2 On the Nickel

by Maggie Toussaint

  Chapter 10

  My world reeled. I clung to the kitchen table because if I didn’t, I would surely slide into the darkest hole of my life and never see daylight again. Everything I valued about honesty and reputation and integrity, it all came from Daddy.

  I had his green eyes, his fiery red hair. I had his uncanny aptitude for accounting and his dogged determination to endure in the face of trouble. He’d been a rock through every storm of my life. We’d worked and played together. He’d devoted his life to me, to Mama. Erica Hodges had no place in that world. No way. I’d have known.

  Mama’s pathos drew me out of my reflections. This wasn’t about me or my childhood. This was very much about my mother. “It’s okay, Mama. It’s okay.” I went to her, wrapping her in my arms, holding her tight. We huddled together, mother and daughter, and I cried with her.

  I smoothed her curly white hair away from her face and patted her back until she quieted.

  “I am so ashamed.” Mama’s ragged voice held no hope. “I’m so ashamed.”

  Snapshots of the past swirled through my mind like a video montage on fast forward. Mama and Daddy. Mama and Erica. Daddy’s funeral. Daddy’s willing the house to me. Everyone, including me, thinking that was odd. Why had he done that? Did he know something was amiss in Mama’s life back then?

  What else was Mama concealing?

  I needed to know.

  I dreaded knowing.

  Terror weighed heavily on my chest, pushing the air from my lungs, making me fight for every breath. I couldn’t do this standing in the kitchen, not after the gym workout I’d endured. “Come on, Mama. Let’s go sit in the living room.”

  Mama sank onto the sofa, and I joined her with a sigh of relief. I wiped the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. Sunshine streamed through the side window, creating a pool of light on the wood floor. I was glad for the light and the warmth. Just what I needed to combat the cold hard truth of life.

  It was time for secrets to be revealed. “Whatever it is, we can deal with it,” I said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I can’t. You’re going to hate me.”

  “You’re my mother. I won’t hate you.”

  Mama found a tissue in her robe pocket and used it. She plucked a stray dog hair off her sleeve. Her lower lip trembled.

  “Tell me, Mama. Please.”

  She groaned in misery. The inner corners of her eyebrows lowered, while her nose wrinkled. Her hand went to her throat. She glanced everywhere but at me. Finally she whispered, “I had an affair. I cheated on your father.”

  I blinked. Then I blinked some more as the foundations of my world tilted. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. “Someone else is my father?”

  Her head snapped back into the sofa cushions. “Don’t be absurd. Joe’s your father. You’re the spitting image of him and everyone knows it. Thank God for that thick red hair of yours.”

  My red mop was nearly unmanageable, which is why I clipped it up and out of the way. I’d never once thought of it as an asset. Now I was thrilled to share this physical trait with my father.

  “This is so hard.” Mama sighed. “You’d think it would be easy to confess and get it over with, but the truth is, my behavior sounds so callous. First, you have to understand that I loved your father with all my heart. I loved him from the first moment I laid eyes on him until his dying day. I love him and miss him and wish he was still a part of my daily life.”

  Madonna lumbered into the living room. She rested her head in my lap and drooled on me. I patted her head absently, my attention one hundred percent focused on my mother. I was afraid of what came next, and I hated how much I needed to know.

  “I don’t understand, Mama. How could you love Daddy and cheat on him?”

  Mama drew in a shaky, deep breath. “You remember I had an older sister?” At my nod, she continued. “Ruth died when we were in high school.”

  “I’ve gone with you to put flowers on Aunt Ruth’s grave.”

  A faraway look came into Mama’s eyes. “Ruthie and I were as different as night and day. While I craved respectability, Ruthie walked on the wild side. We grew up across the mountain, over in Metter, but we were bused to Hogan’s Glen for school. We had nothing, Ruthie and I. Both of us wanted out of poverty, but we took different roads. She used her body to attract attention, and she ended up pregnant.”

  “Pregnant? Aunt Ruth had a baby?”

  “Ruthie died during childbirth. My mama said the baby died, too.”

  “What does Aunt Ruth have to do with your affair?” Horrible thoughts raced through my head. Had Aunt Ruth been pregnant by Daddy? “Don’t stop now.”

  “Ruthie was a high school senior, and I was a junior when she died,” Mama said. “I missed her so much that I couldn’t stand going to school. When my math teacher arranged for another student to tutor me to bring my grades up, I came this close to not doing it.” She pinched her fingers close together. “The only reason I followed through was that I’d always had a crush on this particular boy.”

  I stroked Madonna’s broad head and tried to imagine Mama in high school. We had no pictures of her at that time. Her pictorial history began when she married Daddy. There were no photos of her mother or of Aunt Ruth, either.

  Personalities didn’t change. Mama would have been outspoken and obstinate back then. Petite and loaded with vitality and sass. Dark curly hair with arresting brown eyes and a wicked sense of humor. Daddy would have latched on to her and held on tight.

  “Joe was Erica’s beau back then. He was smart and hardworking and had endless patience with me. Those tutoring sessions were the only bright spot in my life. Whenever I wasn’t being tutored or at school, I helped Mama with the wash she took in. Erica knew about Ruthie and her wild ways. They’d been classmates, you see. Erica was furious with Joe for tutoring me. White trash she called me, and she was right. But the more she ragged Joe about his tutoring, the more he turned from her to me.

  “Honestly, I didn’t try to lure him away from her, but I didn’t chase him away. Joe was old Hogan’s Glen. He came from a good, decent family. I knew he could give me the life I wanted.”

  “So you married Daddy,” I added, hoping to move this story along and get to the affair.

  “We got married. His parents supported us while Joe went to college. I kept house and learned how to be Joe’s wife. Joe was very attentive. Loving. Constant. And I was scared to death of having marital relations with him. Every time Joe wanted to, you know, I froze up inside.”

  I did not want to hear about my parent’s sex life. But I couldn’t help myself. “What did you do?”

  Mama buried her face in her hands. “This is the part I’m ashamed of. I assumed since I wasn’t interested in sex, it was because Joe wasn’t exciting in that way. I found someone else, a friend of Joe’s. He was happy to pay me that kind of attention.”

  Ice chilled my blood. “You betrayed Daddy with his friend?”

  “I never thought of it as a betrayal. It was like trying on a new dress. For years Ruthie had been the wild one. I’d never even kissed another man besides Joe. Your father was the only reference point I had. So I found time to be with his friend.”

  My stomach lurched, and I grabbed my middle with both arms. “I don’t want to know intimate details about your love life.”

  “Good. I have no intention of telling you. Here’s the deal. I didn’t sleep with Joe’s friend. We shared several meals, saw a movie, and kissed exactly once. That’s all it took, you see. I found out the problem wasn’t Joe. It was me.”

  “You?”

  “Me. Ruthie died from childbirth. I realized I was terrified of becoming pregnant. Sex led to pregnancy, and in my mind, pregnancy to death. That’s why I didn’t light up the sheets.”

  “You figured that out by yourself?”

  “No. I went home to Mama after I kissed Joe’s friend. I told her I couldn’t go back to Joe because of what I’d done. Mama was incredibly nosy
—you take after her by the way—and she dragged the whole story out of me. Then she took me home to my husband. I never told Joe about the kiss, but I broke it off with his friend. However, the horse was out of the barn. Someone had seen us together. Someone who knew what my betrayal would do to Joe.”

  My heart sank as the picture clarified. “Oh, Lord. Erica knew? Erica attended the same college?”

  Mama nodded, her expression sad. “Erica was there, and she’d taken a leaf from Ruthie’s book. She assumed the best way to land a husband was through his fly. When Joe wouldn’t accommodate her, Erica slept with William Hodges until she got herself good and pregnant. They had a quickie marriage and ended up back in Hogan’s Glen. Erica had William but she always wanted Joe.”

  “Was William the man who kissed you?”

  “No. Thank God for that. William and your father knew each other, but they were never friends. Your father preferred friends who drank less, who played golf, and who shared his passion for truth.”

  Daddy had had one lifelong friend. The horrible truth dawned on me. “Bud? Bud Flook? He was the man you kissed?”

  Mama nodded, her hands clutched tightly in her lap. “You have to understand. I was so deeply in love with Joe, I didn’t realize what that kiss and those few dinners meant to Bud. Not once. Over the years, Joe ribbed Bud about his permanent bachelorhood, and Bud said some guys weren’t meant to find happiness. Believe me, I was stunned when I learned Bud loved me.”

  The walls of the room pressed in on me. My head pounded. “Your lawyer, the person whose sole responsibility is to keep you out of jail, is the man you passed over all those years ago?”

  Mama’s face crumpled. “I never meant to wreck Bud’s life, but I did. Now I have to make it up to him.”

  I glanced over at the doorway, wishing I could bolt out of this room. Mama had been in a love triangle? My mouth soured. “Rafe was right. You need a new lawyer.”

  “Bud’s the only lawyer I want.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I almost died after I had you. Bud stood by Joe through my hysterectomy. Joe wanted more children, and I couldn’t give them to him. I was a failure as a woman.”

  Mama stopped to heave in a breath. She exhaled slowly as if it ached to part with a single molecule of oxygen. “That’s when Erica made another huge play for Joe. Her husband was dead, and she’d already borne two healthy children. She’d flounce over here in the flimsiest outfits, swimming in perfume, pretending to have accounting emergencies. Her overt sexuality scared the snot out of me. I thought I would lose everything. How could Joe resist that much temptation?”

  My eyes widened and nausea threatened. The foundations of my life shivered and shook. “Please tell me he did. Tell me that he didn’t sleep with Erica Hodges.”

  “Not once. Although I worried over it so much, I had a few lunches with my best friend and discussed it.”

  Madonna nudged me to pet her again. I tried to guess what came next in this story. “Francine and Muriel? They know about this drama?”

  “Good heavens, no. Why would I tell them about my sex life?”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “Bud, of course.”

  My jaw dropped. “You used him a second time?”

  Mama’s face flushed bright red. Sparks flashed through her eyes. “You don’t understand. I can talk to Bud about anything. Always could. Still do. He loves me.”

  “Bud is your best friend?”

  “We’ve kept it real quiet.” She gazed at the Oriental rug, rasped in a breath, and grabbed my arm. “Bud proposed. He wants to marry me.”

  Omigod! Too much information. I shook off her hand. “You want to get married?” That unspoken look Mama and Bud had shared in his car the other night made sense. It had been warm and knowing, intimate even. How could I have missed that at the time? “You’re sleeping with him? You cheated on Daddy after all?”

  Mama’s spine stiffened. “Watch your mouth, missy, or I’ll wash it out with soap. I never slept with Bud until this summer. The man waited thirty-nine years for me. That’s devotion.”

  My cheeks heated at the thought of Mama sneaking around and having sex with Bud Flook. Had they done it in the back seat of his car? I squeezed my eyes tight to ward off the image of Mama and Bud being intimate. There had been a point to this conversation. I needed to find it. “How does this tie into Erica’s death?”

  Mama curled into herself. “Erica took pictures of Bud and me eating lunch in Frederick about ten years ago. She’s been blackmailing us ever since.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. Ignoring my pangs of sympathy for her, I pushed forward, determined to get to the bottom of this. “Why would you pay her a dime?”

  “Because I didn’t want Joe to see those pictures and get the wrong idea. I love your father. Always have. Always will.”

  I replayed the key facts. Mama loved Daddy. He loved her. Bud loved Mama. She liked him as a friend. Erica wanted Daddy but didn’t get him. It was starting to make sense. “Why would Erica blackmail anyone? She was loaded.”

  “She spent money like it was water. She went through her fortune and her husband’s.”

  Once again, Mama’s logic made sense, to a point. “But the blackmail ended when Daddy died?”

  “No. It never ended. I paid her a thousand dollars last Tuesday.”

  My heart skipped a beat. This wasn’t ancient history. This was present-day blackmail. Worse, it spelled motive for murder. “Where’d you get a thousand dollars?”

  “I sold my car to Bud. He’s been letting me drive it, but technically he owns my Olds.”

  “Why did you keep paying her?”

  “Because the truth could hurt you and the girls. You were so fragile after your father died. I had to be strong for you. And then Charlie took up with someone else, and you came to live with me. There never was a good time to end Erica’s chokehold on me. I didn’t want you to think poorly of me. I never wanted my granddaughters to know what I’d done.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. I was thirty-eight years old. Mama and Erica had been enemies for my entire life. And she’d paid blackmail for ten years. “How did you pay her? Didn’t Daddy notice the expense?”

  “Grocery money. You think I came up with cheese doodle croutons for fun? I bought sale items in bulk and gave her my grocery money. Why do you think I shopped four places before I bought a pair of shoes? Because I had to have money for Erica.”

  I couldn’t comprehend the scope of what Mama was saying. I had reached my saturation point and needed time to process the information. But while she was handing out secrets, I had one more to probe. “Where did you go on Tuesday night after the hospitality committee meeting?”

  Mama flushed. Bright red flags appeared on her thin cheeks. “Bud’s house. We had a drink. One thing led to another, and I fell asleep in his arms. A phone call woke us up. I rushed home and hurried up to my bedroom so you wouldn’t smell Bud’s cigar on my clothes.”

  I believed her. “You didn’t kill Erica?”

  “Nope. Though I wish I’d thought of it.”

  A blizzard of relief showered through me. Mama had an alibi. “Bud will corroborate your story?”

  “Of course.”

  I tried to put this together in a logical format, but it wouldn’t go. A huge piece of the picture was missing. “Did anyone else know you went over to Bud’s after the meeting?”

  “No. Francine and Muriel don’t know about our affair. No one does.”

  “You’re wrong there. Erica knew. So did her killer. Was this the first time you went to Bud’s after a church meeting?”

  “No. I’ve been going there after every hospitality meeting this summer. You didn’t think those church meetings ran for several hours, did you?”

  Truthfully, I hadn’t paid any attention to Mama’s comings and goings. I’d had my hands full of teenaged angst and a hot boyfriend all summer. But someone else had plenty of free time. Someone had been skulking a
round Hogan’s Glen. “It was your routine to sneak over to Bud’s whenever you could?”

  “Only after your father died.” Mama drew cross over her heart. “I swear I didn’t sleep with Bud before Joe’s aneurysm.”

  It was hard to set aside Mama’s secret romance and focus on the murder, but I did it. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to set you up. They knew where you were going to be, they knew how long you would be there. They stole your car, ran over Erica, and returned your car without you noticing it was gone. Who called Bud’s house that night?”

  Mama shrugged. “It was a wrong number.”

  “Man or woman?”

  “I don’t know. Bud answered the phone.”

  The phone call worried me. Especially the timing of it. Someone had planned this to the nth degree. Someone wanted Mama to take the blame. “Chances are the murderer made that call so you would be on the road near the time of Erica’s death.”

  Mama slumped into the sofa, defeated. “Who is doing this to me?”

  “Someone who wants you and Erica out of the way. My guess is the killer is someone you know. Someone who knows your crowd and your personal routine.”

  “Good Lord. You think Francine or Muriel did this?”

  I rubbed my face with my hands. It had been a long day. My muscles were stiff, my brain was numb, and a nap still sounded like a great idea. I stood and stretched. “It wouldn’t have taken brute strength to run someone over. Though they are frail, Francine and Muriel are prime suspects in my book.”

  “They would never do this to me,” Mama asserted loyally. “They are my friends.”

  “They didn’t stick up for you in the meeting last Monday. Everyone has a breaking point. Maybe they got tired of your constant bickering with Erica. Maybe they got tired of you bossing everyone around. Who knows? We have to be careful not to tip the killer off while I figure out who it is.”

  “How are you going to question Muriel and Francine without their knowing it?”

  “The hospitality committee is a good place to start. They will be busy arranging the food for Erica’s funeral. I’ll step into your role for the reception, and they won’t even realize I’m questioning them.”