Gone With a Handsomer Man (27 page)

“Why don’t you give me your phone number, and I’ll have my lawyer call you?” I glanced anxiously toward Adgers. Where the heck was Red Butler? Why wasn’t he coming?

Eileen opened her cat purse. I edged into the corridor while she scribbled on a piece of paper that had pictures of cats on it. She saw me looking and said, “Isn’t my scratch pad cute?”

She handed me the slip of paper and turned to leave. Then she whirled.

“You haven’t heard the last from me,” she said. “I’ll chase you off yet.”

“Whatever,” I called. Despite the 92-degree heat, gooseflesh broke out on my arms. Eileen was tall enough to hang a stuffed dog from a chandelier. Had she sent that photograph of me and Coop to the DA?

Eileen lifted one hand, drew her fingers into a claw, and scratched the air. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, then she crossed the street to her RV. By the time Red Butler lugged our shopping bags up to the house, Eileen was gone.

“You just missed Bing’s sister,” I said.

“Did y’all have a cat fight?” Red Butler laughed. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. What’d she want?”

I grabbed one of the bags. “Come on inside, and I’ll fill you in.”

*   *   *

I carried a tall glass of ice water to the garden and sank into a chair while Sir watered on the bushes. The bells of St. Michael’s pealed in the distance. I looked up into the canopy of the live oaks. The garden was a tiny pocket of isolation in a world of noise. I couldn’t say why, but I felt utterly safe here.

Red Butler wandered out and hooked a lock to the gate. He hadn’t said much about Eileen’s visit. In fact, he seemed downright pensive. He didn’t glance up as Sir romped over the grass, chasing a yellow butterfly.

I pressed the cool glass against my forehead and thought about Coop. If Eileen hadn’t taken that photograph, who had? Who would benefit other than Ava?

I saw a flicker of movement along the brick wall, where the ivy spilled down. A Carolina chickadee flew to the grass and swooped back up to the wall. The bird’s movement soothed me. Surely no evil would happen where a chickadee played. Until I’d seen that stuffed dog, I’d never dreamed that anyone would want to hurt me or Sir.

Whoever had hung that stuffed dog had probably come through the garden, creeping through hedges, jumping over the wall. It would have to be an agile criminal, that’s for sure. I got up and barely made it to the tiger lily bed before my water came back up. My heartbeat ticked in my ears, blotting out the gagging sounds. Too bad my safe feeling had only lasted a few minutes.

“You okay?” Red Butler called.

“Fine.” I rubbed my arms, feeling the gooseflesh. If I was this scared in daylight, what would happen after dark? I wanted to be brave, but I didn’t want me or my real dog to end up hanging from a chandelier.

I held out my hand. It trembled. No one in my life had wished me ill, nor had they coveted what little I had. Tonight I’d just stay awake for as long as I could and if I saw anything scary, I’d call 911. The police were only down the street and didn’t have far to come.

I balled my hand into a fist and pushed it into my chest. Get you some gumption, I whispered to myself. Maybe if I laced barbed wire thought the ivy, twisted it around and around, I’d trap the evildoer. Take that, you bad man, and get you a tetanus shot while you’re at it.

Red Butler walked up. “Something happen between you and the boss?”

“Why do you ask?” I narrowed my eyes. Was I truly that transparent?

“’Cause you’re mooning like a love-struck kid.”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. You got it bad. The boss really was your first love, wasn’t he?”

“I wish I hadn’t told you that.”

“So, you’re thinking you and him reconnected by happenstance? Or for a reason, like y’all are meant to be together?”

I had thought that, but I gave him a hard look.

“Girlie, you’re making too much out of this. Don’t you understand the psychology behind a first love? It ain’t who the person is but what they represent. It was the first time you probably felt strong emotions for someone other than blood kin. You follow me?”

I nodded.

“See, the heart is tight and virginal. A first love makes you bleed. It opens the heart fully. That’s why people can’t forget their first loves. They show us just how deep the love can go. That’s my take on it, anyway.”

“You could give Dr. Phil a run for his money.”

“Who’d want to?” He grinned.

*   *   *

I fixed a red-potato frittata, adding chopped bacon and onions. Since I was in a cooking mood, I made a corn and tomato salad with sweet mayonnaise dressing. I set the patio table with blue-and-white floral dishes, added a vase filled with hydrangeas, and called Red Butler to the garden.

He ate in silence, scraping his fork over the plate. I cut another wedge of frittata and slipped it onto his plate. He dug in greedily. “Damn, this is good,” he said.

“Save room for your cake,” I said.

“Answer me something, Teeny. What if you don’t go to jail? What if you find some guy and get married? Have lots of kids. Would you keep baking cakes and selling them, or would you kick back and take it easy?”

Some guy? I repressed a smile. Now that I’d eaten, I was in a better mood. I clasped my hands and stretched them over my head. “I’ll always bake,” I said.

“Even if you don’t have to?”

“The whole process just tickles me,” I said. “I like matching food to people and filling up their empty spaces.”

“You sound like my daddy. He was all eat up with food. Back when Charleston had a chef school, he wanted to go, but it cost a fortune. So my daddy, he taught himself how to cook.” He pointed at the frittata. “Something like this takes skill.”

He moved on to the cake. If I’d had time, I would have made crème frâiche. An iced cake is always tastier with something dense and slightly sour. If you want to cook good food, you have to think like a cook. It’s messy. Cooking isn’t a clean activity. It’s not a stage set on Food Network, where ingredients are waiting in clear bowls and everything follows a script.

Every now and then, you must deal with dough that just won’t rise. Do you start over? Knead the dough, cover it with a warm, moist towel, and hope for the best? Relationships are the same way. You can think you are following a recipe, you can do everything right, and your product might turn out indigestible. If it smells like bread, it may not be bread.

After Red Butler finished his cake, he loaded the dishwasher while I put my cookbooks onto the shelf above the desk. The phone trilled. It was decorative, made to look French. It even rang French. I picked up, hoping it was Coop. “Hey.”

Silence.

“Is anyone there?”

“Die,” a voice said. It was female, but I couldn’t place it.

I banged down the receiver like I was crushing a wasp and stepped back.

“Damn, what’d they say?” Red Butler asked.

I put my hand over my mouth. It took me a few seconds to compose myself. “They said, ‘Die.’”

“Man or woman?”

“Woman.”

He lifted the phone. It jangled when he turned it upside down. “You got caller ID?”

“No.”

“The police have this number tapped. Maybe they heard. Has this fucker called here before?”

“Once. But she didn’t say anything.”

“Where’s your gate key?”

“In the bowl.”

He walked into the dining room, into the hall. I heard the front door open, heard his footsteps clap over the bricks. I ran to the kitchen window and saw him bearing down on the stakeout car. He rapped on their window. It inched down, and I saw the short, gray-eyed cop’s forehead. Red Butler yelled, thick cords standing out on his neck. His left arm flew into the air and he shook his fist. Then he hurried back to the house and slammed the door. “Bastards!”

I pushed away from the window and ran into the hall. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re checking it out.” He looked at me from under his eyebrows. “Why didn’t you tell me about that other call?”

“I told Coop. He thought it was Natalie. So did I.”

“It prolly is, but you don’t know for sure. People are meaner and crazier than they used to be. ‘Die’ is a big fucking deal. It’s a threat.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“You should be scared.” He pointed at me. “Don’t you keep nothing from me again.
Nothing
. Your life may depend on it.”

thirty-five

At five o’clock, I went upstairs to take a bath. The room was larger than Aunt Bluette’s living room and reminded me of a chessboard, with black-and-white tiles on the floor and walls. Monogrammed towels hung from silver rings,
EJ
, for Elmer Jackson.

I leaned into the claw-foot tub, pushed the stopper into the drain, and switched on the faucet. While the tub filled, I opened the linen closet. Towels were stacked on one shelf, toilet paper on another. I pulled out a black plaid towel and saw the top of a ziplock bag. I bent closer. The bag was filled with dried oregano and a glass pipe. Except I was pretty sure this wasn’t a cooking herb. I blinked. Had Bing’s late uncle been a doper?

I undressed, then eased down into the steaming tub and thought about Uncle Elmer. I’d never met him. Prior to his death, he’d been something of a recluse because of Alzheimer’s. He hadn’t attended Miss Dora’s party, and she’d told me not to take offense, that poor Elmer never went anywhere. Yet he’d left this house long enough to buy drugs. Or, maybe they’d been delivered.

I made a note to tell Coop about the marijuana, then I climbed out of the tub and reached for the towel. I didn’t want to put back on the clothes I’d worn all day, so I tucked the towel at my breasts and stepped across the hall to my bedroom.

I didn’t have perfume: a little vanilla extract on my pulse points would have to suffice. The dollar store underwear and bra fit nicely. I put on the cream shirt and rolled the sleeves above my elbows. The buttons started at my breast bone, and I wished I had Aunt Bluette’s long cameo necklace. That would have been a nice touch.

I removed the tags from the white denims I’d bought and slipped them on. A perfect fit. I’d have to quit spending money on clothes. I needed other things. Even a cheap apartment would require a deposit. I could do without furniture, but not electricity and water.

Of course, I had a good chance of ending up in jail. While my utilities would be covered, I couldn’t see Coop and me talking through a partition, heating the air with heavy breathing, drawing I ♥ You’s on the glass.

Six o’clock came and went. I didn’t see Red Butler anywhere, so I took
Templeton Family Receipts
to the pink living room and curled up in a wing chair. It faced a long window that overlooked East Bay. Sir stretched on the floor, his stumpy legs splayed behind him. Each time a car went by, I jumped up and Sir scrambled to his feet.

“Poor baby,” I told him. “I’m wearing you out.”

I honed in on Aunt Bluette’s handwriting and looked for her recipes. I found two for Italian cream cake, both with minor variations. I turned a page and ran my finger over Mama’s back-slanted script. She’d jotted down Luke 23:43, plus Jimmy Buffett’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” adding a recipe for onion-bacon meat patties.

Another car passed down East Bay. I got up to look at the gold dolphin clock on the desk. Almost seven o’clock. I walked to the bookcase. In the cabinet I found a CD player and turned it on. Muse began to sing “Unintended, ” a song about a man who’d found his true love, only he was still in another relationship.

Uncle Elmer must have been an interesting guy. He’d smoked marijuana, listened to alternative music, and lived in this fussy old house. He’d even let Miss Dora fill it with pinkness. I would have liked him tremendously. As long as I was the custodian of his home, I would take care of it.

The music changed to a Cary Brothers song, “Ride,” which is about a man asking the love of his life to risk everything and go off with him. Coop had every reason in the world to ride away from me—if he dallied with a client, he could be disbarred. Dammit, why did everything have to be black or white? Couldn’t we be friends by day and go into a gray area after dark? We could step into Uncle Elmer’s dish closet, surrounded by pewter cups and silver trays, and do what we wanted.

No sooner had those self-pitying thoughts crossed my mind when the doorbell rang. Sir trotted over with a “Shall I eat them?” look in his eyes.

I set the cookbook on the cushion and walked to the corridor. Coop was waiting by the iron gate, one hand braced against the stucco wall. The gas lantern flickered over his pale yellow shirt. I unlocked the gate and studied his face. His hair was windblown and he gripped a file folder under his arm. His eyes had the tired, unfocused glaze of someone who’d been driving for hours.

“I was getting worried,” I said.

“I just got back from the state lab in Columbia.” He walked past me toward the gray door. No welcoming kiss, no accidental brushing of the arms. I bolted the gate and we walked into the foyer.

“I have good news,” he said. “The forensic expert says the signature isn’t Bing’s.”

“Natalie lied? I knew it!”

“She did more than lie. We’ll need to do a full-bore investigation into her background. My guess is, she’s no stranger to forgery. I’ve called the DA and the state attorney general.”

I was having trouble breathing. I tried to relax as music drifted from the house.

“The police still have you under surveillance,” Coop said. “We need more evidence that points to Natalie.”

“The fake signature isn’t enough?”

“I have to prove that she forged it.” He paused. “Where’s Red?”

“He was in the garden earlier.” I started toward the back door and he caught my arm.

“Teeny,” he began.

“What?” I had the feeling he was withholding bad news, something about the murder. Or maybe he’d gotten back with Ava. He stared until the music changed, and Coldplay began to sing “Yellow.”

“Just say it,” I whispered. I stepped closer. I thought he might jerk back, but his hands moved down to my hips. I stood on my toes and kissed him. And he kissed me back. He was all I’d ever wanted. If this was true love, then my other relationships had been pale imitations.