Still Waters33

by Tami Hoag

  It was Jolynn who had talked her into coming to Still Creek after the divorce, Jolynn who had talked her into buying the Clarion, Jolynn who was her one and only employee and nearly her only friend. Their friendship went back to El Paso and the University of Texas, a time that seemed a century in the past for all that had happened in between. Elizabeth thanked God it had endured the years of separation. After the divorce she had felt like one of those space-walking astronauts whose cord had been cut loose, just like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. She had been adrift, in need of a place and something to anchor her to it. There had been Jolynn, telling her to come to Minnesota, where life was quiet and the people were friendly.

  A considerable amount of creaking and shuffling in the background sounded from the other end of the line, and Elizabeth easily pictured Jolynn struggling to sit up in her secondhand bed, the old springs groaning and complaining as she heaved herself up against the headboard. Jo was no more than five foot four, but she was “generously proportioned,” as she put it, and her old mattress had long since given up any pretense of providing support.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Are you kidding?”

  Elizabeth blew a sigh up into her bangs. “I wish I were, sugar, but I’m not. The man is dead as Kelsey’s nuts, and I ought to know, ’cause I found him.”

  “Jeez Louise,” Jo murmured reverently. “I had a migraine. I turned the scanner off and went to bed at nine o’clock. What happened?”

  “Somebody killed Jarrold Jarvis out at Still Waters. Can you get out there right away?”

  “Yeah, sure. Where are you?”

  “At the courthouse. I’m liable to be tied up here awhile. It’s a long story.”

  “I’ll bet. God, Jarrold Jarvis. Somebody finally got up the balls to do it.”

  “The big question is who,” Elizabeth said, twisting the telephone cord around her finger. “Can you get out there pronto? The BCA just made the scene. Them and about nine thousand reporters.”

  “Make it nine thousand and one, boss.”

  JOLYNN DROPPED THE RECEIVER BACK ON THE TELEPHONE and dragged a hand through the mop of chin-length brown curls falling in her eyes, trying to digest the information Elizabeth had given her, trying to make it seem real. Murder. She tugged the sheet up to base of her throat, wadding the fabric in her fist, as if it could somehow protect her from the ugliness of the word.

  Dim amber light glowed through the shade of the lamp that squatted on the nightstand. The pale pool of illumination suddenly seemed less than adequate. Dark corners of the shabby, messy room loomed menacingly and she felt transported back to her childhood, when every night shadow had held some evil menace.

  “You’re not leaving, are you, sweetheart?”

  She flinched as if she’d forgotten the man lying beside her. He rolled toward her lazily, caught the edge of the sheet in one hand, and tugged the fabric aside to reveal a plump breast.

  Jolynn twisted away from her ex-husband, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. She let go of the sheet and reached down for the pile of clothes that lay in rumpled drifts across the worn beige carpet.

  “Yes, I’m leaving. Sorry, Richard. Duty calls.”

  Behind her, Rich Cannon pushed himself up onto his knees on the sagging mattress. As Jo stepped into her panties he caught her around the waist from behind and pulled her back against him. “Come on, Jolynn. Dick’s ready to play again.” His erection poked at her, punctuating his statement like a physical exclamation mark.

  “Richard.” She groaned his name, disgusted with him and with herself.

  She never failed to feel dirty and cheap after one of their little assignations. And she never failed to succumb to his charm the next time he came around. It was one of life’s little cycles she couldn’t seem to get out of. Like her period, she hated it but was always relieved when it arrived. That was about how she felt regarding Richard.

  He had shown up on her back doorstep at eight-thirty, unannounced, unexpected, urgent. And she had taken him to her bed without so much as saying hello.

  She grabbed his wrists now as his fingers slid into the tangle of dark curls at the apex of her thighs. He had broad hands with short, thick fingers and uncommonly well-kept fingernails. He hadn’t bothered to remove either the wedding ring Susie Jarvis had put on his finger or the watch Jolynn had given him on their own fifth wedding anniversary.

  “Now is not the time,” she said, trying to pry his hands off her body.

  “Don’t say that,” he grumbled, pouting. “Never say that to me when Susie’s out of town.”

  “I’m afraid your wife chose the wrong day to go on a shopping spree,” she said with venom. She couldn’t help but resent Susie Jarvis Cannon. Susie had money. She had a nice house, a new car that more than likely ran on all cylinders. She had Jolynn’s husband. Not that he was worth much out of bed. It was the principle of the thing that galled Jolynn. Susie had it all.

  God, she really would have it all now that her father was dead. That Jarrold Jarvis was Susie’s father hit Jolynn like an unpleasant surprise. She supposed she should have felt an ounce of sympathy toward the girl, but she didn’t. She doubted Susie would grieve much on her way to the bank to pick up her inheritance.

  Pushing herself away from the bed, out of Rich’s reach, she grabbed up a wrinkled blue shirt from the Cedar Lanes bowling alley and thrust her arms into the sleeves. Giving up, Rich settled back against the metal headboard that was made to look like genuine walnut. It gave a hollow thump as his weight dented a curve into it. He lit a cigarette as he watched her dress, his eyes lingering on every curve she covered, his gaze disturbingly detached.

  Jolynn told herself she imagined the coldness. Then she told herself she was used to it, that she expected it, that it didn’t affect her. She had sex with him only because it was easy and habitual; it wasn’t as though she were still in love with him or anything.

  She pulled her jeans on and sucked in a breath so she could close the button and zipper. She had the kind of figure that had regrettably gone out of fashion with poodle skirts—full breasts, well-rounded hips that had rounded a little more in the five years since her divorce. She was thirty-three and her metabolism was slowing down in direct proportion to the increase in her appetite for junk food. The extra weight added a fullness to her rectangular face that had the benefit of making her look younger than she was. A person had to peer closely to see the tiny lines of stress that had begun to fan out beside her eyes and around her kewpie-doll mouth.

  “So what’s going on?” Rich asked, finally resigning himself to being something other than the center of attention for the moment.

  Dragging a brush through her hair, Jolynn glanced at his reflection in the mirror above her dresser. Thirty-nine, a native son of Still Creek, he was handsome and he still radiated the arrogance he had cultivated as a high school jock—the high point of his life to date. He sat back in her bed as if he owned it, his straw-colored hair tousled, cigarette dangling beneath his mustache, one hand scratching absently through the thicket of rusty-gold curls on his chest. Elizabeth said he looked a little like Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid, only older and debauched. It was an apt description. There was a trace of meanness about his eyes and weakness in the line of his mouth that a person didn’t see until the initial dazzle of golden good looks had worn off. He had told her he was going to run for the state representative’s seat this fall. Jolynn wondered how many people would catch on to him before they cast their ballots.

  Hate surged through her, as it always did when she looked at Rich and saw him for what he really was—the bastard who’d dumped her for a more advantageous marriage, then had the gall to come around expecting her to fall at his feet . . . which she did, again and again.

  “Someone killed your dear old daddy-in-law tonight,” she said bluntly, reaching for a spray bottle of Charlie on the cluttered dresser top. She spritzed herself generously, hoping to camouflage the scent of sex that lingered on her. Her eyes never left
the mirror.

  “No,” Rich murmured, his face registering shock, but not much in the way of remorse. He set his cigarette aside in the overflowing ashtray on the nightstand, but didn’t move from the bed. “Killed him? Huh. I’ll be a son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah, you are. I’d stay to console you,” Jo said dryly, grabbing her purse off the dresser, “but I’ve got a job to do.”

  “I’d think your new boss would want to take this one,” he said. “She’s the hotshot headliner from Atlanta, right? I’d think she’d be right out there to grab all the glory herself.”

  Jo gave him the same look she gave meat that had overstayed its welcome in her refrigerator. “All that thinking could tax your brain, Rich. I don’t want you to hurt yourself, but if you’d think again, you might figure out that nobody working on the Clarion is going to get any glory unless we’re hit and killed by a news van from Minneapolis.”

  “Then why go?” he said, holding his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and taking a deep drag off it. The smoke he exhaled briefly wreathed his head in gray, then drifted up to add another layer of grime to the ceiling.

  Jolynn looked at him with utter disgust, shaking her head in disbelief at her own stupidity for staying tangled up with him. “You just don’t get it, do you, Richard? Some of us don’t have wealthy wives to mooch off. Some of us take pride in doing a job. I happen to be good at what I do.”

  “Yeah,” he sneered. “Too bad nobody gives a damn.”

  She flinched as if he’d struck her. He had always known just where to stick the barb to make it hurt the most; it was one of the few things he really excelled at. Pain bled through her. Her hazel eyes narrowed to slits. “You jerk.”

  She grabbed the first thing her hand fell on and flung it at him as hard as she could. He fended off the plastic container of Cover Girl face powder with his hands, knocking it aside and sending a mushroom cloud of fine dust into the air.

  “Jesus, Jolynn!”

  He hauled himself naked from the bed, choking on the combination of smoke and powder, half tripping as the sheet tangled around his knees. Jo turned and made a dash for the bedroom door, but was caught just shy of getting her hand on the doorknob. A strong arm banded across her midsection, and she was pulled back into the curve of Rich’s body as he bent over her. She struggled to get away—from Richard, from herself, from her dumpy little bedroom in her dumpy little house.

  “Come on, Jolynn,” he cajoled, his mustache brushing the shell of her ear, scratchy and soft like the edge of an old shaving brush. He spewed out platitudes with the ease of long practice and little sincerity. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just don’t want you to leave, baby.”

  “Tough shit. I’m going,” she snapped, sniffing back tears. She may have had no pride when it came to sleeping with him, but she damn well wouldn’t cry in front of him. She shrugged him off and took another step toward the door.

  “I’ll be here when you get back,” he murmured.

  She hesitated with her hand on the tarnished brass knob, dredging up the nerve she never seemed to find when he showed up on her doorstep. “Don’t bother.”

  Chapter Five

  BOYD ELLSTROM PILOTED THE CRUISER DOWN THE drive, away from the resort and the swarm of reporters that had attempted to descend on the car. That son of a bitch Jantzen would grab what glory he could with the press, but Boyd was the one escorting the star witness away from the crime scene. More than one camera had captured that on film and videotape. He made a mental note to get as many copies of the photos as he could. They would come in handy when the next election rolled around.

  Yessirree, the way he saw it, nothing but good could come from old Jarrold biting the big one. Dying was probably the only thing the old fart had ever done that would benefit others more than it did himself. Jarrold wasn’t going to get anything out of it but a chance to rot in the ground. Boyd, on the other hand, was looking at a much rosier future—provided he found a certain IOU before anyone else stumbled onto it.

  The idea of that damned note floating around had his bowels twisting like a snake in its death throes. He wished for a Tums.

  Jarvis had always kept to himself the names of the people who owed him money and favors. As much as he had enjoyed publicly lording it over other people, he had gotten off just as much on the feeling of playing God, manipulating with unseen hands, giving and taking at will. He had kept all the damning evidence hidden away somewhere, producing it like an evil magician when he wanted to apply a little pressure—as he had with Boyd earlier that day.

  The fat toad had been walking around town all day with that damned note in his pants pocket. Boyd Ellstrom: $18,700. He’d slipped it out and set it on the table at the Coffee Cup just that morning while pretending to hunt for change for a tip. Boyd had just about died at the sight. For the minute and a half that slip of paper had lain on the table, in plain sight of half the town, he had seen his whole cursed life pass before his eyes and swirl right down the toilet. If anyone in Still Creek got wind of him owing Jarvis—or, more important, why he owed Jarvis—he could just bend over and kiss his political ass good-bye. Jarvis had merely smiled at him over the rim of his coffee cup, the pig.

  Well, he’d died like a pig too, hadn’t he? Boyd thought. Like a pig at the slaughterhouse. Poetic justice, that’s what that was.

  Elizabeth studied the deputy from the corner of her eye, not liking what she could see of his face in the light from the dashboard instruments. He kind of favored Fred Flintstone with his big square head and droopy shoulders. He had the look of a bully about him, the kind of man who sought out positions of authority to give him a sense of power over other people.

  She had learned early on in her life to be a quick and shrewd judge of character. It had been essential to her survival as she’d come of age around Bardette, a dusty, hopeless place where the honky-tonk and whorehouse were the only thriving businesses and most of the men were meaner than the rattlesnakes that coiled behind every rock. She had learned to size up a man at glance. Deputy Ellstrom fit into the same category as Jarrold Jarvis had.

  The image of Dane Jantzen filled her head in Technicolor memory—handsome, predatory, churlish. What category did he fit into? One all his own, she thought, doing her best to ignore the disturbing shift of feelings inside her—heat and uneasiness, wariness and anger. The last thing she needed right now was to run afoul of a man like Dane Jantzen.

  She had come to Still Creek to start her life over, to build up a business and her self-respect and her relationship with her son. They hadn’t been here three weeks and she was embroiled in a murder investigation and on the bad side of the sheriff. Pure damn wonderful.

  “Did you know him?” she said abruptly, needing to break the silence and her train of thought.

  Ellstrom jerked his head in her direction as if he’d forgotten she was sitting there. “Jarrold? Sure I knew him. Everybody did.” He said it almost defiantly, daring her to dispute the fact that the dead man had been well known if not well loved.

  “This is quite a shock, I guess,” she said, intrigued.

  He shifted on the seat and mumbled something under his breath as he adjusted the volume control on the police radio. The crackle of static rose like the noise from one of those mechanical ocean wave sound devices guaranteed in the backs of cheap magazines to put people to sleep. It put Elizabeth’s teeth on edge. She flinched at the discordant screeching but tuned in automatically when word of the BCA mobile lab’s imminent arrival came across the airwaves.

  Ellstrom chewed on a swear word, clenching his jaw, his hands on the steering wheel.

  “I take it you don’t approve,” Elizabeth commented, turning sideways on the seat so she could better gauge his responses.

  “We could handle this ourselves,” he said, still defensive. “Jantzen brings in those city boys and we’ll be nothing but gofers. We don’t need a bunch of college dickheads poking around.”

  A sly smile tugged at one corner of Eli
zabeth’s mouth. Dissension among the ranks. She knew without having to ask, Jantzen would hate it. He had the air of the absolute ruler about him.

  “Can I quote you on that, Deputy?” she asked, her tone curling automatically into honey and smoke. She wasn’t above the prudent use of feminine wiles, as long as she didn’t compromise herself. A girl had to use what tools she had at her disposal. If batting a lash or two would loosen a man’s tongue, she figured that was his problem, not hers.

  An even nastier smile turned the corners of Ellstrom’s lips as he considered the ramifications of having Elizabeth Stuart quote him in the Clarion. Jantzen would shit a brick. That alone made it worth his while.

  He shot her a sideways glance, taking in the big silver eyes and ripe mouth. He’d seen her around town. She had a body that could give a man a fever. He couldn’t make up his mind which he would grab first if he got the chance, tits or ass. Either way, a man was guaranteed a good time. It wouldn’t hurt him a bit to do her a favor or two, he thought, shifting a little in his seat as the crotch of his pants tightened up, making him forget about his intestinal distress for a moment. Rumor had it she’d be willing to return a man’s favor—on her back. His dick twitched at the thought.