Our Husband

by Stephanie Bond

  "Ruby, did Raymond tell you the names of anyone he saw or spoke to the week he died?"

  "You mean like customers?"

  "Yes, or acquaintances."

  "No, but hold on a minute and I'll tell you."

  Natalie frowned into the phone, wondering if Ruby had misunderstood the question. What was she doing?

  "Nat? Do you want his schedule for the whole week, or just for that day?"

  She wet her lips. "Ruby, how do you know Raymond's schedule?"

  "It's right here in his black organizer. He gave it to me in the hospital to put in my purse before you got there. I've been using it to prop up the TV 'cause the trailer leans a little, but I don't need it anymore."

  Never one to ignore a celestial sign, Natalie asked, "Ruby, do you have plans for the next couple of days?"

  Chapter 30

  Natalie eased her Cherokee into the parking lot of the appointed bus station, peering side to side for Beatrix's or Ruby's car. With a shaking hand, she pushed her hair behind one ear, and slowed to a crawl. She could still back out. Simply turn around and drive back to Smiley, or find a little resort hotel somewhere to spend a meditative weekend, like she'd told Tony she was going to do. She'd hated lying, but she didn't want to implicate him in their ruse in case they all went down.

  In case they all went down? Good grief, she was starting to sound like a crook.

  The sight of the silver Mercedes tucked between two minivans sent her heart rate skyward. What kind of masochist would embark on a road trip with her husband's two other wives?

  A masochist desperate for insight into the man she thought she knew, a masochist desperate for insight into the kind of person she was to be so easily taken in by such a man. She sighed as she pulled the SUV into the nearest empty space. She needed peace, some semblance of control. And even if this stunt seemed like a bizarre way of achieving a measure of both, at the moment, it was the best offer on the table.

  She didn't see Ruby's blue Camaro, but she'd told the young woman to come fifteen minutes later so she'd have time to break the news of her joining them to Beatrix—not a task she was looking forward to.

  Beatrix alighted from the car. Her outfit of dark glasses, black slacks, and white pearls were more befitting a magazine cover shoot than a weekend on the lam. Since she herself had dressed in black jeans, tennis shoes, and a loose denim shirt, Natalie decided she would probably get the dirty jobs, if there were any.

  "I wondered if you'd changed your mind," Beatrix said as Natalie approached.

  "I did, a dozen times."

  Beatrix's smile was fleeting. "I hate to drive. Do you mind?"

  "No, I'll drive."

  "You do have air conditioning?"

  "Yes."

  "With individual controls?"

  She pursed her mouth, then nodded. The trunk of Beatrix's luxury car popped open and Natalie stared at the three matching Hartmann leather suitcases. "I thought you said to pack for two or three days."

  "I did."

  She inhaled deeply. "Okay. Well, at least my Cherokee has plenty of room."

  "I can't believe the luck of you finding Raymond's organizer," Beatrix said as she removed the luggage. "How did the police miss it when they searched your place?"

  "It was, um... well-hidden." She glanced all around, dreading how Beatrix would take the news.

  Beatrix followed her gaze. "Don't worry, I don't believe anyone here will even notice us, much less recognize us."

  "Beatrix, there's something I—"

  The sound of a loud car horn trumpeting interrupted her. Ruby's Camaro rolled toward them, horn singing. Every person in the parking lot turned to stare.

  Beatrix slammed her trunk. "What the hell is she doing here?"

  "I was about to tell you—"

  "Hi, Nat!" Ruby yelled through her open driver side window. Then her smile dropped. "Hi, Beatrix."

  "She is not going with us," Beatrix said, arms crossed.

  "Oh, yes I am."

  "Oh, no you're not."

  "Oh, yes I am!"

  "Oh, no you're not!"

  "Wait a minute," Natalie said, waving her arms. "Beatrix, I called Ruby to see if the watch was hers, then asked her to come with us. She has as much at stake here as we do, and she might be able to help."

  "How could she possibly help?"

  "She has Raymond's schedule book."

  Ruby lifted the black leather organizer and waved it back and forth.

  Beatrix stalked over to the car and lunged for the book. Ruby shrank back and Beatrix followed through the window, twisting and kicking, her legs off the ground. Natalie scrambled over to grab Beatrix by the waist and drag her out.

  "You're creating a scene," she hissed. "Both of you!" She set Beatrix aside and told a wide-eyed Ruby to park the car. Ruby stuck her tongue out at Beatrix before driving off.

  Beatrix righted her clothing, then gestured wildly after the Camaro. "I'm not going if she's going. How could you even expect me to?"

  Natalie sighed. "She was fired yesterday. She sounded desperate when I called to ask about the watch."

  The older woman rolled her eyes.

  "And when I found out she had the organizer, I thought it would be a good idea to invite her along."

  "But she's unbearable! Raymond's little knocked- up mistress-stripper! At least you're—"

  Natalie lifted her eyebrows. "At least I'm what?"

  "Tolerable."

  "Gee, thanks."

  Beatrix scoffed. "You know what I mean. Jesus, she's an embarrassment."

  "So none of us would have picked the other two for friends," she said with a pointed look. "But maybe between the three of us, we can find a way out of this mess. Ruby might know something that she doesn't even realize is important."

  "How can you be so sure that the little slut didn't stick Raymond like she did that other man?"

  Natalie swallowed. "How can I be sure that you didn't stick Raymond and are simply trying to lead us off on a tangent?"

  "But the watch—"

  "The watch could be yours. You could be lying."

  "You could be lying," Beatrix shot back. "You were growing the damn stuff that killed Raymond right in your back yard."

  "My aunt was growing it. I had no idea the plant was even in the garden, and wouldn't know how to get poison out of it even if I'd wanted to."

  "But you had access to the drug."

  Natalie crossed her arms. "So did you—your father was a cardiologist, and you used to work in a hospital."

  Beatrix gave her a wry smile. "You don't honestly believe I killed Raymond, do you?"

  She considered the woman thoughtfully, trying to read those ice-blue eyes that glittered like hard, clear crystals. The eyes of an angel? The eyes of a murderer? "I honestly don't believe that any one of us knows the other two well enough to be completely sure of anything. But maybe by the end of this trip, we will."

  The older woman's mouth twisted in concession, but her body language screamed aversion. Natalie opened the hatch on her Cherokee and watched with no small amount of amusement as Beatrix lifted and thrust in her suitcases, none too gently. "If that little dimwit gets diarrhea of the mouth, I swear I'll duct-tape it shut."

  "I'm ready!" Ruby tottered up to them, flushed and wearing strappy super-high heels, white spandex shorts, and a skintight pink T-shirt that read, "KENTUCKY—Fast Women and Beautiful Horses." The black words stretched across her chest were distorted almost beyond recognition, and she was not wearing a bra. Her hair flowed loose and luxurious. In addition to the enormous gold vinyl purse hanging from her shoulder, she carried a bulging blue athletic bag in one hand, and some kind of plastic carrier in the other. A split second later, Natalie's unspoken question was answered when a tiny black nose appeared through the vent in the side and an annoyingly familiar yap sounded.

  "Miss Mame asked to go," Ruby said, smiling like an indulgent parent.

  "I don't believe this," Beatrix muttered.

  Nata
lie hesitated. "Ruby, I'm not so sure about traveling with a dog."

  Her face crumbled. "Oh, but Miss Mame is almost like a person!"

  "Yeah," Beatrix said to Natalie. "Didn't you hear her? The dog asked to go."

  "Oh, Nat, she'll be good, I promise! She'll sleep most of the time and she'll pee only when we stop to pee. Besides, I can't leave her here."

  If this was any indication of what the rest of the trip would be like, Natalie thought, they could leave her here. "She'll have to stay in the back."

  "You're not serious," Beatrix said.

  "What choice do we have?" Natalie asked, her own ire escalating. She jammed her fingers into her hair. "Look, we can call off the entire trip and my feelings won't be hurt."

  Beatrix and Ruby stared at each other with belligerent eyes. "Just stay away from me," Beatrix muttered.

  "Gladly," Ruby said with a toss of her head.

  Natalie exhaled. "Can we please go?"

  Chapter 31

  Beatrix ground her teeth. After playing Jeopardy, the travel edition, for the past seventy-five miles, Natalie had accumulated ten thousand six hundred in winnings, and she was a distant second with a lousy three hundred bucks. She looked out the car window and considered a timely jump—going into the hereafter merged with Tennessee State Road 22 might not be such a bad mode of delivery. Very down-home. Perhaps someone would erect a white cross that would have tourists asking, "What tragic accident took someone's life in that godforsaken spot?"

  "Suicide," some old geezer would answer. "Woman threw herself from a car she was riding in with her husband's two mistresses, couldn't deal with the humiliation." When in truth, she couldn't deal with the entertainment.

  "The answer is," Ruby said, her empty head stuck between the front bucket seats, "This former Marine allegedly shot President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963."

  "Lee Harvey Oswald," Natalie offered.

  "You're right!" Ruby said, grinning. Then she wagged her finger. "But you keep forgetting to put it in the form of a question. I'll have to count it wrong the next time. The correct answer is 'Who is Lee Harvey Oswald?'" She bounced up and down on the back seat. "Next category, American history for four hundred."

  Beatrix checked the glove compartment for duct tape, but came up empty. "Okay, enough with these inane questions."

  "You're just sore because you're losing," the girl admonished.

  "No, I'm not."

  "Yes, you are."

  "No, I'm not."

  "Yes, you are."

  "Yes, you are."

  "No, I'm—" The redhead frowned. "Hey, you tricked me."

  Not a gargantuan feat.

  Ruby waved the question-and-answer cards. "Beatrix, you should be winning since you were alive when most of this stuff happened."

  Killing her would be worth a second murder charge. "Shut. Up."

  "Like, where were you when JFK was shot?"

  "On the grassy knoll."

  "Huh?"

  Beatrix sighed. "I was in sixth grade English class. Our principal came over the intercom crying, and sent us home."

  "Golly. I hated English."

  "Raymond always thought the CIA was behind the assassination," Natalie said, a pitiful attempt to salvage the derailed conversation. The corner of her mouth twitched.

  "Well, if you ask me," Beatrix said, "Jackie had it done."

  Ruby's eyes bulged. "You think?"

  Natalie grimaced. "That's pretty twisted."

  "Not when you think about what the woman must have been going through—mistresses revolving through the White House, Marilyn Monroe in a gown made out of rice paper singing 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President'—it would make a wife testy."

  "She might not even have known he was cheating," Natalie challenged.

  Beatrix scoffed. "Of course she knew. All women know—"

  "I didn't," Natalie said. "Did you?"

  "Did she what?" the other one asked, obviously having problems keeping up.

  Natalie had more patience than she. "I'm asking if Beatrix knew that Raymond had women on the side."

  They both looked at her, eyebrows lifted. She stalled by rearranging her legs. "I suspected he hadn't always been faithful."

  "Why did you suspect?" Natalie asked.

  She shrugged. "Stereotypical cheating-husband behavior—traveling more, increasingly vague about his whereabouts, things like that. Did you suspect he was getting his bread buttered elsewhere?"

  Natalie stared at the road, her knuckles white around the steering wheel. "Must you be so crude?"

  "Just answer the question."

  "I... deep down, yes, I guess I suspected lately there might be another woman."

  Beatrix emitted a small laugh. "And neither one of us confronted him. Why is that?"

  "Well, I wasn't certain," Natalie added quickly.

  "What would it have taken to convince you?"

  Her mouth flattened. "I don't know."

  "Meeting his other wives in his hospital room?"

  She squirmed. "You made your point. I was in denial."

  Beatrix sent a smirk in her direction. "We both were."

  "Over half of all married men have cheated on their wives," Ruby said.

  "With you?" Beatrix asked her, feeling nicotine-deprived.

  From the back, the mutt-mop started yapping as if someone had stuck a hatpin in its scrawny rump. The girl turned in her seat and cooed to the pooch, but the high-pitched yelping continued.

  "Is there an eject button?" she asked Natalie.

  "We're almost to Quincy. I think everyone is ready for a pit stop."

  In an effort to block out the commotion in the back, she picked up Raymond's schedule book. By comparing it to the travel log that Natalie had found in Raymond's desk, they'd determined Raymond had spent the last day of his sorry life in the vicinity of Quincy, Tennessee, where, Natalie remembered from previous conversations with Raymond, Glomby Medical Center was located. He'd pursued the large account vigorously, she'd said, and was hoping to close an exclusive deal very soon. It was news to her, Beatrix admitted, but then again, she and Raymond rarely discussed his job.

  For more than a decade, he had attended company functions alone—she'd hated mingling with all those cheesy salespeople he worked with, who were constantly "on" and making tasteless jokes about prostheses. When they first met, Raymond had told her and everyone else that he was working toward medical school, although transcripts of classes in progress never seemed to materialize.

  And so Raymond wasn't a successful financier like Delia Piccoli's husband. Or a manufacturing guru like Eve Lombardi's husband. Or a tax lawyer like Toni Knipp's husband. But she'd never been ashamed of Raymond, only sad that he settled for the occupation of prosthetic limb salesman, a job that allowed him to live vicariously through the surgeons he called upon, and to pick up an impressive vocabulary. At the club, he'd fallen short of introducing himself as "Dr.," but didn't object if someone called him "Doc"—in tribute, he said, to the time he resuscitated Marilee Waterson when she ventured into the deep end of the club pool. Personally, she thought Marilee was a two-bit actress—with plastic tits the size of hot air balloons, how could she have sunk? But Raymond swore she wasn't breathing when he'd put his mouth over hers. And he'd been dubbed a hero, the infuriating flirt.

  She opened the schedule to the last week he lived. While in Quincy, they would check out the hotel where Raymond spent his final night, and if necessary, retrace his route for the week in reverse order, moving west to east across northern Tennessee.

  The banal margin notes in his tiny, cramped handwriting unexpectedly tugged at her heart. The scribbling of a man who expected to live: Expense report. Software upgrade. Windshield wipers. Razors.

  She blinked rapidly, refusing to cry. Oh, Raymond. If you'd only behaved yourself you'd still be alive.

  The dog was going absolutely berserk, and so was she. Beatrix twisted in her seat. "If you don't muzzle that yap-trap, I'll tie him
to the luggage rack."

  "It's a her," the redhead shouted.

  She gritted her teeth. "Then I'll tie a bow in the rope around her neck."

  The dog stopped, apparently realizing there was only room enough in the vehicle for one bitch.

  "Told you she was smart," the girl sang, then held up her Jeopardy cards. "Want to keep playing?"

  Beatrix grabbed the cards, zoomed down the window, and tossed them out, immensely gratified to see them scattering over the roadside behind them.

  Ruby gasped and pressed her face to the side window. "You littered! And you threw away my game!"

  "If you can breed with my husband, I can throw away your game."

  Ruby looked to Natalie, as if the woman was going to take up for her, but Natalie simply glanced in the rearview mirror and shook her head in warning. Smart lady. The girl sat back in a huff, but at least she and her hound were quiet.

  "Did you find anything new?" Natalie asked, nodding toward the schedule book.

  "Not yet," Beatrix said, scanning the now-familiar pages for a name or personal scribble she hadn't noticed before. "Wait, here's something the day before he died, scratched out. I thought it was a mistake, but maybe it's a separate to-do item." She held the book at arm's length to scrutinize the tiny scribble in the corner of the page—damnable farsightedness.

  "Pick up roses for B-day," Ruby said over her shoulder, without so much as a squint.

  "Thanks," she said sourly. "My birthday was in April. Was he referring to one of you?"

  Natalie shook her head. "My birthday is in March."

  "February 29," the other one said, grinning like a fool. "I've only had five birthdays."

  That explained so much. "Then ladies, we just might have a clue to finding the mystery woman. I doubt if Raymond would take roses to a client. Assuming the scratch-out means he bought the flowers versus changing his mind, there has to be a receipt or something." She rifled through pockets in the planner to come up with a few paper clips, a stick of gum, and a business card with familiar lettering. Slanting a look in Natalie's direction, she said, "Here's a card for your Mr. Butler."

  "Who?" Ruby asked.

  Natalie's mouth turned down. "He isn't 'my' Mr. Butler. I barely know the man, and what I do know, I don't particularly like."