“Did I hear you say you’re Phin Tucker?” Clea drifted past Sophie to take the mayor’s arm. “I can’t believe it. The last time I saw you, you fell off your bike.” She let her eyes slide up to his.
“I’m having the same feeling now. Hello, Clea. Welcome home.” The mayor looked down into Clea’s blue eyes, but he didn’t sound off-balance in the slightest. He was probably never off-balance. Sophie felt annoyed with him for that.
“And who’s this?” Clea gazed past his shoulder at the police chief.
“Police chief,” a deep voice said from behind Wes. “They want to know about some accident.”
Sophie turned. Medium, dark, and smug, the green suit had too much hair mousse and a slight paunch, and he’d slung his suit jacket over one shoulder in a misbegotten attempt to look cool. His shirt had green and white stripes, and his tie was bright yellow.
“You must be Frank,” Sophie said.
“That’s me. Now don’t you worry about a thing.” Frank winked at Sophie. “I can handle this for you. I’m on the council.”
“Nothing to handle,” the cop said mildly, and Sophie shot Clea a look that said, Do something with this guy.
Clea took Frank’s arm. “Why don’t we go up on the porch and discuss your scenes for tomorrow?”
Frank looked stunned, as if he couldn’t believe she was touching him, and let her tow him off.
One confirmed jackass out of the way. Two possible wolves to go.
“Well, that’s the car,” she told the cop, and the mayor looked at her one last time and then left them to walk over to it, evidently having seen all he needed. “It’s registered to my sister and me.” She turned back to the dilapidated porch where Amy was now leaning against the post, chewing her ham-and-cheese sandwich and looking exotic in her orange tube top and purple capris, her red hair flaming in the sun. “That’s my sister.”
“Oh,” the cop said, looking at Amy.
The mayor called the cop over, and he went as Amy put her sandwich on the porch rail and came down the steps.
“I told you so,” Sophie said to Amy under her breath. “The Pillars reported us to some outback nazi law-enforcement agency and now they’ve run us down like dogs—‘ ”
“Fear and Loathing again. You’re getting boring.” She studied the two men. “So that’s Phineas T. Tucker. We were wrong. He’s having sex. And he can have more with me.”
“Concentrate,” Sophie said. “The cop’s name is Wes Mazur. Get over there and give him anything he wants so he’ll go away and we can get to work.”
“I’d rather give it to the mayor.” Amy sighed. “Unfortunately, he appears to want it from you.”
“What?” Sophie said. “Amy, concentrate.”
“I was standing in the doorway when he said hi,” Amy said. “And from the look on his face, what he has for you is not the key to the city.”
“There was no look on his face,” Sophie said. The mayor was now gazing at the car with the same lack of expression he’d been sporting since he’d arrived. Clearly a product of too much inbreeding. “I don’t think he has anything for anybody. Go get rid of them.”
Fifteen minutes later, after the cop had gone back to the patrol car, gotten a crowbar, and pried the fender off the tire, Amy came back to the porch with the two men behind her. “Wes has a few questions.”
Wes? “Questions?” Sophie clasped her hands together to keep from fidgeting and then began to twist her rings instead.
The cop gestured to the swing, and she sat down. When he started to sit on the porch rail, Sophie said, “No!” and lunged for the rail, grabbing Amy’s sandwich before he sat on it. “Sorry,” she told him, handing the sandwich to Amy.
“Thank you.” He sat on the rail while the mayor leaned on the post behind him, looking amused, which did nothing to endear him to Sophie. He was starring in The Philadelphia Story; she looked like an extra from The Grapes of Wrath. Life was so unfair.
“Just tell me what happened,” the cop said.
Sophie turned her back on the mayor and told the nice policeman everything, and when she was finished, she said, “I just wasn’t looking and missed the sign. We didn’t break the law on purpose.”
The mayor stirred a little. “Actually, you did.” He sounded as if he didn’t care. “You left the scene of an accident.”
“Understandable under the circumstances,” the cop said before Sophie could speak. “Amy says we can have the tape of the accident if we bring it back tomorrow, so we’ll bring the accident report for you to sign then.”
“Amy asked you to come back.” Sophie bit her lip, wondering why her mother had insisted on having three children.
“She also mentioned something about the electricity and plumbing,” the cop said, smiling at Amy.
“A good reason to call an electrician and a plumber,” Sophie said brightly. Not the police and the government, Amy. “Really, there’s no need—”
“Not a problem,” the cop said. “My pleasure.”
“—certainly not for both of you—” Sophie began again, hoping at least to avoid the mayor. But when she looked at him, he was staring at her mouth, and she blushed and then felt her temper rise.
“Did you get hurt in the accident?” he said, and Sophie blinked. “Your lip. It’s bleeding.”
“Oh.” Sophie licked her bottom Up and tasted salt. “I bit it when he hit us. It’ll be all right.”
His eyes lingered on her mouth for another moment, and then he nodded.
It was time to get rid of the mayor.
One. “But thank you for asking,” Sophie said, smiling the Dempsey smile.
The mayor looked startled for an instant, and then his lips quirked a little.
Two. “But I think my mouth will recover, don’t you?” Sophie said, flirting up at him.
“Oh, yes” he said, meeting her eyes.
Three. “I’d forgotten all about it,” Sophie said, truthfully. “You must be very observant.”
“I try,” the mayor said, openly appraising her now.
Four. Sophie stood up, including the cop in her smile. “You’ve been wonderfully kind, and we really can’t ask you for anything else; certainly not another trip out here. So I’ll come in tomorrow and sign the accident report and—”
“I can ask them,” Amy said from behind her. “I want plumbing that works and electricity that won’t kill me.”
Sophie tried to keep the exasperation off her face but the mayor must have seen it anyway because he grinned at her, a real smile this time, and she thought, Of course you’d be gorgeous.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, straightening away from the porch post, and all Sophie could say was, “Thank you.”
When they were gone, Sophie turned to Amy. “Let’s review the plan. It’s going to be just the three of us and we’re not going to attract attention.”
“You know there’s such a thing as being too cautious,” Amy said. “We need the plumbing and electricity fixed and they’ll do it for free.”
“The hell they will,” Sophie said, thinking of the mayor. “We’ll pay one way or another.”
“And I don’t care what you say,” Amy went on. “The mayor is hot.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t hot.” Sophie stood up and let the swing bounce behind her. “I said we were going to stay away from him. He’s trouble, it’s in his eyes. He’s a hard mark.”
“I bet he is,” Amy said.
“Will you concentrate? We stay away from the mayor.”
“Yes, but will the mayor stay away from us?” Amy said.
“God, I hope so,” Sophie said, licking her lip as it started to bleed again, pretty sure she meant it.
Phin sat in the passenger seat of the squad car and considered running the Dempsey sisters out of town on a rail. He had no legal grounds, of course, but it was his job to ensure the peace, and he had a feeling that getting rid of the Dempseys would be a good start, even if it was only for his peace. There was something
wrong there.
Besides the brunette’s lush, red, swollen lip.
He shook his head to get rid of the image and Wes said, “What?”
“The brunette. She bothers me. Why is she so tense?”
“That’s not why she bothers you.”
Phin ignored him. “The way she twisted her rings, I thought her fingers were going to fall off. And then she turned on the charm. She’d have had me, too, if she hadn’t been so abrupt about it.”
“She had you anyway,” Wes said. “Her name’s Sophie. I like her, but it is hard to believe she’s Amy’s sister.”
“Amy’s a hot little number.” Sophie hadn’t been hot, he thought, concentrating on the older sister’s shortcomings so he could forget about her mouth. She’d had the potential to be as attractive as Amy —all that dark curly hair knotted on the top of her head, and a good-enough ivory-pale face with those big brown eyes— but the tension had radiated off her so hard that it had been exhausting just standing next to her. “Sophie’s wound so tight she doesn’t even breathe,” he told Wes. “That cut on her lip had to hurt like hell, and she never mentioned it, never even touched it.” He shook his head. “She’s trying too hard to pretend everything’s all right. Which means she’s up to something, and it has to be about that movie.” He didn’t like women who were up to something. Not that they all weren’t. “Which reminds me, you’re going to have a new ordinance to enforce next week. Antiporn. So if they’re shooting sex, you get to arrest Amy and her tube top.”
Wes closed his eyes. “Oh, fuck, why didn’t you kill it?”
“Because the majority of the council wanted it, and we’re not likely to see a lot of movie companies coming in here, so—” Phin shrugged.
“I don’t think Clea Whipple should be discouraged from making pornography,” Wes said. “That’s just wrong.”
“Yeah, well, you run for mayor and fight the good fight.” The vague uneasiness Phin had felt about the porn ordinance returned and made him cranky. “I thought I handled it pretty well, considering.”
“Nobody died.” Wes drove across the New Bridge and surveyed the town as it spread out before them with satisfaction. “That’s pretty much my bottom line. No blood, no death, no sweat.”
“It’s an elemental life, law enforcement.” Phin said.
“Beats mayor.”
“Right now, yes.”
Wes was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “That Amy is something.”
“Go for it,” Phin said. “You’ve got until Sunday.” That was a cheering thought, that the Dempseys would be gone that soon. “Maybe once they’re gone, Stephen will give up on this porn thing.”
“I wouldn’t underestimate him,” Wes said. “The election’s coming up.” He slowed and made a U-turn to park in front of the bookstore.
“In two months,” Phin said in monotone. “As I keep telling my mother. Plenty of time.”
Wes shook his head. “Stephen’s determined not to lose this time. It’s been twenty years since his father won and made a mess of everything. People forget. He could win if you just sit on the porch and watch the world go by, and I don’t even want to think about what could happen then.”
Phin felt a real stirring of alarm. “Are you saying I should be campaigning? Okay, we’ll put the posters up early.”
“I’m saying,” Wes said carefully, “that Stephen is standing on years of Garvey defeats. Losing over and over again like that wears on a man’s soul. He’s obsessed, Phin. I think he’ll do damn near anything to win this time, and if he does he’ll spend the next two years trying to drag us back to the Stone Age.”
Phin got out of the car. “There’s irony for you. I’ve had enough mayor to last me a lifetime, and Stephen wants it bad, and we’re both stuck.”
“That makes it worse,” Wes said. “You don’t even want what he craves. And you won’t give it to him, either. At least, I hope you won’t.”
Phin looked down the street to the sandstone-and-marble courthouse. Tuckers did not lose. “Okay, we’re watching that movie company, then, since that’s where Stephen seems to be going with his latest dumbass legislation. Especially we’re watching what’s-her-name. Sophie. A woman that tense and devious is going to be trouble for anybody who gets involved with her.” Phin thought about her mouth again, and the smile she’d hit him with when she’d decided to snow him. If she ever relaxed, she’d be the kind of woman his father had warned him about, the devil’s candy, a woman who’d ruin you as soon as look at you. Phin had been enthusiastic about the idea until he’d run afoul of one.
“You’re safe, then,” Wes was saying as they went up the steps to the bookstore. “Seeing as you’re not getting involved.”
Phin nodded as he unlocked the door. “Yeah, but I’m going back with you tomorrow to find out what she’s up to with this movie.”
“That’s what you’re going back for, huh?”
“That and to see if Georgia Lutz strangles Clea Whipple when she finds out what Frank’s up to.” Phin held the door open for Wes.
“Don’t even joke about it,” Wes said. “We haven’t had a murder here for forty years, and I don’t want the next one on my watch.” He glanced up the street, which was as empty as usual for the dinner hour. “Do you have to get home to Dillie or do you have time for a game?”
“I always have time for a game.” Phin motioned him inside. “It’s my reason for living.”
“I thought that was politics,” Wes said as he went in.
“No, that’s my mother’s reason for living. I live for pool.”
“Loose women would be good, too.”
Phin thought of Sophie, wound so tight she vibrated. “Yeah, well, if you find any, let me know. In the meantime, we play pool.”
Before dinner that night, when the sun had gone down and the air had cooled off a little, Amy made them go out on the porch to talk. She’d grouped what looked like a thousand candles on the porch rails and the upper windowsill near the swing, and Clea reclined on the end that had the candlelight, which was fine by Sophie. She sat in the relative dimness at the other end, listening to the crickets and the soft wash of the river, calming down in the twilight as she swung them back and forth with the tip of her foot. Even the creak of the swing was nice. Maybe all her premonitions had been just funk after all, since the police chief had turned out to be a human being. She tried not to think about the mayor at all. She heard “I Only Want to Be with You” start in the kitchen which meant Amy had put on The Very Best of Dusty. That felt right, too.
“Don’t you guys ever play anything else?” Clea said.
Sophie shook her head. “Dusty is comfort music,” she told Clea. “My mom used to sing along with Dusty every night.” She let her head fall back against the swing, sang along softly, and thought of Davy and Amy when they’d all been together, and the last of her tension slipped away.
“Sorry,” Clea said. “I didn’t meant to sound bitchy. Zane called while you were out in the yard. Doesn’t mean I should take it out on you.”
Sophie stopped swinging. “Something wrong?”
“I left him. So now he wants to come down here and talk to me about it.” Clea rolled her eyes, and Sophie thought, This is not good.
Amy came out on the porch with a pitcher of cider and three tall glasses, and smiled at her. “Cider and peach brandy.”
“Ooooh,” Clea said after her first sip.
“So is Zane coming?” Sophie said as she clutched her glass. “Because we don’t need any more people here.” Especially angry, semi famous people. Virginia Garvey would be out like a shot to see her favorite news anchor.
“Who?” Amy said, and Sophie filled her in.
“I told him not to,” Clea said. “I already filed for divorce. What he’s upset about is the money.”
Sophie’s tension doubled. “Money?”
“I’m selling the farm,” Clea said. “There’s a big chunk of land on this side of the highway and this house.” She frowned
as she looked around. “It doesn’t look like much, but Frank says it should bring close to three-quarters of a million.”
Sophie sat up. “For this house?”
“No, for the land.” Clea pushed the swing, and Sophie slumped against the back so she wouldn’t fall off. “My dad sold the biggest part of the farm right after I married Zane five years ago. I inherited almost two million dollars from my dad, and it’s gone now.” Clea took a deep breath and added, “Zane did something with it in the past six months, spent it, I don’t know. We had a big fight about it and that’s when I filed. My lawyer says he’s going to have to explain in court where that money went. And that’s not going to do his career any good at all.” She set her jaw. “I want that money back.”
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