A Fatal Romance

by June Shaw

  My neighbor pulled off her hat. She wiped sweaty brown hair with one-inch gray roots from her forehead. “I just realized it,” she said and stood. “That I saw the man’s shoes.”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  “It was yesterday morning. I was working out here.” Her vision seemed to go inward while her words stopped.

  I squeezed her hand. “And what did you see?”

  “I thought I might’ve heard a little pop. But you know how that is? It happens all the time, it seems. You think it’s gunfire, but it’s a car or somebody’s lawnmower.”

  Yes, I knew the sound of a gun’s pop.

  When I kept nodding, she continued. “I looked up anyway, just in case.” Anticipation made my heartbeat race. “But I didn’t see anything different. So I pulled out more weeds and then heard somebody running on the street. The unusual thing was the sound of the soles hitting the road. You know sometimes people run on the street nowadays, but they always wear those tennis shoes with rubber soles. These sounded like hard soles.”

  I tightened my grip around her fingers when my stomach fluttered. She was about to solve the mystery.

  She pulled her hand away. “I didn’t get to see anything about the man that I recall. He’d already run past me. I only saw the bottom of his pants and his shoes. The shoes were black. And black pants, I think.” Her gaze met mine as she appeared to come out of a trance. “Anyway, his pants were a dark color.”

  “Think about it more. Maybe he was wearing a hat. Dark glasses.”

  She shook her head. “I really didn’t look that far up.”

  “Which way was he going?”

  She pointed in the opposite direction from my house.

  “Can you think of anything else?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Would you tell the police what you just told me about this man running on our street yesterday with dress shoes right after you heard a gunshot? He might have come between those fences from Eve’s backyard.”

  She brushed off her knees. “I’ll go call them right now.” Carrying her trowel, she made her way to her door.

  “Thank you so much. And speak to Detective Wilet.”

  She waved without looking back at me while she walked inside.

  The fellow who’d shot at Eve wore a camouflage hat to hide his face. Maybe while he ran to escape, he’d pulled it off so he wouldn’t call attention to himself. Officers might ask some people along our street about this. They might also search yards to discover whether he could have thrown the hat away. Or maybe I was clutching for any hope.

  Rushing into my house, I called Eve. Her voice, an echo of mine but with the smoothness of newly melted butter, tugged a smile to my face. “Hey, Sis,” I said, savoring the connection with her while she was secure. “We might have someone who can identify the man who shot at you.”

  “Great! Tell me about it.”

  I relayed the details Miss Hawthorne gave me.

  “That’s encouraging,” Eve said, her voice not as enthusiastic as before.

  “Yes, so how are you? And your beautiful daughter?”

  “Nicole’s terrific of course.” Her tone lifted. “About the same as yesterday.”

  “And you?” I felt she was putting off answering this question.

  “The hickey’s gone down. It’s just that there’s a little discoloration forming on my face.”

  Was she telling me all? “Send me a picture.” When she didn’t respond, I repeated the request. “I want to see what you look like. The lowered bump on your head. That little bit of discoloration.”

  She hesitated before answering. “All right.”

  We’d talk again soon, we agreed, and hung up. I gripped my phone, watching it, waiting for a text that would show a picture of her face to come through. Long minutes passed. Still nothing changed on the surface of my phone. I texted her.

  Come on, send that picture.

  In short order, she shot back a message.

  I’m waiting for somebody to get home to take a good picture of me.

  I didn’t wait to send a response.

  You’re stalling and making me worried. Come on, send a selfie.

  The time it would take her to open her camera, snap a photo, and forward it to me counted down like a slow second hand on a clock through my mind. Finally the bleep bleep bleep of an incoming text came.

  My breath caught in my throat. My gut jerked like someone punched it when I saw her. The woman starting at me didn’t look like my twin except for her red hair and blue eyes, but one of those eyes was partly shut. The deep purple-black of the sky with an imminent storm surrounded that eye, the lower edge of discoloration lodging below the apple of her cheek.

  I dragged my focus higher up, toward her hairline, where the bruising clustered around what resembled the budding growth of a buck’s horn. Except it was on my sister’s head.

  I pressed her number on my phone, words of concern about her wellbeing swirling through my mind.

  She wasn’t answering. I left a message: “You look awful. See a doctor out there. Take care of yourself.”

  After time enough to listen to what I said, she sent a long text instead of speaking to me. She wanted me to be the better-looking twin for a while. She’d seen a doctor at the hospital here before she left for Houston and didn’t need another one so soon. She would take care of herself. I should do the same.

  I was out of crackers, so I wolfed down a ham and bread-and-butter pickle sandwich on bread while deciding what to do next. First, I’d follow up with my neighbor to learn whether the detective told her anything of value or if he got her to recall something else.

  Walking out front, I stepped along the edge of the street to her house. She was again digging out front.

  She held her brim back. “Hello, Sunny. I made that call for you.”

  “That’s terrific. What did Detective Wilet say?”

  She wiped her damp forehead, smearing dirt from her fingers across it. “Oh, I didn’t talk to him. I just gave the information about the man running out here on the street to the officer who answered.”

  Disappointment certainly showed in my eyes. Instead of complaining, I said, “Thank you for calling their department.” Should I contact the detective myself to make sure he learned exactly what she saw? I headed home.

  “Sunny.” The aged voice came from Miss Hawthorne. For the first time ever, I saw her out of her yard. She was striding to me, face pink while she fought with the breeze to keep her straw hat on. “There’s one other thing I remember about that man running on the street,” she said, and I felt my hopes lift. “His pants had cuffs.”

  Cuffs deflected my expectations. But if I pushed her for more, she might recall other things about this person who could have shot at my sister. I asked the question with the best possible answer first. “Did you see his face?”

  “Oh no. My head was down, and this hat was in the way.” She shoved it farther back, accentuating her statement.

  “Think, Miss Hawthorne. Did you see his hand? If it held a gun?” I asked, and she shook her head. “Maybe you saw the bottom of his shirt. The color of it.” My statements made her keep up her head shake. “Well, what about his pants? Were they slim fit, or maybe you noticed the fabric. Were his shoes tied or slip-on?”

  She’d stopped shaking her head, so maybe I’d hit on a remembrance.

  “I don’t recall any of those things. Just that his pants had cuffs. I noticed because they had this little green thing hanging from one cuff, and my Graham always used to insist on cuffs on his pants, whether they were dress trousers or everyday ones he wore around the house.” Her shoulders lowered, and the excitement in her eyes dulled. “But I believe cuffs on men’s pants may have gone out of style.”

  “Thank you so much for that information. Would you like to come inside? Cool off. Have a glass of iced tea or cold water?”

  “No, thank you, hon. If I had t
ime, I might ask for a sip of wine, but I need to get back to my work.”

  Wine? And leaving her yard? I realized sometimes you thought you knew a person, but they hit you a homerun instead of a bunt.

  She sauntered toward her house, and I stepped inside mine, considering what I might do with what she told me. The ring of my doorbell startled me until I figured my neighbor had come back with a more important recollection. Anticipation bubbling in my chest, I didn’t check the peephole and yanked my front door open.

  “You look happy today,” Dave Price said.

  My eyes automatically checked out his slacks. Not black, but navy. No cuffs. Tied black dress shoes.

  “I thought only your sister did that.”

  “What?”

  He gave his head a little tilt. “Checked me out.”

  The impact of what he said struck me. “Oh, no, I didn’t … ” Knowing this man had just seen me inspecting his lower half sent a blush burning from my cheeks down my neck. Was he a bad guy? No way, not with the draw his body had on mine. This was all ridiculous—the suspicion, the attraction. “Come in.” I stepped back.

  “I went to your sister’s house to check on how her alarm was working, but she didn’t answer. Eve’s all right, isn’t she?”

  “Yes. And her system is working just fine.” The fewer people who knew she’d left town, the better.

  His gaze swept my den, making old embarrassments try to surface because my home wasn’t nearly as impressive as my twin’s. But I was who I was, and that was good enough I reminded myself. I didn’t offer him a seat. I liked standing beside him. Eve loved standing closer to him. I wasn’t going to keep him here in case he’d ask more about where she was. “Thanks for coming by. I’ll tell my sister you checked on her and her alarm.”

  He turned to go then nodded toward the bare wall near my front door. “Maybe you’ll consider our company if you ever decide to have your own alarm system installed.”

  “I will.”

  He went out, and I locked the door. Leaning back against it, I considered how he made me feel, especially since my eyes had roamed over him and then he stood beside me. Attracted, yes. But he was Eve’s, possibly the man she’d been looking for all her life. Fighting an inner struggle, I shoved myself off my door, knowing I needed to go somewhere and do something that would keep her alive.

  This new information from Miss Hawthorne might not be much, but at the moment it was all I had. Even though I’d kept up with some women’s styles, especially in undergarments and lingerie during the time I’d worked at Fancy Ladies, I hadn’t paid attention to cuffs or lack of them in menswear, which the store never carried. My aged neighbor thought cuffs in men’s slacks were out. If she was right, it might not be too difficult to discover who’d bought them. I hopped in my truck and drove downtown to Sydney’s Menswear.

  A sign on the door announced they were closed for a funeral. I checked styles in the display windows. None of the pants were black, although some were dark navy. A fourth of the slacks bore cuffs, but this place wasn’t known for being most up to date. I headed for the mall where Daria had supposedly returned from to find her husband drowned. And if townspeople’s ideas were correct, he supposedly fell in that pond after tripping on the seating area we created for him.

  All About Men was the store holding the most menswear that didn’t cater to garments for teens. The moment I walked in, the strong tang of dye and a saleswoman met me. The thirtyish woman wore a striped suit and her long brown hair down over her shoulders. “Can I help you find something?”

  My eyes located pairs of black pants, although most tended toward navy and gray. Instead of checking all the hundreds of items, I asked, “Do you carry pants with cuffs?”

  “Sure. What kind of pants were you looking for? Dress slacks? Work pants? Slender cut or wide leg?” She led me to a circular stand holding many pairs squeezed together and a sign saying Up To 75% Off.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said and touched a few items.

  “What size did you need?”

  I noticed I was thumbing through size forty-eights. Surely a man running on the street wasn’t that large. I moved to the opposite side of the rack. “These.” Looking down each pair, I noticed one thing. They were made of a coarse material or else some fabric more like double knit. No wonder they were all about a fourth of their regular prices.

  “Listen,” I said when my salesclerk started thumbing through cuffed garments in the size I stood near, “I want to know if cuffs are in style. Do a lot of men wear cuffed pants anymore?”

  “Of course,” she said, making my shoulders droop, not giving the answer I’d hoped for.

  “Okay, who? Any men in particular?” I urged.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” She glanced at the entrance, probably hoping someone would come in and draw her away from my questions and buy something.

  I gripped her arm, regaining her attention. “I’m deadly serious. It’s really important that I find out.”

  She slipped her arm away. “Cuffed pants are always in style. The majority of them look great.” She shifted her shoulders forward. “Actually, I find that lots of men who wear them are tall.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because anything that’s not a straight line cuts down a person’s height.”

  I knew that, although it had never been my problem. My mind swirled to men I knew who were extra tall. Not many came to mind, except for the one I’d stood next to less than an hour before. I was taller than most when I wore heels.

  “You seem to have many pairs with cuffs.” I skimmed their items.

  “Yes. It just depends on what a person likes.”

  Ready to give up on the whole idea, I recalled noticing at least two people who wore black pants. With cuffs? I hadn’t looked that far down. But now I was plucking at straws. “What about priests? They wear black pants. Do they buy them with cuffs?”

  “I’ve been working at this store four years, and I’ve never seen a priest come in. They probably order their pants from those places where they get those other garments they wear for masses.”

  “Thanks for your help,” I said. “I won’t be needing anything today.”

  Her forehead creased, and I wished I had a man I could purchase slacks for—although I didn’t really want a man again, and with our business seeming to crash before it ever got on firm footing, I’d barely have enough money to buy pants for myself.

  What a silly idea this had been, I told myself driving away. The only lead I had that might be worthwhile was that someone running on the street wore cuffed pants. His pants—dress or casual, I didn’t know—were probably black. So were his dress shoes. That knowledge had made me even pull toward priests breaking into my twin’s house and smashing her paintings and writing on her wall and returning and shooting at her?

  Sheez, I was getting carried away with attempting to become a detective. Surely I wasn’t created to do their work or even that of an officer who wrote parking tickets. But I couldn’t let myself wallow in self-defeating thoughts. Where was someplace else I might check into, and what did the person who broke into Eve’s house want? I still didn’t know what WHERE IS WHAT’S HIS? on her wall meant.

  Mental images came of items I’d like to learn more about. Zane’s ashes in my jacket, but they now resided at police headquarters. A metal fingernail file with what resembled dried glue on its tip that I’d given to Detective Wilet, but who knew whether he checked on that? Then there was the burial urn Daria dumped. What was it made of? What type sealant did funeral homes use for them? I could learn much of this information on the web.

  I turned into the parking lot of a burger joint and used my cell phone to pull up photos of urns, instantly recognizing the one Daria had carried and spilled. As I’d thought, it was made of pewter, one of the least expensive. Maybe she couldn’t afford the finer ones, but I believed her husband seemed worthless in her eyes. Some funeral urns could be unsc
rewed, I read, but I didn’t think that was the case for the one used for Zane. Sealants came in all varieties, although some were fastened with ordinary glues.

  I headed for the funeral parlor to discover their typical adhesive and hoped that might help lead toward information I could give to police. With the saucy info Sue Ellen Granger had told me about him outside the hospital, I certainly knew where I would not look when he stood.

  So the moment Toby Hensley got to his feet, where did my eyes aim?

  I checked his shoes and above them first, skimming for cuffs, which he did have, but they were on the slacks of his charcoal gray suit. And then my gaze slid upward, although I didn’t want it to, but those words about his lack of undergarments made me do it without thinking. The flush I felt from my neck to my ears made me jerk my eyes to meet his.

  Toby’s face filled with annoyance, probably because I tapped only once on the open door of his office and walked inside. I’d stepped past a few people milling in the carpeted foyer.

  “What type of glue do y’all use on urns?” I asked without a greeting.

  “Why?” The skin between his eyes folded into a deep crease. He glanced beyond me toward other individuals.

  “It’s important for something I’m working on. And was a sealant used on the urn that held Zane Snelling?”

  His head pulled back, his eyes narrowing. Was I insulting the funeral home’s integrity since Zane fell out of the receptacle they’d sold to his wife?

  “People out there,” he said with a lift of his hand toward them, “are waiting for me to open the viewing room for a wake. They have lost someone they love. They’re in mourning. Is a sealant more important than that?”

  Behind me past his open doorway, two women were consoling each other. I had lost someone dear to me. “No, it isn’t.”

  “Then I’ll walk you out.” He stepped toward me.

  “I recently learned something interesting from your grandmother,” I said, again skimming his shoes and slacks.

  “Step-grandmother.” His word sounded harsh. “What was it? That I never wear boxers or briefs?”

  Actually, she’d told me about someone’s shoes and cuffs, and a woman outside the hospital had gossiped to me about this man’s lack of underwear. But those words coming from his mouth and the fury in his raised voice stunned me.