Cheri on Top

by Susan Donovan

  And a sister, so close, and yet lost to her.

  “Now, if that don’t beat all?” Viv mumbled into Cheri’s chest. “Why are you cryin’, sugar?”

  Cheri couldn’t speak.

  “Garland? Why’s she crying?”

  “I was near tears myself listening to you carry on about barbecues and potato salad and whatnot.”

  Cheri laughed. “No, that’s not it. The party is a fine idea. Really.” She released her grip on Viv but kept an arm loosely wrapped around her. “I’m crying because y’all brought me muffins this morning. And while I’m at it, I want to say thank you, both of you, for taking such good care of me and Tanyalee when Mama and Daddy died. It couldn’t have been easy—I know I wasn’t a pleasant child. I hope it’s not too late to tell you how much I appreciate what you did.”

  Cheri smiled down at Aunt Viv’s stunned expression.

  Garland laughed. “I do believe that’s the first time I ever saw Vivienne Newberry at a loss for words.”

  Viv began to cry, too. She smacked Cheri on the arm. “Now look what you’ve gone and done.” She wiggled free and sniffled as she went back to to her unloading. “I better get these in the freezer before they start to thaw.”

  Granddaddy chuckled. “The fridge is unplugged in the middle of the livin’ room, Vivienne, and its interior is about as frozen over as a bonfire in August.”

  Cheri began to snicker. Then Aunt Viv’s shoulders jiggled, and Granddaddy’s booming laughter nearly shook the walls.

  In the rich harmony of all that laughter, Cheri couldn’t help sense the one missing note—even if it had always been a little off-key.

  Tanyalee.

  * * *

  She pressed against the old brass handle and the door to Wimbley Real Esatate opened with a tinkling bell.

  The reception area was unusually metropolitan for Bigler, with its dove-gray leather and chrome furnishings, modern art, and animal-print accessories. Even if Tanyalee herself hadn’t been seated at the reception desk—a point of golden light against a muted palette—the space would have had her name all over it.

  Tanyalee hid her surprise with a stiff smile. “Come to see one of the lofts?”

  “No, actually. I came to see you. Do you have time to talk, maybe go for a walk or something?”

  Tanyalee laughed. “Us regular Joes punch a clock. I just got here, and Saturday morning is our busiest time of the week, so I certainly can’t just up and leave to take a stroll.”

  “Okay, then.” Cheri stepped inside and took a seat on one of the couches. She hardly wanted to hover over Tanyalee’s desk—this conversation would be confrontational enough on even footing. “Then we can talk here.”

  “About what?”

  Cheri took a deep breath. “About you and me. About our family—Viv and Garland and Mama and Daddy. About your marriage to J.J.”

  “Oh, Lord-ee, Cheri! You truly are a piece of work, aren’t you?” When Tanyalee tipped her head back and laughed, Cheri couldn’t help but notice the resemblance between her sister and their late mother. Now that Tanyalee was just a few years younger than Mama at the time of her death, the resemblance was impossible to ignore. Her sister had every bit of Mama’s delicate beauty, but not a lick of her gentle nature.

  “I just want to talk, Tanyalee.”

  “No. No you don’t.” She spun around in her desk chair to face Cheri full-on. “What y’all want is to march into Bigler and get all Dr. Phil on my ass, and I’ll tell you right now, I’m not having it.” Tanyalee crossed her arms over her chest and lowered her chin, suddenly resembling the petulant five-year-old Cheri had had so much trouble getting along with. All shades of Melanie Newberry had disappeared.

  “I had nothing to do with your divorce or miscarriage, Tanyalee.”

  She blinked her pretty blue eyes. “Really, now.”

  “Really,” Cheri said, tossing her purse to the couch. “As you know, I never called J.J. while you were married. There was no secret plot to betray you. Nothing to cause you to miscarry. So tell me what happened to the baby, and why you lied to me about J.J.’s part in the divorce.”

  Her sister’s mouth unhinged, her eyes bugged out, and she slammed her fist on the desktop. “Who the hell do you think you are, Cheri? Y’all got a truckload of nerve coming in here and making crazy accusations about something you know nothing about! My God! I don’t know if you noticed, but we’ve all survived just fine here without you and your college degrees and your money and your big house and your high-and-mighty wisdom!”

  Cheri kept her voice soft and her anger under wraps. “I’m here to ask you—my only sister—to have an honest conversation with me. Good God in heaven, Tanyalee, we are grown women! We aren’t fighting over an Island Fun Barbie here—this is real life, and we need to sort some shit out between us! We should have done it a long, long time ago.” Cheri took a deep breath. “Now, why did you tell me I caused you to miscarry? Why did you tell me it was my fault that your marriage didn’t work?”

  Tanyalee sat frozen for a moment. Cheri watched the tendons in her slender neck tighten.

  “You’ve been talking to J.J.” Tanyalee’s mouth had gone hard and her eyes blank. “You’ve already slept with him. I’m sure he’s told you things that make me sound like some kind of bitch. Well, it’s all lies.”

  Cheri shook her head. “I did not sleep with him. I was tempted, but I knew it wouldn’t be right until I’d cleared the air with you.”

  One corner of Tanyalee’s mouth curled up. “But I saw you.”

  “Yeah, I know you saw us—because you drove out to the lake without an invitation. J.J. was just leaving.”

  She snorted. “Oh, now I need an invitation? To my own family’s land? The lake house is Newberry property, you stuck-up little bitch! And I may not be Queen of the May slash publisher of the Bigtime Bungle, but the last time I looked, I was still a fuckin’ Newberry.”

  “After your last felony conviction, Granddaddy put the lake house in my name only.”

  “Who the fuck cares? Once I’m married to Wim, I’ll be richer than even you.”

  Cheri swallowed hard. Tanyalee had mentioned it twice now. Apparently she was as blissfully ignorant of her financial situation as anyone in Bigler. “I’m happy for you,” Cheri told her.

  Tanyalee leaned forward on the desk and snarled. “What did J.J. tell you?”

  “Not much. He said whatever happened in your marriage was private, and if I had questions, I’d need to ask you.”

  Tanyalee sniggered. “That sounds like him. He’s such a pompous, holier-than-thou dick-face. Oh, but just you wait, dear sister—the day’s gonna come when Mr. Perfect’s gonna show his stripes to you, and God have mercy on you when he does.”

  “What happened to the baby?”

  “I lost the damn baby.”

  “How?”

  “The usual way—I had a damn miscarriage.”

  “Why did J.J. leave you?”

  “Because he’s a phony and a liar, and when there was no baby, he figured there was no reason to be married to my ass.”

  “No other reason?’

  She laughed bitterly. “That’s not enough for you?”

  Cheri stood up. “Did you get pregnant on purpose to trap J.J.?”

  Tanyalee stood up, too. Both her fists were clenched against the front of her nubby knit skirt. Cheri watched the silver necklace tremble against her silk blouse.

  “I hate you,” Tanyalee whispered. “I’ve always hated you.”

  “I know you have. Why is that?”

  “Because you’ve always thought you were so much better than me—smarter, classier, richer, prettier—and because you were so damn mean to me when we were kids! You were so nasty that Mama and Daddy had to leave town to get away from you! And they died doing it! They died trying to get away from you, Cheri! That’s why I hate your skinny little stuck-up princess ass.”

  Those words felt like a knife being forced down her throat and into her chest. But Che
ri had asked for the truth, and she’d gotten what she’d asked for, what she’d long suspected. And it all made perfect sense.

  “So you trapped J.J. into marrying you to get back at me, is that it? You saw it as the ultimate revenge?” Cheri glared at her. “Answer me one thing—did you know J.J. went to Florida to tell me he’d always loved me?”

  One corner of Tanyalee’s mouth curled up. “Sure I did.”

  “And you chose that time to tell him about the baby?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. I get it now.” Cheri sucked in a deep breath. “You trapped J.J. You set up that phone call for maximum damage to me. Then you made sure I saw J.J. as an asshole of the first order so that I’d never speak to him again as long as I lived. All that, plus you were making sure Viv and Garland thought I was an ungrateful, stuck-up bitch. My, what a busy girl you’ve been, Tanyalee Marie!”

  “I wish you were dead,” she whispered. “I wish—” The door to the back office opened and Wim stuck his perfectly coiffed male head into the reception area. “Ah! I thought I heard sisterly voices!”

  “Hey, Wim,” Cheri said.

  “Hey yourself, Cheri. Come to see one of the lofts? I can probably do a month-to-month for you.”

  “Uh, no, thanks. Not today.” Cheri shot a look at her sister—red-faced, shaking, eyes alive with hate.

  “She was just leaving,” Tanyalee said, turning to Wim with a smile and a flip of her eyelashes.

  “Just one more thing, if you don’t mind.” Cheri reached for her bag and flung it on to her shoulder. “I’m hosting a party for Granddaddy’s eightieth birthday in a couple weeks at the lake house. Viv will be sending y’all an invitation.”

  “How perfectly lovely,” Tanyalee said, her words sticky-sweet and her eyes dagger-sharp. “Thanks so much for stopping by. Y’all have a good day.”

  Chapter 19

  “Brought you some flowers.”

  Purnell watched Wim set the cheap arrangement on the hospital room windowsill. Pathetically enough, it was one of only three he’d received in the days he’d been hooked up to a tangle of tubes and wires and informed that he was not long for this world.

  The most extravagant flower arrangement was from Garland and the staff of the Bugle.

  The scrawniest was some kind of fern sent by his three kids, ten grandchildren, and twenty-two great-grandchildren. Being that he had little else to occupy his thoughts, Purnell had figured out that the arrangement likely cost each descendant a whopping eleven cents. No wonder no one had come to visit him—who could scrounge up gas money after that kind of large-scale family sacrifice?

  “What the fuck do you want?” Purnell snapped.

  Wimbley broke out in a fake smile. “Can’t an old friend pay his respects? Out of the goodness of his heart?”

  Purnell groaned. He didn’t have the energy to point out that Wim didn’t qualify on either count.

  “Honestly, I came to do a little brainstorming with you. You’re going to help me formulate a plan.”

  Purnell had no time for this dipshit. “Your threats mean nothing to me, son. I’m going to be dead soon, so go ahead, knock yourself out—tell the world I killed Barbara Jean Smoot. You can even make up some details if you want, seeing as I can’t remember half of what happened that night.”

  Wim shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his shiny shoes. “I didn’t come here to threaten you, Lawson, I came to offer you redemption for your sins. Isn’t that what the dying want?”

  “Get out of my hospital room, you prick.”

  Wimbley laughed. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I sent a threatening letter to the Bugle that they’ll never trace back to me, because I’m brilliant. And now you’re gonna help me come up with something to blackmail Garland Newberry with—something that will stop him from snooping around out at Paw Paw Lake.”

  Purnell shook his head in disgust—Winston’s boy might be handsome, but he was stupid enough to try to alphabetize a bag of M&M’s. “Again with blackmail, young Wim? Not looking to branch out? Have you considered counterfeiting? Forgery? Your lovely fiancée could help you with that.”

  “Funny. You got any better ideas?”

  He turned his face away and stared out the window. The first thing that caught his eye was the red brick of the Bugle building in relief against the green-blue hills of his little mountain town. He didn’t know what to expect in death, but surely hell wouldn’t include a view of the Smokies. That would be reserved for the decent folk who made it to heaven, the ones who didn’t have so much blood on their hands.

  He shuddered. The truth was his most hideous offense was a bloodless crime, perfectly clean, premeditated in the most literal sense. Poor Loyal and Melanie, drawing their dying breaths as Purnell drove through the night, all the way from the seashore to his home in the blue mountains. That car ride seemed to last an eternity, nothing but his self-loathing to keep him company as the hours stretched on.

  Just like it had been with Barbara Jean, he’d made it home before dawn to shower out the smell of his crime from his skin and hair. With Barbara Jean, of course, it had been the smell of pussy and blood. With Loyal and Melanie, it had been the smell of gas.

  He was squeaky clean when he stood in the middle of the newsroom later that day, his sobbing coworkers gathered near to hear the tragic news—their new publisher and his wife were dead. And Purnell was steady as a rock in Vivienne’s parlor later that evening, helping Garland, Viv, and the Newberry girls deal with their shock and grief.

  Clean. Steady.

  Viciously heartless.

  And just like that, it happened again, the way it had been happening since the day Barbara Jean’s body had been pulled from the mud. Images flashed through his brain like lightning strikes, bright, shocking, then gone. He didn’t know what the hell they were. Memories? Imagination? Fear? His brain going haywire from the liver disease?

  But these—the ones he just now experienced—these were new.

  Winston Wimbley yanking Purnell’s shirt collar and dragging him from Barbara Jean’s car.

  Wimbley’s police baton connecting with Purnell’s cheek.

  Blood flying past a shiny sheriff’s badge before it splattered on the dark road under Purnell’s feet.

  He thought he might vomit.

  “Well?” The young Wimbley sounded impatient. “Tick, tick, old man. Help me figure a way out of this mess.”

  Purnell turned to face him. “Your father was the biggest son of a bitch I ever knew.”

  Wim laughed. “Now that’s a news flash worthy of the front page of the Bugle. I asked you a question, old man. I need you to give me something I can hold over Garland’s head.”

  Purnell closed his eyes for a moment. How had he gotten himself in this mess? How had he allowed his life to be controlled by not one, but two Wimbleys?

  “Garland ain’t even publisher anymore, you ass. Cheri Newberry is, remember? She’s the one making decisions over there now, along with J.J., of course, so if I were you, that’s who I’d be trying to get to do my bidding.”

  He watched Wimbley squint and bob his head up and down, as if the act of thinking might be a new experience for him. Eventually, the boy stopped nodding and started smiling. “Now, that sounds like something I might actually enjoy, Lawson, and it’s definitely something my lovely fiancée and I could do together for fun and relaxation! You’re a fucking genius!”

  Right then, Purnell made a decision. He’d keep his gaze focused on the mountains for the remainder of this painful hospital room visit. Nothing else. That way, when he died, the timeless beauty of the Smokies would be the last image to burn itself in his mind, not the moronic look in Wim Wimbley’s eyes.

  He wondered what was the last thing Loyal and Melanie Newberry saw. Probably each other. The autopsy report said they died in their sleep, tangled up together like teenagers as the gas slowly poisoned them. Without a doubt, their blood was on him. He remembered what he did to those poor kids. He
remembered every last second of it.

  But what about Barbara Jean? What was the last image she saw? Purnell’s angry eyes? His sloppy-drunk smile? Was it the back of his hand? Oh, everybody knew he could be a mean drunk back in those days, but why—why?—couldn’t he remember the act of killing her?

  Unless, of course, he hadn’t.

  But that would mean he was nothing but a pawn, a spineless man who’d handed over his life without the slightest fight. And the pain of that was too much to bear.

  Purnell’s body jolted. This time, the flash wasn’t a picture. It was words … horrible words … real … and they struck him so clearly he clamped his hands to his ears to block the sound.

  “Get out of the damn car, Lawson. Time to share.”

  When Purnell’s hands fell away, Wim was still droning on.

  “I think Cheri’s full of shit, myself. She came by the office this morning, and I kept looking at her thinking that nobody I know in Florida real estate made it out alive, and she’s going around telling everyone she’s still living the high life down in Tampa?”

  Purnell kept his eyes on the mountains.

  “And I thought to myself, shee-it, it’d take me about five minutes to get the goods on that bitch.”

  “Sounds like you got yourself a plan, son,” Purnell said, concentrating on the last mountain spring he would ever see. It fascinated him that beauty remained, even in the middle of all the weakness and the killing and the lies. “Time’s a-wastin.”

  * * *

  Cheri handed Tater Wayne the leftover pizza and a few extra cold beers, then waved to Mimi Grayson as she pulled away from the lake house. “Thanks again for your help, Mimi!” she called out.

  Tater Wayne turned to go, but he stopped on the first porch step, giving her a shy smile.

  “You’re a good friend to me, Tater,” Cheri said. “I appreciate every last thing you’ve done since I came home.”

  Tater shook his head, his hair sliding over his ricocheting eye. “You know Garland’s paying me, right? I mean … that’s not the only reason…”