Cheri on Top

by Susan Donovan

  “Stop! Turn here!”

  Gladys huffed. “Well, I never…” She shook her head at Cherise the whole way up the gravel lane. She stopped the car and turned off the engine, and the two women sat in silence for a moment.

  “Sorry for cutting you off like that,” Cherise said.

  Gladys shrugged. “You need to relax, Cheri. You’ve got nothing to worry about. He’s never wanted anyone but you, anyhow.”

  In slow motion, Cherise cocked her head, not sure she’d heard right. “Excuse me?”

  Then Gladys slapped Cherise on the shoulder playfully. “Now, just looky at what we got here!” Both women stared out the windshield at the army of workers swarming the cottage. There were at least a dozen men of various physical types, hues, and ages climbing on and milling around the house. Men pounded on the roof and the porch. They wiggled under crawl spaces. They perched on ladders. They shored up cracked stone. There were even men hacking away at the overgrowth and putting down mulch. Cherise counted six pickups, an electrician’s van, and a plumber’s truck.

  “Granddaddy told me he’d hired some workers,” she whispered. “Boy, he wasn’t kidding!”

  “He wants you to be happy here, I guess.” Gladys craned her neck to follow three shirtless men as they hauled a wooden beam down to the water’s edge. “I know I’m happy here.”

  “Let’s just get this over with and get back to town.” Cherise managed to keep hold of the tie-downs while exiting the passenger side of the car. “Could you give me a hand with the—”

  She froze. Her jaw fell open. She pressed the front of her thighs against the car for support, so she wouldn’t fall off the earth’s crust. Oh, god-damn, she couldn’t help it. What was he doing here? She would recognize him anywhere, in any context.

  She watched him hand off his end of the wooden beam to another man. Then with one motion, he ripped off his T-shirt and tossed it to the grass, the muscles in his back rolling and twisting as he moved. It was a dance. It was a dance of male power and sexuality, and it made Cherise’s mouth go painfully dry.

  She swallowed hard as she watched him stroll to the water’s edge, still in his work boots and a threadbare pair of jeans that showed off his ass to perfection. He jumped into the water. A second later he emerged with a big splash, twisting in midair, shaking his dark hair wildly and sweeping his hands over his face to shove the water from his eyes.

  Cherise’s boot heel slipped in the gravel. She felt the blood rush, hot and violent, to that sweet spot between her legs.

  This was so wrong. She shouldn’t be staring at J.J. like this. But how could she not? He was all wet and half naked, his muscular arms rising above his head to catch a piling being lowered into the water. The wooden beam must have weighed a ton because his biceps and triceps strained and bulged. His neck corded with effort and his chest—his bare, dripping-wet chest—rippled with the exertion.

  Cherise let go of the rope she’d been clutching. She barely noticed the slow-motion slide of the box spring and mattress along the trunk and into the gravel.

  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

  Her knees shouldn’t be shaking. Her panties shouldn’t be wet. J.J. was a liar. He was cruel and rude and surly and …

  Gorgeous.

  Damn. J.J. was gorgeous.

  And at just that instant, his lake-blue eyes flashed Cherise’s way. An instant of surprise showed on his face, just as the beam’s full weight settled in his hands. He looked away and frowned, concentrating as he lowered the wood into the water, his muscles undulating with the effort.

  Gladys whistled low and soft. “Asheville, my wrinkly old ass,” she muttered.

  Chapter 11

  “Thank you for everything, Tater Wayne.” Cherise stepped away with satisfaction, relieved to see that the mattress and box spring fit perfectly inside the old iron frame in the front bedroom. It was the room her parents once shared, the one with an unobstructed view of the lake.

  “Happy to help, but I really think it’s a bad idea to stay out here tonight. The house ain’t ready. Viv said—”

  “I’m ready. I have everything I need.” She gestured to the boxes, suitcases, and plastic trash bags on the bedroom floor, stuffed with her clothes, linens, and kitchen things. Cherise patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Tater.”

  He scowled, which sent his left eyeball into a spasm. “There ain’t even any lights in here, except over the kitchen sink!” Tater threw his hands up in exasperation. “You know you can’t use the tub until the grout sets. There’s hardly a stick of furniture in this place, and I barely brought over enough firewood for one night!”

  “It’ll be fine, Tater.”

  “But Viv told me to make sure y’all went back to her place tonight. She said—”

  “Doesn’t matter what she said.” Cherise motioned for Tater to exit the bedroom ahead of her, then shut the door behind them. It gave her great comfort to know there was one room, one little corner in Bigler, that was all hers.

  “She’s gonna tan my hide.”

  Cherise chuckled, walking behind Tater down the hallway. “You’re a grown man. Just tell her to fuck off.”

  Tater spun around, his dirty blond hair whipping across his forehead, his eyebrows raised in shock. “You ever tell Vivienne Newberry to fuck off?”

  Cherise had to acknowledge that she had not. “But I’m this close,” she said, holding up her thumb and index finger. That made him laugh.

  The two of them strolled into the living room, still laughing, when Cherise caught sight of J.J. out in the front yard, close to the water’s edge. He had his back to her and he was still half naked. His jeans were soaked through, clinging to his lower half like a wet suit. Had his ass always been this tight? Had his thighs always been this cut? As she pondered these important questions, the sexual need sliced through her once more, hot and sharp. She gasped.

  “Y’all all right?”

  She whipped her head around to Tater. “Fine.”

  He offered her a tentative smile. “It’s nice that J.J. pitched in. I didn’t ask him. Viv and Garland said they didn’t ask him, either—said it must have been his idea.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and tried her hardest to appear disinterested. “It’s a free country.”

  Tater shook his head. He ran the toe of his work boot through a patch of sawdust that had drifted in from the new porch. “J.J.’s a good man, Cheri,” he said, looking up. “Seems not many people know how to be decent anymore, but he does. Y’all ought to try to be nice to each other again.”

  Cherise’s mouth fell open in surprise. Decent? J.J. DeCourcy? Cherise decided to change the subject. “So how late y’all staying today, Tater?”

  He sighed. “Not much longer. The sun’s getting ready to set. Most of us will be back tomorrow and we should finish up before supper, but we ain’t gonna get to cleaning the inside.”

  She patted Tater on the shoulder. “I’ll take care of that.”

  He frowned. “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” she said, guiding him out onto the porch. “At least you got all the old moldy stuff out. In a way, I look forward to cleaning the place.”

  “Don’t that beat all,” he said. “I figured you for the type that has a maid.”

  Cherise laughed. “Oh, I used to, let me tell you. Those were the days.” When she glanced up at Tater’s confused expression, she was horrified by her own carelessness. She kept forgetting to remember that she was wealthy! “What I mean is I miss the housekeeping service I retain back in Tampa.”

  “We got ’em here, too, you know. I’ll just make a phone call—”

  “That’s okay. Anyway…” Cherise scanned the front yard for something else to talk about—anything else to talk about. She found it immediately. Gladys was making a beeline toward the slicked-down J.J., a hungry look in her heavily made-up eyes.

  “I better get Gladys back to town before she makes a spectacle of herself,” she said, heading down the steps. “See you tomorrow
, Tater.”

  “That you will.”

  Cherise made it as far as the gravel driveway that curved around the house when she stopped. J.J. had just lifted Gladys playfully off the grass. Gladys squealed and beat on his shoulders like she couldn’t stand the idea of being tossed around by a half-dressed man less than half her age. J.J. eventually put her down, laughing.

  Cherise froze. Her face went hot. Her knees shook. Her chest felt like it was weighted down with a huge boulder of sadness. And just like that, she was on the edge of tears. Something about the sight of J.J. dripping wet and laughing, standing in the grass by the lake, the sun setting behind him … and her heart had begun to split open. Memories began to pour out.

  The days she’d spent with J.J. before college were happy ones. She had no way of knowing it at the time, but she’d never experience happiness like that again. Not in a way that was so simple. Real. With so much laughter. Gentleness. Patience. Water, sunshine, kisses …

  Her heart nearly exploded with joy that day he showed up on her doorstep in Tampa, the same old J.J., smiling, handsome, making her laugh, telling her he’d missed her like hell and refused to go another day without seeing her.

  Maybe it had been so good with J.J. because she’d been loved and had loved in return—effortlessly.

  Cherise heard herself gasp. She prayed no one else did. She turned on her heel and jogged to the DeVille, climbing behind the wheel. She started the engine, moved the car so it faced the main road, and waited for Gladys to get the hint that it was time to go.

  With an eye on the rearview mirror, Cherise told herself she was crazy. She had to be PMS-ing. There was no other explanation.

  Tears? Seriously? Tears for what? For whom?

  Tears for a fantasy, that’s what. The J.J. she’d held in her most private heart for all those years wasn’t real. The real J.J. was the man who’d impregnated and then abandoned Tanyalee. The real J.J. couldn’t decide whether to kiss Cherise or slice her to ribbons with his sharp words.

  She needed to remember that.

  Gladys threw open the passenger side door and slid onto the white leather bucket seat, giggling like a middle schooler. Cherise drove back to town so fast that Gladys’s earrings swung against her cheeks and she clung to the overhead strap with a white-knuckled desperation.

  “You’re a terrible driver, Cheri,” she said.

  Chapter 12

  Turner whipped his department-issued SUV into his designated parking space, and immediately began shaking his head and grinning at J.J.

  “What’s so funny?” J.J. asked, uncrossing his legs and pushing himself off the exterior brick wall of the Bigler Municipal Complex. “I wouldn’t have to stalk you if you’d just answer my damn phone calls.”

  Turner didn’t even bother to hide the glee that showed in his eyes as he stepped down from his vehicle. “How’s the evil plot progressing, Jay? Has she succumbed to your charms yet?”

  J.J. shook his head as he opened the glass entrance door and gestured for Turner to go ahead of him. “I’m here on official business.”

  “Uh-huh.” Turner yanked off his ball cap and rubbed his close-cropped hair. J.J. followed him as he wound his way past the one-man 911 call center, the empty animal control office, and his secretary’s desk. Like most people with normal jobs, she’d gone home hours ago. “Have a seat,” Turner said. He shut his office door behind them. “Coffee?”

  “Nah, thanks.”

  “Good, ’cause I don’t think there’s any made around here.” Turner gave him a lopsided grin, but despite the cheerful demeanor, J.J. could tell his friend was bordering on exhaustion.

  “The FBI still staying at the Tip-Top Motel?”

  “Yeah, and bitching and moaning about it every minute of the day.” Turner leaned back in his chair and cupped his hands behind his head. J.J. could see dark circles under his eyes. “I told ’em if they wanted five-star accommodations they shoulda stayed in Raleigh-Durham.”

  “What’s the latest?”

  Turner shrugged. “This ain’t like the TV shows, Jay. You don’t just drop off a slice of forty-year-old waterlogged flesh and get all the answers before the commercial break. The FBI crime lab has its priorities, and this ice-cold case ain’t one of them, sad to say.”

  J.J. nodded. “So nothing new?”

  Turner smiled. “Not since the last time you asked, which was three hours ago.”

  J.J. let out a groan of frustration. Even to his own ears it sounded overly dramatic.

  Turner raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”

  “Carlotta Smoot McCoy won’t talk to us. She’s thrown Mimi off her property twice and told me to go to hell today for about the tenth time. She says the newspaper abandoned her family a few days after her sister went missing, when it stopped putting Barbara Jean’s disappearance on the front page. She claims it’s the Bugle’s fault that justice was never done.”

  Turner nodded. “Carlotta’s not much interested in talking to us, either. She blames the sheriff’s department as much as the Bugle, ranting about how old Sheriff Wimbley had Barbara Jean’s blood on his hands.”

  “Jesus,” J.J. said.

  “Outside my mama’s family, she’s the only person I’ve run across who doesn’t suspect poor Carleton. She told me, ‘That poor man went to heaven with a pure heart.’”

  “What kind of learning disability did you say he had?” J.J. asked.

  “I didn’t say.” Turner straightened in his chair and ran his hands quickly over his face, trying to keep himself awake, no doubt. “Mama thinks it was some kind of attention deficit problem with some dyslexia thrown in—shit they didn’t know about back then. He only made it to the eighth grade. She said he was a sweet man, and a hard worker.”

  “Now that’s an odd thing,” J.J. said, leaning an elbow on Turner’s desk. “I noticed there isn’t a single article where anyone comes right out and names Carleton as a suspect, although Sheriff Wimbley gets pretty close. He’s always referred to as a ‘witness.’ And I haven’t been able to find any record of a charging document being filed against him, unless you know something I don’t.”

  “Nope.”

  “So there’s nothing in the department archives you’re not sharing with me?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “So Carleton was a witness, nothing more. So why do you keep saying that everyone in town just assumed he was the murderer?”

  Turner chuckled. “In North Carolina in 1964, the word ‘witness’—when applied to someone of the slow-witted, black, and male persuasion—was spelled s-u-s-p-e-c-t.”

  J.J. frowned.

  “Besides,” Turner continued. “People want closure. It’s just human nature. It was easier to blame it on a feebleminded black man from out of town than worry that the killer could be one of your nice, white, next-door neighbors.”

  There was an edge to Turner’s words tonight. “I see,” J.J. said. “So the FBI doesn’t want you saying anything, is that it?”

  Turner made a face, but stayed silent.

  “So was there?”

  “Was there what?”

  “A nice, white, next-door neighbor killer on the loose?”

  Turner shrugged. “I got nothing for you, Jay. Sorry.”

  “All right.” Figured as much. “I finally got a copy of Carleton Johnston’s autopsy report today. The Mecklenberg County coroner said he died of some kind of seizure that caused him to fall and crack his skull.”

  “Yep. That’s what the report says.”

  “But?”

  Turner shrugged. “Mama insists that Carleton didn’t have seizures. Her family’s always maintained someone whacked him over the head to keep him quiet, plain and simple.”

  “Then why in God’s name hasn’t your family had his body exhumed to get some answers?

  Turner shook his head. “Jay, what do you think I’ve been trying to tell them for the last fifteen years? But Mama and her sister are the only family left who remember Carleton, and they�
��ve flat-out refused. They think it would be dishonoring the dead. They don’t see things the way we do.”

  “So Carleton’s killer gets away with murder? And Barbara Jean’s, too?”

  Turner averted his eyes and began shuffling some papers. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Tell me,” J.J. said. “Maybe I can help put the pieces together.”

  Turner stood abruptly and put his ball cap back on.

  “I’ve got to get home and get some rest. But I’ll have something for you next week. Something worth waiting for. I promise.”

  “You mean news?” J.J. laughed. “An actual piece of news I can attribute to Cataloochee County Sheriff Turner Halliday and publish in the newspaper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shee-it!” J.J. hopped up from his chair. “I hope I remember what to do with it!”

  Turner grinned at him. “You talking about a piece of news or a piece of CNN?”

  Since J.J. had just transferred his weight to his feet, he froze with his knees bent and his back stooped. He stayed locked in that awkward position for a few seconds.

  “You’re right,” J.J. said eventually, standing upright. “You need some sleep.”

  Turner put his hand on J.J.’s shoulder as they walked down the hallway and out the back door of the sheriff’s station, chuckling the whole way. “Just go talk to the woman, Jay. Tell her what really happened with Tanyalee. God only knows the kind of poison that viper has been spitting out to Cheri over the years. It’s probably even worse than the shit she’s told Viv and Garland.”

  “Garland doesn’t believe a word of it.”

  “Well, that’s because he was one of Tanyalee’s victims. Plus, he’s worked with you every day for the last six years and knows the kind of man you are. Cheri, however, doesn’t have the benefit of that. She hasn’t said a peep to you since your wedding day.”

  J.J. shivered at the sound of those two words. Wedding day. D-day was more like it.

  “Seriously.” Turner grabbed J.J. by the shoulders and turned him so they stood eye to eye. His friend had a no-nonsense look on his face. “Cheri’s in Bigler, man. It’s real. She’s back home. But that’s only half the battle—she needs to know what really went on with you and Tanyalee.”