Storm Track dk-7

by Margaret Maron

  “What’s that stuff?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Hayseeds, of course.”

  It’s been a running joke with some of my town friends that my move to the country was the first step toward turning into a country bumpkin, that I’d soon be coming to court with a stem of broomstraw dangling from the corner of my mouth.

  Inside the box were two smaller packages. The first was a yellow-backed booklet covered with dense black typescript that advertised things like blackstrap molasses, copper arthritis bracelets and diuretics—an old-fashioned farmer’s almanac.

  “You need to know what signs to plant your crops under,” Reid said.

  I had to smile because Daddy and Maidie still consult this same almanac before they plant—a waxing moon for leafy vegetables, dark of the moon for roots, zodiac signs for everything else.

  The other package contained a rather handsome walnut board, inset with three brassbound dials. The top one was a thermometer (86°), the middle was a barometer (29.6"), and the bottom recorded the humidity (58%)—actually a pleasant day for the first week in September.

  “How about beside your bathroom door?” Reid suggested as I looked around for a place to hang it. “You can see what the weather’s like as soon as you get up every morning.”

  As if I couldn’t just look out the window. But he was so pleased with himself and his gift that I held my tongue.

  We carried it into my bedroom and he was right, as he usually is about spatial concepts. It was a perfect fit. One of the reasons Reid’s such a good trial lawyer is that he notices details. So far as I knew, he’d only been in this room once since I moved in, when he brought out a small bookcase from my old office a few weeks back, yet he remembered the narrow wall between my closet and bathroom doors.

  “Get me a screwdriver and I’ll go ahead and put it up for you,” Reid said.

  I fetched one from the garage and we hung it in less than five minutes.

  “Dwight see you this morning?” I asked as we walked back through the kitchen and I transferred my wet laundry to the dryer.

  “About that pen he found under Lynn Bullock?”

  “He told you that?”

  “Come on, Deborah. I’m an attorney, remember? I don’t answer any questions from a deputy sheriff without a good reason. Soon as you told him they were Christmas presents from John Claude, you knew he’d come asking to see mine.”

  “And you showed it to him?” I asked casually.

  “Not yet. It’s back at the office. He’s going to come by tomorrow when I’m there. But I got to tell you, it pisses the hell out of me that he won’t take my word for it. Has anybody ever seen me raise a hand to a woman? Ask Dotty. Bad as we used to fight, the only thing I ever slammed was the door.”

  “But you did have an affair with Lynn Bullock,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Nope. We went out twice last winter, I slept with her once and that was it.”

  Genuinely curious, I asked, “What’s your definition of an affair?”

  “More than a quickie and two suppers, that’s for sure,” he said virtuously. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but she turned out not to be my type.”

  “Oh?” I hadn’t realized there were such creatures.

  “Lynn Bullock was a sexy woman and she really liked to—” He hesitated. John Claude’s lectured him so many times about using the F-word in front of women that it’s starting to sink in. “—to do it. The thing is, she was just a little too trashy for me.”

  He spoke with such a straight face that I couldn’t control my laughter.

  “After Mabel, the motorcycle mama?” I hooted. “Or little Cass with the big—”

  “You don’t have to call the roll,” Reid said, offended. “Look, you know Dolly Parton’s famous remark?”

  “‘It takes a lot of money to look this trashy’?”

  “Right. But Dolly goes for that look deliberately. It’s her stage persona. Earthy. Playful. Lynn Bullock wore the same big hair, flashy clothes, and gaudy costume jewelry, only she was dead serious. She thought it made her look upper-class—I swear to God, she must’ve spent her formative years studying Dynasty as if it were a documentary on tasteful dressing.”

  “I never knew you were such a snob,” I said.

  “I’m not! Lynn was though. The first and only time I f—I mean, laid her, she spent the rest of the evening classifying half the people in Dobbs—this person was, quote, ‘society.’ That one was ‘low-class.’ I thought at first she was being funny but, no, ma’am! She was dead serious and she had the pecking order in this county down pat. I told her that if she wanted to see a real pecking order, she ought to come with me to the Rittner-Kazlov Foundation reception at the North Raleigh Hilton and watch artists and musicians put each other in their places. Mother wanted me to go represent her and I’d had just enough bourbon to think it might be amusing to watch Lynn watch them.”

  (Between them, Brix Jr. and Jane Ashley Stephenson have sat on half the non-profit boards in the Triangle.)

  “I’m guessing all the women showed up in earnest black gowns and ceramic necklaces?”

  “I believe there were two maroon velvets and an authentic batik with strings of cowrie shells.”

  “And Lynn Bullock wore—?”

  “A bright green satin cocktail suit with the skirt up to here, hair out to there, gold shoes, gold purse, chunky gold earrings and gold glitter in her hair. She said she hoped the glitter wasn’t too much, but after all it was Christmas.”

  “Oh, Lord.” I’ve always disapproved of extramarital sex, but I could almost find it in my heart to feel sorry for someone that tone-deaf about clothes. “How on earth did she get out of the house dressed like that without her husband noticing?”

  “He was in Charlotte that weekend.”

  “So how did the artsy crowd react?”

  “’Bout like you’d expect. Polite for the most part, but there was a lot of eye-rolling and the older women became very, very kind to me, almost motherly. They did everything except cut up my carrot sticks for me.”

  “Poor you.”

  “The worst was running into Amy and Will as we were leaving. Amy took one look at Lynn and then sort of glazed over. But what really iced the cake was the way Lynn thought those women were jealous of her style. She didn’t have a clue.” Reid shook his head.

  “The weird thing was that even though she was out with me, cheating on him, she kept talking about how great it was going to be when her husband joined Portland and Avery’s firm—how much money Jason was going to make and how they were looking forward to the day when they could afford to sponsor civic events because money’s the way you get your nose under society’s tent.”

  “She got that right, didn’t she?” I said cynically.

  More than forty years ago, my daddy’s own acquisition of respectability was based on the illegal production and distribution of moonshine. Mother’s people were higher up the social scale and after they fell in love and married, she made him quit bootlegging. Without that early seed money though—the whiskey money that bought good bottom land, decent equipment, and a fair amount of respect—he probably would have stayed too dirt poor to court her in the first place.

  “Who would kill her, Reid?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Usually you’d say the husband, but Bullock was on the ball field, right? Millard King, too.”

  “She slept with Millard King? When?”

  He shrugged. “Before me, after me, during me—I don’t keep tabs. I just remember hearing their names linked.” He paused a moment. “Come to think of it though, not recently. I heard he’s hoping to marry the daughter of one of our Justices.”

  He shook his head again. “I really don’t know who was sleeping with her. Not me, though.”

  “Any problem walking away?” I asked, trying to get a feel for the murdered woman.

  “Not for me,” he said, with that male arrogance that always annoys the hell out of me. Then he gave a sheepish grin. �
�Cost me a bundle to get the smell of dog dirt out of my car, though. She dumped a whole pile of it all over the front seat.”

  CHAPTER | 9

  Dejection and despondency succeeded fright.

  September 3—Edouard—no longer anything but an extratropical storm at 6 a.m.—just south of Nova Scotia—winds only 55 kts. Large swells, minor beach erosion, some coastal flooding from NC–Maine. Some damage to small boats at Martha’s Vineyard & Nantucket. At least one drowning.

  —Fran 24.4°N by 70.1°W—still a Category 1 hurr. & getting stronger. Will prob. be upgraded to Category 2 by tonight.

  —Gustave’s collapsed.

  —Hortense

  “Stan? Mama says come to breakfast now or we’re gonna be late for school.”

  Reluctantly, the boy turned off the radio, shelved the notebook and followed his sister down the hall to the kitchen. Yesterday’s breakfast had been so strained that he’d volunteered to help Dad cut the grass around the church tent without being asked, just to get away from the house. Not that Dad hadn’t been quiet and withdrawn himself. But his silences were always more comfortable than Mama’s.

  To Stan’s relief, his mother seemed to be in her normal school morning mode. Wearing a pink-and-green-checked cotton dress, she gave him a good-morning smile as she sliced bananas and peaches over their bowls of cold cereal. His father asked the blessing, then she poured Lashanda’s milk and handed the carton on for him to pour his own. Her voice sounded just like always as she passed out lunch money, looked critically at his shirt to see if it was a clean one, and reminded Lashanda that she had piano today, “so don’t forget to take your music. I don’t want to have to come rushing over to the school this morning, you hear?”

  “Yes, Mama.” The little girl smiled, too young to worry whether everything really was back to normal. As long as no visible storm clouds hovered over their heads, the semblance was sufficient and she chattered so freely that even Stan felt the tension level go down.

  Ralph Freeman finished eating first and went to brush his teeth. When he came back to the kitchen with his backpack hanging from one shoulder, he said, “I have to leave now, Clara, if I want to get to Dobbs on time. You sure you don’t want me to drop the children off on my way?”

  “You go on ahead,” she said, from the kitchen sink. “Rosa gets off at seven and she’ll be here in plenty of time. You’ll probably pass her on the way.”

  That’s when Stan realized that his mother’s car wasn’t in the drive. Miss Rosa must’ve worked the night shift again. As his father bent to kiss them goodbye, he also realized that Mama still had her back to them. Spoons and dishes rattled against each other beneath the running water and she acted too busy to turn around and lift her face for his usual kiss on her cheek. Dad must not have noticed either, because he didn’t hesitate, just went on out to the van and drove off.

  * * *

  Rosa Edwards gave a mighty yawn as she drove through morning traffic. Not that she was all that sleepy, merely ready for her own bed after two nights away from it. Sunday night was payback for when Kaneesha covered for her a couple of weeks back, and last night was her own regular night. For people on the housekeeping staff, night duty at the Orchid Motel was mostly a matter of just being there in case a bed suddenly needed changing or fresh towels were required in the middle of the night. Otherwise, there were a couple of lounge chairs in a little room off the main desk where you could put your feet up and doze after you’d tended to all your chores.

  The O’Days were good bosses. For white people. They paid better than minimum wage and were real easy to get along with. Of course now, they had their own ideas about how to run a motel and it might not be the way Motel 6 or the Marriott did things, but long as you did your job and did it right, you didn’t have to act extra busy when they were around. And they were fair about dividing up the night work. You didn’t get hired unless you were willing to take your turn. But you could trade off if you needed to, long as you knew it was your responsibility to see that your hours were covered. That was the one thing they were bad about: show up late or don’t show up at all without being covered and, child, the doo-doo don’t get no deeper. They didn’t want to hear about flat tires, dead batteries or how the babysitter bailed at the last minute. You got one second chance and that was it.

  Long line of women be happy to have your job ’stead of picking up sweet potatoes, she told herself. Mexicans, Asians, A-rabs, you name it these days.

  Must’ve been like the United Nations when the police tried to talk to Numi and Tina, who worked the noon to eight shift Saturday and Sunday. Here it was Tuesday morning and that was still all anybody could talk about—that naked body, the black stockings, the fancy wine, the man who’d called twice to see if she was there yet. Not that they were saying much more than that, ’cause nobody’d really noticed the murdered woman when she checked in except for Mr. O’Day.

  Sister Clara’s car radio was always tuned to a gospel station and Rosa sang along with one of their favorite hymns, but her mind wasn’t with the words.

  Even though she was on duty Sunday night when yellow tape was being strung all over that end of the place and police cars and ambulances were coming and going, nobody’d interviewed her ’cause they must’ve been told that she got off work at four on Saturday, before the murdered woman arrived.

  None of the others seemed to remember that she came back around five-thirty after doing her weekly shopping because she’d gone and left her Bible in her locker. She hadn’t thought anything about it herself till she got there Sunday night and they told her what’d happened in Room 130.

  That’s when she remembered driving around the back corner of the Orchid Motel in Sister Clara’s quiet little car and there was this white man coming out of that very same room. He closed the door and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob and soon as he saw her, he turned away quick-like.

  “Jesus, lift me up and lead me on,” she sang along with the radio. “Till I reach your heavenly throne.”

  If any policeman had’ve asked her Sunday night, she might’ve told about that man right then and there, but all the guests down at that side of the motel, them that didn’t just up and check out, had to be moved over to the front side and Mrs. O’Day had kept her hopping till after the police left.

  And if anybody’d been with her in the bathroom at two o’clock this morning when she was sitting on the stool reading the Ledger, she might’ve bust out with it then, but they weren’t and she didn’t. By the time she returned to the lounge, she’d had second and third thoughts about what this secret knowledge could do for her.

  “For my sins you did atone,” sang the choir.

  Yesterday’s Ledger lay on the car seat beside her, neatly folded so that the man’s picture was staring right back at her.

  Probably had plenty of money. White men like him usually did. And here she was, needing a new car real bad, what with winter coming on. That old rustbucket of hers stayed in the shop more than it stayed on the road. Wouldn’t have to be a fancy car, just something nice and dependable like Sister Clara’s.

  Sister Clara was always warning her to stay out of white people’s business.

  Easy enough for her to say, thought Rosa, and her a preacher’s wife with a husband to give her everything—nice house, nice car, nice clothes she don’t have to go out and work among white folks for. Still, it won’t none of her business to bear witness against that man. “Thou shalt not suffer a whore to live.” Isn’t that what the Bible said? Not up to her to avenge the killing of a white harlot.

  Anyhow, she didn’t have to decide right now, she told herself. Like Mary, she was going to sit back and ponder all these things in her heart.

  “Jesus, lift me up and lead me on.”

  * * *

  He couldn’t believe his luck. Ever since it happened, he’d checked his rearview mirror for every white Civic that he met, noted every white Civic parked on the streets—who knew Honda had such a big slice of the car
market? And didn’t they make Civics in any damn color except white?

  Then suddenly, there it was!

  He was waiting at a stop sign when the car sailed by, the gold cross affixed to the license plate, the Jesus bumper stickers with their blood red letters on a white background. The one on the left read, “Jesus loves YOU!” The one on the right, “Jesus died for your sins.”

  Without thinking twice, he immediately switched his blinker from a left-turn arrow to a right-turn. As soon as the westbound lane cleared, he pulled out and headed after the white Civic, his heart pounding. He didn’t have a plan. All he’d hoped—a blind illogical hope, he’d begun to think—was that he could somehow find her before she heard about Lynn’s death, connected it with him, and went to the sheriff.

  Finding her was first. He hadn’t really thought about what he’d do after that.

  She drove as if she were late, weaving in and out of morning traffic. Fortunately, the heaviest traffic was leaving Cotton Grove, not entering it, and he was able to close the gap between them. Nevertheless, she was four cars ahead of him and he almost lost sight of her when she suddenly whipped into the central turn lane and zipped across in front of an oncoming car with only inches to spare.

  He was forced to wait for six cars before he could follow and by then, the white Civic was nowhere to be seen.

  Damn, damn, damn!

  To be this close and then lose her.

  He kept to the posted thirty-five miles per hour even though every instinct told him to go even slower so he could look carefully. Unfortunately, this was a residential street in a black neighborhood with black kids collecting on the corner to wait for their school buses. He couldn’t afford to drive too slowly or they’d notice him.

  Notice and remember.

  He told himself that Cotton Grove was a little town and this black neighborhood was proportionately small, too. How long could it take to quarter the whole area?

  As it turned out, he didn’t have to. Two blocks down, he spotted the white Civic parked in the driveway of a neat brick house. He carefully noted the house number as he drove by but didn’t have time to make out the name on the mailbox, too.