Faithful Unto Death (3 page)

Honey shook her head. Her hair was clean and brushed, but she needed a color touch-up. I could see a dark line at the roots of her curls. She got one of Cruz’s pointed looks as she curled back onto the love seat. The coffee in front of her was black. She used to prefer coffee with cream. Lots of cream.

Cruz drank her cup halfway down and set it in the saucer.

“Okay. This is what they’re telling us. You know the Bridgewater golf course? I’m talking about that piece of it at the corner of Alcorn Oaks and Elkins Road; you know where I’m talking about?”

I said, yes, I knew it. I’d played the course at least once a month since we’d moved to Sugar Land. It was easy walking distance from our house.

“So that’s where she found him. Some little Chinese girl on her way to school.”

“Cruz, she’s Korean, or her parents are Korean, she’s American . . .” Honey trailed off under Cruz’s gaze.

“Is that important to what I’m saying?”

Honey shook her head. Cruz took the story up again.

“No. So anyway, this little girl, her house backs up to the golf course, and she crosses the golf course each day to get to Fort Settlement, that’s the middle school, you know.”

We knew. Jo had been in school at Fort Settlement last year. She was a freshman at Clements High School this year.

“So that’s where she found him.” Cruz drank from her coffee cup and put it down with a clink that said “There, now.”

We had come full circle in the story and I still didn’t know how or why Graham had died.

I asked. “Cruz, how did Graham die?”

“Somebody hit him on the head. Hard.”

In my mind’s eye I could see a golf ball ricocheting off a pine tree and beaning Graham.

“Are they certain it wasn’t an accident?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty sure.” Her tone of voice meant they were positive. Cruz shook her head firmly, finished off her cup, and turned it upside down in the saucer. Cruz Valtierra is the only person I’ve ever seen do this.

“Probably not an accident unless he could manage to whack himself in the head with a Big Bertha. Graham has got a dent in his head that fits a Big Bertha.”

I ran through the mechanics in my mind’s eye. A Big Bertha golf club has a great big head, hence the name. There wasn’t any way on earth I could accidentally brain myself with one. But a Big Bertha seemed an unlikely murder weapon. Still, I could see how someone else could accidentally hit you with a Big Bertha. I’ve played with guys who made me feel like golf could develop into a contact sport. Say, if they stepped back when they were swinging, not that you’re supposed to step back in the middle of a swing, but say they stepped into your space . . .

Cruz said, “Then we got the problem of what Graham was doing on the golf course in the middle of the night. Not playing golf, I’m thinking. Not in the dark.”

It wasn’t all that dark last night. There was a full moon. With a glow-in-the-dark ball, a really good golfer like Graham might be able to play—you shouldn’t, the course closes an hour after full dark, but . . .

“Was he robbed? Do the police have any idea who did this?”

At this, Honey lifted her head. She wore a bright, tight smile.

“Do
you
have any idea, Bear? You may have been the last person to have a real conversation with Graham. Did he tell you anything? Because when he got home after talking to you, he locked himself up in his study for three or four hours and then went out. He didn’t say more than a sentence or two to me. So of course, I’m wondering what went on between the two of you. Did you learn anything I should know about?”

I said no, which maybe wasn’t entirely true. She might need to know about some of it. But not now. Maybe not ever.

“Did you get one of Graham’s staring sessions? You doing all the talking and him looking at the ceiling, giving back a whole lot of quiet?”

I didn’t say anything and Honey took that for assent.

She sighed and pushed her hair back off her face, holding it high at the crown and then releasing her hair to fall limply back down.

“If you want to know what the police think,” Honey said, “their idea is that he was living with the enemy. Their idea is that
I
picked up that golf club and swung it at my husband’s head as hard as I could and smashed his brain to a jelly.”

She stood up and slid her hands down her newly sleek hips. Her waistband slipped an inch and exposed some tummy. Not plump, but not tight, either. Honey picked up her glass of diluted lemonade and drank it down. She hadn’t touched her coffee.

“That’s their favorite idea numero uno. Ideao favorito numero two-o . . .”

I wasn’t sure where the cartoon Spanish had come from; I didn’t like it. Honey put her empty glass on the floor, and rested her hand on the back of my chair, leaning in close to me and breathing gin in my face. Now I knew where the cartoon Spanish had come from, and I didn’t like that, either.

“Um . . .
numero duo
, I mean, that would be Alex, Bear. My baby boy is their number two suspect. The police have just given my boy’s room the kind of tweezers and Baggie search no sixteen-year-old boy should have to go through. Do you know what I mean, Bear?”

Honey was upright now, swaying a little, hands on her hips, as much to keep her pants up as to demonstrate her outrage. Annie Laurie looked bewildered. Cruz was stacking coffee cups on the tray, making a lot of clatter. The clatter distracted Honey and she turned to Cruz.

“Cruz, sugar, could you get me some more”—there was a hesitation—“lemonade?”

Cruz walked out of the sunroom with the tray. She called back over her shoulder, “No, Honey, I got work to do. Better you drink your coffee instead. And did you hear me say your daddy is on his way? You want to lay off that ‘lemonade,’ Honey. Your daddy ain’t going to like that.”

Honey wavered, looking uncertain. She noticed the orange segments on the magazine and sat back down.

“Why, look here, Annie Laurie, here’s someone gone and peeled these oranges for me. I love these little clementines, don’t you, too? Little California Cuties, that’s what they call them. They’re so sweet, and no pits! I love that there’s no pits, don’t you, Annie Laurie?” Honey was working her way through the orange segments, chewing and swallowing, big tears running down her face. Annie Laurie slipped over to my side.

“Bear, I think—”

“Uh-huh, Annie. Let me talk to her. See if you can help Cruz, see if she knows where Alex might be. I know that boy didn’t do anything”—I didn’t know; that’s what I was praying—“but it doesn’t look good for him to be gone, and anyway, I’d rather he be here at home when he gets this news. Would you take that cake with you before somebody steps on it?”

Annie Laurie nearly stepped on the pound cake herself as she backed out the door.

I sat back down in the chair, noting that I could feel the cast iron beneath the cushion and all those pillows. Honey patted the seat next to her. Her rings slid stone side down; they were loose, too. Dang. Did she have some wasting disease?

“No, Honey, I’m fine over here. Let’s go ahead and get this over with. I know you’re a good woman, and you know Annie Laurie and I love you, but good people do bad things sometimes; you and I know that’s the truth. So, did you kill Graham? Maybe not meaning to kill him, but are you the one who hit him with the golf club?”

Honey looked at me and her eyes cleared; I could see the Honey I used to know looking out of that haggard face. Cruz ought to bring a plate of cookies, or something. I wanted Honey back to herself again.

“Walker, I guess you know I had a drink this morning.” When people get serious, they often call me by my given name.

I said, “I know you’ve had more than one, Honey.”

She tried to smile but gave it up. “I’m just trying to ’stablish that even though I had a drink this morning”—a pause—“maybe two, that I am stone-cold sober when I tell you that I didn’t kill Graham, not accidentally, not on purpose.

“I did hate him sometimes, Bear. There were times when I wished he would die. I suppose that’s kind of a ‘Jimmy Carter murder.’” She looked down at her hands, stretching them out. They were good strong hands, long-fingered, the nails manicured that way where the tips were white.

“If I did any fantasizing about someone dying, it was more often me. Preferably like Camille, slow and easy and not disfiguring, so that Graham would have plenty of time to feel guilty and fall back in love with me.

“See, what it means, Bear, Graham dying, what it means, is that God isn’t ever going to fix us. Graham isn’t ever going to find his way back to me. He’s not going to love me again. All those nights on my knees, praying, and the extra highlights in my hair, the Botox, the personal trainer. Me being so careful what I put in my mouth that I went to bed hungry every night for the last year.”

She shook her head, picked up the cup of now-tepid coffee, and sipped it.

“When I was in high school, I dated, I dated all the time! And I was a fatty, then, too. Well, I was chubby. But boys liked me, thought I was pretty.
I
thought I was pretty. Graham wasn’t the only fellow to ask me to marry him. Two boys bought me rings outright, before they even asked.”

I didn’t doubt that, and it might have been true even without HD Parker’s millions.

“But once I met Graham, there wasn’t anyone else. I was drawn to that boy like a beetle to the bug zapper. And he burnt me to cinders. He’ll be getting buried in a couple of days, but when they put him in the dirt, a whole lot of who I used to be, who I ought to have been . . .”

Honey’s face was so contorted with anger and grief it was hard not to turn away. She saw it in my eyes and her hands flew to her face. She covered her face with her hands, and then, with her fingers, she smoothed out the wrinkles on her forehead, drew her palms up along her cheekbones, briefly lifting her face. When her hands dropped, her face was calm.

“A whole lot of Honey will be down there with him. That part is going to be every bit as dead as Graham.

“Let me tell you about Graham, Bear, the Graham you didn’t get to know. The Graham hardly anybody knew. He didn’t let many people know who he was.

“You know how I met Graham? Momma and I were flying up to New York to hit the after-Christmas sales. The flight was delayed, and Momma was engrossed in some book, and I’ve never been much of a reader. There was this handsome young man, already looking like the big-time lawyer he would come to be, waiting for the same flight. He was talking to these three women, they’re dressed just as plain as mud, and I’m thinking what do they have that can attract someone as sharp as Graham, because that’s who that was, that was Graham. And come to find out, they were nuns.

“I know that because after a little bit, Graham comes over to Momma and me and wants to know do we want some coffee or anything since he was going to get some for himself and it would be his pleasure to get some for us, too. I’m not the dummy I look like and I said I’d go with him, help him carry it all back. So this nice-looking man tells me those three women are nuns on their way to New York, and the place they were staying was in Harlem. Those nuns were planning on taking the subway to Harlem. Because the flight was delayed, those poor women were going to be heading off to Harlem on the subway at, like, one in the morning. I learn all this walking the concourse drinking coffee, which I didn’t even like back then, and talking to Graham.

“Only when we finally got to JFK, there was a limo driver holding a sign,
SISTERS MARY ALICE,
THERESA, AND DOLORES
. I don’t really remember their names, but, you know. What I do remember is, Graham had called ahead to get those poor women a limo to take them right to the door of their school or whatever it was. He didn’t have much money then, either.”

Honey’s face went soft and dreamy.

“I loved him for that. I fell in love with Graham right there and then, with my matching luggage all piled at my feet, the nuns flustered and surprised, kissing Graham on the cheek and blessing him, and I see Graham slip them money to tip the driver.”

Honey pleated the bottom of her blouse and her eyes filled again.

“Graham used to make word problems for me, you know that? No. No one knows that but me. He’d leave them on the kitchen table for me to find when I got up. Once I had the puzzle worked out, it would be a love message, or maybe a funny poem he made up about how sweet “honey” was. Every once in a while it was to tell me to look someplace—I’d find a piece of jewelry wrapped up in that pale blue box that makes every girl’s heart flutter.”

I had no idea what that pale blue box was and made a mental note to ask Annie.

Honey held a slim hand out to display a ring with a large sapphire. She straightened it on her hand, but the heavy rock slipped down to hide in her palm and she sighed.

“There are one hundred stories I could tell you. One thousand reasons why I chose Graham and was never sorry I did. I love those stories.”

I wondered if Honey had loved the stories, but had stopped loving the man.

“With Graham gone, I don’t know who I am.”

Her face crumpled and she flung her head back dramatically and bumped it hard on the wrought-iron frame that surrounded the cushions.

“Oh! Dang it!” She put her hands up to rub the back of her head and giggled a little, unnervingly. “You see what I get for being a drama queen.” There was a big sigh and she picked up the toilet paper roll and held it close to her flattened bosom. “So, you see, it’s true. I did not kill Graham.”

She looked at me from under her lashes.

“Not that I’d tell you if I had.” She gave that giggle again.

The pretty police officer stuck her head in the door. “Mrs. Garcia? Detective Wanderley is back and he’d like a few words.”

I stood up and put my hand under Honey’s arm to steady her, the way you do with an old person. I could feel the toned muscles, yet her skin felt loose over the muscle.

Detective James Wanderley was squatting near the mail flap in the front door, shuffling through the mail on the floor. He gave us a glance when he heard us, then went back to the mail in his hand. He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed to be caught going through someone else’s mail. He rose up and was about to put the mail on the foyer table. Cruz came in and snatched the mail from his hand. Annie Laurie was right behind her. Annie, ever friendly and welcoming, something I normally like about her, put her hand out to the young man.