by Lori Wilde
I leaned against my car. He stood so close I could feel his body heat. His gray eyes held mine. Was it concern for me that widened his pupils? Was I reading more into his gaze than was there? Since when had I started trying to second-guess Conahegg’s emotions?
He touched my shoulder, a gesture of condolence. But it felt like so much more than that. His eyes—oh, those enigmatic eyes that gave away nothing—stayed fixed on my face. “I’m sorry,” he said, “that you had to find the body.”
“Hazard of the job,” I said, trying to make light of a very serious subject. If I didn’t stay detached from Tim’s suicide, I would have to fling myself into Conahegg’s arms and beg him to hold me close. “I’ve seen bodies before.”
“You’re pretty tough, Allegheny.” Admiration tinged his voice, slightly curved his lips.
I had the goofiest urge to smile. Conahegg was proud of me.
Two more cruisers glided to a stop, sirens cutting off in midwhine. At the appearance of the other officers, Conahegg’s countenance changed. He straightened, stepped back, removed his hand from my shoulder.
And most telling of all, he dropped his gaze.
I felt robbed, cheated, relieved.
Talk about mixed messages. Talk about conflicting signals. I was sending them and receiving them.
“Did you spot any vehicles leaving the scene, Ms. Green?” Conahegg asked. His tone was distant, his words clipped.
“No.”
“Pass anybody on the road?”
I shook my head.
“Anyone on foot.”
“No again.”
He said nothing.
“Do you need for me to go back inside?” I asked, squaring my shoulders to gather my courage, struggling hard to be all business, too.
Conahegg’s mouth flattened in a noncommittal expression and he motioned his crew toward the trailer. “No. It’s best if you stay out here. But don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back to talk to you.”
“I’ve got another patient to see in half an hour.” I glanced at my watch.
“Call your office and get someone else to do it,” he snapped, making me wonder if I had imagined his earlier compassion.
Overall, he had the personality of a steamroller and he was obviously accustomed to having his edicts followed with unquestioned loyalty, but his badass attitude made me want to rebel.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My patients always come first.”
“Tim Kehaul was your patient.”
“Tim Kehaul is dead. My responsibilities are to the living.”
“Stay put.” He raised a finger of warning. “Don’t make me take you into custody.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” I lifted my chin and wondered why in the hell I felt so jazzed. It was the same sort of adrenaline rush I got during a code blue. Nervousness born of inexplicable excitement that I didn’t know how to alleviate. What in the hell was wrong with me?
His eyes met mine, hard and unreadable. “Try me.”
I resisted the childish urge to stick my tongue out at him. His men circled the house. One of the deputies stepped up on the front porch and peeled back the screen door. It creaked loudly.
“Needs WD-40,” I said inanely.
“Sheriff’s Department,” the deputy hollered after knocking on the inner door, which was still standing open as I had left it. “We’re coming in.”
“There’s nobody inside the house except Tim,” I told him.
“Procedure,” Conahegg answered. “You never know for sure.”
I knew for sure, but who was I to argue with an ex-marine with a very big gun?
“Stand over here,” he commanded, ushering me off Tim’s property without actually touching me, until I was standing in the middle of the dirt road. Strange, but it seemed as if I could feel that muscular arm at my back, pushing me along like a broom at a piece of dust.
Why the man intrigued me while punching my buttons at the same time, I could not say. I only know I had never been so aroused and yet so irritated by anyone. I wanted to kiss him and kick him in the behind at the same time.
Jeez Louise, what’s wrong with you? Now’s not the time to get warm and fuzzy over Conahegg. There’s a dead body inside that glorified tin can. A body who happens to be your sister’s ex-boyfriend.
Besides, Conahegg wasn’t my type. I preferred tender men who read poetry and studied art, not steel and iron types with piercing dark eyes that could drill a hole straight through you at a hundred paces. I wasn’t a glutton for punishment.
And yet, I couldn’t help but watch him stalk back toward the trailer house, his butt encased so finely in that formfitting uniform. When he disappeared inside, I finally looked away.
One of the deputies started roping yellow crime scene tape around the perimeter. I tugged my cell phone from my pocket, extended the antenna, punched in the numbers then broke the news to Joyce that she’d have to finish my visits for the day since I was apparently being detained by the sheriff for the duration of the afternoon. Joyce wasn’t too happy, but hey, it wasn’t my problem.
Minutes passed. The sun continued to beat down and I was awash in sweat. Nice. A fly kept buzzing around my head and no amount of swatting seemed to persuade him to find a more receptive landing place. I began to walk around to outdistance the fly and that’s when I noticed that several people had gathered outside their trailer houses, necks craned in my direction.
Great. I was a one-woman freak show. Uncomfortable with the perusal, I glanced away. But it didn’t do any good. One of the neighbors ambled over.
“How-de-do.” A middle-aged, overweight man with a face like a boiled ham came to stand beside me, his thumbs tucked under the straps of his triple XL overalls, a matchstick stuck in the corner of his wide mouth.
“Hello.” I gave him a tight smile.
“What’s a goin’ on?” He had a Jethro Bodine drawl and small curious eyes.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Is that little gay boy in trouble with the law again?” Matchstick inclined his head toward the patrol cars. “I heard he got arrested for runnin’ around nekked in the bushes up where the rich folks live in Brazos River Bend.”
So I was considered rich? I cast a quick glance at Matchstick’s patched overalls with the ketchup stain on the bib and figured, yeah, according to him, I probably was wealthy.
“Yes ma’am. There’s been some strange going-ons over there.”
“Like what?” I asked, deciding to use the Andover Bend grapevine to my advantage. Who knew? Matchstick might hold the key to Tim’s suicide.
Matchstick relished his role as keeper of the trailer park gossip. He rubbed one ear pensively, building the tension. “I don’t work you understand. Hurt my back at the gravel pit in ’97. Haven’t been able to even pick up my grandkids since. My wife, Lindy Sue, she has to support us. We can’t make it on my disability. She cooks at Heavenly Acres retirement center in Cloverleaf.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyway, I got time on my hands and nothing much to do with it ’cept keep an eye on the neighborhood. I’m head of the community crime watch program,” he exclaimed proudly.
I scanned the dilapidated trailers and wondered what kind of pathetic criminals would steal from these poor folks.
“That young’un, Tim, he was a good boy even if he did like to ride the baloney pony,” Matchstick said. “If you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately I did and I really didn’t appreciate the image Matchstick’s words brought to mind.
“But he had all kinds a weirdos coming to visit. I kept an eye on ’em. Never can be too careful.”
“That’s true,” I murmured. “Did you see anything unusual in the last day or two?”
The man stopped to ponder my question. He removed the matchstick from his mouth and scratched his head with it. “Hmm, let me think.”
“I saw sumptin’.” The voice startled me.
I turned to find a woman about my age wearing a faded housedress and sponge rollers
in her hair standing directly behind me and Matchstick. In an age of hot rollers and curling irons I didn’t know people still wore sponge rollers. A couple of toddlers were wrapped around her legs and from the looks of her distended belly, she had another bun in the oven.
“You did.”
She nodded. “They had a fight over there last night. Way late. I was up with my youngest.” She placed a hand on the head of the child to her right. “Marianne had a bad cough and couldn’t sleep. I brought her out on the porch so she wouldn’t wake Alfred, my husband. He hasta get up early to drive the school bus.”
“I didn’t hear nothing about no fight,” Matchstick grumbled, obviously unhappy to have my attention usurped by the woman.
“Who are you referring to?” I asked.
“Tim,” she said. “And that big blond guy.”
Big blond guy? Who was that?
“Do you know the man’s name?”
She shook her head. “No. He’s not very friendly. I tried to say hi a couple of times when I was out workin’ in the yard but he never said hi back. I wondered what Tim saw in him.”
“How do you know they were lovers?”
The woman blushed and glanced down at her kids. “I saw them,” she whispered.
“Saw them?”
“You know—they was holdin’ hands, kissin’. Other stuff, too.”
“Er…how did you see them?” I asked.
Her blush deepened. “I went over to borrow a cup of sugar one night. I was making strawberry pie and Tim had left his front door open. They was in the living room goin’ at it.”
I looked at Matchstick. “Do you know the blond guy?”
“Saw him once or twice. He looked like one of them professional wrestlers.”
“You never spoke to him?”
Matchstick shook his head. “He had one of them deformed ears like a boxer. What do they call? Some kind a vegetable.”
“Cauliflower?”
“Maybe.” Matchstick frowned. “Though it coulda been cabbage.”
Other neighbors came forward and began to offer their opinions and theories. But I didn’t learn anything more about Tim and his mysterious lover. The conversation degenerated into a dissertation of how best to cook cabbage. Matchstick smacked his lips and sucked on the match extra hard when he talked about how Lindy Sue fried cabbage with black pepper and onions.
After what seemed an eternity, Conahegg finally came back outside.
He shooed the neighbors away and told them he’d send deputies over to talk to them, then he hustled me aside. He shook his head over Tim’s untimely and undignified death, then surprised me by clamping a hand on my shoulder and asking, “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Tim was a nice guy. Why would he want to kill himself? Do you think it had anything to do with getting arrested the other night?”
Conahegg gave me a strange look and removed his hand.
“And why would he hang himself in the nude? Surely he wouldn’t want to be found that way,” I continued.
“I don’t believe that it was intentional,” Conahegg said.
“Beg pardon?”
“Put two and two together, Ally.”
Suddenly the answer hit me. Rope. Neck. Naked.
I felt my hairline heat and knew I was blushing. “Oh,” I muttered. “Autoerotic asphyxiation.”
Conahegg nodded. “That’s my guess, but of course we investigate any unexplained deaths as homicides.”
I might be a country girl but I’m not naive. I’m a nurse for crying out loud. I went to college for four years. I learned about sexual perversions in abnormal psych class. At least in theory.
“Can I go?” I asked, thoroughly embarrassed that I’d been so slow to catch on. Conahegg must think me an unsophisticated hick.
“I’ve got a better idea.”
“Oh?”
“Why don’t I take your statement over a soft drink in an air-conditioned diner? The heat’s made you cranky.”
I wanted to say no. I didn’t really want to be alone with Conahegg, but the idea of a tall Dr. Pepper over crushed ice was too much temptation for this sweaty, small town girl.
“I’m buying,” he said.
That cinched the deal. “Okay. My car or yours?”
“Why don’t you follow me?”
And that’s how I ended up sitting across from Conahegg at the Dairy Queen several miles up the road from Andover Bend. The lunch hour had passed so we were the only ones sitting at the red plastic booths.
It felt weird being there with him. Like regular roadside travelers stopping in for a thirst quencher. Like normal folks with normal conversation, not a sheriff and a home health nurse discussing a suicide victim.
“You want something to eat?” Conahegg asked, steepling his fingers in front of him.
I shook my head. “Finding a dead body is kind of an appetite killer.”
“Yeah.” He nodded.
I took a long suck through the straw of my Dr. Pepper, savored the sweet, syrupy taste.
Conahegg had ordered coffee, but he wasn’t drinking it. Avoiding my eye, he took a pen and notepad from his pocket.
“Tell me about finding Tim’s body.”
Were we only going to talk about the business at hand? No mention of the strange attraction surging between us? Probably a good idea. Ignore the bomb on the kitchen table and maybe it’ll disappear on its own.
I cleared my throat and verbally rehashed my steps for him. I was careful to stick to the facts and keep my opinions to myself.
Best to steer clear of emotions.
“How well did you know Tim?” Conahegg asked when I finished.
“Sissy dated him for eight months about two years ago. Actually, Saturday morning, the day you ran over him, was the first time I’d seen Tim in over a year.” I toyed with the paper from my straw.
Conahegg scrawled in his pad. “Did he have any enemies that you were aware of?”
“Tim was a friendly guy, but he was gay. You know as well as I do that small towns and homosexuals don’t always mix.”
He nodded. “Can you think of any reason why he might kill himself?”
“Sorry. I didn’t know him that well. You might talk to Sissy. I think she still kept in touch with him.”
“I’ll do that,” Conahegg said. “I’ll call you if I have any more questions.”
“All right.”
He pocketed his notepad. “You can go.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Gee thanks,” I said, realizing I sounded sarcastic and not really sure. “I appreciate the Dr. Pepper.”
“You’re welcome.”
I got to my feet, and hurried to my car. I pulled out of the Dairy Queen parking lot and turned down the street, trying my best to get the image of poor Tim Kehaul off my retina and the thought of Sam Conahegg off my mind.
I was more traumatized than I realized when I stopped at the intersection that led to the highway and my leg started jumping when I pushed in the clutch.
I felt shaky clean through my stomach, the way you do when your blood sugar hits rock bottom. I should have let Conahegg buy me a Beltbuster but the thought of food nauseated me.
With rising trepidation, I drove home. How was I going to break the news to my sister that her gay, ex-lover was dead?
CHAPTER SIX
SISSY’S CAR WASN’T in the driveway and for that small favor I sent up a prayer. But Mama’s little 1965 rainbow-colored Volkswagen Beetle, the only car she’d ever owned, was parked beside Aunt Tessa’s chili-pepper red Mustang convertible and a brand-new powder-blue Cadillac El Dorado that I didn’t recognize.
I let myself in the back door. Strains of Yanni poured from the CD player. Candles flickered along the mantel, scenting the air lavender. From the back room I heard muted voices.
That explained the El Dorado. Aunt Tessa had a customer.
I took a Dr. Pepper from the fridge and plopped down at the kitchen table to massag
e my temples. Closing my eyes, I pressed the cold can to my forehead.
I wondered what Conahegg was doing. Had he gone back to Tim’s trailer? Was he in his office? I doubted he’d gone home. Thinking about him was becoming as contagious as a case of the chicken pox. No matter how hard I tried to put him from my mind, he kept coming back like a bad itch.
I decided he was probably still at Tim’s trailer. Again I visualized finding Tim’s body. I shuddered.
What had gone through Tim’s head those last few moments of consciousness? Had he had the most mind-blowing orgasm imaginable?
Blech. I didn’t want to know.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, along with murmured voices. Aunt Tessa appeared in the doorway. I was surprised to see Reverend Ray Don Swiggly’s wife, Miss Gloria, trailing behind her, dressed as nondescriptly as she had been that night at the sheriff’s department.
Hmm. Apparently her husband wasn’t meeting all her spiritual needs.
Aunt Tessa looked pale as she always did after a reading. The blowsy chartreuse caftan she wore accentuated her natural pallor. She rarely went out in the sun and when she did it was with gloves and long sleeves and a wide-brimmed hat.
“Take these,” Aunt Tessa said, drawing a pair of crystal earrings she bought at the five-and-dime for two bucks a pair, from her pocket. She prescribed them for her clients experiencing emotional pain. Combined with her readings, the crystal earrings were supposed to induce healing. Me, I never bought into it. Then again, who knows? Faith is a powerful thing.
Aunt Tessa pressed the earrings into Miss Gloria’s palm. “Wear them every day for two weeks.”
“Thank you,” Miss Gloria mumbled, head down. She handed Aunt Tessa a fifty-dollar bill which my aunt tucked into her cleavage. “You’ve been a big help.”
“My pleasure.” Aunt Tessa nodded.
The other woman turned for the door, spying me for the first time. “Oh.”
“Hello, Mrs. Swiggly,” I greeted her.
“Uh.” She couldn’t look me in the eye. “Hello.”
“We met in the wee hours of Saturday morning at the sheriff’s department,” I reminded her. “I’m Allegheny Green.”
“I remember,” she murmured. “Nice to see you again.”
