Every Move She Makes

by Beverly Barton

  “No, of course he couldn’t,” Reed said. “Admitting that he had fathered an illegitimate child would have ruined his reputation and ended his political career.”

  “The decision was Judy’s as well as mine,” Webb told them. “She knew that I couldn’t leave Carolyn—not ever. Judy loved me enough to want to protect me, and fool that I was, I let her.”

  “You’re not the man I thought you were if you were capable of abandoning your own child.” Ella pulled away from Reed and went to her father, her presence demanding that he look at her. “Tell me that you’ve done something over the years to take care of Regina.”

  “I have,” Webb said. “But not enough. Nothing I’ve done could even begin to make it up to her for growing up without a father and for having endured a stepfather like Junior Blalock.”

  “Just what have you done for Regina?” Reed demanded.

  “He got her a job with me, for one thing,” Mark Leamon said. “And I suspect that he arranged the college scholarship Regina received. Am I right?”

  “I did everything that Judy would allow me to do,” Webb said, then reached out for Ella. He sighed with relief when she allowed him to take her hand. “I would have liked for you to have grown up with your sister, for the two of you to have lived together. My greatest regret is that she couldn’t be a part of our family. But Judy and I did what we thought was best for everyone.”

  “Oh, Daddy, how terrible for both of you.” Ella wrapped her arms around her father.

  Suddenly, a ringing noise distracted Webb, and for a few seconds he didn’t recognize the sound. Then, when he heard Frank Nelson talking, he realized that Frank had received a call on his cell phone.

  Webb smiled weakly at Ella. “There are things about my marriage to your mother that—”

  Ella placed her index finger over her father’s lips. “I know you and Mother love each other, but I understand that Mother’s paralysis has been as difficult for you as for her.”

  Frank cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s something y’all need to know.”

  Four sets of eyes focused on Spring Creek’s chief of police. Webb’s gut instincts told him that the news wasn’t good.

  “What’s wrong?” Webb asked.

  “There’s been a murder,” Frank said. He looked directly at Reed. “Over at Conway’s Garage.”

  “Briley Joe?” The color drained from Reed’s face.

  “Nope,” Frank said. “Briley Joe found the body. Seems he’d left Roy Moses at the garage to tend to things while he went over to the junkyard in Hopewell, and when he got back about fifteen minutes ago, he discovered Roy’s body in the garage.”

  “Roy’s dead?” Ella grasped her father’s hand tightly.

  “Seems that way.” Frank shook his head. “Poor old fellow. Somebody beat him repeatedly in the head with a twelve-inch Crescent wrench.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Tears glistened in Ella’s eyes.

  “Who would want to hurt Roy?” Reed asked.

  “I’ve got to get on over there,” Frank said. “We think we may have a witness who saw somebody leaving the garage about half an hour before Briley Joe got back.”

  “I should go with you,” Reed said. “Briley Joe’s bound to be pretty shook up.”

  “Let us know what you find out,” Webb said. “I was rather fond of Roy. Simple-minded fellow, but a real sweet man. Anybody who’d hurt him would have to be downright mean.”

  Her father had asked her to stay, to come home to live, but Ella had declined, saying she’d rather give her mother a while longer to come to terms with her relationship with Reed. She had fixed coffee for them and shared two cups of Irish Creme decaf while they’d discussed Roy Moses’s murder. Neither could believe that anyone would hurt such a dear, kind man.

  Ella stood at the back door with her father. She leaned over and kissed him. “I’ll tell Uncle Jeff Henry and Aunt Cybil about Roy. Call me if Frank lets you know anything tonight.”

  Webb clamped his hand down on her shoulder. “We need to talk more about my relationship with Judy, and about the fact that Regina is my child.”

  “Yes, we do,” she agreed. “But not tonight.” She felt as sorry for her father as she did for Judy and Regina. And her poor mother. “You do realize that sooner or later, you’ll have to tell Mother.”

  Webb nodded. “Ella, about your mother…”

  “You don’t have to tell me that you love her. I know—”

  “No, you don’t know. That’s the problem. I’ve let you believe that Carolyn and I are devoted to each other, but that’s not true. I haven’t loved your mother in a long time. The truth is that I had asked her for a divorce the very day she had her riding accident.”

  “You don’t love Mother?” Ella couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. All her life her parents had presented a picture of marital happiness. She didn’t think she’d ever heard them arguing, at least not about anything serious. And all this time, her father hadn’t loved her mother.

  “The only woman I’ve ever truly loved is Judy Conway,” Webb said. “We dated when she was in high school, but I broke up with her because my parents didn’t approve of her. By the time I realized how much she meant to me, she was already married to Reed’s father.”

  Ella wondered why she wasn’t more shocked, why this revelation hadn’t been a total surprise. Perhaps it was because on some instinctive level, she had known that something wasn’t right in her parents’ marriage, that despite their shows of affection and devotion, there had been no passion between them. As their child, she had seen only what she wanted to see, believed only what she wanted to believe.

  “You still love Judy, don’t you? All these years, you’ve stayed with Mother because of her paralysis, because you weren’t the kind of man who would desert his crippled wife.”

  Webb hung his head. “I won’t ever leave Carolyn. She needs me too much. And if I hadn’t argued with her that afternoon about a divorce, she would never have ridden off in a huff the way she did and—”

  Ella grabbed her father, hugged him fiercely, and spoke softly, emotion tightening her throat. “I love you, Daddy. And whatever happens, I’ll be right at your side.”

  Webb returned her hug, then released her and kissed her on the forehead. “You go on. I need to look in on Carolyn. I’ll call you if Frank phones me tonight.”

  Ella hesitated, then smiled, turned around, and went out the back door. The night sky was alive with stars—diamond specks glittering in the black heavens. A slight breeze rustled through the treetops, but the wind was warm and saturated with moisture. She hurried along through their backyard into her aunt and uncle’s yard next door. Before she reached the back porch, she removed the key from her pocket. Once inside the kitchen, she heard voices. Two male voices. Uncle Jeff Henry and…and Frank Nelson!

  Following the voices, Ella rushed out of the kitchen and down the hall. She found the two men in the living room. Frank had the look of a funeral mourner, as if the news he bore was tragic. Uncle Jeff Henry’s face was red-splotched, the way it got when he was very angry. She paused in the doorway, listening, realizing that neither man was aware of her presence.

  “I don’t give a damn what Jim Pendleton thinks he saw. I’m telling you that Cybil wouldn’t have been anywhere near Conway’s Garage tonight.” Jeff Henry stomped back and forth between the two sofas facing each other in the center of the room.

  “I’m not accusing Cybil of anything,” Frank said. “But if she was there, she might have seen or heard something. All I want to do is see her for a few minutes and ask her a couple of questions.”

  Jeff Henry halted abruptly, narrowed his gaze, and glowered at the police chief. “And I told you that she had a sick headache and went on to bed early. I absolutely refuse to bother her with this nonsense.”

  “If there hadn’t been a murder, I wouldn’t be so insistent. But damnation, Jeff Henry, this town’s going to be in a panic when word gets out. The shooting of a U.S. sen
ator was bad enough, but now we’ve got this mess—the murder of a sweet, harmless guy like Roy. Things like this don’t happen in Spring Creek. If Cybil was there, like Jim Pendleton says, then I’ve got to talk to her. Tonight.”

  “You might as well leave,” Jeff Henry said. “Unless you have a warrant to arrest Cybil, then—”

  “Frank, what’s this all about?” Ella entered the room. “You can’t honestly believe that my aunt was in anyway involved in Roy’s death.”

  The moment he turned and saw Ella, Jeff Henry’s face lit up and a fragile smile played at the corners of his lips. “Oh, my dear, thank goodness. You must talk sense to our police chief. That idiot, Jim Pendleton, thinks he saw your aunt near Conway’s Garage tonight.” Jeff Henry looked at her pleadingly. “I’ve assured Frank that it’s not possible. Cybil has been here with me tonight, and she’s upstairs asleep right this minute.”

  “Frank, is it absolutely necessary for you to speak to Aunt Cybil tonight?” Ella asked. “Couldn’t she come down to the station and answer your questions in the morning?”

  “If this weren’t a murder case, then—”

  Ella heard the noise the moment Frank did. Jeff Henry tensed. Someone had just come in the front door. Footsteps—high-heeled footsteps—clicked across the foyer floor. Within a minute, a tipsy Cybil appeared in the doorway. She clutched the door frame as she glanced around the room.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her speech slightly slurred. “Are we having a party and nobody told me?”

  Frank looked point-blank at Jeff Henry. “I thought you said Cybil had been with you all evening and was upstairs asleep.”

  “What?” Cybil laughed, a rather throaty, almost gurgling sound. “I don’t know why he’d tell you such a thing.”

  “Mrs. Carlisle, would you mind telling me where you’ve been tonight?” Frank asked.

  “Don’t answer that, Cybil!” Jeff Henry rushed to his wife’s side.

  “I think perhaps we need to call Mark Leamon or one of your lawyers, Uncle Jeff Henry,” Ella said.

  “Why do we need to call a lawyer?” Cybil asked, puzzlement in her voice. “And Frank, why so formal? You don’t have to call me Mrs. Carlisle.”

  “Aunt Cybil, Roy Moses was murdered tonight at Conway’s Garage,” Ella said. “Someone thinks they saw you at the garage about half an hour before Briley Joe found Roy’s body.”

  “Oh!” Cybil moaned, then stuck her fist up to her mouth. “Poor Roy,” she mumbled. “Poor, dear man.”

  “See,” Ella told Frank. “She doesn’t know anything about Roy’s murder. She had no idea he was dead.”

  “Is that true?” Frank asked. “You weren’t at Conway’s Garage tonight?”

  Cybil lifted her head. Her eyes seemed incapable of focusing as she glanced around the room; then suddenly she looked right at Jeff Henry. “I—I stopped by the garage earlier tonight, looking for Briley Joe.”

  Ella’s heart sank. Jeff Henry released his inebriated wife, squared his shoulders and turned his back on her.

  “Cybil, do you remember what time you stopped by?” Frank asked.

  She held up her slender wrist. “Never wear a watch.”

  “Jim Pendleton told us he saw you about thirty minutes before the time Briley Joe says he returned to the garage. That would have been around eight-thirty.”

  “I thought it was earlier,” Cybil said. “I don’t think it was dark. I saw Roy and he told me Briley Joe wasn’t there, so I left and drove over to Smithville and…” She glanced at Jeff Henry, who stood facing the windows, his back to her. “I met up with some friends and had a few drinks.”

  “All right,” Frank said. “While you were at Conway’s Garage, did you see anybody else around—anybody who looked the least bit suspicious?”

  “There wasn’t anyone else there. Just Roy.”

  Frank nodded. “Thanks. That’s all the information I need for now. Sorry to have bothered you folks. I hope you understand that I was just doing my job.”

  “We understand,” Ella said.

  “I’ll show myself out.” Frank nodded to Ella, then left the room.

  “Poor old Roy,” Cybil said. “Who would kill a sweet guy like that?

  Chapter 27

  Now was the time to move forward, to rush into action, but only after careful planning. The weapon with Reed’s fingerprints had been easy enough to obtain. The plan had been to steal a tool that could be used as a weapon from one of the toolboxes at the garage, but as luck would have it, Reed had left his lunch box there—and what had been discovered inside was an even better choice. A fork, a spoon and a knife—a sharp paring knife, something suitable for peeling apples, halving sandwiches, and slitting throats. Careless of him to leave such an appropriate weapon so handy. The man had been convicted once before of killing with a knife. How interesting that he would choose the same type of weapon for another murder.

  With the town in an uproar over that idiot Roy Moses’s death, people were distracted, even members of the Carlisle and Porter families. It was unbelievable that not only had Webb and Ella attended Roy’s funeral, but that Webb had actually paid for it. Of course, Webb was known for his generosity. One of his more noble attributes.

  Tonight would be the night. Regrettable choice of a victim, but necessary. Once a second murder had been blamed on Reed Conway, no one would even consider reopening the Blalock case. And once Reed was in prison again—this time for the rest of his life—things could return to normal. There would be a proper time of bereavement, of course, but eventually everyone would move on. And no one would ever know the truth. Only the two of them. And they would take the secret to their graves.

  “I won’t go if you need me to stay here.” Ella patted her aunt’s unsteady hand. “I know Uncle Jeff Henry is terribly upset about your admitting to Frank that you had stopped by Conway’s Garage looking for Briley Joe.”

  “I was too drunk to think straight that night,” Cybil admitted. “But even if I’d been completely sober, I would have had no choice but to tell Frank the truth. My heavens, he was actually considering me a suspect in Roy’s murder.”

  “I don’t think he actually believed you’d killed Roy.”

  “Maybe not.” Cybil squeezed Ella’s hand. “Don’t you worry about me. Unfortunately, your uncle and I have been through this sort of thing before and survived.”

  “You do know that Daddy told Frank about your affair with Junior Blalock.”

  Cybil caressed Ella’s cheek. “Yes, I know. I understand he also confessed a few of his own sins.”

  Ella nodded.

  “He told me that you didn’t judge him too harshly.” Cybil leaned forward and kissed Ella’s cheek. “You have such a generous and forgiving heart. And so understanding. How much would you be willing to forgive, darling girl? Would you forgive Webb and me for almost anything?”

  “I love you, Aunt Cybil. Almost as much as I love Daddy. Of course I could forgive you for anything.”

  “Remember that promise.” Cybil rose from where she’d been sitting on the edge of Ella’s bed, then tapped the top of Ella’s closed suitcase. “You and Reed need a weekend away after the hellacious week we’ve all had. A couple of days and nights down at the river cabin will be good for you.”

  “I hate leaving with things in such a turmoil.” Ella stood, then lifted her small suitcase and set it on the floor. “With Roy’s murder unsolved, Frank won’t have any time to reopen the Blalock murder case for a while. And as long as Reed is a convicted murderer, Mother will never accept him.”

  Cybil laughed, the sound a mockery of real humor. “Don’t kid yourself. Carolyn will never accept Reed Conway as your significant other. His mother is not only a housekeeper, but she gave birth to one of Webb’s daughters. Once Carolyn knows about Regina, she’ll despise the entire Conway family.”

  “Mother accepting Reed is only a minor consideration at this point,” Ella said. “Reed deserves to be exonerated. He didn’t kill Junior.”

>   “You love him very much, don’t you?”

  Ella sighed. “It’s quite obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. To those of us who know you well and love you dearly.”

  “I don’t understand why it happened or how it could have happened so quickly. At first I tried to convince myself that it was only sex, but…I have never felt anything like this in my entire life. I ache with wanting him. He’s my first thought every morning and my last thought every night. No matter how much I’m with him, it’s never enough.”

  “I know.” Cybil glanced past Ella at the wall, a faraway look in her eyes. “I was in love like that once.”

  “Were you?”

  “Mmm…”

  “With whom?” Ella asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Try me.”

  “With Jeff Henry Carlisle. That silly fool.” Tears misted Cybil’s eyes. “But he was in love with Carolyn. When he couldn’t have her, he settled for me. I was a substitute for my sister. At the time, I thought I could make him love me. Oh, how wrong I was.”

  “Aunt Cybil…”

  When Ella reached out to embrace Cybil, she grasped Ella’s shoulders. “Don’t you feel sorry for me. I made my own bed and I’ve been lying quite uncomfortably in it for years. But you don’t have to settle for anything less than the love and passion of the man you want. Everybody may think Reed is all wrong for you, but if y’all love each other and he makes you happy, then don’t let anyone come between you.”

  Ella hugged Cybil. “I’ll be back Sunday night. And I suppose I’ll continue to impose on you and Uncle Jeff Henry for a while longer. If Mother doesn’t come around soon, I’ll probably have to find a place of my own.”

  “You know you’re welcome here for as long as you want to stay.”

  Ella released her aunt, turned, and lifted her suitcase. “If Reed should call for any reason, tell him…well, just tell him to hurry.”

  “Why aren’t y’all going to the cabin together?” Cybil asked.