’m more of a hamburger kind of girl than a fancy restaurant, and I can’t stay out late. I’ve got important things to do.”

  “I know just the place. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  Tiffany grinned, and picked up her suitcase. “Deal. I better get back to work.”

  Once more, he watched her walk away. “What kind of important things?” he wondered aloud.

  IN HER ATTEMPT NOT to look too eager to be with Ben, she wondered if she’d made a mistake by not accepting. She liked him a lot more than she was willing to admit even to herself, and she didn’t want to play too hard to get. Yet, it was her father who warned her about being taken for granted. Girls who didn’t say no were just that – taken for granted. Besides, she would see Ben the next night and just now she wanted to see if she could figure out just who Shelley Woodbury was.

  The name on the bank statements before she married Earl was Shelley Bayliss. Surely that wasn’t a very common name, and if Shelley worked in an office, there might be some record online of who she worked for. What Tiffany didn’t know was how old Shelley was, and reminded herself to ask Earl when she got home.

  Again, she wasn’t sure how much she should tell Earl. That very morning she learned someone named Samantha was hiding something, but she didn’t know Earl well enough yet. The very mention of her name might set him off and make him storm out of the house to find out exactly what Samantha knows. If he did, Mariam would surely know Tiffany told him, and Tiffany would surely be without a job then. No, it was best to wait until she could find out something more about the woman with a secret she only wanted Mariam to know.

  She was nearly back to the bookstore when she thought of something. Mariam said she had a lot to feel guilty for. Maybe not telling Samantha’s secret was what she meant. Then again, betraying a friend’s trust was not an easy thing to do, especially if the sheriff might think Mariam was trying to cast suspicion off of herself and onto someone else.

  IT WAS NEARLY CLOSING time, so Tiffany was up front when the bells began to tinkle and the bookstore door opened

  “Remember me?” Alex Woodbury asked.

  Mariam looked at the single white rose he was holding. “I suspect that’s not for me,” she said as she grabbed her purse out from under the counter. “Well, lock up for me, will you?” She waited for Tiffany to nod, and then hurried out the door and down the sidewalk.

  “Off to tell all her friends,” said Alex. He handed Tiffany the rose and then watched her eyes. They didn’t light up the way he expected them to. “You don’t like it?”

  “Let me see, a white rose means you are trying to charm me.” She sighed. “It’s a cliché and it’s been tried before.”

  “Without success, I am guessing.”

  “Well, I might give you the benefit of the doubt after what I did to your sister.”

  “That’s what I came to tell you. The family said to say thank you. Gloria had it coming and only a stranger could have put her in her place the way you did.”

  “Your family doesn’t think I was a little too harsh?”

  “Well, her boyfriends stopped calling. Warts, you know, but don’t worry, she’ll get tested and then all will be back to normal. So you see, the rose simply means thank you.”

  “In that case, I accept it.”

  “Good, then maybe you’ll have dinner with me tonight. There’s a very nice restau...”

  “Sorry, all booked up.”

  “With Ben?”

  Tiffany frowned. “And that’s another thing. Steven Brown would never have asked me that question.”

  “Steven Brown?”

  Tiffany sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to save that story for another time. It is time to close up and I’m expected home for dinner.”

  “Care for a ride?”

  “No thanks, I like walking.” Tiffany watched the expression on his face turn from hopeful to frustrated. “Well, if you will excuse me.” She grabbed her purse, walked to the door and opened it for him.

  “What, you’re not going to invite me to dinner at Grandfather’s house?”

  “It is hardly my place to. I am simply a renter, nothing more.”

  “Tell Grandfather hello for me.”

  “I will.” As soon as he was out the door, Tiffany closed and locked it. She had one more book to put away, then she too left.

  Standing not far away, Alex watched her rush away, and when he walked past the bookstore window, Tiffany had left the rose behind. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

  In a hurry to get home and take a look at more of the bank statements, she walked fast. Sh
e was a little afraid Alex would follow, but Crazy Eddie was probably somewhere keeping an eye on her. She was getting used to being ‘protected’ by him and kind of liked it.

  AFTER ANOTHER YUMMY dinner with Earl and Beverly, Tiffany rushed upstairs to get to work. She already had the statements neatly arranged according to dates and it was time to start putting all the information on a spreadsheet. She finished entering the first few dates, names and amounts, laid them face down on the desk, and then stared on the next one. The next check Shelley wrote was not to Charles Hadley, but to The Charles Hadley Foundation. “A Foundation for what?” she whispered.

  Tiffany spent the next hour looking for a Charles Hadley foundation on the internet with no more success than finding Charles Hadley himself.

  “Dead end,” she said, ignoring the cliché.

  In the next statement, Shelley made two payments to the Charles Hadley Foundation, one for $5,000.00 and another for $2,000.00. “Lucky foundation.” She entered each on the spreadsheet and paused to consider what she’d found.

  The Charles Hadley Foundation could have been a charity, a cult, or even a dog pound for all she knew. It was likely shut down after Shelley stopped supporting it anyway. Maybe it wasn’t a real foundation at all, just a cover for something nefarious. Tiffany scolded herself. “You are so like your dad.” If push came to shove, she could always ask her dad to see what he could find – except he’d probably take the next plane to Blue Falls to make sure she wasn’t getting herself in trouble – and then be totally in the way.

  At just after eight o’clock, Beverly brought her a small plate of cheese wedges and apple slices to snack on, but it was nearly midnight by the time Tiffany climbed into bed. Her quest to help Earl was turning out to be a lot harder than she expected.

  IT WAS A QUIET NIGHT with very little traffic on the Interstate, but Rod parked on the frontage road, and clocked the cars and trucks as they went past. On that stretch of the road, he was easy to spot, so most drivers slowed down as they approached, and then sped up again once they were out of sight. As far as he knew, he didn’t have a traffic ticket quota to fill and besides, the deputy had other things on his mind anyway.