by Nora Roberts
“Now you’re getting somewhere,” Susie told her. “But you got to keep your eyes all the way open.” She demonstrated, plowing three cans off the log in rapid succession.
“Couldn’t I just throw rocks at them?” Caroline yelled when Susie went to reset the cans.
“Did you play a symphony the first time you picked up your fiddle?”
Caroline sighed and rotated her shoulder. “Is this how you intimidate your kids into doing what you want?”
“Damn right.” Susie came back to her side. “Now relax, take your time. How’s the gun feel in your hand?”
“Actually, it feels …” She laughed a little and glanced down at it.
“Sexy, right?” She patted Caroline’s back. “It’s okay. You’re among friends. Thing is, you got the power right here, and the control, and the responsibility. Same as having sex.” She grinned. “That’s not what I tell my kids. Go ahead now, you sight in on that first can on the left. Make a picture on it. Have an ex-husband?”
“No, thanks.”
Susie hooted. “Old boyfriend? One who really pissed you off.”
“Luis,” Caroline hissed between her teeth.
“Whew, was he Spanish or something?”
“Or something.” Her teeth were clenching. “He was a big, sleek Mexican rat.” Caroline pulled the trigger. Her mouth fell open when the can jumped. “I hit it.”
“Just needed incentive. Try the next.”
“Couldn’t you ladies take up needlepoint?” Burke called.
Susie lowered her revolver and smiled. “You’re going to have more competition next Fourth of July, darlin’.” She skimmed her gaze over Burns before rising on tiptoe to kiss her husband. “You look tired.”
“I am tired.” He squeezed her hand. “Agent Burns, this is my wife, Susie, and Caroline Waverly. Miss Waverly found the body yesterday.”
“Caroline Waverly.” Burns said the name reverently. “I can’t believe it.” Taking her free hand, he brought it to his lips while Susie rolled her eyes at Burke behind the FBI man’s back. “I heard you play just a few months ago in New York. And last year at the Kennedy Center. I have several of your recordings.”
For a moment Caroline only blinked at him. All that seemed so far away, she almost thought he’d mistaken her for someone else.
“Thank you.”
“Oh, no, thank you” He was thinking the case might have benefits after all. “I can’t tell you how many times you’ve saved my sanity just by letting me hear you play.” His smooth cheeks were flushed with excitement, and his hand continued to grip hers. “This is, well, delightful, despite the circumstances. I must say, it’s the last place I’d expect to find the princess of the concert halls.”
A little ball of discomfort wedged in her stomach. “This was my grandmother’s home, Agent Burns. I’ve been here for only a few days.”
His pale blue eyes clouded with concern. “This must be terribly distressing for you. Be assured I’ll do everything in my power to resolve the matter quickly.”
Caroline made certain to avoid Susie’s eyes and managed a small smile. “That’s a comfort to me.”
“Anything, anything I can do. Anything at all.” He picked up the field kit he’d set at his feet. “I’ll take a look at the scene now, Sheriff.”
Burke gestured, and after glancing at Burns’s shiny Italian loafers, winked at his wife.
“Kinda cute,” Susie decided as they walked toward the trees. “If you go for the suit-and-tie type.”
“Fortunately, I don’t go for any type right now.”
“Never know.” Susie flapped the bodice of her blouse to stir some air. “Why don’t I show you how to clean your gun, then we’ll make something cold for the boys.” She gave Caroline a curious look. “I didn’t know you were really famous and all. I thought it was just Miss Edith bragging.”
“Fame all depends on the ground you’re standing on, doesn’t it?”
“I guess it does.” Susie turned toward the house. Because she’d developed a fondness for Caroline, and because it seemed to her Caroline needed a smile just then, Susie swung an arm over her shoulders. “Can you play ‘Orange Blossom Special’?”
Caroline had her first real laugh in days. “I don’t know why not.”
chapter 6
Tucker propped his feet on Burke’s desk and crossed his ankles. He didn’t mind waiting—in fact, waiting was one of the things he did best. What was often interpreted as a bone-deep laziness, even by Tucker himself, was an innate and boundless patience and a clear, untroubled mind.
At the moment his mind wasn’t as unfettered as he liked. And the truth was, he hadn’t slept well the night before. A little catnap while he waited for Burke to come along seemed like a sensible way to pass the time.
It hadn’t taken long for news of the FBI blowing into town to get down to Sweetwater. Tucker already knew that Special Agent Burns dressed like a mortician and drove a tan Mercury. Just as he knew that Burns was down at McNair Pond doing whatever FBI types did at murder scenes.
Murder. With a little grunt Tucker closed his eyes—the better to relax. Sitting there, listening to the creak of the ceiling fan and the whine of the useless window air conditioner, it didn’t seem possible that Edda Lou Hatinger was stretched out on a slab a few blocks away at Palmer’s Funeral Parlor.
He winced, trying to get beyond the discomfort, the plain creepiness of remembering how ready he’d been to go head to head with her. Worse, he’d been looking forward to the battle, to hearing her wail when she finally got it through her conniving brain that she wasn’t going to be the new mistress of Sweetwater.
He wouldn’t have to set her straight now. Or salvage some of his pride by hacking at hers.
Now, because he’d made the mistake of finding something sexy about the way she punched keys on the cash register at Larsson’s, because he’d indulged himself by sharing her bed and nibbling on that soft skin, he was going to have to make up an alibi to keep himself from being a suspect in her murder.
He’d been accused of many things. Of laziness, which was no sin in Tucker’s book. Of carelessness with money, which he readily admitted. Of adultery, which he took objection to. He’d never slept with a married woman—except for Sally Guilford a few years back, and she’d been legally separated. Even of cowardice, which Tucker preferred to think of as discretion.
But murder. Why, it would be laughable if it wasn’t so scary. If his father had been alive, he’d have busted a gut laughing. He—the only man Tucker had truly feared—hadn’t been able to bully or embarrass his son into shooting anything but thin air on any of their enforced hunting trips.
Of course, Edda Lou hadn’t been shot. Not if she’d been killed like the others. Because it was all too easy to slide her face over his image of Francie’s, to see what had been done to her smooth, white skin. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette
He pinched off part of the tip—he was up to nearly a quarter of an inch now—and was just lighting it when Burke walked in with a sweaty, annoyed-looking man in a dark suit.
Spending the best part of the day with the FBI hadn’t put Burke in the best of moods. He scowled at Tucker’s feet as he tossed his hat toward the pole by the door.
“Make yourself at home, son.”
“Doing my best.” Tucker blew out a stream of smoke. His stomach was jumping, but he sent Burke a lazy smile. “You ought to get yourself some new magazines, Burke. A man needs more to entertain his mind than Field and Stream and Guns and Ammo.”
“I’ll see if we can find some issues of Gentleman’s Quarterly and People.”
“I’d be obliged.” Tucker took another drag while he scanned Burke’s companion. The dark suit had wilted in the heat, but the man didn’t have the sense to loosen his tie. Though he couldn’t have said why, that simple fact had Tucker taking an instant dislike to Burns. “I thought it’d be a good idea for me to come on in and talk to you boys.”
Burke nodded, and wan
ting to take authority, walked behind his desk. “Tucker Longstreet, Special Agent Burns.”
“Welcome to Innocence.” Tucker didn’t get up, but offered a hand. It pleased him that Burns’s was soft, and a little clammy from the humidity. “What makes you special, Agent Burns?”
“It’s my rank.” Burns took a measure of Tucker’s scuffed sneakers, his casually expensive cotton slacks, and cocky grin. The dislike was mutual. “What did you want to discuss, Mr. Longstreet?”
“Well now, we could start with the weather.” Tucker ignored Burke’s warning look. “Looks like we’ve got a storm rolling in. Might cool things off for a spell. Or we could talk baseball. Orioles’re playing the Yankees tonight. Birds got themselves a tight pitching staff this year. Might just pull it off.” Tucker sucked in smoke. “You a betting man, Special Agent?”
“I’m afraid I don’t take an avid interest in sports.”
“Well, that’s okay.” There was a yawn in Tucker’s voice as he angled the chair back. “I don’t take an avid interest in much of anything. Avid takes too much effort.”
“Let’s get to the point, Tuck.” Since the look hadn’t worked, Burke tried his quiet, cut-the-bullshit tone. “Tucker knew the victim, Edda Lou …”
“The word you’re scratching for is intimately,” Tucker provided. His stomach muscles clenched up on him again, so he shifted to crush out the cigarette.
Burns settled in the third chair. In his fussily efficient way, he took a mini recorder and a pad from his pocket. “You wanted to make a statement.”
“Like ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’?” Tucker stretched his back. “Not particularly. Burke here thought you might want to ask me some questions. And being the cooperative sort, I’m here to answer them.”
Unruffled, Burns switched on the recorder. “I’m informed that you and the deceased had a relationship.”
“What we had was sex.”
“Come on, Tuck.”
He shot Burke a look. “That’s as honest as it gets, son. Edda Lou and I went out a few times, had some laughs, and tangled some sheets.” His eyes hardened, and he had to stop himself from reaching for another cigarette. “Couple weeks back I cut things off because she started talking marriage.”
“You ended the affair amicably?” Burns asked.
“I wouldn’t say that. I figure you already know about the scene in the diner a few days ago. It’s safe to say Edda Lou was pissed.”
“Your term, Mr. Longstreet. I have it here”—he tapped his pencil on his pad—“that she was angry and agitated.”
“You put those two words together with Edda Lou, and what you get is pissed.”
“She claimed you’d made her promises.”
Lazily, Tucker lowered his legs. The chair squeaked as he rocked it. “That’s the thing about me, Agent Burns, I don’t make them, ’cause it’s unlikely I’ll keep them.”
“And she announced publicly that she was pregnant.”
“Yeah. She did that.”
“After which, you left the … Chat ’N Chew, is it? You left abruptly.” He smiled thinly. “Would it be safe to say, Mr. Longstreet, that you were … pissed?”
“Having her come down on me in the diner, tell me—for the first time, in front of maybe a dozen people—that she was pregnant, and threatening to make me pay for it? Yeah.” He gave a slow, considering nod. “It’d be safe to say.”
“And you had no intention of marrying her.”
“Not a one.”
“And being infuriated, embarrassed, and trapped, you had a motive for killing her.”
Tucker ran his tongue over his teeth. “Not as long as I’ve got a checkbook.” He leaned forward. Though his face was hard, his voice flowed easily, like honey over corn bread. “Let me give you a clear picture of this, friend. Edda Lou was greedy, she was ambitious, and she was smart. Now, maybe there was a part of her figured she could intimidate me into a double-ring ceremony, but she’d have settled happily enough for a check with enough zeroes on it.”
He rose, then forced himself to take a breath and sit on the corner of the desk. “I liked her. Maybe not as much as I once did, but well enough. You don’t sleep with a woman one week and slice her up the next.”
“It’s been done.”
Something dark came alive in Tucker’s eyes. “Not by me.”
Burns shifted the recorder an inch to the right. “You were also acquainted with Arnette Gantrey and Frances Alice Logan.”
“Me and most everybody else in Innocence.”
“Did you also have relationships with them?”
“Dated them some. Didn’t sleep with either.” His lips curved a little in memory. “Though with Arnette, it wasn’t for lack of trying.”
“She rejected you?”
“Hell.” In disgust, Tucker pulled out another cigarette. It seemed he’d picked a lousy time to try to quit smoking. “We were friends, and she didn’t want to wrestle. Truth is, she’d always had her eye on my brother, Dwayne, but he never picked up the ball. Francie and I were just at the flirt-and-giggle stage.” He tossed a bit of paper and tobacco aside. “She was a sweetheart.” He shut his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Francie.”
“Oh?”
Fury bubbled up. “Look, I was with Burke when he found her. Maybe you’re used to seeing that kind of thing, but I’m not. Especially when it’s someone I had a fondness for.”
“Interesting that you were fond of all three women,” Burns said mildly. “And Mrs. Logan was found in Spook Hollow?” He gave a quick snort at the term. “That’s just a couple of miles from your home. And Miss Hatinger was found in McNair Pond. Less than a mile from your home. You visited that spot the day you argued with Miss Hatinger.”
“That’s right. And plenty of other times.”
“According to Miss Waverly, you seemed tense, upset, when she came across you.”
“I thought we’d settled on pissed. Yeah, I was. That’s why I stopped off there. It’s a peaceful spot.”
“And a secluded one. Can you tell me what you did with the rest of your evening, Mr. Longstreet?”
It wasn’t going to be the truth. “I played gin with Josie, my sister,” Tucker lied without a blink. “Being as I was distracted, she took me for about thirty or forty dollars, then we had a drink and went on up to bed.”
“What time did you leave your sister?”
“I went up about two, two-thirty maybe.”
“Agent Burns,” Burke broke in, “I’d like to say that on the afternoon Edda Lou was found, Tuck came in to see me. He was worried because he hadn’t heard from her, and she wasn’t answering the phone.”
Burns lifted a brow. “So noted, Sheriff. How did you come by your black eye, Mr. Longstreet?”
“Edda Lou’s father gave it to me. That’s how I came to realize she was missing. He rode up to the house, figuring I was hiding her. Then he got it into his head I’d talked her into going somewhere for an abortion.”
“Did you discuss abortion with the deceased?”
“She was deceased before I had a chance to discuss anything with her.” He pushed himself off the desk. “That’s all I’ve got to say. If you have any more questions, you ride on down to Sweetwater and ask. I’ll see you around, Burke.”
Burke waited until the door slammed. “Agent Burns, I’ve known Tucker all my life. I can tell you that no matter how het up he was about Edda Lou, he couldn’t have killed her.”
Burns merely switched off his recorder. “Isn’t it fortunate that I have an objective eye? I believe it’s time we checked at the funeral parlor, Sheriff. The pathologist is due.”
Tucker’d just about had it. He’d done nothing but mind his own business, live his own life, and what did he have to show for it? Sore ribs, a swollen eye, and the novelty of being a murder suspect.
He shot out of Innocence and cranked the car up to eighty.
The way he figured it, it all had to do with women. If it hadn’t been for the wa
y Edda Lou had rubbed up against him every blessed time he’d walked into Larsson’s, he wouldn’t have started dating her. If Della hadn’t nagged him, he wouldn’t have been in town for Edda Lou to harp on. If that Waverly woman hadn’t wandered into the bayou, she wouldn’t have seen him sitting by the pond. Looking “tense and upset.”
Jesus H. Christ, he’d had a right to look that way.
He was sick about Edda Lou, gut-churning sick. No matter how sneaky she’d been, she didn’t deserve to be dead. But dammit, he didn’t see why he had to suffer for it. Having to sit there and take it while that stiff-necked Yankee bastard prodded him with questions and gave him those cop looks.
Worse than cop looks, he thought as he swung around a curve. It had been those superior, big-city honcho-to-addled-good-old-boy sneers that burned his ass.
Caroline Waverly had looked at him the same way. She’d probably done handsprings on her way to tell the FBI about coming across the dirty Reb plotting murder in the swamp.
A yard past the McNair lane, Tucker slammed on the brakes. His tires screamed on the pavement as he whipped into a U-turn. Maybe he’d just go have himself a talk with the duchess.
As he sent gravel spitting, he didn’t notice the pick-up lumbering down the road. Austin’s blackened eyes narrowed as he spotted the red flash disappearing into the brush. His lips spread in a smile as he pulled over to the side.
He turned off the ignition, pocketed the keys before reaching for the shoe black. Studying himself in the rearview mirror, he sliced black lines under his eyes, adjusted his camouflage hat. From the rack in the window he chose his weapon, opting for the Remington Woodsmaster, and checked the load. He was still smiling as he stepped out of the truck, wearing full camouflage, with keen-edged hunting knife tucked in his ammo belt.
He was going hunting. For the glory of the Lord.
Caroline didn’t mind being alone. Though she’d enjoyed Susie’s company, the woman’s energy pitch had all but exhausted her. Nor did she believe that anyone was going to break into the house and kill her in her sleep. She was a stranger, after all, and no one knew her well enough to wish her harm. Now that the pistol was tucked away, she had no intention of touching it again.