“Twelve new hymnals. I sent one back that was damaged, so let’s be sure to look for a credit next month.”
“Oh, bless you for checking. Um…and this one, seventy-nine-forty?”
“Those cleaning products Florence Wilson has been hawking. She’s gotten into some sort of pyramid scheme. I told her we have a regular vendor and could only make a one-time purchase. She’s hoping, of course, that the sextant will fall in love with her stuff and demand more of it. And that next item was for an extra mowing in June. It was so hot, remember, and we got the big rain? I just thought we needed it.”
“You keep things looking so nice around here.”
Claire scanned her list, and Janie surreptitiously checked her cell phone. A text from her son had just come in. “Oh! Mathew’s home. That sweetie-pie. Bet he didn’t want to miss church tomorrow. Sunday is the one day I can still get the family to sit down together. With both kids driving now… ” She trailed off. Claire Holmes’s children were grown, married, and lived in other states. In her sermons, she sometimes mentioned a granddaughter, Abby, but she had never said anything about a husband, living or dead. Sensing an issue, the ladies of the church speculated that there might have been a divorce, or perhaps there never had been a husband. In either case it would be indelicate to bring it up.
Claire pushed her list aside. “My dear, it’s Saturday! Go be with your family. We can do this another time. I’m going to work for a while longer, then I’m knocking off too.”
Janie stood to leave. “I’ll check the back door. I hate that we all feel so vulnerable now.”
“Oh, there was this other thing.” Janie turned back at the door. Claire had taken an envelope from her top drawer. “And it’s rather a biggie. Six thousand and something?”
“I wonder why I didn’t see that,” Janie said, returning to the desk and taking the envelope. “I’m usually so careful with the mail.”
“The mailman brought it inside because the stamp had fallen off. What did we buy that cost that much?”
Janie slid the envelope into her pocket. “You aren’t supposed to see this, Claire. It’s your long-term care and disability insurance. Falls due every July.”
“I had no idea it cost so much.”
“Well, it is based on age. I told the compensation committee that we needed to keep you happy. There are plenty of other congregations that would love to steal you away. I haven’t seen attendance numbers like these in years.”
“Thank you, Janie,” Claire said humbly. “Again, I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“See you tomorrow.”
*****
Rexie Roberts finished the last asana of the ninety minute class and picked up her towel and mopped her face. Her three students broke their poses and also reached for towels.
“Ohmygod,” one said. “That felt so good.” The others murmured agreement. All eyes turned to the digital thermometer on the wall. It read 97 degrees. It wasn’t quite noon. “Oh, shoot. I was hoping it would be a hundred,” the first student said.
“We’d have to meet at 4 PM to get that big a sweat,” Rexie said. “Sherice can’t make it.”
Sherice shook her head. “Nope. My shift starts at two.”
“Besides, I’ve got to head up the mountain and give massages to fatcats,” Rexie said.
“Bet the pay is good,” the student said, rolling her eyes knowingly.
“Pays my gas up there and back, but it doesn’t cover the wear and tear on my car. One of these days I’m going to have to replace good ol’ Daffodil. She’s really starting to show her age.”
With her students cleared out, Rexie ejected a cassette tape, tidied a stack of mats, and pushed the broom around for a while. She packed up her gym bag, turned out the lights, stepped outside and pulled down the rolling door of the storage unit she used as an exercise studio. The telephone inside rang and she dropped her bag and bent to raise the door again. She couldn’t afford to miss a client.
But it was only Patrick Allen Childers. “Hey, Patrick. What’s up? What? I can’t hear you. Are you outside somewhere? Don’t look? Don’t look where?” She listened for a moment. “The pathetic cow. She’s been stalking me all summer. Just because I gave her old man a massage out at the ranch when she wasn’t home. No, nothing happened. Get your mind out of the gutter. I have my karma to think about. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known he was alone.”
She listened for a moment. “Yeah, wasn’t that weird! And you and me were both in the library that afternoon. Did you know her? You know everybody in town.” Rexie laughed. “No, not just voters. You know everyone and everything.” She listened for a moment. “Then, maybe I know something you don’t. But Patrick, you can’t tell anybody where you got this. I mean it. I could get in real trouble passing this on.” Protestations on the other side.
“I don’t mind ‘divulging my source.’ It’s no secret I’ve been out a time or two with DeWayne Ratliff.” More protests. “You didn’t know about me and DeWayne? Then maybe you’re not as good a sleuth as you think you are. Not that we’re dating. My bank account is sucking wind and he offered to buy me dinner. I’m not a fan of the guns and badges—although I know that turns some women on—anyway, he’s single now, and there aren’t many of those in town… So, DeWayne said the knife that was used to kill the old lady is a boning knife, the kind you use to gut fish. Okay, to filet fish. What’s the diff? Whoever used it on her wore latex gloves, and they left the gloves and the knife at the scene in her own purse. Isn’t that sick?”
Again, Rexie listened. “Oh, yeah, I saw that episode. Where they get the fingerprints from the inside of the glove? I actually asked DeWayne about that. He said there was, like, powder inside the glove and they couldn’t get fingerprints. Hey, I’ve gotta get moving. My car’s been giving me problems and I have to make this two o’clock.” Her caller offered a suggestion, but Rexie cut him off. “I’m not taking my car to that jerk any more. Even if I do need an engine overhaul.”
She listened for a moment. “You made Lucy take it in? Take your own car in for servicing, you lazy ass. I wouldn’t trust anybody’s wife around that guy. He dyes his hair, you know. Really. And he’s not 27, I don’t care what he claims. Hey, thanks for the heads-up, Patrick. I probably would’ve spotted her anyway in that honking big SUV she drives. Talk at you later.”
*****
After keeping her usual Saturday morning hair appointment, Judith Weathers popped into the little boutique next door to see if they had anything new. Lucy Childers, who earlier had sat under the hair dryer next to her, was trying on shoes, apparently unable to decide between a pair of gray and blue CherChezLaFemme sandals.
“I’d get both if I were you,” Judith advised.
As Lucy was paying for her purchases, Judith sat down in the chair she had vacated and picked up one of the tiny shoes the mayor’s wife had rejected. Size five. I wouldn’t be able to get all five toes into that shoe, Judith thought. Her loathing for small women threatened to boil over.
With three boxes of sandals arrayed across the back seat, Judith drove past the storage units where Rexie Roberts conducted her so-called business. Her timing was perfect. The class was just breaking up. Judith took the next left, circled through the neighborhood, and took up a position in a cul-de-sac that offered a view of the yellow car.
With engine running and air-conditioner creating a fog on the windshield, Judith watched the front of the fitness center and smoldered. The girl probably didn’t make enough with her various little hippie enterprises to buy a single pair of CherChezLaFemme shoes, much less three. Thought she could just steal away another woman’s husband, did she? Just because she was younger, fitter, tinier? Well, Rexie Roberts was about to learn the cost of her conceit. Age has its benefits, among them, a willingness to deploy the most toxic weapon, money. When Judith was through with Buck, he would be asking Rexie for a loan!
She expected Buck to throw in the towel long before now. He loved Thunderbird Ranch�
��the land, not the house or the lifestyle that came with it. He refused to cultivate friendships that might benefit them socially. He would neither give nor go to cocktail parties. He wouldn’t dress up. He owned two pairs of boots and said that one day he would be laid to rest in one of them. She had let him get away with defying her, since it meant she was free to do as she pleased. But he had taken it too far this time. Everybody in town probably knew about him and the little exercise freak. The girl wanted what Judith had, and Judith was doing her dead level best to keep her from getting it.
She had hatched a plan to document the synchronicity of their vehicles parked within a few spaces of each other, over and over, same time, same place. If she was patient, the lovers would grow complacent and she would get a picture of them together. But even if she didn’t, the evidence was overwhelming, enough to prove who was really at fault here. She had broached the subject of hiring a professional in her initial interview with Betty Blanton, but the lawyer had pooh-poohed the idea, saying it was a waste of time and money. What the general public didn’t realize, she said, was that no matter who or what Buck Weathers screwed, no-fault divorce meant the judge would split their assets down the middle. Well, Betty Blanton had never been a wife, never given birth to children, hadn’t spent half her life feeding and tending a male ego! How could a lesbian lawyer know how satisfying revenge was going to be?
Judith reflected that if she had known how little heart Betty Blanton had for the kill, she would’ve hired Harvey Pillock. Too late now. He was representing Buck, apparently advising his client to hang tough.
Keeping one eye on the yellow car parked in front of the fitness center, Judith scrolled through the photos on her cell phone: cars, parking lots, more cars. But a discerning eye would notice the same two cars showing up in photo after photo, a bright yellow import and a massive black Suburban, each shot date-stamped by her cell phone, a record of betrayal that would sway any judge. And when she got the picture she was after, she was going to email it to Betty Blanton with the caption: I want his half too.
Girls in brightly-colored exercise clothing drifted through the raised door of the storage unit, got in cars and left. The tall girl took her time, but finally emerged, got in the yellow car, and backed out on the highway. It was time to move.
Judith eased the big SUV around the cul-de-sac and back through the neighborhood to her secondary position under a sycamore with a view of cars zipping past on the state highway. She pulled down the sun visor and gave herself a quick critical appraisal in the little mirror. With sunglasses covering half her face, she looked like a spy, an undercover agent, Mata Hari. She tapped the steering wheel with a lacquered nail. What was keeping the yellow eyesore? Surely the girl hadn’t gone the other way? Impatience finally won out, and Judith pulled through the intersection only to meet Rexie’s car speeding past in the opposite direction.
“Oh, fudge!” she cried, executing a lumbering U-turn in the nearest front yard. She stepped on the gas and a moment later spotted the yellow car up ahead. “Not too close,” she counseled herself. “You know where she’s going. Big. Bear. Mountain.” Oh, she would make Buck regret this!
Twenty minutes later, both cars, the Lincoln a discreet distance behind, reached the summit. The yellow car drove through the porte-cochere of the casino and around to the rear. Judith took her time circling the vast parking lot. She knew exactly where she would find Rexie’s car, as near the Suburban as it could get. Judith parked two rows away. Even at this time of day the casino was busy. Within the cavernous depths, gamblers couldn’t tell if it was day or night.
Sensing that it was safe to leave her car, Judith slipped out and eased along behind the rows of parked cars to a position that allowed her to snap a photo of the yellow car. A little further along, she got one of the black Suburban. He certainly liked it regular, didn’t he? She got back in her car and took off her sunglasses to make sure she had captured a clear image, hard to tell in the blazing noonday sun. Toggling back and forth between the two photos, Judith then compared them to previous shots. Something caught her attention. That was odd. How could the Suburban hit the white stripe in exactly the same spot in the last three photos?
Judith got out of her car and returned to the Suburban, this time approaching the front of the vehicle. She lifted the wiper away from the windshield and revealed a line of red dirt. The car had not moved in weeks.
Behind her, on the top floor of the Lodge, a resident sat in his chilled, darkened room, enjoying the long view across the valley through his binoculars. Lowering the glasses, he noticed a commotion in the parking lot below. Someone was vandalizing an automobile. Adjusting his lenses, he brought the scene into focus and saw that it was a woman in big sunglasses savaging the windshield wiper of a black SUV. He lowered the glasses and threw back his head and laughed till tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Bwahahaha!” Drying his eyes, he reached for his pants and dug in the pocket for his phone.
Chapter 5
Monday, July 10
On Monday morning, a few minutes after ten o’clock, Judith Weathers’ Lincoln careened down the street and claimed the spot directly in front of Betty Blanton’s law office. Inside, she demanded to see her attorney. Yes, she knew she didn’t have an appointment, but this was an emergency. Was the woman here or not?
Alice Simms, a seasoned legal secretary, knew when it was prudent to let a client cool her heels before getting in to see the boss. If Mrs. Weathers would just have a seat, she would try to fit her in.
“Oh, she can’t be that busy!” Judith snapped. “This is goddamn Johns Valley.”
Nevertheless she plopped down on a leather couch and picked up an out-of-date fashion magazine. From the inner office she could hear Betty Blanton’s stentorian bark. What a magnificent fraud, she thought. Bills herself as a bulldog, but has the killer instincts of a chihuahua.
After a few minutes, the phone slammed, a spring-loaded chair creaked, and the door flew open. “Hey, there, Judith. I got about five minutes before I have to high-tail it over to the courthouse. What’s up?”
Judith Weathers surprised them both by bursting into tears. “I am so mad! So frustrated! So hurt!”
“Take a load off, Miz Weathers. What’s the problem?”
“I know you advised me weeks ago to sign the damn settlement, but I couldn’t just roll over and give him what he wants. He owes me! I gave birth to his children. I cooked and cleaned and raised kids—back before we had the money to pay other people to do that—”
“I get the point of your suffering,” Betty Blanton said, looking at her watch. “So what happened?”
“You told me not to do it, but I did it anyway.”
“No call to beat yourself up, little lady. What do I have to undo?”
“I’ve been following his paramour.”
“His what?”
“His goddamn strumpet, wench, doxie, hoyden, bimbo. His girlfriend!”
“Oh. You mean who he’s bonking.”
“Patrick Allen Childers tipped her off weeks ago,” Judith said bitterly. “They’ve been playing me for a fool all this time. I am so humiliated!”
“What are you saying? That you’ve been following some woman around?”
“Catch up, Betty! I’ve been doing my own investigative work, staking out Rexie Roberts’ absurd little fitness center and following her up to Kiamichi Lodge where the Great Fornicator resides. I’ve got fourteen sets of pictures of their two cars oh-so-cozy in the parking lot together, same place, same time, day after ever-lovin’ day. How can he want it that often, I ask you, when he needed little blue pills to get interested in me?”
“I must say, I’m surprised,” Betty Blanton said. “Day after day, huh? So you got the goods on him?”
Judith Weathers ripped a handful of tissues from the box on Betty Blanton’s desk and took a swipe at her nose. “Aren’t you listening? I did not get the goods on him. They set me up.”
“Set you up,” Betty echoed, usi
ng a time-honored tactic to stall for time while she figured out how this confession was going to end.
“His car, that black Suburban, hasn’t moved in weeks. He’s driving something else. He might not even be living at the Lodge any more. I don’t know where they meet. I didn’t get the goods on him after all. The bastard.”
“Well, I’ll be jiggered. I won’t rub it in, but I did warn you. Now, look, Mrs. Weathers, I hate to bust this up, but if I don’t show up for a hearing over at the courthouse, my client’s gonna be the one gettin’ screwed. I get the gist of what you’re telling me. We’ll sharpen up our proposal, tweak it here and there, try to get the other side to come through with a sweeter offer—”
“No. It’s over. I can’t stand the wear and tear on my emotions any more. I just want it to be over with. Where do I sign?”
“Alice!” Betty bellowed. “Come in here and get Mrs. Weathers’ signature on this document. I’m late for the Calender hearing.”
Judith Weathers picked up the small Meerschaum pipe lying next to the box of tissues. “Do you really smoke this thing?”
“Window dressing,” Betty Blanton said as she exploded out of the office.
*****
It felt strange to be back at work, opening up the library to patrons many days denied the pleasure of browsing, in both an analog and a digital sense. Elinor was alone on the front desk. Libby Jonson had brought the CPU from station #3 into the office and was going over its browsing history. Dot, despite a lack of enthusiasm for the domestic arts, was giving the back carrel a thorough cleaning. Rexie Roberts came in to return a stack of exercise videos and check out three more.
“I was afraid they would be late,” Rexie said. “I kept checking to see when the library was going to reopen.”
“I can’t think of another time we’ve been closed this long,” Elinor admitted.
“Still feels spooky in here,” Rexie said, hugging herself.
Elinor agreed. “Maybe we should think of something, a rededication perhaps.”
Death In The Stacks: An Elinor & Dot library mystery Page 8