“Not funny. I think this is—”
“The best possible plan. Also—”
“Another ‘also’?”
“This one you’ll like. Your boss agrees you can’t go home until that alarm system’s in place. To sweeten the deal, he’s giving Mrs. Otis a bonus for having you.”
“So now I’m a charity case.”
“So now you’re an object of loving concern.”
Well, that did sound a sight better. Besides, it made horse sense, and I was lucky to have such kindly people looking out for me. No point in acting as if my momma hadn’t taught me any manners. I held out a hand. “It’s a deal. Also, thank you.” He rewarded me with a lopsided grin. “Thank you very much.”
Circumstances being what they were, I was forced to wrap myself in one of Mrs. Otis’ robes and lay low for a couple of days reading, watching TV and napping on her doily-covered furniture. When not at the office, she likely crocheted up a storm, for her house was festooned with her handiwork. The sweetheart. Each evening, after working all day, she came home with a box of pastries for dessert and started right in preparing a hefty dinner for the two of us. She was a great cook, a firm believer that butter, cream, and pork fat were part and parcel of any decent meal.
I could die happy eating her greens alone. She fixed them with a ham hock bought special for that purpose and a dab of lard, flavored them up with salt, and kept them on the fire till they were cooked through and went all limp. I hadn’t had anything as good as them … those greens since Momma passed. Nowadays all the restaurants gave you was little bitty salads made out of lettuce and tomato and served up raw. The only way I could ever get one down was to slather on the ranch dressing, and what kind of vegetable was that? No, give me a mess of well-cooked greens any day. But as much as I loved them, and Mrs. Otis, I had to heal fast and get out of there before I blimped up beyond all recognition.
Still, the pampering warmed my heart, so I tried to relax and enjoy it, though my mind was refusing to cooperate. I had to get back to normal, back to work, back to searching for answers to the questions that wouldn’t go away.
Two days later, with Grandma Swope pressed into babysitting the boys, Amelia, accompanied by Deputy Ellie, went into my apartment. As far as they could tell, nothing was missing. Amelia hung up my clothes and folded my underthings in the bureau drawers then packed a bag with toiletries and a few basic outfits. Her assignment over, Ellie went back to the station, and Amelia brought my things over to Mrs. O’s. I wasted no time switching into black pants and a fresh T-shirt. Right away I felt like a different woman.
“Can you stay for a while,” I asked, “have some tea?”
“Yes, Joe’s mom won’t mind if I do. She’s been very helpful lately.” A shadow passed over Amelia’s face.
“You’re not happy about that? Isn’t it a relief to have a little help once in a while?”
“Yeeees.” Long, drawn out, sounding like a no.
“What’s the matter?” And then I knew. “Joe?”
She nodded. “His momma wants us to get back together. Says the boys need a father. That’s true. I know that’s true, but,” she clenched her hands so tight the knuckles turned bone white, “he found out I went to the roadhouse with you.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “Any one of a half-dozen guys could have told him. He didn’t like it.” She shuddered. “Not one bit. Said he was going to see you about it too.”
“Oh he did, did he?” I placed a hand over her white knuckles. “He hit you?”
“No. Threatened is all. Told me if I went out drinking and carousing again, he’d have the boys taken away from me. Claim I was an unfit mother.”
I snorted my disgust. “That’s crazy. He has a record and he’s threatening you?”
“He won’t make good on it. He never makes good on anything, but it’s worrisome all the same. I feel him all around me, all the time, even when he’s not there.”
“You need to tell the police,” I said.
That was when she hit me with a surprise.
“Don’t fret, Honey. I’m not listening to Joe. He may be the father of the boys, but he’s no daddy to them. He never will be.” Her chin came up. “We’re finished. Either I make a new life for my sons, or I might as well up and die. And I’m not ready for dying.” She smiled. “Not with Saturday night to get ready for.”
“Oh?” I put down the butter cookie I was about to bite into.
She took a sip of tea. “Yup. I need a dress. Something simple but nice. Any chance you feel up to going shopping with me? I haven’t bought a dress in so long, I don’t know where to go or what to look for.”
I bit the cookie in half. Mrs. Otis was right. Butter made a big difference.
“You going someplace special?”
She carefully placed Mrs. Otis’ dainty, flowered teacup in its saucer. “Yes, ma’am. Mr. Cletus Dwyer invited me for dinner at the Inn on Saturday evening. And you know something?” She glanced over at me with shiny eyes.
“You’re going!”
“Yes, I surely am.”
We fell into each other’s arms, whooping with delight. Her smile, like morning sun coming over Pea Pike, lit up the kitchen.
I jumped off my chair without thinking, and for the first time in two days, the room didn’t tilt. “Let’s go while you have a sitter. You drive.” I bustled around, putting away the rest of the cookies, rinsing the cups, and hurrying into the pink-teddy-bear room for my purse. All the while moving faster than I had since before the break-in. “First stop, Belinda’s Boutique. Her prices are good and she usually has a few plainer things mixed in with the sequined stuff. Do you have a color in mind?”
Long-legged, full-bosomed, and with a waist as narrow as a teenage girl’s, Amelia looked lovely in every dress she tried on. I took a fancy to a yellow one with beaded orchids on the skirt, but she rightly decided on a sleeveless cotton in a soft shade of peach that brought out the auburn highlights in her hair.
“What about shoes?” I asked as we left Belinda’s.
She came to a panicked halt on the sidewalk. “All I have are sneakers and flip-flops.”
“Let’s go to Shepherd’s Department Store. They have a good selection.”
“But I can’t afford new shoes.”
“My treat.” I drew her over to the car. “Let me do this. For all you’ve done for me.”
“Well, I guess Cletus wouldn’t care for my sneakers too much.”
Amelia had never worn spikes, so rather than wobble around all Saturday evening, she chose a pair of low-heeled ivory sandals that would go well with the dress.
Though my head pounded, I wasn’t ready to give up. We had one more stop to make. The Clip Joint. Luckily the manicurist had an opening, and over my protests, Amelia sat down and enjoyed the first mani-pedi of her life.
That she would be beautiful on Saturday evening there was no doubt. And with a little nudge from the gods, maybe her life would turn out to be beautiful too.
I hoped so and rode back to Mrs. Otis’ dog-tired but happy. I’d have a nap after Amelia left for home, enjoy one of Mrs. Otis’ lumberjack dinners, and, relying on the notion that if I could shop I could work, I’d pay a few calls around town tomorrow. Though pooped, I could hardly wait for that morning sun to shine.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Morning stop number one: the Eureka Falls First Federal Savings & Loan.
For the only time I could recall, Cletus Dwyer didn’t break out into a gigantic smile when I walked in. He did hurry over, though, to take my hands.
“Why, Miss Honey, I’m so pleased to see you. I heard what happened.” Lowering his tone to a hush, he peered into my eyes. “No wonder you’re looking a mite poorly today.”
So much for mascara, shadow, and liner applied with a trowel.
“No call to fuss over me, Cletus. I’m doing just fine this morning and hoping you can spare a few minutes for some intimate conversation.”
He glance
d at his watch as if not quite sure.
Hmm. This was a brand-new Cletus. Never before had he been so distant so … ah … Amelia.
Without putting his hand on my elbow or anywhere else, he escorted me into his office and offered me a seat. Leaving the door open, he sat facing me across his desk.
I got up and shut the door. “What I have to say is private. Hope you don’t mind.”
He frowned as if he minded a great deal, but other than drumming his fingertips on his still unstained blotter—some things never changed—he didn’t object.
“You might like to know that I had the loveliest day yesterday. Amelia Swope and I went shopping. A girls’ day out, so to speak.”
The drumming stopped.
“She told me you two have a date tomorrow evening. I was so pleased to hear it, Cletus. Y’all will have a marvelous time together.”
He cleared his throat. “You mean that?”
“Of course I do, darlin’. Cross my heart and hope to die.” I sounded like Scarlett O’Hara, but I was hoping a touch of the deep South might help my mission. It always seemed to work for Scarlett.
In plain fact, it helped right away. He rose out of his chair to lean on the front of his desk and peer down into my baggy eyes. “I have something to confess to you, Honey. With your assurance that it will never leave this room.”
I looked at him from under my lashes. “I closed the door, didn’t I?”
He smiled, though a bit wanly. “You are one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
He held up a finger for silence. “But you don’t need me. You have your career and your independence. Despite your recent, ah, accident, you can take care of yourself. But Miss Amelia now, she needs me. So do her little ones. And you know something? That’s what I want. To be needed.” He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I’m placing my life in your hands here. Should a word of what I just revealed leave this room, I’d likely be laughed out of town.”
“My lips are sealed. I’d never betray your trust.”
He nodded. “I know, that’s why I’m confiding in you. So, I might as well tell you the rest of it. My parents passed when I was a child. After that, my granddaddy raised me in his own house, just the two of us and the help. But he’s gone now, too, and these days the house is quiet as a tomb. I want to liven it up with a family, a noisy, happy family, and I’m thinking I’ve found me one. And if my luck holds out, who knows? Maybe with time, it’ll grow bigger and stronger.”
“Of that there is no doubt, Cletus. No doubt at all.”
This time the smile reached all the way up to his eyes. I was touched that he had chosen to tell me of his feelings and happy that his intentions toward Amelia were so high-minded. He was right, too; I didn’t need him. What I needed was information. And my sweaty palms were asking if he’d be as open about imparting that as he’d been about his personal life. Only one way to find out.
I wiped my hands on my thighs. “You’ve been so honest and open, I just know you’ll answer a question for me, which is really the reason for this visit today.”
He laughed, relieved, my female instinct told me, that on one level nothing between us had changed. “You can have a mortgage on any piece of property in town.”
Using my magnolia voice, I said, “Well, I surely thank you for that. But I have something else in mind. Something that’s been bothering me to no end.”
“That right?” He appeared both perplexed and guarded.
Staring him straight in the eyes, I didn’t mince words. “Cletus, whatever’s going on out at Pea Pike?”
Startled, he stood suddenly. “I have no idea.”
“Then allow me to put it this way. According to Saxby Winthrop, IP has bought up all those farms. That’s mighty curious, don’t you agree?”
He studied his nails as if they were facts and figures. “I had nothing to do with those transactions. The farms were all sold for cash on the barrelhead.”
“After opening your very heart to me a moment ago, you refuse me now?”
He looked up from his fingernails. “What I’ve been told was in strictest confidence. I can’t divulge the reason.”
“Oh, yes you can.”
“With all due respect, you’re not the police. And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t discussed those sales with them either. There was no reason to.”
“Oh, is that so?” My tone dripped ice. “Two women were killed out on that ridge.” I reached up to my scalp. “And I’ve been assaulted. Even the sheriff thinks there may be a connection, but you see no reason to tell what you know?”
“Nothing nefarious is going on. I can assure you of that, or I would have gone to the authorities.”
“No big words, please. Just the facts.” When he didn’t answer, I took a guess, not such a wild one, either. “Senator Lott’s involved, isn’t he?”
Hesitation sprang into Cletus’s eyes.
“I knew it!”
He threw up his hands, palms out. “I haven’t said a word.”
“Your face gave you away.”
I hunched forward so he could whisper if he wanted to. Instead, he strode to his office door and flung it open. “Goodbye, Honey.”
I rose, lightheaded for the first time that day. “Very well then, since you refuse to answer me, I’m going directly to the Star. I’ll tell them everything I know and everything I suspect. They’ll eat it up and plaster it all over the front page. The paper’ll be sold out in no time.”
Cletus closed the door. “You’re threatening me.”
“To help capture a killer. You want to prevent that?”
He snorted, a very un-Cletus-like sound. “I doubt you’ll capture the killer. Besides, I’m fearful of getting you mixed up in a situation that—”
“I’m already up to my hips in it, and I’m scared, Cletus.” I sent him a pleading look from under my lids. “Next thing you know, they’ll have me on the suspect list.”
He heaved a sigh. “For a sweet-looking blonde, you sure cut a hard bargain.”
Trying to look like Melanie gazing at Ashley, I smiled at the compliment and paid no mind to the barb.
“Take a seat.” Cletus pointed to the chair I’d just left.
Pulse thrumming, I did as he asked. He sank into his own chair as if what he was about to say was too weighty to relay standing.
“The master plan is to build a world-class gambling casino up on that ridge. A five-hundred-room hotel with all the bells and whistles, French chefs in the dining rooms, an eighteen-hole Greg Norman golf course, three swimming pools, a spa, a ballroom … the works.”
Shock caused my breath to catch in my throat. This was worse than a big-box store sucking the life out of every ma and pa business in town. Worse than anything else I could conjure up, except for the ugliness of strip mining. Though fearing the answer, I asked anyway. “Will this world-class casino offer slot machines, blackjack tables, stud poker, craps?”
He inclined his head. “All of the above and more. Happy now?”
I shook my head and regretted it. “No. Far from it. A casino’s no more than a license to print money. For the backers. Not the bettors. I know firsthand what gambling can do to a family. My daddy was a gambling man. His habit came first. My momma and me, well, we trailed far behind his dream of big winnings. Always the next stake, the next game, the next roll of the dice.”
“Every enterprise has its dangers.”
“Not this kind. I’ve lived it. I know.”
How could I forget? Yeah, I took it, Honey. What good’s money hid under your bed? Aw, don’t carry on like that, sweet thing. Next time Daddy won’t lose it.
“Daddy didn’t have a big fancy casino to urge him on, either, just a pack of playing cards and a set of dice.” Rooted to my chair, I lacked the energy to get up and leave after all.
“Don’t take it so hard, Honey,” Cletus said. “Not every person who walks int
o a casino is addicted to gambling. Think of the plus side. All the jobs it’ll create, the prosperity it’ll bring to town. Why, a casino will put Eureka Falls on the map. We’ll be a tourist attraction. According to Trey Gregson, there’s so much natural beauty hereabouts, all we need is an economic boot in the pants.”
Of course. Trey was in on this too. He’d had a hidden reason all along for buying that condo. I tuned out the rest of Cletus’ sales pitch and sat there, numb. From the way things stood, the future of Pea Pike had been sewn up tight, but what about its past? The murders still hadn’t been solved. Nor had my name been cleared.
Then something Cletus said snapped me back into the moment. “Think of what this means to the business you’re in. So many people will be clamoring for housing, Ridley’s Real Estate won’t be able to keep up with the demand.”
Sam. Had he known about this right along and not said a word? Or had he been shut out too? Surely he hadn’t known a thing, or he would have told the landowners not to let their farms go for so little. Oh, how I wanted to believe that of him, but he was engaged to the senator’s daughter, for Pete’s sake, practically family. Strange that he wouldn’t have been privy to the whole deal, been drawn into the club. Then why hadn’t Ridley’s sold all four parcels?
Because somebody doesn’t want us to get involved.
Even so, wouldn’t Lila have told her realtor fiancé about the biggest real estate deal to ever hit town? Unthinkable that she wouldn’t. Unless, of course, the senator hadn’t told her about it, was protecting her in some way.
“Cletus,” I abruptly cut off his happy talk. “What’s in this for the senator?”
“I don’t …” he stopped midsentence. “I don’t know. Not for sure. But Eureka Falls is his hometown. Maybe he wants to help it grow.”
“Horse feathers. He’s hiding something.”
Murder on Pea Pike Page 15
