Scandal in Copper Lake

by Marilyn Pappano

  “He does, and he thinks very little of people who harass other people just because they can.” Robbie hesitated, then asked, “Do you have any…feelings about this? Who did it? Why? What he wanted?”

  She’d been thinking about what they would do when they first got home—the same thing they’d done here—and had been in a daze of arousal and desire. Robbie’s curse when he’d seen the two flat tires had snatched her out of it. She’d sensed nothing major as they walked around the car, just a faint shimmer of anger.

  The rage had come from the open door, radiating from the profanity scrawled down the hallway. The instant she’d seen it, her vision had gone dark and she’d swayed unsteadily. Robbie had hustled her right back off the porch and to the car to wait for the police.

  “There wasn’t any hatred,” she said, locking gazes with him. “Just rage. Betrayal. Abandonment. I don’t know who these feelings were directed at. You were probably right that it’s not me. I don’t tend to stir up those kinds of passions in men. It could have been meant for Glory, or someone whose life changed because of her.”

  “Maybe one of her ex-lovers who thought the dirty little secret of their affair had died with her, then you show up, asking questions, and he’s realized that nothing’s ever quite so secret after all.”

  She nodded. “Or Charlotte’s father, whose dirty little secret might have worn diapers. And bonnets.” She turned sideways in the chair and brought her knees close to her chest to watch him while he finished eating. “You know, I automatically assumed that Charlotte’s father didn’t want her any more than my father wanted me.”

  “Reasonable assumption. I’ve worked a lot of child-support cases, getting DNA and money from men who denied paternity even after the proof came in.”

  “But Glory’s luck was different. Two of the three daddies wanted their daughters right from the start. Jass’s father wanted to marry Mama—he wanted to have a real family. Maybe Charlotte’s father wanted that, too. Maybe he envisioned this happily-ever-after family. Maybe he loved her and thought she loved him. But she refused him.”

  Robbie carried their plates to the sink, then returned with a plate of dipped chocolates. She picked one and bit into it, her teeth sinking into creamy cheesecake. She groaned softly.

  “That would explain the betrayal and abandonment. And taking the bonnet. I mean, your average vandal stealing a bonnet is just plain weird.” He rolled his eyes. “The average vandal I’ve represented wouldn’t even know what it was.”

  “He could have given Mama the bonnet in the first place. I thought it was one she’d used for the rest of us, but it was in pristine condition, and babies don’t leave much pristine. According to Mama Odette, I had the habit of chewing the ribbons off everything I owned. And it was a very good quality bonnet. Our family doesn’t splurge on baby clothes.”

  “Okay,” Robbie said after downing a chocolate-covered cherry cake in two bites. “Where’s the notebook? We missed something when we went through it before.”

  “It’s in my bag.” She’d laid it at the end of the island before taking the chest upstairs. “What did we miss?”

  “Timing.” He jumped up from the chair, brought her bag to her, then disappeared through a door under the stairs before returning with a legal pad and ink pen. “Glory was due February 21. That means she would have gotten pregnant—” he counted backward mentally “—in June. In the pages I looked at this morning, she was keeping a pretty good record of her meetings with everyone, boyfriends and gentlemen. So let’s see who’s listed for June.”

  Anamaria flipped through the notebook. Glory had started each month on a fresh page, writing the name across the top in colored ink and underlining it twice for emphasis. It seemed an expectant statement; what month with its name written in purple capital letters and bold lines underneath it could fail to be a great month? But June’s ink had faded, and there seemed nothing memorable about the entries there.

  It had been a busy month, and often still was. The parents and grandparents of kids graduating from high school and college wanted to know what the future held for them; the brides and grooms marrying over the summer wanted confirmation they were making the right choice; and people whose jobs brought relocation offers sought encouragement that the new place could be home as much as the old one was.

  And with all that, Glory still found the time for three gentlemen: AL, FW and CC. Cyrus Calloway.

  The same three sets of initials appeared in the month of May, along with OG, no dollar sign attached.

  For July, it was AL, FW, CC and KK. The first three paid; the last didn’t.

  “I don’t know anyone with those initials,” Robbie said. “Unless KiKi Isaacs counts. She would have been about two at the time.”

  “He appears on here almost every week from the beginning of July through the beginning of February.”

  “Is that unusual? To keep a guy around that long?”

  Anamaria smiled. “Grandma Chessie—Odette’s mother—stayed with the same man for thirty years. Everybody at the nursing home thought they were married, even though she refused to share a room with him. She shared his bed, though, right up until the night he died in it. He was ninety-seven, and she was ninety-two. And Mama Odette had an on-and-off thing for years. But yeah, in our family that’s unusual. If we believed in getting married, we’d keep a host of divorce attorneys busy undoing what never should have been done in the first place.”

  “You’d probably seduce the lawyers with your unusual beauty into doing the work pro bono,” he teased, then grew serious again. “I wonder if AL could be Lodge.” He returned to the room under the stairs—a study, she presumed—and came back with a briefcase. On top was a laptop; he set it aside and booted it up. He also took another legal pad out and tossed it on the table. “Your neighbors from twenty-three years ago. No Lodges there.”

  Anamaria picked up the pad. Unlike her mother’s handwriting, Robbie’s was clean, easy-to-read masculine swoops. Her cousin, Deonne, toyed with handwriting analysis, more for her own entertainment than any serious study, but she knew the basics. What would she make of Robbie’s writing? That he was strong, confident? That the obvious fact that he wrote quickly meant he had little time to spare or was ready to move on to his next adventure?

  Or one of us could move to Copper Lake. His offhanded suggestion as they’d come into the house had almost cut her off at the knees. He had actually suggested she move here. Move. To his hometown. At least for a while.

  And, for an instant, she’d actually considered it. She didn’t know squat about cars, but she knew the learning would be an experience in more ways than one. She didn’t even know if he’d really been talking about cars. She just knew he’d given thought—however briefly, however casually—to the future and a place for her in it.

  Maybe not much of a place. Maybe still in secret. Maybe involving a regular payment like Glory’s gentlemen had given her. Maybe not a place she could even consider occupying. I told Glory she should have more pride than to lay with a man who was ashamed to acknowledge her in public, Marguerite had told them, but…she said it wasn’t what they felt that mattered. She wanted what she wanted.

  Anamaria wanted a place in public. She wanted everyone around to know their relationship. Accepting or not, approving or not, as long as there were no ugly little secrets.

  “Hey.”

  Under the table, Robbie’s foot nudged hers, and she startled to find him watching her. Clearly he’d said something, but she didn’t have a clue what.

  “OG,” he repeated. “Obadiah Gadney.”

  She followed his pointing finger to the notes he’d taken from the city directory. Obadiah Gadney, 108 Easy St, swmll wrkr. “Mr. Gadney? Who, along with Beulah, constitutes the neighborhood watch?” She’d gone to his house the day she’d introduced herself to the neighbors, but he hadn’t been home, and she’d never gotten the chance to go back. Now she wished she’d made the effort. Besides Lillie’s and Jass’s fathers, she’d nev
er met one of her mother’s lovers before. “According to Beulah, he’s about a hundred and twenty years old.”

  “Your great-grandma Chessie proved that age isn’t a factor when it comes to loving Duquesne women. Besides, Mr. Gadney’s probably only about seventy. That would have put him in his forties back then, about the same age as Cyrus and in a lot better shape.”

  “Okay, so OG is Mr. Gadney. And CC…” She wrote out the two names on the clean legal pad. “What about FW?” She leaned around the table to get a better look at his computer. “What are you doing?”

  “Searching county databases. If it’s public record in Jackman County, it’s online. My uncle Garry is county commissioner, and his daughter doesn’t like to come out of her room. He’s worked a deal where she gets paid for getting all county records online.”

  “Is she phobic?”

  “Just weird.”

  “That’s sad.”

  He considered it a moment, then shook his head. “Nah. Just weird. Okay, we’ve got eleven possibilities for FW. My choice would be…Frank Whitford. He owned the Mercedes dealership back then, and he loved pretty things. He was married, but his wife did her best not to be in the same room with him. He was crude and vulgar, and he stepped out on her more often than her pride could bear.”

  Anamaria stared at him. “Do you know this kind of information about everyone in town, or just the people with money?”

  “Just the people with money who haven’t learned the art of negotiating. I represented Mrs. Whitford in their divorce five or six years ago. And if Whitford’s our guy, then AL would be Andy Lutz. They were cousins and partners—Andy ran the Cadillac dealership. Frank’s parents took Andy in when his folks died and raised them like twins. They did everything together, including date the same girls.”

  “Are they still in town?”

  Robbie shook his head. “After Frank pissed off the judge and lost just about everything he’d ever owned in the divorce, he went down to Florida to start over. A few months later, Andy headed south, too. He found it too damn hard working with Frank’s ex, especially when she held the majority interest in the company.”

  Anamaria slid from the chair and wandered into the living room, turning on the overhead light so she could study the photos on the fireplace mantel. There were the four teenage boys with Sara smiling serenely. Robbie and an elderly woman, bearing an armful of roses, outside Calloway Plantation. A casual shot of him and his brothers, their wives and Sara at a grand, but smaller home. A portrait of the second brother, Mitch, who hadn’t been raised a Calloway and had no expectations to live up to, with his wife and an adorable baby girl. A wedding photo of Rick and his beautiful bride, and another of Russ at his second wedding.

  Four handsome men who bore a strong resemblance to each other. The little girl, with her dark brown hair and big blue eyes, was obviously her father’s daughter. Would Anamaria’s child bear that same resemblance? Would strangers look at her and say, “Oh, there’s another Calloway”?

  Or, more like Mitch: “There’s another Calloway bastard.”

  What she really wanted to hear was in a universe apart: “Oh, there’s pretty little Gloriane Calloway and her parents. Aren’t they a beautiful family?”

  “Anamaria.” A pause. “Annie?”

  Slowly she smiled and turned to face Robbie. “I’ve decided I do like it.”

  “But only when I use it.”

  “Of course.” She returned to the table and dug from the bag the papers Marguerite had given her that morning. Everyone she could think of who knew Glory, the old woman had said. Mr. Gadney’s name was on it, of course. Cyrus Calloway’s. And linked together on the third page, Frank Whitford and Andy Lutz. “They’re all on Marguerite’s list. So Charlotte’s father would have been your uncle Cyrus, nice Mr. Gadney, a car dealer that got run out of town or his cousin.”

  The selection made her shudder. “Poor Charlotte.”

  “Let’s check that,” Robbie suggested, turning back to the computer. “If Glory’s naming the kid Charlotte after Charlotte’s father, she had to get the idea somewhere.” He ran the other three names first, probably hoping to score on one of them. Had he yet realized, Anamaria wondered, that if Cyrus was Charlotte’s father, her half sister would be his cousin?

  After coming up blank on the others, he typed his uncle’s name into the county birth records. There it was: Cyrus Henry Calloway, born to Henry Daniel Calloway and Theresa Carlotta Morgan.

  Charlotte was named for her paternal grandmother. Anamaria knew it, felt it. They didn’t have to look anymore.

  Robbie caught her hand and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his arms tightly around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. Neither of them spoke. What was there to say? Welcome to the family? They sat, and he rocked her just a little, and she listened to his breathing. She felt more at home at that moment than any other time or place in her life. Comforting as Mama Odette’s arms were, as soothing as her hands were, here with Robbie was Anamaria’s spiritual home.

  For as long as they had.

  Chapter 10

  On Saturday morning it was Robbie’s turn to awaken alone in bed. He lay on his stomach, face buried away from the sunlight, but he still smelled Anamaria’s fragrance. He still felt her absence. Worse, he still felt her presence—the hour they’d made love, the hours she’d slept beside him. If she returned to Savannah, her imprint was going to haunt him right out of his home.

  Unless he went to Savannah with her.

  Or persuaded her to stay. How difficult would that be? And would the difficulty come from her or him?

  He allowed the aroma of coffee drifting up the stairs to distract him. It was the only thing to offer for breakfast unless the chocolate-dipped cakes left over from dinner counted. As his stomach growled, he decided they definitely did.

  He rolled out of bed, stepped into a clean pair of boxers and headed downstairs. As he approached, Anamaria filled another cup from the pot, then slid it across the island to him. She wore a white button-down shirt of his and socks and was bent over the island, studying different lists of names. The dessert plate stood to one side, holding one lonely-looking half bite of chocolate-coated marble cake.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, pushing it toward him. “Go ahead.”

  He ate the treat in one bite. “Find any great revelations that have eluded us so far?”

  “Just a question. When my mother wrote K & S Calloway, we assumed it was Kent and Sara. But Kent said yesterday he’d never met Glory. And you don’t know another K Calloway.”

  Managing not to lick his fingers hungrily, Robbie shrugged. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. We multiply like rabbits.”

  Her expression softened, and she glanced down for an instant. He wondered if she was thinking that the same could be said for her family. With Glory, having sex multiple times with multiple partners every month, it was a wonder she hadn’t gotten pregnant every ten or eleven months.

  Pregnancy wasn’t something he and Anamaria had to worry about. They’d used a condom every time, finishing off her supply and starting in on his own. Still, he couldn’t deny that some part of him thought the possibility might be more fun than worry. Seeing Mitch with his daughter and how Russ looked forward to his first one, and watching Jamie get rounder every day—he’d learned pretty quickly not to call her fat. Round, she might be, but she could still throw an empty water bottle with incredible accuracy.

  And he couldn’t deny that the only woman remotely suitable for having kids with was Anamaria. The only one who made him think about the future and family and love.

  Even though his first thoughts had been no way, too unsuitable.

  But what made a person suitable? Breeding, money, shared interests? Every nasty divorce he’d been involved in had been between people so well-suited that their marriages should have lasted through eternity. Some of the unhappiest marriages he knew were, again, between people who appeared to be made for each other.

  So
what if Anamaria lived elsewhere? If her career choice might be considered disreputable? If she was illegitimate, if her mother had made a profession of loving men, if her ethnic background wasn’t as white-bread as his?

  The people who mattered wouldn’t care, and the people who cared wouldn’t matter.

  He didn’t care. He didn’t care about the things he’d thought were wrong. All he cared about were the things that were right. She was beautiful. Intelligent. Sexy. She loved her family and was kind to others. She looked at him in a way that no one else ever had. She made him feel in a way that no one else ever had.

  She made him want—not just her body, not just a few days with her. She made him want a future. A chance. A life.

  She snapped her fingers under his nose, and he jerked his attention back to her. “Kent said he’d never met Glory,” she repeated, “but Marguerite included him on her list. I didn’t pay attention last night, because she’d scratched out several names, but look. She drew a line through his name once, then retraced it, as if the line had been a mistake.”

  She slid the paper to him. It did look as if Marguerite had intended the name to stay on the list. He went to the phone on the wall and dialed his mother’s number. “Hey, Mom, it’s me. Quick question—the day you asked Glory Duquesne about your adorably well-behaved sons, was Kent there?” He was silent a moment, then said, “Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know…. I don’t know about dinner tonight…. Yeah, I’ll ask her. Love you.”

  After hanging up, he returned to the island. “Yes, he was there, and she can’t believe he didn’t remember, what with Glory being such a pretty girl. By the way, Russ and Jamie are having dinner for the family tonight, and we’re invited.”

  Her eyes widened a shade, pleasure flitting in, then away. “You’re invited.”

  “We are invited.” Bring a date, Russ had told him. At the time, he couldn’t imagine taking Anamaria. Now he wanted to. He wanted to see if they could work with what was right between them, if he could handle what was wrong.