Hollyhock Ridge (30 page)

“Can I confide something in you?”

“Certainly,” Georgia said. “From my ears to the vault.”

“I’m kind of, sort of involved with someone who’s an
alcoholic,” Claire said. “He says he has it under control but he doesn’t.
There’s a chance he may go to rehab and get sober, but then I wonder if he can
even stay sober after that. I’m ashamed of myself for not believing in him, and
for not being more patient while he figures things out, but I’m also afraid of
what might happen to me if I get more deeply involved.”

“Do his issues trigger your own issues?”

“I never thought about it that way, but yes, probably.”

“So, basically, he’s asking you to sacrifice yourself on the
altar of his addiction.”

“That sounds kind of dramatic,” Claire said, “and not like scientific
research.”

“Dottie says I have the brain of a scientist but the soul of
a poet,” Georgia said. “One thing I’ve learned, and not just from books, mind
you, but from painful personal experience, is that deeply addicted people are
supremely selfish. They feel profoundly sorry for themselves, and when
drowning, will always pull you under if you let them.”

“I expected you to suggest a support group like Alanon, or
something,” Claire said.

“My best advice to you, my dear girl, is that you wish him
good luck and walk away.”

“That seems harsh.”

“You’re getting off on hits of oxytocin every time you’re
around this man,” Georgia said. “When you look at the situation from that viewpoint,
does it change the way you think about the relationship?”

“So Laurie’s like heroin and Ed’s like a nice, healthy fruit
smoothie,” Claire said. “It does put things in perspective.”

“We can get addicted to romantic feelings, to passion and
sexual attraction just as easily as we do to drugs and alcohol,” Georgia said.
“After a while, a healthy relationship doesn’t offer those high highs and low
lows. There’s an element of danger, of the unknown, in a new relationship that
doesn’t exist in a secure, reliable partnership. A person who’s addicted to
those feelings might create high drama, or even stray, in order to feel that
roller coaster of emotion again.”

“That explains so much,” Claire said. “I just have to quit
feeding my drama addiction so I can have a healthy relationship with someone
steady and good.”

“I wish it were that easy,” Georgie said. “I have come to
believe that an addictive personality requires constant vigilance and some sort
of support system when, as Aretha Franklin put it best, ‘will power is weak and
temptation strong.’ ”

“Some kind of a Drama Queens Anonymous,” Claire said.

“You call me whenever you’re feeling weak, and I’ll be your
sponsor,” Georgia said.

“I can’t quite picture you as a recovering drama queen,”
Claire said. “You seem like the most sensible and sane person I know.”

“I just hide it better,” Georgia said, and winked.

“I may just be overdramatizing the whole thing,” Claire
said. “I’m not actually in a relationship with him.”

“You may not be drowning yet,” Georgia said. “But you’re in
the water.”

It was hard to sleep with a big, snoring man taking up three
fourths of her double-size bed, so Kay spent a wakeful night over-thinking
everything. By 4:00 a.m. she had worn herself out worrying about the possible
repercussions of their impulsive sleepover, and how it might impact both her
personal life and her mayoral run.

At 5:00 a.m. Kay eased her way out of bed and went to the
bathroom to take a shower. A tangle of her and Sonny’s clothing was there on
the floor, along with two damp towels. She smiled as she picked up the mess and
sorted out the clothes. After her shower, she decided it would be better to
launder his clothes so he wouldn’t leave looking like a wrinkly damp mess. She
started a load of laundry and then went out on the front porch to have a cup of
tea.

Sonny’s truck was parked right outside, leaving no doubt
where he’d passed the night and with whom. There would probably be a swarm of
early morning walkers just happening to pass by, as many times as it took, until
they could witness Sonny leaving her house. The drawbacks of small-town life
included this proprietary nosiness and the subsequent exaggerated gossip that
would follow. Kay cared very much what her neighbors thought, and dreaded what
was to come.

It was still dark, but the birds in the trees were already
singing. Kay pulled her robe closer around her, drew her feet up onto the
glider seat, and sipped her tea. It was so odd to think a man was inside,
asleep in her bed. Shug had stayed the night a few times, but he preferred his
king-sized bed in his king-sized house, where his housekeeper took care of
everything and Kay wasn’t allowed to lift so much as a finger. If Kay tried to
put a king-size bed in her bedroom, it would be wall-to-wall bed in there.

Kay was tired and sleepy, but her heart fluttered inside
with what felt like happy anticipation. Sonny was in love with her, had said
so, and he wasn’t the type to use those words lightly. She wasn’t worried he
would wake up and change his mind, or that he would suddenly decide to give his
ex-wife another chance. No, Sonny was exactly what he portrayed himself to be:
a good man, a loyal man, a man of his word. Kay realized that what she felt was
settled, in the best, most contented way possible.

‘So this is what’s next,’ she thought.

It was a pleasant thought.

By the time Sonny got up, his clothes were pressed and Kay
was making his breakfast. He embraced her from behind as she tended to a pan of
eggs on the stove. Kay laughed at the sight of him wearing her pink chenille
robe.

“Woman, you are the best thing that’s happened to me in a
long time,” he said.

“You’re absolutely right,” Kay said. “Now, sit down and
eat.”

When Kay got to work, word had already spread, and she
endured many too-wide and too-knowing smiles. She did her best to act normally,
but her face felt warm and she knew it was pink with embarrassment. Lucille
came out of her office as soon as she heard Kay arrive. She poured a mug of
coffee, picked up a muffin off the cart in the hallway, and then took a seat in
the chair across from Kay’s desk.

“Inquiring minds want to know,” Lucille said.

“I haven’t the slightest idea to what you are referring,”
Kay said.

“C’mon,” Lucille said. “I tell you all my adventures.”

“What have you heard?” Kay asked.

“Sonny Delvecchio’s truck was parked outside of your house
all night, and Doc’s wife saw Sonny leave there to go to work at 7:00 a.m.”

“All true,” Kay said. “Can we get back to work now?”

Town council member Alva Johnston appeared in the doorway
and knocked on the door frame.

“Did you see the paper?” she asked, and waved a copy of the
Pendleton paper at them.

She handed it to Kay, whose heart skipped a beat as she read
the headline of the article in question, which was written by Ed Harrison.

“Death of local businessman reveals hidden graft,” it read.

“That woman from the FBI has already been to see me,”
Lucille said. “I told them it was Stuart who signed the checks, and Stuart who
told me to code them as consulting fees.”

“I gave them a copy of the minutes from the meeting where he
stated the contingency fund was being used for consulting fees,” Alva said.
“There were ten witnesses to that big fat lie.”

“What I want to know is why Stuart was contributing to that
account,” Lucille said. “Was Knox blackmailing him or something?”

“We may never know,” was all Kay said.

“Well,” Alva said, “if he thought Knox was going to be the
next U.S. Senator he probably wanted to be on his good side, and nothing was
nearer and dearer to Knox Rodefeffer’s tiny little heart than cold hard cash.”

The article outlined the diversion of city funds into a bank
account in Pittsburgh, and revealed that Knox Rodefeffer’s name was on the same
account. Kay skimmed the rest of the paragraph, looking for Marigold’s name,
but her name was not mentioned and the actual intended use of the money was not
revealed. Although Kay hadn’t told anyone what Marigold had shared with her, it
was only a matter of time before it was all known, at the very least because Ed
was good at his job and so very thorough.

The article further reported, “Attorneys for former mayor
Stuart Machalvie, implicated in the alleged misappropriation of city funds,
said that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and would respond to the
allegations at the appropriate time to the appropriate authorities.”

“I heard Knox slipped on a hundred dollar bill, hit his
head, and died,” Alva said. “How’s that for an appropriate ending?”

“God rest his soul, I know,” Lucille said, “but that man was
as mean as a snake-bit bear and he deserved what he got.”

“He would have spent the rest of his life in the pokey for
murdering his Aunt Mamie,” Alva said. “I say he took the easy way out.”

“We don’t know that’s true about Mamie,” Kay said. “We need
to be careful not to jump to conclusions.”

The FBI agent known as Terese knocked on the door frame and
all three women were startled.

“Could I speak with you?” she asked Kay.

“Of course,” Kay said.

“Just leaving,” Lucille said.

“Me, too,” Alva said.

Kay took a deep breath, and steeled herself for the
interview. Terese always made it seem casual and friendly, but Kay knew better.

The interview went pretty much as she thought it would. Terese
knew about the bank account, probably from statements found in Knox’s office
after his death. When specifically asked, Kay told her all she knew about
Stuart’s use of the contingency fund. Kay knew that, with those statements as
evidence, there would be no doubt about Marigold’s involvement.

“When did you find out about this account?” Terese asked
her.

“A few days before the town council asked Stuart to resign,”
Kay said, “Lucille and I were discussing the contingency fund, because I wanted
to pay a sub police chief out of it, and we were speculating about the consultant
Stuart was paying so much money. The checks were made out to ‘The Mark Nost
Group’ but we couldn’t find any information about Mr. Nost or his consultancy
business on the Internet.

“Later that day, while Stuart was in a closed door meeting
with the town council, I went to his office, found his briefcase open on the
desk, and went through it. I found the folder for the bank account. I examined
the statements and saw that the dates and amounts of the deposits matched those
of the contingency fund checks. I saw the names of the account owners, and the
copies of the checks Marigold had written to herself. Then the name made sense:
‘Mar’ is for Marigold, ‘kno’ is for Knox, and ‘st’ is for Stuart. I made copies
of everything and returned the originals to his briefcase.”

“Did you tell Lucille what you found?”

“I did not.”

“Did you confront Stuart, Knox, or Marigold about the
account?”

“I did not.”

“Were you planning to use this information in your
campaign?”

“No,” Kay said. “I had heard through the grapevine that
Stuart was trying to throw me under the bus, to blame me for the things he was
accused of doing, and I wanted to have evidence to use to defend myself in
court, if it came to that.”

“Was Marigold having an affair with Knox or Stuart?” Terese
asked her.

“No!” Kay said. “I mean, not to my knowledge.”

“Was she performing some service for them?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Was she blackmailing either of them?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Why do you think they were paying her?”

Kay hesitated. She did not want to lie to the F.B.I. but she
had given Marigold her word.

“Miss Templeton,” Terese prompted.

“I was not privy to any conversations between Knox, Stuart,
and Marigold that led to this account being set up, nor did I witness any
collaboration between the three account owners regarding this account.”

“You may have heard gossip, though,” Terese said. “You may
have put two and two together.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t use it as testimony.”

“Sometimes gossip has a bit of truth in it.”

“Nevertheless,” Kay said. “I’ve told you what I know from my
direct knowledge of the situation.”

Terese did not specifically ask her about a possible
relationship Marigold might have had when she and Knox were young, and that may
have been splitting hairs, but Kay did not want to betray Marigold’s confidence
about her college romance with Knox or their baby. She had given Marigold her
word.

“I may need to talk to you again,” Terese said.

“No problem,” Kay said, although her heart was thumping hard
in her chest.

Later that afternoon, Marigold Lawson came to Kay’s office.
Her face was pale, her eyes red and swollen.

“I won’t stay,” she said. “I’ve just been interviewed by the
FBI and I wanted to tell you I’m withdrawing from the mayoral race.
Congratulations.”

“Marigold,” Kay said, as she rose and came around her desk.
“Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I told them everything,” Marigold said, and her voice
shook. “There’s no way I can continue now.”

“I didn’t tell them about your relationship with Knox or the
baby you gave up,” Kay said. “I kept my word to you.”

“It was stupid of me to trust you, I know,” Marigold said.
“Political battles always bring out the worst in people.”

“I swear to you I didn’t tell anybody what you told me,” Kay
said. “They found out about the bank account from the bank statements in Knox’s
office and that led them to you.”

“I knew you’d deny it,” Marigold said. “But I wanted you to
know that I know the truth.”

“I’m sorry you think that,” Kay said. “It looks like there’s
nothing I can do to convince you otherwise.”