1 In For A Penny

by Maggie Toussaint

  “We’ll tell the cops what happened, and they’ll let us go. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Jonette started to say something, but the closing of a car door preempted whatever she was about to say.

  “Cleo?”

  I groaned aloud at the sound of that very familiar male voice. Of all the cops in the world, why did it have to be this one that responded to the call?

  Detective Britt Radcliff had been the first on the scene when my screams of adultery had rent our peaceful neighborhood. He’d also been my fifth-grade Sunday School teacher. You might say, he’d spent his life looking out for me, as if he were my big brother.

  Britt seemed fated to turn up at my most embarrassing moments. Wishing wouldn’t make him go away. I’d tried that last time and it hadn’t helped one bit.

  Two uniformed officers scrambled down the hill to inspect the body, but Britt stayed with us. His thunderstorm gray eyes narrowed with suspicion. All of a sudden I felt like I was eleven years old again and guilty of coloring happy faces on the Sunday School walls with Jonette.

  “This is not our fault, Britt.” My face flushed with sudden heat. “We were playing through and found Dudley like this.”

  “It’s okay, Cleo,” Britt said, his voice softening. “No one is accusing you of anything. You and Jonette wait in a squad car while we secure the scene. I want statements from both of you.”

  Jonette turned white. “I need to move our golf cart. We’re in the way of anyone else who’d want to play through.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Britt said as he shepherded us towards the nearest squad car. “I’ve closed the course for the day. No other golfers will be coming through.”

  I had no doubt that the hand he had on each of our backs could just as easily snatch us up by our collars if we didn’t do as he said. The dark suit he wore did little to hide the thick muscles of Britt’s beefy frame.

  I shivered. Sitting in a warm car, which had been driven right across the golf course in clear violation of every course rule, seemed like a wonderful idea to me. “Don’t you need to separate us like they do on TV cop shows? How do you know that we won’t be rehearsing our stories?”

  “This isn’t TV,” Britt said harshly, then his tone softened. “I thought you’d be more comfortable in each other’s company. Do I need to separate you two?”

  “No,” Jonette said. “Shut up, Clee. You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  Britt opened the car door for us. “Give me a few minutes at the crime scene, then I’ll be back to question you.”

  Jonette slid in next to me in the backseat. “Are you trying to get us arrested? We’re not involved in this. We’re innocent bystanders, remember? This is all Dudley’s fault. Trust him to screw me over in death too.”

  It was hard to put Dudley’s death out of my mind. His ghostly image and that dark, crowning bloodstain had been permanently imprinted on my retinas.

  Dudley, what happened to you?

  Dudley and Bitsy had double-dated with Charlie and me in high school. They’d married while Dudley studied banking in college. It hadn’t been long before he’d produced two boys to match our two girls. Sons that would now grow up without a father.

  Charlie and Dudley. I had a zillion memories of the two of them together, laughing at the world. I shivered as another thought occurred to me. Were Dudley’s extramarital affairs the reason behind Charlie’s affair and subsequent marriage to Denise?

  If it was, my ex was a damn fool. Charlie should have remembered how Dudley crumbled when Bitsy moved out and took his boys over to her mom’s in Virginia. But then, Charlie had never been one to think long and hard with his brain.

  Charlie’s affair pushed me the closest I’d ever come to domestic violence. That damning credit card statement had exploded into my world, sending me into a screaming fit Hogan’s Glen had never seen the like of. My Lexy had saved me from a career of making license plates. She’d called the cops before I killed her father.

  I couldn’t stop shivering. No wonder. Britt left the door open. “Close the door, Jonette. I’m freezing.”

  Jonette pulled the door closed. After a moment, she squeezed her balled fists against her crossed legs and gazed expectantly out the window. “I’ve got to pee. I hope this won’t take long.”

  “Hell.” Jonette had a thimble-sized bladder. If she had to pee, she had about five minutes until she’d pee anyway.

  Thanks to Jonette, I knew the location of every bathroom within a forty-mile radius of Hogan’s Glen. “Forget waiting for someone to take our statements. Let’s make a dash for the clubhouse restroom and come right back. No one will even know we were gone.”

  Nodding, Jonette fumbled with the door for a minute. I shivered again. Once we made it to the clubhouse, I’d get some coffee and maybe buy myself a wind-shirt or a jacket. I couldn’t believe how cold I was.

  “Uh, slight problem here, Clee.” Jonette’s voice sounded oddly flat.

  “Deal with it.” For the first time I noticed the metal grate separating the front- and backseat. I couldn’t wait to exit this tight little box. My chest hurt with the effort it took to breathe in this confined space. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Jonette slumped back in the seat. “Can’t. No door knob.”

  I clawed at my door and found the same thing. Nausea swirled up my throat like a plugged toilet. I held my hand over my mouth. If I didn’t get out of here immediately, I was going to throw up all over this car. I looked at Jonette and she looked at me.

  With one accord, our mouths opened. “Help!”

  Chapter 3

  After an eternity of ear-splitting screams, the door opened. Jonette bolted out of the car so fast you’d have thought her skirt was on fire. Britt reached for her, but she’d had years of practice overcoming obstacles, first as a star on our high school track team and second as a veteran of divorce courts. Jonette streaked towards freedom and indoor plumbing.

  Fresh air wafted in my face, helping to quell my nausea. I stumbled out of the car in Jonette’s wake. “She’ll be right back.” I lowered my voice. “She has to use the facilities.”

  Unfortunately, I’d moved too quickly, and a sudden spell of dizziness caused me to go temporarily blind. This is a thing that happens to me occasionally because of my low blood pressure. If I get up too quickly, often I see little floaters in my vision. Other times the world goes black for a few seconds.

  Our club’s golf professional, Rafe Golden, stood beside Britt. Thick strawberry-blonde hair crowned his head and eyebrows. This I knew from memory, but I couldn’t tell you what clothes he had on right at this moment because I couldn’t see a darn thing.

  Manly aftershave filled my nostrils as someone reached to steady me. It wasn’t Britt’s spicy scent. It was the woodsy smell that permeated the pro shop. I was slick with nervous perspiration and slid right through the golf pro’s hands. Just before my head clunked on the ground, Britt caught me as if I were a wayward football.

  I prayed the ground would open up and swallow me whole. I was mortified. Absolutely humiliated. As the world brightened from black to gray to brilliant sunlight, I struggled to right myself.

  Britt held me fast in a headlock. “For God’s sake, Cleo. Be still. I’ll get someone over here to check you out.”

  My hands fisted in the warm grass and my shirt clung to me like shrink wrap. “I’m okay. I just need a minute for my head to clear.”

  “You’re not pregnant or anything, are you?” Britt asked. “My wife used to get light-headed when she was pregnant.”

  Not unless I was the victim of some heavenly prank, and I didn’t think God would be that stupid. Heat poured off my face. “Absolutely not. Let go of me so that I can sit up.”

  Britt peered briefly at my pupils, then shoved my sun visor back in my hair and allowed me to sit up. “Only if you’ll tell me what was going on in the squad car. What’s with all the screaming?”

  I stared at my trembling hands. Britt alre
ady knew I had lunatic tendencies, but I’d hoped my screaming fit wasn’t common knowledge. If I had to tell the truth right now, my cover with the golf pro would be forever blown. “This is embarrassing.”

  Changing the subject is what my girls always did when they wanted to skirt the truth. Directly below me was the crime scene. I couldn’t help but take in the beehive of activity down there.

  When I saw an officer bag my golf ball, my heart skipped a beat. I pointed at the evidence bag. “My fingerprints are all over that golf ball. I didn’t kill Dudley. I just found him. Make sure they know that, Britt. My golf ball is not evidence.”

  “Take it easy, Cleo,” Britt said in a soothing voice. “You’ve had something of a shock here today. Should I call your mom to come when we finish up here?”

  That did it. I didn’t need anyone taking care of me. And I resented the fact that Britt thought I couldn’t handle this. The world was in perfect Technicolor again, so I assumed my equilibrium was back. I struggled to my feet. “I’m fine. This happens to me sometimes. It’s a blood pressure thing.”

  Rafe Golden gathered me up by my armpits and effortlessly lifted me to my feet. Horrors. I was wet all over, but wet arm pits implied that I didn’t recognize the importance of deodorant.

  Mine had obviously worn off and now my arm pit sweat was on the hands of the sexiest man in town. Well, at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about any date anxiety with this man. No way would he want to have anything to do with me after this.

  I studied Rafe out of the corner of my eye. Jonette was right about his being hot. His six-foot-tall athletic frame weighed something in the vicinity of one hundred eighty pounds. His thickly lashed bedroom eyes seemed to be riveted on me.

  Why now? Was he amused by my helplessness? Was he gathering information to entertain the guys around the clubhouse bar?

  “Dammit, Cleo, what went wrong in the car?” Britt asked. “Did Jonette tell you something about the murder that alarmed you?”

  I tried to shrug off Rafe’s grip around my torso, but I might as well have been back in Britt’s headlock. Typical male response. Whenever there was a problem, a man answered with his physical strength, while a woman used her head.

  It was about time I started using mine.

  From Britt’s question about Jonette, I surmised that she was already a suspect. It was time for me to do a little damage control for my best friend. “No. I already told you. She had to go to the bathroom. That’s why she was hollering. I was yelling because I didn’t want to throw up all over the car. There. Are you satisfied?”

  I was uncomfortably aware that Rafe’s fingertips were still under the minor swell of my size thirty-four b’s. If he had any thoughts of dating me, he would be checking out the merchandise. As it was, I wasn’t even sure he realized I was female.

  “Easy there, Red.”

  Rafe’s sexy growl brought to mind things best done on satin sheets. I shivered in response, then as his supple fingers tightened around my torso I had a rewarding feminine experience. All on my own.

  The unfamiliar thrill raced through my body at the speed of light and rendered me speechless. I savored the extrasensory burst of sensation like a dieter sneaking a forbidden slice of chocolate cake.

  If this man had this effect on all women, maybe the stories about him weren’t exaggerated. Maybe the word was out—why was I always the last to know these things—and the entire female contingent of the club had demands on his hands.

  I’d spoken to Rafe Golden probably a dozen or so times as I signed in for the Ladies League, and I’d never gotten so much as a hint of any unusual sensory powers. Now I was feeling like slipping him in my golf bag and taking him home with me. I already knew he had great hands. I glanced down and was thrilled to see his feet were larger than Charlie’s size tens.

  The old adage about the correlation between long fingers, big feet, and a certain male body part came to mind. In recent years, I had been paying more attention to those old sayings.

  Rafe Golden was looking better and better. But, there would be the problem of sharing him with the rest of the world. That wasn’t going to happen.

  I wasn’t about to be made a fool of twice. I’d just have to worship Rafe Golden from afar and settle for the odd thrill whenever he touched me.

  “Thank you for your help, Rafe.” I squeezed out a thin smile. “I’m fine now.” I wrenched myself sideways out of his grip and levered myself up on the warm hood of the squad car.

  I’d just discovered a dead man, learned of a friend’s murder, and melted because of a man’s touch. As mornings went, this one was an emotional roller coaster.

  Britt flipped open a notepad. “I’ll take your statement now, Cleo. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  I obliged him, leaving out the part where Jonette was sure she was going to jail for Dudley’s murder. By the time I finished, Jonette returned with the ladies from our league. I almost wept when I saw that she’d brought me a can of ginger ale. “God bless you,” I said as I took the can from her and opened it.

  Britt took Jonette’s statement. While Jonette spoke, I noticed the other ladies mobbing Rafe. Through narrowed lashes, I studied them covertly, wondering if they were all undergoing rewarding feminine experiences. I couldn’t tell a blasted thing. All I knew was that it annoyed me that they were hovering around him.

  Good thing he wasn’t mine. I’d have to constantly worry about sex-crazed women throwing themselves at him.

  Mental head slap. I didn’t want another man, particularly not one as sexy as Rafe. If I couldn’t hold onto Charlie, who had been the love of my life before he fell from grace, why would I want to put myself through the agony of wondering if I could trust another man?

  For kicks I tried our names together. Rafe and Cleo. Laughable, really. We didn’t sound like a couple.

  That was the downside of fantasies. When you took the next step and tried them on in real life, there were all sorts of problems. Things happened for a reason and you just had to go on to the next thing.

  Or at least that’s what I told myself every morning as I woke up alone. Then I made myself get out of bed, even though I’d love to spend the next twenty years lounging in my pajamas, but that would be taking the coward’s way out. I was made of stronger stuff than that, according to Mama, who at this very moment was charging across the fairway.

  I’d gotten Mama’s height and slender frame, Daddy’s red hair and green eyes. Today Mama wore her usual triple-stranded Barbara Bush pearls, along with a double-breasted navy-blue blazer, matching slacks, and sensible pumps. Her soft feminine disguise didn’t fool me. She’d be ordering everyone around in a matter of seconds.

  “Thanks a lot, Jonette,” I grumbled.

  Jonette shot me a thick grin. “You’re welcome.”

  “Oh, do, Jesus! Cleo, my precious baby, tell me that you aren’t warped for life and that I’m not going to be stuck with those two hellions to raise,” Mama said as she swept me off the car and into her trembling arms.

  I rolled my eyes at Jonette. This was classic Mama. She managed to take any event and make it all about her. When I was undergoing the double trauma of adultery and divorce, she had the entire family hovering in a holding pattern outside her cubicle in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit for days. “I’m fine, Mama. Dudley’s not. He’s dead as a door knob.”

  Mama released me and looked me over, worrying at my collar, adjusting my hunter-green golf shorts which weren’t hanging straight after my squeaky slide off the car. “Better him than me, baby girl,” Mama said. “I’ve got a lot of living to do yet.” She pried the ginger ale from my hand and took a swig. “How’d he die?”

  I glanced over at the body, which now rested in a black body bag, and realized that contrary to popular opinion, Mama did not have X-ray vision. “Gun shot wound. Right between the eyes.”

  Mama nodded in affirmation. “Serves him right. Bitsy should’ve shot him as soon as he started fooling around on her. This is what c
omes from amoral behavior. I swear, the whole damn country needs a refresher course on morals.”

  Bitsy was my other best friend. I couldn’t imagine her killing anyone. She had the patience of Job and the disposition of a saint. Both of which had been necessary while she was married to Dudley.

  I felt the color drain from my face. “Mama! Nobody thinks Bitsy shot him. She doesn’t even live here anymore.”

  Mama nodded again. “Even better. If no one thinks she murdered him, then she’ll get away with it. Although, I would have shot the man in his privates if he cheated on me.”

  I made a quick mental note to sell all of Daddy’s guns on eBay before Mama took a notion to fix Charlie when he came over to pick up the girls this weekend. In the meantime, I hoped she didn’t look under my bed, which is where I had all three of Daddy’s guns squirreled away.

  I fixed Mama with a grim glare. “If you don’t behave, Britt is going to arrest you for slander. I’ll tell him to throw away the key until you keep your thoughts to yourself.”

  “Hell will freeze over first,” Mama muttered. “What’s the point of having an opinion if you don’t express it?”

  What was the point indeed? The girls and I had moved in with Mama when my marriage disintegrated and we’d been regretting it ever since.

  Twice I’d found us a nice three-bedroom apartment to move into. Twice we’d had health scares with Mama that turned out to be false alarms.

  I had a feeling that not even the Third World War would get us out of her clutches. She was very passionate about having us around, whether we wanted to be there or not.

  I strongly suspected her shenanigans were the result of having too much time on her hands. She stayed busy during tax time, of course, as January through April fifteenth was our busy season at Sampson Accounting. But after that, our business revolved around minor matters that didn’t keep the two of us occupied full-time.

  Not that I was complaining. If I worked more hours, I wouldn’t be able to golf in the Ladies League. Priorities were important. And I was my number-one priority these days.