Act V (10 page)

Most people listen to music or watch TV
while they cleaned house. Glynnis preferred books. She loaded an
audio book from the library web site onto her MP3 player, a
romance, something she didn’t have to strain her brain to think
about, and started picking up. When she finished that, she would
fold clothes, anything to help her slip away. In the middle of
vacuuming the carpet, Glynnis realized she had no idea what had
happened in the last fifteen minutes of her book. Not that it
mattered, romances, like soap operas, all ran the same route, but
still…”

The doorbell rang. Glynnis looked down
at what she was wearing and shrugged. “Oh well,” she told Carl
while running her fingers through her hair, “You show up
unannounced, you get what you get.” She opened the door and saw her
former fiancé staring at her, looking like he’d been through the
ringer. Her day was just getting better and better!

*****

“
Dorsey, what on Earth?” She
glared, open-mouthed, at the exhausted man standing in her
doorway.

“
Glynnis, may I come
in?”

It crossed her mind to
refuse but she could see something was wrong. “Of course, I guess.”
Glynnis opened the door further and stepped back allowing him to
pass through. An odor pervaded the room that made Glynnis
think,
I’m going to have to clean this
place again.
“Dorsey, are you okay?” His
eyes were tired and his auburn hair was dirty and sticking out in
all directions.

“
Yes…no. I don’t know. Nice
place.” He sat down in a recliner. Glynnis thought he looked more
like a rag doll than anything else. She resisted the urge to grab a
can of Lysol and start spraying. “Your mother said it was
nice.”

She walked into the kitchen and came
back with a glass of ice water, handing it to Dorsey. He took it
from her and downed it all at once. “More?” she asked.

“
Please.”

She refilled the glass and he drank
this one more slowly. “Maybe you should tell me what’s going on,”
she whispered, afraid that whatever was bothering Dorsey was
something that should be kept quiet.

“
I’m not sure where to
start.” He sat the glass down on a coaster. “Glynnis, everything
I’ve done over the last week has been idiotic. Oh man, Glynn, I’ve
been pretty stupid for a long time now.”

Glynnis wasn’t going to go down that
path because she agreed completely. “Tell me about this
week.”

He lifted the glass and pressed it to
his forehead. “I already told you that I said something stupid to
my boss and got fired.”

She made a noise of agreement to
encourage him to go on.

“
Then when you told me to
apologize to him, well, I was pretty drunk, and…”

“
Oh, Dorsey, you didn’t call
him last night.”

“
Worse,” he groaned. “I
didn’t think about how late it was. I just wanted to make it right,
so I went over there.”

“
How did he react?” She
leaned on the arm of the recliner, and without thinking stroked his
forehead like she had always done before. “It couldn’t have been
good.”

He looked into her hazel eyes. “Why did
I let you leave me?”

“
Dorsey…you broke up with
me.” She shook her head. “That’s a discussion for another time.
Tell me what happened with your boss.”

“
Okay, okay.” She could see
by the thoughtful look on his face that Dorsey was still trying to
put it together. “He didn’t react. I knocked on the door and I
tried to open it. Then I chickened out and left.”

“
So, what’s the problem
then? You can still go in on Monday and…”

“
Glynnis! Listen to me.” He
grasped her wrist, forcing her to stop what she was saying and look
at him. “My boss was killed last night.”

Glynnis didn’t say a word. She couldn’t
think of anything to say. This whole situation was out of control.
She took the water glass out of Dorsey’s hand and sat down in the
other recliner to drink what was left. “Dorsey,” she began, praying
she was wrong, “your boss was Claude Danning?”

He nodded.

Oh man!

She hadn’t known where Dorsey had taken
a new job. She’d gotten her information third hand through the Mama
grapevine and had told herself at the time that she didn’t care.
What a mess.

“
There’s more.” Dorsey’s
tired voice broke through her thoughts. “The police took me in for
questioning this afternoon.”

“
Oh, no.” She didn’t want to
analyze too closely the feeling that was twisting her stomach into
knots. Was this sympathy or did she still feel something for him?
“Do they suspect you?”

“
Maybe. They let me go for
now and told me to stay around. Where would I go to anyway?” He
twisted his knees up into the recliner and turned until he was
facing her. “Glynnis, I’m so sorry I brought you in on all this,
but I just couldn’t think who else to talk to. I don’t have anyone
to go to.” Dorsey’s mother had died when he was only a child. His
father had suffered a stroke two years ago when his business went
under. He had only survived for a few weeks afterward. It had taken
Dorsey months to clear up the paper work mess only to be left with
nothing. “I just had to talk and you were the only person I thought
might listen.”

Glynnis watched him for a moment,
waiting for physical signs that he was leaving something out or
perhaps even lying outright. “I’m really sorry, Dorsey. What are
you going to do now?”

“
I don’t know. I’ve got a
lead on another job. I’ve got a buddy who needs help in deliveries.
It’d work for now anyway. Maybe I should find out about defense
lawyers just in case, too. Do you think I’ll need a lawyer?” His
eyes widened. “Glynn, I can’t afford a lawyer.”

“
Maybe you should just go
home and take a bath, then get some sleep.” She told him. “You can
start following that job lead on Monday.”

“
You’re right, I should go,”
he told her, standing. He looked down at his hands. “Thanks for
listening.”

“
Will you be
okay?”

“
I just needed to say it out
loud. It helps to hear your own voice sorting it all out.” He bent
and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Would it be okay if I call
you tomorrow, maybe?”

“
Dorsey, I don’t think…” She
couldn’t let him down right now, even if he had let her down when
she really needed him. “Okay.”

As he walked to his car, Glynnis
thought through what had just happened. He had looked down at his
hands. In the year and a half the two had dated, she had learned
his mannerisms backward and forward. When Dorsey scratched his
head, he was distracted. When he stretched both legs out behind him
one at a time, like a cat, he was thinking of nefarious activities.
When he looked at his hands, as he had just now, he was hiding
something.

So what was he
hiding?

Chapter 6

Kenneth checked his watch. “Gabby,
honey, if you don’t get moving we’ll miss our flight, and I’ve got
to go to work tomorrow.”

“
Coming.” This was the same
response she’d given him the last two times he’d called her in the
last forty minutes. “Just have to brush my teeth.”

Kenny did a last check of the room to
make sure that they weren’t leaving anything. It looked clean, but
once he’d left his favorite watch sitting by an alarm clock in a
hotel room in Columbia. When he’d remembered leaving it there, he’d
called, but by then it was already gone. No doubt, some hotel
employee had already given it to her boyfriend.

“
Okay,” Gabby walked out of
the bathroom looking more beautiful than she had last night and the
night before. She was worth waiting for.

He gave her a lingering kiss, wishing
that they had just one more day in Vegas. “Come on, everything’s in
the car.”

She grabbed her purse. “Have you
thought about what you’ll tell your parents?”

“
Not much,” He headed for
the door. “How about you?”

“
No. I don’t know what they
can do about it now. I just hope they don’t refuse to pay for the
rest of my degree.”

“
They love you, Gabby. They
want what’s best—even if they don’t like your choice of
husbands.”

“
At least you’ve already
been accepted to law school and you have your scholarship. You
don’t have to worry.” She realized how snarky that sounded and
backtracked immediately. “I just meant that I’m glad we’re at least
halfway there.

He took her hand as they walked to the
rental. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll take care of you. We’ll get you
through school one way or the other.”

She looked at him with all the love a
newlywed could feel. She knew he would always protect her. Kenny
was her world and she was his. They would have a wonderful, long
life together. They would face whatever their parents threw at
them, together.

*****

“
I’m very sorry ma’am, but
Detectives Gearhart and Paddix are not available at the moment.”
The dispatch officer sounded as if she’d been asked to repeat the
twelve times table followed by the Preamble to the Constitution.
They’ll be back in the office tomorrow morning. May I help you?”
She was about as interested in helping Glynnis as she was in
getting malaria.

“
I don’t know. It’s
regarding the Claude Danning, um…case.”

Glynnis could hear her tapping out
something on her keyboard and then, “It looks like Detectives Hardy
and Hawkins are also on that case. Wait a minute please.” The phone
beeped onto hold and Glynnis was thankful that they decided to
leave off the elevator music. A few minutes later, she was back.
“I’m very sorry, but the two of them are out at the moment. I could
call them or leave a message for Detectives Gearhart and
Paddix.”

Glynnis was pretty sure she could hear
her filing her nails on the other end and wanted to jump through
the line and drag the help out of her. “Maybe you could just tell
them I called and would like to talk to one of them, that
is—Gearhart or Paddix.”

“
Do they have your contact
information, Ms. Nuckolls?”

“
Yes, and thanks for
all
your help.”

She didn’t seem to notice the sarcastic
edge in Glynn’s voice. “You’re very welcome.”

This weekend had turned into a true
disaster, and it wasn’t over yet.

*****

She was getting ready to warm up
leftover chicken for supper when the doorbell rang and Carl started
barking and whining with pure ecstasy. He loved company. Glynnis
wasn’t expecting visitors and had never had a peep-hole installed.
Until now there didn’t seem to be much point. The crime rate here
wasn’t non-existent, but it wasn’t likely anyone would storm
through your front door uninvited either. Well, not until
now.

When Glynnis opened the door, she began
to reconsider that peep-hole business. Wavy black hair and
sparkling eyes stared back at her. “Detective Gearhart!”

“
Brice,” he corrected. “I’m
actually off-duty right now.” He looked past her into the entryway
and then held up a plastic bag holding a cardboard takeout box.
“You like Greek pizza?”

“
I don’t think I’ve ever had
it before.”

“
You don’t know what you’re
missing.” He inclined his head. “May I come in?”

“
Sure…please.” She led him
into the kitchen and indicated the breakfast table. “Sit down,
Detective, um, Brice. Would you like something to drink with your
pizza? I’ve got Coke, iced tea, sorry, no beer or wine. I don’t
drink very often.”

“
Coke’s good.”

She filled two glasses as he
opened up the pizza box, then sat down across from him. “Is there
something you needed to ask me about…” she couldn’t bring herself
to say
the murder
“the case?”

“
Here, have some.” He
pointed to the pizza. “It’s great. They put feta cheese on it, and
black olives, and…”

“
Detective?”

“
Sorry, I just love this
pizza.” He took a huge bite, dangled a piece of cheese below the
table for Carl, and went on. “Anyway, no, I don’t have anything to
tell you or ask you, but I checked in with dispatch just out of
habit and they said you’d called.”

“
Oh, I’m really sorry. It
wasn’t an emergency or anything, I just…you really didn’t have to
come over here on your day off.”

“
It was this or golf on TV.
Have you ever watched golf on TV?”

“
No, I think I’d rather
watch my neice’s dance recital…all three hours of it.”

“
Me too. Anyway, it doesn’t
matter if it wasn’t an emergency. Why’d you call?”

She bit into a slice of white pizza.
“You’re right, this is good.” She swallowed. “I understand that you
questioned Dorsey Timmons yesterday regarding the murd…Mr.
Danning.”

He looked at her as if she had a
squirrel sitting on her head or something. “Wow! You really are
psychic!”

“
Yeah, that, or Dorsey came
to my house to tell me about it last night.”