Gone With a Handsomer Man (24 page)

Ava emptied the pillow case onto the table, then she spread out the documents and studied Bing’s signature. “Whoever Natalie Lockhart is, she’s not a clever forger. She’s sloppy.”

Coop lifted a DVD. “Why are they labeled with names? Barbara Jo, Faye, Amber.”

“I’m not sure.” My breath caught a little when I saw
Natalie
written in Bing’s script. I handed it to Coop. “Do you have a DVD player?”

“Sure do.” He walked to the great room and slid the disc into the machine. The television screen filled with grainy static, then a bull’s-eye came up with a count down. 3, 2, 1. The screen flickered and showed a hairy thigh in black and white. The date and time were stamped on the bottom of the screen. Exactly one week after we’d gotten engaged.

“What a cheap fucking video camera,” said a man with an intense coastal drawl. Bing.

The camera panned down to his crotch, showing his fully inflated manly parts. The camera jerked up, and Natalie came into view. “God, you’re sexy,” Bing told her. “Come over here and suck me, you beautiful bitch.”

My legs wobbled, and I sank into a leather chair. Coop pulled out the footstool and perched on the edge. He looked away from the television, back to the pile of DVDs. “These are sex tapes,” he said.

“Crappy, homemade ones,” Red Butler said.

“Can they be used as evidence?” Ava asked.

“Of what?” Coop asked.

“That Teeny was engaged to a man-whore,” Red Butler said. “No way. We’d have to explain how she found them. Plus, it’s inadmissable evidence.”

Red Butler grabbed another slice of pizza and crammed it into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully a minute. “So, all you got is video evidence that her boyfriend was a revtard?”

“What’s that?” I frowned.

“A guy who can’t add two plus two, yet he’s knee-deep in pretty women. A total babe magnet.”

Revtard, indeed. I couldn’t listen to the commentary—or Bing’s tape—another second. I rose from the chair and hurried to the bathroom. I leaned into the tub, turned on the faucet, and rinsed sand off my feet, wishing it was this easy to remove the last six months.

When I returned, Coop and Red Butler were arguing about who should drive me home. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

“The less you and her is seen together, the better,” Red Butler said. “Besides, I’ve got her damn cookbooks in my van.”

Coop held up his hand. “I don’t want to hear about those books.”

“Relax,” Ava said. “You’ve got enough evidence to clear Teeny.”

“Illegally obtained evidence.” Coop rose from the footstool. His eyes met Ava’s, and something seemed to pass between them. He sat back down.

“But I thought you wanted the signatures,” Ava said. “Stop fretting. Let’s compare the handwriting, shall we?”

“I’m not a graphologist,” Coop said, his voice full of angry edges. “Neither are you.” He pointed at Ava, but he was really pointing at both of us, at our bad behavior.

“I’m sure you can find a qualified person.” Ava reached for her purse. “If the expert thinks the signatures are dodgy, you can follow the law to your heart’s content. Go through proper channels. Bring in your expert witnesses. I’ve no doubt you’ll successfully argue your case. The police will stop hounding Teeny. Then she can go back to her life.”

Her unspoken words hung in the air,
Teeny can go back to Georgia
.

“It’s not that simple.” Coop shook his head.

“It could be.” She stared at him for a long moment, then she patted T-Bone and headed for the door.

“Hey,” Red Butler called. “Where you going?”

“Home,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ve had quite enough for one night.”

“It’s raining.” Coop got up again and stepped toward her. “Be careful.”

“Not to worry, I like a challenge.” She walked out. No “Good-bye, Coop.” No “See you later.” That was a good sign.

Coop ran his hand over his hair. “You shouldn’t have gone back to the house, Teeny. It was irresponsible. Absolutely reckless.”

“I really needed those cookbooks.”

“Why?” He lowered his eyebrows.

“I’ve got a job.” I paused. Was this a lie? No, just an evasion. I explained about The Picky Palate. “The cakes are special order,” I added. “They’re due tomorrow.”

Coop’s gaze softened. “Teeny, you’re going to work yourself to death.”

“It’s not work.” I smiled. “Baking relaxes me.”

“If you say so.” He glanced at Red Butler. “Could I have a moment alone with Teeny?”

“What for?” Red Butler asked.

“It’s private,” Coop said.

Red Butler grabbed another slice of pizza. “I’ll be in the van, girlie.”

The front door slammed. Coop drew me into his arms. I was all set to push him away, but my traitorous arms slid over his shoulders.

“I’m crazy about you,” he said.

“You better be, O’Malley.” I stood on my toes and kissed him. It was the first time we’d kissed since Ava had shown up. I cast aside my scruples about kissing a married man and flitted my tongue against his lips. I was just about to ask him to come back with me to Charleston when a horn blared in the driveway.

Coop pulled back a little and kissed the tip of my nose. “Your chariot awaits,” he whispered.

Some chariot. I thought of the movie
Troy
. Red Butler put me in mind of Achilles, relentlessly circling the city walls. “Your detective doesn’t like me very much,” I said.

“He just doesn’t like driving on a rainy night,” Coop said.

*   *   *

The rain stopped when Red Butler turned onto the Connector. I stared out the window, watching the headlights cut through the fog.

“Hey, girlie. Did you make a sex tape with your boyfriend?”

“No, indeed not.” I frowned. I was so insulted, I couldn’t think straight.

“Just asking,” he said. “Wouldn’t want one to surface during the trial.”

“My trespassing trial?” I sighed. I was too heartsick to carry on a conversation, and I wasn’t above telling him to stuff it.

“No. The one that’s in your future. You got to know where this is headed, girlie. They goin’ bring you down for first-degree one way or another. If a sex tape fell into the wrong hands, the DA would cream his panties.”

“Bring me down?” I made a fist. I pushed all thoughts of Coop from my mind and went on the attack. “I haven’t done anything. And since you brought up the tapes, tell me why it’s okay for a man to videotape his sexcapades, and when I find the tapes, I look guilty.”

“Like the boss said, it’s all about motive. You seen the tapes and wanted revenge. Women do it all the time.”

“I didn’t know they existed.”

“Right, so you broke into your dead boyfriend’s house and found the tapes.”

“I was just looking for his signature. I didn’t know what was in his safe.”

“All this time you was engaged to this douche nozzle, it never occurs to you to poke around his secret room and take a gander in his safe?”

“I didn’t think he had anything to hide.”

“Sure. Whatever. He just had a secret room. I rest my case.”

“I’m a real imperfect person, but I’m not a liar. I say pretty much what’s on my mind. And what I don’t say is written all over my face. This may be hard for you to believe, but I don’t always recognize trickery until it smacks me upside the head.”

“That don’t mean you didn’t look in his safe.”

“After Bing and I got engaged, he showed me how to open the panel to his room and he gave me the combination to his safe. He asked me not to open it except for an emergency. And I didn’t.”

“All women are snoops.”

“I’m not. I didn’t have much privacy when I was growing up.”

“What kid does? My sisters hogged the bedrooms, and I had to sleep on the den sofa.”

“I lived in a car, okay? A station wagon. Mama got the front seat, I got the back. She was real clear about our territory. She used to say, ‘Don’t you mess with my stuff, and I won’t mess with yours.’”

I crossed my arms. I thought about Mama all the time, but I rarely talked about her. An image rose up and I pictured my old Roi-Tan cigar box. Inside it still smelled faintly of Donnie’s tobacco. He’d given it to me to keep my special things: a piece of blue ribbon, my cursed inhaler, a peach pit, and the boot from a Monopoly game. Far as I knew, Mama hadn’t looked inside the box.

“Your mama still living?” Red Butler asked.

“Who knows? She ran off.”

“That’s too bad. How much are you inheriting from your dead boyfriend’s trust?”

“I don’t want it. Let his sister have it.”

“Right.” He rolled his eyes.

“It’s blood money.”

“Yeah, but it’s still money. Why would you give up a fortune?”

“I told you. Plus, Bing wouldn’t have wanted me to have it.”

“It don’t matter what the dead want.”

“It matters to me.”

“It shouldn’t. You act like money’s a bad thing.”

“There’s not a thing in the world wrong with it. But I just know myself. I cut my own hair and do my own nails. I’m a drip-dry girl. I like cotton, not silk. I like plain white dishes and don’t care if they match.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You ain’t a material girl.”

“I want to forget how Bing looked when I found him in the kitchen.”

“So go to a hypnotist.”

“I ought to split it with his sister and give my half to charity.”

“Is his sister the dame who brought cats to the funeral today?”

I shrugged.

“You can’t let the dude’s money go to support cats.”

“Maybe I’ll just give the trust to you,” I snapped.

“Well, I wouldn’t hand over perfectly good money to a bunch of yowling cats.” He turned down Adgers. As I glanced out the side window, a Winnebago sped by. It was too dark to see the driver, but I recognized the distinctive boxy shape.

“There’s that RV again,” I said. “It belongs to Bing’s sister. Maybe you should chase it.”

“Why?” Red Butler shrugged. “She ain’t done nothing wrong.”

The van’s headlights swept over the damp cobblestones. Red Butler parked, then reached in the back of the van and grabbed a stack of books. “Let’s just take in a few tonight,” he said.

“But I need them all.”

“The dicks might notice. I don’t want no trouble over some recipe books.”

I crawled into the back of the van and grabbed as many books as I could hold. Red Butler and I walked in silence back to East Bay. Down by the brick wall, I saw the Camry trying to nose into a tiny slot. When I passed the Jackson Realty sign, I repressed an urge to spit.

Red Butler held the books while I unlocked the iron door. I hurried into the corridor, opened the gray door, and shut off the bleating alarm. From upstairs, I could hear Sir’s frantic barks. I started for the staircase. Above me, the chandelier prisms tinkled, and a shadow moved back and forth. I glanced up. A long thick rope hung from the chandelier, and dangling at the end was a bulldog.

thirty-two

My brain couldn’t reconcile the dog’s body swinging back and forth to the barking that was coming from upstairs. “It’s a stuffed dog,” Red Butler said. He threw down the books he was carrying, reached under his tuxedo coat, and pulled out a gun. With his free hand, he tossed me his keys. “Go back to the van and lock yourself inside.”

“You think whoever did this is still here?”

“Just go.”

“Let me get my dog.”

“Go!”

I ran into the corridor, through the open gate, and cut across the street. Earlier today, before the funeral, I’d locked both the gray door and the gate. Someone had been in the house and hadn’t tripped the alarm—
because they knew the code
.

I jumped in the van and hit the auto lock. I watched the side mirror so nobody could sneak up from behind. I still had to bake twenty-four red velvet cakes. I’d hoped to fix one batch tonight and finish the rest before lunch tomorrow.

A few minutes later, Red Butler rapped on the window. Sir squirmed in his arms. “All clear,” he said.

I climbed out of the van and he dumped Sir into my arms. I sagged beneath the sudden weight and started checking Sir for wounds or blood, but Red Butler shook his head.

“He’s fine.”

We walked back to the Spencer-Jackson House, and I glanced at the Camry. The car stayed the same, but the detectives changed on a daily basis.

“Should we tell the police?” I asked Red Butler.

He pulled out his phone. The keypad beeped as he punched in a number. It was way too long for 911. I gave him a questioning stare, but he held out his hand to shush me.

“Coop? We got a problem here. Somebody hung a stuffed bulldog from Teeny’s chandy.” He paused, his eyes switching back and forth. “Yeah, they’re up the street, but—” He paused again. “Okeydokey, Boss. Will do.”

Damn, I didn’t want to see Coop, not until I’d eaten my way through a pound of Market Street pralines. A sugar fix would go a long way to calm me down.

Red Butler guided me into the corridor. “Go inside. I’m getting the dicks.”

I stepped into the house and looked up at the stuffed dog. I was shaking so bad, Sir nearly fell out of my arms. I wobbled over to the stairs and sat on the bottom step. Sir’s flat nose pushed into my ear. The stuffed dog was a warning. Natalie had a key to the house, and she knew the alarm code. If she hurt my dog, I didn’t know what I’d do, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be legal.

Red Butler returned with the detectives. One was prematurely bald and wore a white t-shirt with USC printed on the front; the other guy was about my height with brown eyes and needed a haircut. They looked past me, to the chandelier. The man in the USC shirt called for backup, and the short man bent to examine the door.

“Don’t see any sign of forced entry,” he said.

“There wasn’t,” Red Butler said. “And the burglar alarm was set.”

The short man rubbed his face and gave me a “maybe she did it herself” look. “Any workmen been here?” he asked me.

“Yes. The upstairs air conditioner went out.”

“And her house key went missing,” Red Butler added.

“Name of repair company?” asked the tanned guy.

“Coastal Electric and Air.”

“You didn’t change the locks?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. Red Butler beat me to it. “No, she was staying here on a temporary basis. And if you was doing your homework and been watching her house instead of sitting at the beach and pissing in the sea oats, you’d know who done this.”