She had caught our waiter’s eye before and made a circular motion with her index finger. As she described the plans Osborne and Bobby had made to expand into the neighboring counties, the waiter arrived with another round of drinks. I sipped mine cautiously, unsure if this was the real thing. Joyce was now on her third martini and, except for the way she relaxed a little deeper into her wicker chair, I couldn’t tell that it had any effect on her.
“How’s Sunny doing?” I asked. “She must be devastated.”
“Yes and no.”
I raised an inquiring eyebrow and Joyce gave a baffled, palms-up gesture.
“It’s weird. The way she’s practically lived in his pocket these last two or three months, you’d expect her to fall apart completely now that he’s gone.”
“And yet?” I encouraged.
Again that baffled look. “Well, on one level she has. You saw them Monday night. That duet they sang wasn’t just an act. They were crazy about each other and she’s wild with grief that he’s gone. At the same time, she goes ballistic whenever anybody tries to link his death with Carlyle’s. It’s like she thinks it somehow demeans Norman’s death, if that makes any sense.”
Her face suddenly brightened and she half stood to wave. “There’s Bobby!”
Bobby Ashe’s progress across the wide terrace was slowed by the many people who spoke to him and whose hands he paused to shake. His sandy hair and droopy sand-colored mustache reminded me of that big goofy cartoon sheepdog that was so popular when I was a kid. You had to smile just looking at him.
“Hey, purty ladies,” he said, taking my hand and leaning over to kiss Joyce at the same time. “Y’all looked awful serious when I first came in.”
“We were talking about Sunny Osborne,” I said. “How she doesn’t think her husband and Dr. Ledwig were killed by the same person.”
His good-natured smile faded and he nodded thoughtfully. “I’m wondering if she’s afraid Horton will think Norman found out who killed Carlyle and that’s why he had to die.”
“Now that makes a little more sense,” said Joyce. “If Norman has to be dead, Sunny would want it to be that he was killed for who he was, not because he happened to get mixed up in whatever reasons there were for killing Carlyle.”
“That would be Sunny all right,” Bobby said as our waiter came over to see what he wanted to drink. He was the type of man who instantly becomes the host as soon as he sits down with two women, and he made sure that Joyce and I were fine for the moment before telling the waiter to bring him a Jim Beam on the rocks. “A double, straight up.”
Then he noticed that Joyce’s glass was nearly empty and said, “Hold up a minute there, son, till I find out whose turn it is to drive home.”
Joyce smiled. “Your turn, honey.”
“Better make that a single then,” he told the waiter. “With a splash.”
“How’s it going down there?” Joyce asked.
“It’s going.” He brushed the ends of his mustache away from the edge of his mouth. “Norman’s people are still in shock, but they’re savvy folks and they’ve got it in gear.”
I couldn’t let it alone. “I don’t suppose Sunny will have anything to do with the partnership once all the paperwork’s done?”
“Lord, no,” said Bobby. “She hasn’t worked real estate since their daughter was born.”
“She said she wanted to get back in it,” said Joyce, “but that was just because she got to where she couldn’t stand not to be with Norman every minute. She was always such a take-charge person—athletic, played tennis or golf two or three times a week, sat on boards, volunteered at the hospital, and then, bang! Almost overnight, she turned into a kudzu vine. Like to’ve worried us to death, right, hon?”
“Oh, she was all right,” Bobby said. “Y’all order yet?”
“All right?” Joyce rolled her eyes. “The way she was always there, asking questions, writing everything down? You were ready to strangle her.”
“Now, Joyce, baby—”
“Well, you were, Bobby. No point in pretending you weren’t just because you feel sorry for her now.” She turned back to me. “I feel sorry for her, too, but you can’t imagine what a nuisance she was. She wouldn’t just sit and watch and listen, she kept jumping in the middle. There were a million details to take care of with this merger and Norman couldn’t concentrate for her running her mouth every minute.”
“And I say let’s stop boring Deborah and get this young fellow here to tell us about tonight’s specials.” He took a swallow of the drink the waiter had brought and leaned back in his chair. “What you got good, son?” he asked.
When our steaks came, mine was just the way I like it: charred on the outside and rare on the inside. Conversation became more general. Bobby clearly didn’t want to gossip about Sunny and Norman Osborne. Instead, he’d heard rumors about the Tuzzolino trial and wanted to know if it was true that they’d really hired somebody to steal for them.
Joyce thought it was funny. “An ex-con for your personal shopper?”
I nodded. “She said that her husband was so down over his Parkinson’s that beautiful and expensive things were the only antidepressant that worked.”
“Sounds like they got screwed by his partner,” said Bobby.
“Well, to be fair, he couldn’t afford the buyout and the insurance only covered the senior partner’s death.”
“Isn’t Parkinson’s a death sentence?”
“Eventually, maybe, but these days drugs can keep you going for years. Clearly he wasn’t going to die soon enough to take the burden off the younger guy.”
“If the practice was that good, he should’ve sucked it up and worked his tail off to keep it going,” Bobby said.
“Maybe he would’ve,” I said, “except that Mrs. Tuzzolino was trying to hold him to the partnership’s buyout agreement right away and he simply didn’t have the money.”
“Wow!” said Joyce as a personal application hit her. “God, Bobby! Think what it would’ve done to us if that’d happened to Norman.”
“That’s exactly why we both went for complete physicals, remember? The insurance people were a little worried about my cholesterol, but Norman was in perfect health.”
“Was Ledwig your doctor?” I asked.
“Carlyle?”
“Oh, no,” said Joyce. “Carlyle wasn’t an internist. His specialty was geriatrics.”
She passed me the bread basket, but when I turned back the napkin, all those hot rolls were gone. I’d already had one and knew I shouldn’t have a second, but I didn’t protest when Bobby caught our waiter’s eye and held up the basket.
I asked them what it was like growing up here in the mountains, and it sounded a lot like my daddy’s tales of his childhood—privations, yes, but a sense of rootedness. Hard work, where even children were expected to carry their share of the load, but time for music and storytelling, too.
When I asked if they knew Richard Granger or Hank Smith, Bobby began to laugh.
“Hell, yes! You hear about Dick shooting Hank’s ear off last month?”
“They were both in my courtroom today,” I said. Since Granger’s trial, like the trial of the Tuzzolinos, was now public record, I could speak freely about it.
“I hope you went easy on Dick,” Joyce said in quick sympathy. “He and his wife are having it rough since he got hurt at the chip mill. They’re too proud to take charity, but when she brought one of her mother’s quilts to ask me what I thought it should fetch at the craft gallery, I did manage to convince her to sell it to me for about twice what it was really worth.”
Bobby looked at her quizzically. “Did I know this?”
“Oops!” she said with a smile.
“They don’t have to live that close to the bone,” he said. “Dick and Sarah Granger are living on one of the prettiest pieces of land on Laudermilk Creek. They could sell out tomorrow and live in ease the rest of their lives.”
“Live where?” asked Joyce. “Yo
u know they’d die if you took them off that mountain.”
“All the same,” he said, “I believe I’ll take a ride out there next week, see if I can interest him in selling.”
“Bobby, no!” she protested.
“I know, honey, I know,” he said soothingly, “but if not me, it’ll be somebody else. Somebody who might not give him as good a price.”
When I got back to the condo, all it really needed to be ready to rent were fresher curtains and a carpet cleaning. The kitchen cabinets sparkled with new enamel, and all traces of paint buckets, brushes, and drop cloths were gone. Fred and Beverly should be pleased about this much, at least.
I checked my e-mail again. Still nothing from Dwight. Well, what did I expect?
There was also nothing on television, nothing in the condo’s selection of videos that I wanted to watch, and nothing I wanted to do.
Nobody to talk to either.
“Good thing, too,” said the pragmatist. “The way you’re feeling right now, you’d just be spoiling for a fight.”
“Go to bed,” said the preacher.
“Go to hell!” I told them both.
And went to bed.
CHAPTER 25
With no paint crew to cook breakfast for, the twins opted to sleep in the next morning. Hard as they’d been working, I certainly couldn’t blame them, and I tiptoed around quietly. Wouldn’t hurt me to make do with orange juice and an apple after those rolls last night.
Besides, I knew that the usual carafe of coffee would be waiting for me.
“The way you and Mr. Deeck are zipping through the calendar,” said Mary Kay, “it looks like tomorrow’s going to be early getaway.”
Now there was a thought. If I finished by lunch tomorrow, I could be home before dark.
Before Dwight left for Virginia.
Morning court was a brisk array of the usual, and at noon I went down to the Tea Room and scrounged a salad from the twins, who seemed strangely uninterested in discussing the murders.
“Of course, Carla and Trish still want to know who killed their dad,” June said, “but we were only asking around because Danny couldn’t afford a real detective.”
“And now that he’s going to be off the hook—” said May.
“—we can leave it to the police,” said June.
What mainly seemed to occupy their thoughts was where they were going to live after Parents’ Day at Tanser-MacLeod College. Beverly was bringing up the new curtains she’d made, and a new couch and chairs would be delivered at the same time. Fred had already contacted the management office about renting out the condo for the tail end of leaf season.
“We were going to crash on friends at our old dorm anyhow, but that’s just for the weekend.”
I cast a glance up at the pressed tin ceiling. “What’s up on the second floor here? Could you camp out up there?”
“Lord, no, don’t even think about it,” said May.
“It’s jammed with all the junk that came out of the ground floor,” June chimed in.
“Dirty.”
“Cold.”
“Spiderwebs.”
“I think I saw a mouse when we carried up the last load.”
“And anyhow, there’s no water up there.”
“And no shower in the ladies’ room down here.”
“Besides, if the Health Department caught us—”
“—not to mention the zoning people—”
“—we could lose our restaurant permit.”
“So where will you go?” I asked.
“We’ll think of something,” said June.
“Here, have a cruller,” May said.
Afternoon court was a repeat of the morning, until shortly before three, when I was presented with a couple of judgment-impaired twenty-one-year-olds from Tanser-MacLeod College who had gotten drunk and disorderly in a Howards Ford bar, where they did six hundred dollars’ worth of damage to the mirrors and bottles behind the bar. Both were white, both had that slightly arrogant stance of kids who were used to doing what they liked, knowing that their parents would clean up the mess. Indeed, Matt Dodson, an attorney I’d met at the Ashe party, presented documents that showed me that restitution had already been paid.
I listened to their guilty plea and their pro forma apologies and I heard what the prosecutor was recommending, then Dodson made a game plea for a low fine and community service.
Nice try, but I’d caught a good glimpse of the first youth when he swaggered up to the defense table in a preppy, long-sleeved rugby shirt, khaki shorts, moccasins, and no socks even though it was a cool fall day.
“Step out from behind the table,” I told him when both stood to hear my ruling.
There on his leg, from his ankle to his knee, was a tattoo of an extremely explicit nude with her legs spread wide. A full frontal view.
“Do you really think that tattoo is appropriate for a courtroom?” I asked.
He shrugged and with a nod toward Dodson said, “Well, he did tell me maybe I ought to be wearing long pants today.”
“You should have listened to him,” I said.
At least his partner in crime wore clothes a bit more appropriate: long cargo pants and a navy blue sweatshirt that read, “If you don’t love the South …”
“Excuse me, Your Honor,” the bailiff murmured, “but you might want to ask him to turn around.”
The young man glared at the bailiff and then reluctantly turned around when I made a circular motion with my finger.
There on the back was “… then you can suck my Dixie.”
Both had previous convictions for DWIs, so I fined them a thousand each with the stipulation that they pay the fines out of their own earnings and provide proof of it, but instead of suspending the full forty-five days as I might normally do, I decided that serving two days of it in jail this coming weekend might be a better attitude adjuster. I’m pretty sure I saw an amused gleam in Matt Dodson’s dark eyes as he thanked me for my leniency.
“Jail?” snarled the tattooed one, angrily shaking off Dodson’s hand when the attorney tried to restrain him. “Hey, I know my rights. My tattoo’s protected under the First Amendment. Don’t I have freedom of speech?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “You have the freedom to talk your way right into a contempt of court.”
“Hey, dude, chill,” said his friend, which gave me a little hope for learning experiences.
“Sorry, Your Honor,” said Dodson and hustled his clients out of the courtroom.
The last three cases of the day asked for continuances, which I granted. I signed a couple of show-cause orders, but there was nothing else on my docket so I adjourned court shortly before three-thirty.
Rather than go back to the condo and veg out, I dug into my purse for the card that Billy Ed Johnson had given me Monday night with his cell phone number. He was so proud of the work he’d done in the area that he’d offered to tour me around. “Anytime,” he’d said. “Just give me a ring.”
When he answered on the third ring, he sounded pleased that I’d called. “I thought you were just being polite.”
I laughed and reminded him that I still had his ball cap from our drive up to the Ashe house.
“Aw, you don’t need to give it back.”
Remembering the raunchy logo on it, I assured him I did.
He told me that he was out near the Tennessee border at the moment, and we agreed to meet at a watering hole two ridges over from Cedar Gap, at a place called Eagle Rest. I gave him my cell phone number in case he got delayed and he gave me clear directions, which he made me write down and read back to him. He assured me that this was a can’t-miss shortcut that would take me straight to the pub by four o’clock if I left right then, so I slid my phone back into my purse, put on my jacket, hung my robe on a hook behind the door, slung my laptop over my shoulder, and was out of there, calling good-bye to Mary Kay, who was still looking at pictures of the bailiff’s new granddaughter.
A UPS truck was p
arked off to the side of the parking lot downstairs, and if I hadn’t already told Billy Ed I’d meet him by four, I would have hung around to hear what Underwood had learned. Now I’d have to wait till tomorrow.
There was a moment of unpleasantness as I put my laptop in the trunk and unlocked my car door. Several cars over from mine were the two young men I’d just sentenced. The one with the obscene sweatshirt quickly looked away when my eyes met his, but the tattooed one—Barringer—glared back and gave me the finger.
More freedom of speech.
I shrugged and got in my car.
Ten minutes later, I was two turns off the main road, bedazzled by the fall colors blazing all around me as I topped the first ridge. I kept the speedometer well under the limit because there were no guardrails along this secondary road. It’s crazy. I don’t pay a lot of attention to Republicans, but I sort of remembered how one of the state senators from out this way—Virginia Foxx?—keeps trying to get Raleigh to put guardrails on all paved mountain roads. I guess there must not be enough voters up here to keep DOT on its toes and that most of them probably skid off the road every time the roads ice over.
At least the traffic was light here, and the few cars that were on this narrow road seemed to be locals, not leaf-crazy tourists, so when a black Ford Ranger riding high on oversize tires zoomed right up behind me, I assumed it was someone in a hurry to get home and moved over to give him room to pass.
That’s when he bumped me.
Startled, I glanced in the rearview mirror and recognized the angry kid from court. What the hell—?
He bumped me again, harder.
I stepped on the accelerator and my wheels squealed as I took a curve a lot faster than I wanted. He started to pass me, but then a car from the opposite direction appeared in the left lane and he swerved back in, grazing my rear bumper.
High Country Fall Page 19
