Jennifer had had enough tea to float the Spanish Armada, and she didn’t even particularly like hot tea. Just the same, she smiled sweetly and nodded.
Whatever it took, she had to have at least some knowledge of the Walkers’ relationship before she walked into that courthouse for her interview with Arlene Jacobs tomorrow afternoon.
Tiger growled furiously at ther feet, whipping his head rapidly back and forth, his teeth clamped tightly about Jennifer’s date book. She’d made the mistake of leaving her purse on the floor, and the beast was systematically dragging out each and every item, shaking it hard and spitting it out. But she would gladly sacrifice it all if only Mrs. Walker would tell her what she’d come there to hear.
“How is that handsome young man of yours?” Mrs. Walker asked, filling Jennifer’s cup and changing the subject for the umpteenth time.
“Sam’s not mine, but he’s fine. You were—”
“I was so glad he could make it over here the other night. I’ve become quite fond of him.” She pulled Jennifer’s left hand away from her chin and stroked her ring finger. “Your hand would look so much lovelier with a bit of jewelry. Something simple. Perhaps a solitaire.”
And this coming from a woman who was dumped after forty-five years of marriage! Mrs. Walker needed a reality check.
Jennifer snatched her hand away and shoved it under her. She did like things simple, one major lifestyle change at a time. The next one she was looking for was becoming a published novelist, not a bride, and definitely not a mother. Just be quiet, Jaimie!
And if Mrs. Walker liked Sam so much, she could marry him.
“Why the heck did you marry him?” Jennifer blurted out, unable to play the game one minute longer.
Mrs. Walker seemed startled. “Edgar, you mean?”
As if she were Elizabeth Taylor and had an assortment of ex-husbands to choose from.
Jennifer nodded. What she really wanted to do was bang her head against the table.
Tiger had abandoned the date book in favor of a tiny package of tissues, which he was shredding one by one.
“Oh.” Mrs. Walker added more sugar to her cup and stirred briskly. “I suppose I loved him, although that was so long ago I hardly remember. I certainly thought I did. Why, he could charm the bark off a tree back then. And he was one good kisser, I can tell you that.”
Ugh! What a thought. The image of Edgar standing next to that bull and grinning from ear to ear flooded her mind. She gave a little involuntary shudder, hoping Mrs. Walker wouldn’t notice.
“I see you don’t understand. Those awful television commercials. That was his publicist’s idea.” She clucked her tongue. “Tacky, tacky, tacky.”
To match the restaurant’s décor.
“Daddy didn’t like him. Forbade me to marry him. But, unfortunately for me, he relented and gave us his blessing. I was barely nineteen, a child really. Have a cookie, dear.”
Mrs. Walker shoved a small dessert plate filled with chocolate dipped shortbread in her direction. Reluctantly, she took one. She suspected Mrs. Walker wanted to fill her mouth to keep her from asking more questions.
“You must have been proud of how well he did with the business,” Jennifer prodded. Now that Mrs. Walker was finally talking about Edgar, she wasn’t about to let her stop, cookie or no.
Mrs. Walker shook her head. “He didn’t do at all well while we were married. The restaurant simply limped along. He’d get in trouble; I’d pour money into it. Things didn’t start humming until after our split. After the Eddie and the special steak sauce. That’s what made the whole business. The other restaurants all opened within the last six years.”
Jennifer remembered when the first one came to Macon on Riverside Drive three years ago. A second had opened in the Shurlington area within six months or a year, but she had no idea that the other locations were so new.
“And already he was planning a national franchise?” she asked, popping the cookie whole into her mouth.
“Edgar wasn’t getting any younger, dear. It was now or never for him, don’t you see? He doesn’t—didn’t—” She stopped for a moment and composed herself. “He didn’t need the money. He was in it for the sport, for the fun of it. It was a brilliant move.”
The excitement in Mrs. Walker’s voice was contagious. She was vibrant, alive. Why, if Jennifer didn’t know better, she would think Mrs. Walker had been personally involved with the plan to franchise. What a silly idea.
“Will you go forward with the franchise?’
“Of course. But I’m afraid I’ll have to wait until all this mess with Edgar’s murder is settled.”
“Have you spoken with Natalie Brewster?”
“You mean that lovely young woman Edgar hired?”
Jennifer nodded. Natalie seemed to come with her own list of adoring adjectives.
“No, I haven’t. I haven’t even thought about it—although I suppose someone should. I’m sure she’s anxious to know what will be expected of her now that Edgar’s gone.”
“There must be a lot of money involved.”
“I should think so, and if Edgar actually received funds from people waiting to open their own Down Home Grills, their concerns will have to be addressed. Walter is handling all that.”
“The profits should be considerable if everything goes all right. I don’t suppose you know what’ll happen to them.”
“A good part of it will come to me. When Daddy gave Edgar the money to start the restaurant, he had the contracts drawn up so I owned the controlling share, fifty-one percent. Not that there were any returns to begin with, as I told you before.”
There certainly were profits now. “Since Edgar’s gone, who controls the other forty-nine? Won’t it come to you through a partner’s agreement?”
Mrs. Walker blinked hard. “Of course not, dear. My having the controlling share was enough for Edgar to swallow, particularly when I wasn’t actually working in the restaurant. When we divorced, I had the partner’s agreement voided. It only seemed fair. I’m quite sure he left everything to Lisa. But you could ask Walter Ornsby. He took care of the reading of the will. He might be able to tell you about Natalie Brewster as well. I believe he was the one who introduced her to Edgar.”
“And what about you?”
“Me?”
“Who’s your heir?” It was an intrusion, and the distaste in Mrs. Walker’s face reflected Jennifer’s lack of tact. But she didn’t have another two hours to wrangle it out of her. Women were funny. They would volunteer the most intimate details of their sex lives, but don’t ask how much money they or their husbands made or how much they paid for their houses. And, in this case, who they left their money to. As if everybody wouldn’t know the minute they died.
“Actually, my sister’s twins, Babs and Benny. You met them here the other night. It’s even possible Edgar may have left them something as well since they each manage one of the restaurants. Ask Walter when you talk to him. They’re all the family either one of us has. Before he married Lisa, they were his heirs, too.”
Ah, yes. That second pesky marriage to Lisa. She’d been pushing her luck as it was, but Jennifer had to know about the breakup. She had to know why the Walkers divorced and Edgar had married Lisa—besides the obvious. The question was how she could ask without upsetting the ex-Mrs. Walker.
Jennifer absently selected another cookie, pulling off some of the chocolate coating and savoring it on her tongue. “How do you feel about Lisa?” she said offhandedly, as if asking Emma to pass the cream.
Mrs. Walker pointed her spoon at Jennifer, and for a moment she was afraid the woman might bop her on the nose with it. Instead it clattered to the table.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Mrs. Walker apologized. “How clumsy of me.”
Neither spoke for several seconds.
“I suppose I owe you some explanation,” Mrs. Walker began, “as caught up in this mess as you are.”
She didn’t, but Jennifer wasn’t about to tell her that,
especially after she’d earned an explanation by drinking close to a gallon of tea and letting Tiger salivate all over her new tube of Honey Rose lipstick. Like she was ever going to use that again.
“Lisa started at the restaurant as a waitress—goodness, it must have been eleven or so years ago now. Edgar and I were having some problems. The business was in another rough period, and I found myself once more dipping into savings to bail it out. The man had had more than enough years to get his act together, and I was ready to sell and be done with that expensive hobby of his. As you can imagine, our personal relationship was suffering under the strain.”
Jennifer nodded sympathetically. Most marriages did, at one time or another, have some problems—and those didn’t have Edgar and his bull as part of the partnership.
“Edgar sought the…comfort he couldn’t find at home someplace else.”
“With Lisa,” Jennifer offered.
“With Lisa. I thought she was shamefully young, barely twenty. I didn’t blame her even though I haven’t always been kind in my comments about her.”
“So they had an affair.”
Mrs. Walker nodded.
“And I suppose he asked for a divorce.”
“Oh, no, dear. Edgar begged for forgiveness. I insisted on the divorce. I could and did put up with a lot from that man over the years, but I would not tolerate infidelity. Not again.”
Mrs. Walker did not strike Jennifer as the sort of woman a man would run around on. But then, Edgar didn’t strike Jennifer as the sort of man Mrs. Walker would marry.
“Edgar had strayed before?” She almost whispered the words.
Emma looked her straight in the eye. “There’s an old saying, ‘Food me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ It happened.”
She paused for a moment as if searching her memory. “I guess it had to be thirty years or so ago now. I was terribly hurt, but Daddy was still alive then.”
Why was it so hard to admit when a parent was right? Jennifer shook her head. To suffer through a life with an Edgar Walker because her parents had disapproved—
“I took Edgar back,” Mrs. Walker went on. “When it happened with Lisa, both of my parents were dead, of course, and I wasn’t about to put up with such nonsense. I threw him out. Within months they were married. I let them run the business. I really had very little interest in it outside of collecting a check now and then. About three years later, the Eddie was born and the profits began to pick up. Their success became my success.
“They created a whole new look and image for the place. The mauve and navy blue décor I had selected was scrapped for the turquoise and hot pink. They stuccoed the walls. I thought it looked like it should serve Mexican food or at least Tex-Mex, but it remained a steak house. They even put in a long saltwater tank, which I thought was pretty silly since they don’t even serve seafood. Edgar liked fish—to watch, not to eat—and I never let him have a tank in the house. I guess Lisa wouldn’t, either.”
“Tell me about the Eddie,” Jennifer prompted.
“I hardly know what to tell. It’s every man’s idea of heaven on a plate, incredibly fatty and utterly delicious.”
“And the steak sauce? When did that come about?”
“At the same time. It was so popular with the appetizer that Edgar decided to serve it separately.”
“And you still don’t know what’s in it?”
Mrs. Walker shook her head. “I thought Edgar was the only one who knew, but obviously I was wrong. The restaurant is still open, still serving the sauce. Lisa must have the recipe, because without it, Edgar’s Down Home Grill would long ago have had to close its doors.”
So Mrs. Walker didn’t know that Roy made the sauce.
“Tell me,” Jennifer leaned in close. What were you doing at Edgar’s that night?”
Mrs. Walker’s bright eyes suddenly grew wide. “Doing?” she asked innocently.
“Doing.”
“You really must have another cookie,” she insisted, shoving the plate in Jennifer’s direction.
Obviously, the woman was embarrassed, and why shouldn’t she be? “Mae Belle already told me about the chickens and the dye you put in the pool.”
“Chickens?”
Jennifer nodded. “I know you were playing pranks.”
Mrs. Walker let out a sigh and once again seemed quite friendly. “Oh, of course, the pranks. Yes, I was playing pranks.” She laughed like a silly little girl.
“What kind?”
“What kind of what?”
“Pranks.” She might as easily have been asking “Who’s on first?”
“Well, let’s see. I’m not sure quite what it was I had decided upon this time when someone struck me from behind. And then I forgot all about it, of course, with the police standing right there.”
And Edgar dead. But she had no props with her that night. No spray paint, no living creatures, no dyes, at least none that Jennifer had seen and none that the police called to anyone’s attention. And the strange way Mrs. Walker was acting suggested that she might have been at the estate for another reason that night, a reason she had no intention of sharing with Jennifer or anybody else.
Chapter 18
If Arlene Jacobs didn’t stop pressing that pencil that was woven through her fingers, it was liable to splinter into pieces and hit her in the eye. And if she stuck her tongue any deeper into her cheek, it could well peek right on through her skin.
“Come again,” Jacobs demanded, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
Well, if the woman didn’t want to hear what she had to say, she should never have called her to her office.
“Just because I saw the knife, doesn’t mean Emma Walker used it.”
“You saw it and she used it.” Jacobs leaned forward in her chair across her large, wooden desk.
Very aggressive posturing, Jennifer thought, but it would take more than a five-foot-two-inch assistant D.A. to intimidate her. “It’s been proven over and over again what poor testimony eyewitnesses give. Erle Stanley Gardner pointed out time and again—”
“You were there. You knew Emma Walker personally. She did not attempt to flee. The police took her into custody right in front of you and then retrieved the murder weapon not three feet from where she’d been standing.”
“In the water. She dropped the knife in the pool.”
“Hah! So you admit she was holding it.”
Darn. She’d been tricked into that one.
“She was trying to destroy the evidence,” Jacobs insisted.
“She was startled by a woman threatening to blow her head off with a shotgun. She’d been out cold, lying on the cement. What do you think she did? Knocked herself out and then carefully laid the knife across her own stomach?”
“Most likely Mrs. Walker sustained her injury during the struggle.”
Jennifer leaned forward, refusing to acknowledge such ridiculous logic. “Don’t you think Emma Walker is a little too convenient a suspect?”
Jacobs’s eyelids dropped until she resembled a cobra. “Are you suggesting that if police find a murder victim with someone standing over them, holding the murder weapon, that their time would be better spent pursuing other suspects? Been watching a little too much TV, Ms. Marsh?”
Not really. Writing too many mysteries maybe. “Look, I don’t care what you think happened. I don’t even care what I personally saw. What I do know is that Mrs. Emma Walker could not, would not, and did not murder anyone.” She hoped.
Jacobs settled back in her chair and studied Jennifer’s face. “Your loyalty is admirable. I don’t see a lot of loyalty in this job.”
Her tone was much softer, but she couldn’t fool Jennifer.
“However”—yep, here it came—“your trust in this woman is misplaced. I’m sure it must seem totally unbelievable to you that she could be involved in, let alone commit, such a heinous crime. But let me assure you, I have seen it all, and it is not only possible but highly likely.
No matter what you feel, the fact remains that Edgar Walker is dead. And his murderer is Emma Walker.”
The dead part, she’d have to give her. “Whatever happened to a presumption of innocence?”
Jacobs chuckled, one of her mean little laughs.
Hah! She knew Jacobs couldn’t keep up that nice person façade for long.
“If Mrs. Walker is so ill-advised as to plead not guilty, she will bring with her a presumption of innocence before her judge and jury.”
Jacobs’s smile turned sly. “But if I didn’t believe she was guilty, I wouldn’t be prosecuting her. If, on the off chance, this ever does come to trial, you will be called to testify. And you will tell the truth. That’s all Fulton County asks of you—that you simply tell the truth.”
Somehow the truth in this case seemed woefully inadequate.
“Okay, let’s abandon the question of guilt for the moment.” Jacobs was trying a new tactic. “You say you were at the Walker estate because two of Mrs. Walker’s friends called and asked you to check on her.”
“One, actually. Mae Belle.”
“And how did you gain access to the grounds?”
Definitely a trick question. By telling the truth, she was admitting to entering even if they couldn’t get her on the breaking part. But she had to answer the question, and lying was simply not an option. “Two of the fence posts were loose at the bottom. I slipped through.”
“And how did you get past the dogs?”
“What dogs?”
“The four trained Dobermans that patrol the grounds every night?”
Jennifer gulped. She’d brought Snausages when it sounded like what she needed was several pounds of choice T-bones, not to mention full body armor. “The dogs weren’t out.”
Jacobs seemed a little taken aback. “And the sensors?”
Jennifer shrugged. “I didn’t set off anything until I tripped something near the pool.”
“So you had free access to the grounds from the fence to the house?”
She nodded. And so had the murderer.
Arlene Jacobs was talking, but Jennifer wasn’t hearing a word she was saying. Why wasn’t the security system turned on? And why were the dogs kept penned? And this was a big one: Who had turned the sensor back on around the pool once Edgar’s body had gone into the water? Because going in, it sure hadn’t tripped anything.
Dying to Get Even Page 9
