Sweet and Deadly aka Dead Dog

by Charlaine Harris

  But it was anger released. It felt good.

  She opened her eyes to meet Randall’s. He looked thoughtful.

  “Go to bed,” he advised gently, and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  She could hear him let himself out as she went obediently to the soft waiting bed. She didn’t wonder at his sliding into the position of man to her woman, instead of employer to employee. She accepted the transition without question. As she turned over on her stomach and wrapped her arms around the pillow, she was able to forget her parents, forget Leona Gaites, for the moment before sleep swamped her.

  5

  CATHERINE SLEPT DREAMLESSLY until morning.

  She woke slowly; saw early morning light seeping through the curtains, heard birds twittering faintly outside.

  She felt weak but at peace, the way an invalid feels after a long and debilitating illness has passed its crisis. She turned on her side to peer out the gap in the curtains, and when she had absorbed what she could see of the morning, her gaze transferred to the curtains themselves.

  They were an olive green to match the bedspread. It dawned on Catherine that she didn’t like them, had never liked them. In fact, she hated olive green.

  She would pick out new curtains, drive to Memphis and debate her choice with a saleswoman at an expensive shop.

  I’ll buy something light and striped and open-weave. I’ll do it this weekend, she resolved. She swung out of bed and went to the louver-doored closet lining one wall of the bedroom. Her supply of clothes, most dating from her college days, barely filled one side of the vast closet.

  And I’ll buy new clothes, too, she thought. Shoes. She eyed her bedroom slippers with disgust. How could she have kept those for so long?

  She went down the dim hall to the kitchen, looking forward to her breakfast. It wasn’t until she saw the coffee pot, still dirty from the previous morning, that she remembered.

  She sat abruptly on one of the bamboo chairs grouped around the breakfast table. She saw a hand lying in a pool of sunlight. Taking several deep breaths, she focused on the pattern of her robe until the worse had passed. With an immense and grim effort Catherine washed the coffee pot, filled it, and plugged it in. From the pile of library books in the living room, she picked an innocuous biography of an Edwardian lady and sat at the glass-and-bamboo table reading the first paragraphs very carefully until the coffee had perked. After she had poured her first cup, she returned to the book.

  She staved off the image of Leona’s hand until she had finished three cups of coffee, two pieces of toast, and fifty pages of the lady’s opulent childhood.

  Then she moved to her favorite chair at the bay window and set herself to think.

  If Leona’s death was connected with the murder of her parents, what could the connection be? Leona and her mother had never been friends. So Leona and her father, nurse and doctor, must have seen, or found out…something to be killed for.

  If that was so, if the two had died because they knew the same thing, had seen the same thing (whatever), why the gap in time between the murders? Catherine asked herself. Could Leona have been so difficult to kill that six months had lapsed before the murderer had had another chance?

  She shifted restlessly. Hers was not the kind of intelligence that asserted itself in orderly trains of reasoning but the kind that mulled in secret and then presented her, so to speak, with a conclusion.

  Instead of undertaking the calm application of logic she had set herself to perform, she found herself dwelling with resentment on the suspicion in James Galton’s face when he told her that the dead woman was Leona Gaites. When Catherine’s restlessness goaded her into the bedroom to begin dressing, she was still gnawing at the shock that suspicion had made her feel.

  While she was brushing her teeth, Catherine decided she was arrogant.

  Why should he not suspect her? In all the mystery novels she had read, the finder-of-the-body was suspect.

  I never realized how much pride I take in being who I am, she thought. I expect my lineage to speak for me; I think “Scott Linton” means “above reproach.” The “Catherine”-that’s the important part. That’s just me.

  She looked in the mirror over the sink and surveyed the toothpaste surrounding her mouth in a white froth.

  “Gorgeous,” she muttered. “Like a mad dog.”

  The word mad triggered another train of thought. Perhaps Sheriff Galton thought she was seriously crazy? Not just neurotic, but psychotic?

  The anger she felt at the possibility was another confirmation, to Catherine’s mind, of her own arrogance. She rinsed out her mouth with unnecessary force.

  Of course, she brooded, she had reacted drastically to her parents’ deaths. Who wouldn’t? Especially when that loss was simultaneously double, untimely, and violent. A period of grief; natural, expected.

  But people had begun to wonder-she had seen it in their faces, in their careful selection of topics-when the way she lived, holed up in her family home, became permanent. No invitations in, no invitations out. And by the time she realized how she had isolated herself, she had gotten used to it.

  I’ve been working on it, she thought defensively.

  The terrible jolts of the day before had shown her how far she had come and how far she had to go.

  Like an arrogant fool, I didn’t think anyone else would ever hold it to my discredit, she told her reflection silently (she was by now putting on her makeup).

  Catherine glared at the mirror and made a horrendous crazy face at herself.

  But Randall likes me, she reminded herself.

  She picked delicately at the edges of that undeniable fact, half frightened. She mulled over the unexpected feeling that had passed between them.

  Then she scolded herself, You’re mooning like a fifteen-year-old. And she smoothed her face out and gave the mirror her best, her Number One, smile. It had been a long time since she had used it; it made her cheeks ache.

  Instead of donning a long-ago boyfriend’s football jersey, which lay at the top of the pile, she rooted deep in a drawer and pulled out something that fit quite a bit better.

  The bells of the Baptist church were pealing for the eleven-o’clock service as she put in her earrings.

  The church bell chimed in with the doorbell. Catherine opened the front door uncertainly, half doubtful she had heard it.

  She had tentatively hoped it would be Randall. It was a dash of cold water in the face to see Sheriff Galton.

  Oh, go away, she told him silently. I had gotten all settled, and here I am mad again.

  “I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday, Catherine, but I’ve thought of a few more questions I want to ask you.”

  Galton looked as immovable as a transport truck.

  Suddenly Catherine was no longer angry. She felt flat and depressed. She saw in James Galton the grinning man who had swept her to the ceiling in a deliciously frightening game, when he and his wife came to visit Glenn and Rachel Linton.

  There was nothing fun about being frightened now. There was nothing fun about being the sheriff, either. James Galton’s face had been sanded down with exhaustion.

  “Please come in,” she said quietly, standing aside.

  He sank down onto the couch with a barely audible sigh of relief. Catherine took the chair Tom had occupied the afternoon before.

  For a minute or two they were silent. Galton was lost in some dark alley of thought. Catherine watched him, lit a cigarette, tried to relax. The feeling of being fifteen and in first crush had utterly died away, leaving her hardened, old, and alone. She resolved to behave like a normal, sane, balanced woman-a resolution that immediately made her nervous and fidgety.

  “Well, I’ll keep this as short as I can,” the sheriff began. “I know you probably want to be by yourself”-and Catherine winced as her idea of her image in Lowfield was confirmed-“but you know, Catherine, I don’t enjoy this.”

  She felt remorseful, receptive, and wary, all at o
nce.

  “Now, when you were driving to the shack yesterday, did you see anyone you know, anyone at all?”

  Catherine reflected obediently.

  “No. Well, yes I did,” she said, surprised. A blue pickup had been coming toward Lowfield as she was going to the shack. She remembered a friendly wave through a bug-spattered windshield.

  “I saw Martin Barnes,” she said without thinking, still amazed that she had forgotten, especially since the sheriff had asked her who rented the land. Was she getting Martin Barnes in trouble? He was a pleasant, not-too-bright man with a married daughter, Sally, who was Catherine’s age.

  Well, Mr. Barnes is old enough to watch out for himself, Catherine decided with a new tartness.

  “What was he driving?” Galton asked.

  “His blue pickup. I don’t know makes and models. But it was him; he waved at me.”

  “Where do you reckon you were when you saw him?”

  Catherine thought back. Her morning before she had entered the shack was blurry to her now.

  “He was fixing to turn onto the highway, just as I was turning off,” she said. “You know, there are a couple of houses there. One that Jewel Crenna rents. The other one’s empty now.”

  “The turn-off to the shack,” Galton observed mildly.

  “Yes,” said Catherine and took a deep breath. Despite her every-man-for-himself resolution, she was still dressing things up. She didn’t want to point any fingers.

  Galton said intuitively, “Catherine, someone did this. Maybe someone you know.”

  “And maybe it was you,” whispered the silence that fell after he spoke.

  “How long since you saw Leona?” he asked abruptly.

  “Tom and Randall asked me that yesterday,” she said nervously. “I honestly don’t remember.”

  Do drag in the word “honestly,” she congratulated herself savagely. By all means.

  “If you mean saw her around town,” she rattled on, “I guess a couple of weeks ago in the drugstore. If you mean saw her to speak to, it was a few months ago-about three months-when Tom was going to move into the house in back, Father’s old office. She called me-” Catherine stopped short.

  “She called you?” nudged Galton.

  “Yes,” Catherine said slowly. “It was really kind of strange. Miss Gaites said she had heard that someone was moving into the old office, and she knew there were some things in there that Jerry Selforth hadn’t wanted to buy. She wanted to know if I needed help moving them.”

  Catherine remembered smothering her dislike, to preserve the false face of friendliness she and Leona had always worn when they dealt with each other.

  A waste of time, Catherine thought now. And it had been funny-peculiar, her calling like that.

  Catherine really had needed help getting those filing cabinets up the collapsible folding stairs that let down from the attic in her father’s old office. And she had still been suffering from the “be nice to Leona, she has no family” syndrome. So she had accepted Leona’s help with protestations of gratitude.

  Though why someone with no family would care to haul heavy things up flimsy stairs, any more than a person with seventy relations, is more than I can figure out, she said to herself.

  “What did you talk about that day, Catherine?” asked Galton.

  “Well.” She hesitated. “The largest things that had to be moved were filing cabinets that Father kept patient files in. Some people still haven’t asked for their files, to take over to Jerry’s new office. Leona was saying how nice it was that some people were so healthy that they hadn’t needed their records for such a long time; that now that the files were going up in the attic, it would be a lot of trouble when someone finally got sick and realized she had to have her records…I think I asked Leona if she had applied to be Jerry’s nurse; and she said no, she had heard he had a friend who was getting the job, a girl who was going to commute from Memphis. That’s all I remember.”

  The sheriff ’s only response was a small movement of his huge hand. Catherine wondered if he had been listening. Then she thought clearly, He’s trying to decide how to ask me something.

  Catherine grew nervous at this hiatus and lit a cigarette. To break the silence, she asked quietly, “How did she die?”

  “She died in her house,” Galton said heavily. “She was beaten to death. With something rounded and heavy; like a baseball bat.

  Catherine went very still and bit the inside of her mouth. Anything she could say would be inadequate.

  “Catherine.”

  Her eyes were blurry with tears of shock. She blinked and Galton came into focus again. She was warned by the sharpness in his face. Something important was coming up.

  “Did you sell any of your father’s equipment to Leona?”

  If she had formed any idea of what Galton’s question would be, that was not it.

  “What? Why would Leona want anything from the office? I sold almost everything to Jerry.”

  “What didn’t you sell to Jerry?”

  “Besides those filing cabinets in the attic-” Catherine made an effort to concentrate, but she was too confused to remember. “Leona knew. She did all that, made the list for the lawyer. Father’s estate. I was too upset,” Catherine said miserably. She had always felt some guilt for shoving the task off on Leona, though Leona had certainly been more qualified to do it. “Maybe there’s still the list of stuff for the lawyer? That you could check against what Jerry has now?”

  Galton didn’t comment on her weak suggestion, or explain why he had asked her, she noticed uneasily; but the mention of estates had given her something to chew on.

  “Is there anything I ought to do? About Leona’s house? Or about having her buried? She didn’t have any kin, you know.” Catherine hated to offer, but knew she had to. It was the least and last thing she could do for Leona.

  “Her lawyer, John Daniels, will handle all that, Catherine. She left a will. It’s a few years old; and it’s kind of surprising,” Galton said smoothly. “She left everything-house, money-to your father. Now, I guess, it’ll come to you. John Daniels says for you to call him.”

  “Shit,” said Catherine. “Is that what this is all about?” She was angry now, red hot. “Come on, Sheriff! Leona didn’t have doodly-squat. I know Father paid her what he could, but that wasn’t all that much; and she hasn’t worked since he died.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Galton said calmly, “Leona had quite a bit of money. But she was kind of informal about it. She had little wads stashed all over the house. The only thing she bothered to put in her checking account was her social security check and a little income from a pension plan she belonged to through some nurses’ association.

  “And,” Galton continued, his eyes searching Catherine’s face, “someone else besides me knows that. Sometime Friday night, before you found Leona Saturday morning, someone took his time searching Leona’s house: either before or after carrying her out to that shack on your place. Your inheritance is a little depreciated. Mattress slashed, chairs ripped open. But the money, and a few other peculiar things, are still there. Strange kind of thief. Didn’t kill Leona for her money, but he looked mighty hard for something in her house after he-or she-killed her.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I don’t know; no, I don’t understand what you mean. If you think”-and her flame of anger flashed through the smoke of bewilderment-“I killed Leona for money, I hate to say this, but you’re crazier than I am. I can’t believe we’re sitting here talking about this. I’ve known you all my life. My father left me lots of money; my mother left me lots of money; there was insurance besides, and we-I-own the land. In fact, I’m a rich woman. I did not bash Leona on the head so I could come into her bits of money. I did not search her house to make her death mysterious. And if you think I”-and the sweep of her hand down her body pointed out its smallness-“could or would pick up a baseball bat or something, and beat a woman twice my size to death with it, you’re just plain damn dum
b.”

  She sank back in her chair feeling clean. Something like a flushed toilet, she told herself bluntly and inelegantly.

  Galton was eyeing her with amazement and a reluctant grin.

  “I guess you let me have it with both barrels,” he said.

  Catherine hoped he would add, “Of course I don’t think you had anything to do with Leona’s murder.”

  But he didn’t.

  “Why move the body at all?” she asked out of the blue. It was a point that had been bothering her. Moving Leona seemed an added risk. There was the chance that someone would see the murderer putting the body in his vehicle. And there was the undeniable conspicuousness of anyone at all being around and about in Lowfield in the late hours of the night. Though Friday night was comparatively busy, that didn’t mean much.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said the sheriff, sounding almost friendly. “And I reckon whoever killed Leona was just trying to delay discovery of her body for as long as possible. She had plenty of neighbors. They would’ve noticed, after a couple of days of this weather, that something was wrong. But since she kept herself apart, they might not think about not seeing her for quite some time, if the body wasn’t there to let them know.”

  “Maybe someone just couldn’t bear to see her lying there after she was dead,” Catherine said quietly, her hands running over the carved rosewood of the chair. “And moved her so he wouldn’t have to look at her while he searched. It had to be someone strong, didn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Sheriff Galton said, recrossing his legs. He shifted on the soft couch, and sighed. “It was probably a man; maybe a woman, a tall woman, from the angle of the blows.”

  She had never before been glad she was short.

  “Or two people,” added the sheriff carefully. He lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “You think to wonder what the killer was searching for, Catherine?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why, Leona was blackmailing people. She had another career going, but her main line was blackmail. We’ll burn what we found so far-after we question the people involved. Just little pieces of nasty evidence she was holding for ransom; none of it criminal material. It’s her other career that concerns us even more.”