So he watched for her name. Or maybe it simply caught his eye when he was checking his class notes.
Sam stroked the dog, starting at Muffy's ears and running down her back. He didn't once look up at Jennifer. Muffy stretched and sighed contentedly. At least she was getting something out of all of this.
"Why didn't you call her, ask her to lunch?" Jennifer asked. The moment she said it, she realized maybe he had. Belle said it had only been two years since she'd last spoken with Sam.
Two years. It must have been right around the time that Jennifer and Sam had met.
A strange expression settled across Sam's face. "You need to remember it was before I knew you. She called me. We got together a few times. She was trying to get established in the area as a journalist. I introduced her around. That's about all there was to it. My relationship with her is long over. Belle's no longer a part of my life."
Oh, yes, she was. She made sure of it when she printed that engagement announcement. And how much a part of his life had she been fifteen years ago?
"Why don't you like her?" he asked.
Jennifer slid off the sofa arm and back down onto the floor, facing him. "She's moving in on you."
Sam chuckled. "Don't be ridiculous. She's not moving in on... Don't tell me you're—"
Jennifer threw up her hands. "I misspoke. I meant moving in with." Men could be so clueless. "Let's not lose the thread here. Remember what you told me when we first met? The skill that makes you a good investigative reporter is being able to tell when someone is telling the truth. Something about Belle makes me uneasy." Hah! That was as understated as she'd ever manage. "And I certainly don't like the idea of her working with us while she's here."
"Why not? Belle could be a lot of help. She knew Hovey."
"What?"
"I introduced them. He was a good person to know because he was involved in so many high-profile cases. Most all of the journalists knew him. And Belle's a competent reporter despite..."
"Despite what?"
"Despite where she works." He reached long and put his empty beer bottle on the floor, past the edge of the sofa. "I don't understand why you're so suspicious of her. Getting involved with Simon DeSoto, stupid as it may be, is exactly the sort of thing I know Belle would do. Besides, I saw the threat when I was at her apartment. It exists."
"How about DeSoto's letters?"
"She showed me three of the envelopes. They were postmarked from prison. She said she was too embarrassed to let me read the actual letters."
"So you think she really is in danger, that he's the one who was in her apartment."
He grabbed Jennifer's hand and pulled her over to him. Then he put his arm around her and drew her closer. Muffy yelped, then sighed, and allowed herself to be squashed between them. "I don't know, but I'm not willing to take the chance she's not in danger. Belle asked for my help. I won't walk away from her."
"I don't want you to," she lied, snuggling closer and resting her head on his shoulder. What she so admired about Sam was exactly what had landed him in this mess. "But you know that old joke about the woman who picks up the snake and then is all surprised when it bites her. Do you know what you've just picked up?"
Sam pulled away and turned to look at her. She'd said too much. That's what she was afraid would happen. Honesty could get a person into a whole lot of trouble. Belle wasn't even there and yet Jennifer had played right into her hands.
"Belle is a complex woman," he said, "very competitive, but she's not evil. She simply goes after what she wants."
"I can relate to that," Jennifer said, wondering if Sam had any idea what it was that Belle wanted.
He shook his head. "No, you can't. You want to get published, and you'll do almost anything to see that happen. But you'd never hurt anyone in the process, not even someone as despicable as that literary agent Penney Richmond."
"That was all a big misunderstanding," Jennifer insisted, blushing. "Planning that murder was research for a book."
"Exactly my point. Everything you do, you do with so much passion. That's one of the things I love so much about you. But if achieving your dream meant hurting someone, you'd let it go."
Had Belle hurt Sam? Was that why they broke up?
"Tell me about it." She turned her face toward him, their noses almost touching.
"About what?"
"Meeting her in college, dating her." It was hard to imagine what Sam must have been like back then.
He pulled back. "I don't think going over past relationships is particularly healthy."
"I agree. But I need to know who we're dealing with because, Sam, in my gut I don't like any of this."
"She just needs a place to lie low. You're acting like she's dangerous."
Danger had all sorts of connotations. Not all of them had to do with physical harm.
Sam's beeper went off. He reached down, pulled it out of his pocket, and read off the number.
"What is it?" Jennifer asked.
Sam stood up. "It's Marjorie Turner's number."
"What's Suzanne Gray's sister doing calling you at this time of night?"
"I don't know. Mind if I use your phone?"
Jennifer scrambled to her feet. "Of course not. You know where it is." She wanted to listen in, but she had something she had to take care of. She ducked into the bedroom and was back just as Sam was hanging up the receiver. He reached for his coat.
Jennifer shoved a brown paper bag into his hands.
"What's this?"
"Pajamas and a robe for your houseguest. And a bottle of conditioner. What'd Marjorie want?"
"She doesn't know what to do about the body. The medical examiner has released it for burial. Suzanne's note specified that she wanted to be cremated, but Marjorie thinks she'd have preferred to be buried next to Richard."
"That could be a problem."
"Right. Richard's family is insisting that they'll never allow it."
Jennifer grabbed her own coat out of the closet, shrugged into it, dug her gloves out of the pockets, and pulled them on.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"With you."
"Wait just a minute. Marjorie lives on a dairy farm all the way out past the southeast part of town. Besides, she's made it clear that she won't speak to anyone but me."
"That means no other journalists, right?" Jennifer drew her scarf around her neck.
"Right."
"Well, then, she didn't mean me. And you've got to remember not to mention Suzie because her mother doesn't want her talking to you, or me, or, I suspect, anyone."
"Why?"
"I haven't got that one completely figured out yet, but she's probably overprotective. Maybe she's afraid Suzie's going to stir up some trouble."
"And she's probably right. If she'd found me yesterday, I'd have sent her straight home."
"She's not a child, Sam. She's twenty-one, even if she doesn't look it and is still living at home. Maybe Marjorie has a reason to keep things quiet. Everybody's got a past. Did you check into Suzanne's?"
He stole a quick kiss. "She doesn't have a criminal record, if that's what you mean. Now, I've got to go. It's been a long day and you need to get to bed." Then he touched the end of her nose with his index finger.
He should never have done that. It was far too condescending a gesture.
"Look, you can either let me ride in your car, or you can explain to Mrs. Turner why some strange woman is following you around in a VW Bug, but I'm coming with you. Besides, you need me with you."
"And exactly why do I need you, other than all the obvious reasons?"
"Because, as I said before, I think like a woman. You don't know the right questions to ask."
"Oh, yeah? Like what?"
"Like who Suzanne was likely to have borrowed something from the day she died."
"Borrowed? Are you still talking about that—"
"Watch the adjectives," she warned.
"—that wedding theory?"
> "Oh, you soooooo need me. I hate to admit this, but I think the tabloids got it right. Suzanne was dressed like a bride. Who else wears lace gloves these days? Something old: anything from underwear to cologne. Something new: most likely the dress. Something blue: the ribbon in her hair. The something borrowed and the person she borrowed it from—that may be of some help to us. She may have confided in her sister, even shown the item to her if she didn't get it from her."
"Makes sense, but at this point, I think the woman is more concerned about where she's going to lay her sister to rest."
"So what beef did Richard's family have with Suzanne?"
"I don't know. All Marjorie said over the phone was that they didn't want her anywhere near him—not in life and certainly not in death."
Chapter 11
"I don't mind a person having friends, but just how many women do you have and do you have to bring them all with you?" Marjorie Turner asked, holding open the battered screen door to her kitchen and looking Jennifer up and down. She bore almost no resemblance to her sister or her daughter. She was tall and rawboned, and her face, without a trace of makeup, showed the effects of too much sun.
She pushed back a wisp of gray hair and said to Sam, "Your girlfriend's already here."
"What?" Sam began.
"What?" Jennifer echoed. She looked past Marjorie. Belle waved from one of the chrome chairs at the dinette set, a huge grin on her face. Then she was up and at the door, all over Sam, wrapping her arms around him, nuzzling his neck and whispering something in his ear. Jennifer caught "...play along. I didn't know what else to do."
Jennifer stood stunned, too appalled to do anything, while Marjorie loudly cleared her throat. Sam gently disentangled himself.
Out loud Belle said, "Mrs. Turner called our place first, sweetheart. I was afraid you might have turned off your pager while you were having your meeting with Miss Marsh, so I came right over."
Our place? Oh, she was so going down.
"She told me she wouldn't speak to anyone but you," Belle went on, "and I knew you wouldn't want to miss whatever she had to tell you."
"She said it was all right," Marjorie said. "I assumed that it would be since she answered your phone. Living together, huh? Young people these days! Not how I was brought up."
"Or me," Jennifer agreed. No one should have to live with Belle.
"And you are..."
Sam's face had a strange, deer-in-the-headlights look. Jennifer knew him well enough to know he wasn't about to play out a scene and lose Marjorie's confidence, but he obviously had no clue how to handle the situation. "Actually, she's—"
"Sam's secretary," Belle finished.
"I didn't think you journalists had secretaries," Marjorie said.
"They don't," Jennifer snapped.
"They like to be called administrative assistants these days," Belle explained.
"Well, whatever. You all get yourselves inside so I can close this door before every bit of heat flies out of this house. I've got a pot of coffee brewing. But you've got to keep your voices down. Vic's asleep. He's got to get up before dawn to take care of the livestock, and he doesn't want to be bothered by none of this anyhow. Says Suzanne's about as much trouble dead as she was alive."
The rhythmic purr of snoring drifted from the hallway.
"I usually stay up until our daughter gets home. They don't let her off at the Starvin' Marvin until after midnight. He hears the phone ringing and he gets all upset, thinking something's happened to our Suzie. He shot straight up out of the bed when the medical examiner's office called. Sounds like he managed to get on back to sleep. I swear, that man could sleep standing up, and keep half of Georgia awake sawing logs while he was doing it."
Marjorie pointed at the chairs at the dinette, and they each dutifully took a seat.
"Now I don't want anything I tell you in the newspaper," Marjorie warned Sam, wiping her hands on her apron. "That's why I called you and not somebody else. I know I can trust you because you did such a fine job writing up what happened to poor Suzanne and keeping those gruesome photos out of the paper. Some of those other reporters twisted everybody's words around this a way and that. They published all sorts of things that's nobody's business, trying to make her seem crazy. That tabloid in Atlanta even mentioned some trouble Suzanne got herself into in high school years ago."
Jennifer stole a glance at Belle. If she was insulted, she hid it well.
"Can you imagine?" Marjorie went on. "That Lewis Spikes boy. He fancied she liked him. Hah! He should have been so lucky. They had the nerve to print everything anybody would tell them, and then call here day and night expecting me to talk to them. Thank the good Lord they didn't make it to the cemetery until after the police had removed her body. Heaven only knows what kind of pictures they would have printed." She shook a finger at Sam. "I told them flat out on the phone that you're the only reporter I'll speak to. I wouldn't give you two cents for the lot of them. Vultures. I don't want no media circus, but I have to lay my baby sister to rest somewhere. Her dying like that." Marjorie shook her head. "It seems almost a sin not to let her lie next to that man for eternity."
Finally, the woman had come up for air.
"How well did you know Richard Hovey?" Jennifer asked.
"I didn't, except from seeing him on the TV every now and again." Marjorie got up, took two more mugs down from the cabinet, and poured four cups of coffee. "But Suzanne talked about him so much, I came to feel like I did. She told me he was the one she'd waited her whole life for. She'd never married, you know. She found him just in time, too."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"Suzanne was thirty-nine." Marjorie handed around the mugs. "Now you watch it. That's coffee's really hot. I use a percolator, not one of those drip thingamabobs. I told Suzanne it wasn't no use in having a man just to have him, but she was bound and determined to be married before she was forty. She only had four months to go."
"Her birthday's in June then," Jennifer said.
"June sixteenth."
"When I talked to you earlier, you mentioned that they met through her business," Sam stated.
"That's right. O Happy Day Delivery Service. She ran it out of her home. Balloons, candy, some flowers."
"Sounds like a pleasant way to make a living," Jennifer observed.
Marjorie nodded. "Not that it was much of a living, but she enjoyed it. It was like she borrowed other people's joy. I think that's why she did it. That and it gave her a chance to sing, as she put it, professionally. She never had the opportunity to go for it big time, but oh, my, what a voice that girl had. Sang every Sunday morning in the choir at church. Sweetest voice this side of heaven." She pulled a jug of milk out of the refrigerator, filled a small pitcher, and set it on the table with some spoons, next to the sugar bowl.
"Did Hovey use her service?" Sam asked, taking a sip of black coffee.
"Oh, lordy no. 'Bout six months ago his ex-wife hired her to take a bunch of balloons to his house. Wanted him back, she did. Suzanne usually has a couple of high school kids from down the way doing her deliveries or, if'n it's during the day, my Suzie, except when her customers want someone to sing, which is what this was. Mrs. Hovey gave her a key and had her fill the entire downstairs of the house with balloons. She had to get some kind of expensive wine and go by Luigi's to pick up some sort of special appetizer that was Mr. Hovey's favorite. Then she was to wait until Richard came home, hand him a dozen red mylars shaped like hearts and sing "The Second Time Around," but she opened her mouth and "The Way You Look Tonight" came out instead. And that was it. They were both hooked. Fell in love right there in his living room."
"I bet that didn't go over well with his ex," Belle added, stirring her coffee. Jennifer noted she liked it black, too. One more thing she had in common with Sam.
Marjorie chuckled. "You know I don't believe it did. By the time Ruth showed up about five minutes later, right on cue, it was all over but the crying. But one can't deny true
love. Which is why I called you. When I spoke with Richard's parents—they own the grave plots on either side of him—they said there was no way, excuse my language, in hell they'd let Suzanne be buried there. Can you believe it? Cussing at me like that right over the phone, and after I just lost my sister, too. Then they had that awful statement put in the paper today."
"What statement?" Sam asked. They'd all been so busy, not a one of them had even opened the day's newspaper.
Marjorie picked a clipping off the counter and tossed it to them. "I thought sure you would have seen this."
Jennifer read over Sam's shoulder. Belle was on his other side.
HOVEY FAMILY IN MOURNING, DENY ENGAGEMENT
Mr. Oliver Hovey, speaking for Mrs. Ruth Hovey and her family, denies the existence of a formal engagement between his son, Mr. Richard Hovey, and Miss Suzanne Gray, who was found dead on Mr. Hovey's grave last week. He insists that the publication of an engagement announcement in this paper was done in error. Miss Gray was described by the elder Mr. Hovey as an opportunist. According to the family, Mrs. Ruth Hovey and Mr. Richard Hovey were reconciling and had planned a wedding for late summer when Richard Hovey died unexpectedly.
Well, well. Seems someone was quite mistaken, but whom?
"They have no right to slander the dead like that," Marjorie insisted, "now that Suzanne's not here to defend herself. I was wondering if I might have some legal rights, you know, to sue, to get them to print a retraction. And I want her buried right next to him, too. She was my baby sister, twelve years my junior. After Mom and Pop died, I practically raised her. I can't do nothing else for her. That's why I'd really like to do this."
"Why are his parents so belligerent?" Sam asked.
"My guess is they think it unseemly, her killing herself like that, on top of his grave, the earth not even settled over him. They're still claiming they'd never heard of Suzanne before they read your article in the newspaper, as if Richard was likely to tell them about her or any other woman he might be involved with. My bet is he knew how they'd react."
She leaned across the table toward Sam. "I really think it's that ex-wife of his. She's having a fit at the very thought of my Suzanne and Richard lying next to each other for all eternity. I think she's got her sights set on using one of those graves for herself. She stayed close with his folks. But I can tell you what I think is the fabrication: all that talk about her and Richard reconciling. She couldn't deal with the fact Richard had found his true love."
Dying to Get Her Man Page 7