For the Love of Jazz

by Shiloh Walker

  With a deep sigh, Tate threw down his pen. “You were supposedly seen by an anonymous caller out on Old Bluecreek Road several times in the weeks before Dr. Kincaid was shot.”

  “And what on God’s earth would I be doing there?” she asked, her eyes puzzled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been out there.”

  “That’s what I am trying to figure out, Marlie. How do you feel about Dr. Kincaid?”

  “The older one? I don’t know. I’ve never met him, really. Daddy used to mumble about him from to time, but that was long ago. He seems like a nice enough man. I know he did little Macy Conroy’s surgery for free. Didn’t charge a penny for his services. And he takes on a lot of patients that can’t afford him.”

  “What about his daughter?” he asked, keeping his voice impassive. Nobody would have guessed that just sitting here was making his gut clench with anger and regret. He hated having to put this woman through this. She’d already taken on so much.

  “Anne-Marie?” she asked, her voice fainter than normal. Her eyes darted away from his face and her ivory complexion paled even more. “She’s a nice lady.”

  “You look a bit odd there. You have a problem with Anne-Marie?”

  “Larry talks about her a lot. And her father. He hates both of them.”

  “Is there a reason why?”

  She raised her eyes and looked at Tate. He’s so beautiful, she thought wistfully. So kind. Her cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink and she raised her shoulders in a shrug, forcing her mind back to the conversation at hand. “Because they have money. We don’t. People like the Kincaids, they don’t like us.”

  Reaching across the table, Tate took her tiny hand in his. On the back of the right wrist was an old rounded, puckered scar, the kind caused by a burning cigarette. Rubbing his thumb over that mark, Tate said, “You’re not like them, Marlie. You never have been.”

  A smile trembled at her mouth before she looked away. All around her, there were signs that she was like them. She was a Muldoon, whether she liked it or not. The dingy kitchen that she could never get clean, no matter how hard she tried. The old linoleum, the stove that barely worked. The small lawn outside was cropped short, emphasizing the bare patches of dirt where nothing would grow.

  What little money she had left over from working at the salon, that didn’t go to keeping her and Mama fed, she spent on Mama’s medicines and spare parts for the car that always fell apart. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone into a store and bought a dress off the rack. She either purchased most of her clothes from a second-hand store or made them.

  Thinking back, she pictured how Anne-Marie Kincaid had looked the Sunday past, wearing a simple, yellow sheath that spoke of understated elegance. The strand of pearls at her neck had been real, Marlie was certain, as had the simple diamond solitaire she wore on her right hand. Beautiful, smart and kind. The money, though God knew Marlie had so little of it, wasn’t even the thing she envied most. It was the animation that seemed to surround Anne-Marie. She was so full of life, something Marlie doubted she’d ever experience.

  With a faint smile, she took her hand from Tate’s and folded both of them neatly in her lap. “But I’ll never be like her, will I?”

  “The only thing you have to do is be yourself,” he said, duty and office forgotten. Those eyes were so sad, so empty.

  “I doubt this is why you came here, Sheriff,” Marlie said quietly, her eyes going carefully blank. I won’t take your pity, she told him silently. It was bad enough when she had to accept it from others, their pity mixed with derision.

  But to take it from him…

  How would he react if he knew she wanted nothing more than to sit on his lap and hold him? That she woke every morning thinking of him after spending nights dreaming of him?

  He’d be uncomfortable, embarrassed, and most likely, even more sympathetic than he already was.

  “So your mother can’t exactly be counted on as an alibi, right?” he asked drolly. In the other room, he could hear Marlie’s mama talking to her eldest son, dead nearly two decades now.

  A glimmer of a smile flirted with her lips and she shook her head. “I’d rather it not go down in the books that she was outside chasing my naked bottom around so she could put a diaper back on me.”

  Tate chuckled, acknowledging with a raised brow that it was a distinct possibility. Just the other week, she had flagged down a deputy on the county road and asked if he could please find her lost chickens.

  The Muldoon farm hadn’t been able to support chickens for more than five years. The empty pen that had once been Naomi’s small pride lay neglected.

  “Tate.”

  Waiting until he looked at her, she asked, “What reason on earth would I have for wanting to hurt him? What could I hope to gain?”

  “Marlie, I don’t think this is anything more than an attempt to distract me, to waste time and confuse things. I’d no sooner think you were a murderer than I’d think your daddy was a priest.” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Godamighty, Marlie. What in the hell is going on? Things like this don’t happen in Briarwood.”

  “You can’t find whoever shot Dr. Kincaid, can you?” she asked softly, twisting her hands in her lap. She wanted to walk over to him, soothe the lines worry had put on his face. Instead, she focused her attention on the matter at hand. She sighed, shaking her head. “Do you even know why? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I think it has something to do with Jazz coming back home,” he admitted roughly, dragging his hand through his closely cropped hair.

  “You don’t think Jazz did it,” she guessed.

  “No. I know he didn’t. He couldn’t have. But who in hell would want to hurt Doc Kincaid like that? He has got to be the kindest, most generous man in the county. He’s like…Santa Claus.”

  “So apparently the Grinch was out that night,” Marlie said, looking down at her folded hands. “Jazz got into a lot of trouble when he was younger, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he did. But nothing major until—”

  Until the night Alex Kincaid died.

  “Uncle Larry isn’t smart enough to have done this,” Marlie said, her voice matter of fact. “He’d be able to pull a trigger, I think, but not cold-bloodedly. He couldn’t concoct a plan like this.”

  “My thoughts, exactly.” With a glimmer of a smile, he said, “Not too bad for a manicurist, Marlie.”

  Her cheeks tinted a pale pink and her eyes darted away. “I prefer to think of myself as a hand-accessory consultant,” she said, so seriously it took Tate a moment to realize she was joking.

  When he realized it, he couldn’t keep from grinning. He held his own hands in front of him, studying the calluses, scars. The nails were neatly clipped, short and clean, the palms wide with long, agile fingers. Flicking hers a glance, he said, “I’ll have to admit your hands look much better than mine.”

  She smiled again, a little wider this time, as she held one hand out for inspection. The pale pink polish gleamed in the light, the cuticles well-tended. Her own hands were small, not much larger than a child’s. “You’d look a bit odd with cotton candy pink on your nails, Sheriff.”

  “I would, at that,” he agreed, as he took his notepad and tucked it in his breast pocket. The silver of his badge gleamed against the white, workman’s style button-down he wore tucked into a pair of jeans.

  At the moment, he almost wished he was anything but the county sheriff. Raising his head, he stared at the faerie sitting in front of him, watching him with wide, serious eyes.

  “Damn it, Marlie,” he muttered as he rolled the brim of his hat in his hands. “You’re going to have to come in and let me take a statement. I hate having to do this.”

  “But you have to get it over with so you can concentrate on who really did it,” she finished as his voice trailed off. “Don’t worry, Tate. I’ll be fine. I’m tougher than I look.”

  Tate thought she was tougher than she should have had to be, but he didn’t
say that. He placed his hat on his head, tipped the brim her way. “Try heading out tomorrow morning before you go to the salon. We’ll get it out of the way as quick as we can.”

  With an understanding smile, Marlie agreed. Moments later, after locking the door behind him, Marlie turned, her hands still clutching the door knob, her back pressed against the door.

  Her eyes closed dreamily, a smile curving her mouth.

  Three days later, Desmond stabilized enough to move to the county hospital. Anne-Marie knew it was going to be a few weeks yet before he could leave the hospital. But just having him closer to home, closer to her, eased her mind a bit. Chatting brightly about a visit from a mutual patient, Anne-Marie ignored the narrowed stare her father was giving her. For the past twenty minutes, he’d been trying to get an explanation out of her, but she couldn’t figure out what to say, didn’t know if she should say anything yet.

  Her father, though, wouldn’t be put off. “I think I know myself well enough to know whether or not I can handle the truth.”

  Deepening her voice, raising her eyebrows, she quoted, “‘You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth’.”

  “Don’t go getting cute with me, young lady. I want some answers.”

  She turned away from the flowers she was fussing with and raised her hands futilely. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, Daddy. Nobody does. Somebody went into your house and…and shot…shot you,” she finished, the ache in her throat making it hard to talk, much less talk coherently.

  “I know that. What I want to know is what you aren’t telling me.”

  Sighing, Anne-Marie lowered herself into the armchair next to the bed. Was there any point in trying to lie? No. Absolutely none. He could always see right through her. She closed her eyes, pressing her fingertips against her eye sockets. “He made it look like Jazz had done it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  So that was where she got it from, Jazz mused, standing just outside the door. He had gotten there just in time to hear Anne-Marie tell Desmond, and to hear Doc Kincaid’s frosty reply. With a change of tone and lift of an eyebrow, he made Jazz feel like a dumb fool, and he wasn’t even talking to him.

  “You heard me well enough, Dad. They planted some physical evidence and made a phony call, saying he’d been seen in the area at the time.”

  “Good Lord,” Desmond muttered. “How much trouble is the boy in?”

  “None. It was a set-up and Tate figured that out quick enough. But he doesn’t have any idea who did it.” She stared hard out the window, hoping he wouldn’t ask any more questions.

  “Well, thank God for that,” Desmond murmured, running a weak, shaky hand across his eyes. “I…What else is it you aren’t telling me, girl?”

  “Sheesh. And to think I’ve always considered myself a good liar.”

  He grinned widely and said, “You are. Unless you’re trying to fool your old man.”

  Jazz stepped through the door, hoping to divert Desmond’s attention. Anne-Marie turned and met his eyes just as he stepped over the threshold. She smiled a sweet, almost ethereal smile at him before looking at her father and replying, “Well, it’s not exactly easy to tell your father that you spent the night with any man. Circumstances being what they are, I suppose you can understand why I’m having some trouble with this.”

  “Doc Kincaid—”

  Jazz opened his mouth to speak, only to have black eyebrows rise as fiery, green eyes focused on his. And then that stern face softened and Desmond smiled tiredly. Closing his eyes, Desmond said, “I can’t say it surprises me. No, it doesn’t surprise me at all.” He shifted around a little and then shook his head at Anne-Marie when she started his way. “Don’t start fussing over me. I got the nurses for that.”

  “Daddy, you look tired. Why don’t get some rest?”

  “Going to be doing plenty of that, sweetheart.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “You know, boy. I never thought about it; I guess it hurt too much. But maybe I should have thought about it. Because I have to agree with Annie. It just doesn’t fit. I can’t see you wrecking that car.” And then he sighed, exhausted, and slipped back into sleep.

  “He doesn’t hate me,” Jazz said. He looked over at Anne-Marie and asked, “Why doesn’t he hate me?”

  “He loves you, Jazz. You were his son from the time you came home with Alex that first night.” I loved you, too, she thought. What would you say if I told you that?

  “I killed his son, Anne-Marie. Your brother. I’m alive and he isn’t. That is reason enough. But somebody put a bullet in him and tried to make it look like I did it. That there is another reason.”

  “You didn’t put the bullet it him. The blame for this rests on one person, Jazz. And it isn’t you.”

  Jazz stood with his hands tucked in his back pockets, staring at her with a closed expression. Standing with her back to the window, the fading sunlight glowing behind her, she looked too beautiful to be real.

  How can I expect to hold onto a woman like that? How can she even want me touching her?

  Hugging herself, Anne stared up at him. “I told myself I wasn’t going to ask this; that there was no point in dragging the past up. I know it’s been hard for you, Jazz. I was his sister by blood. You were his brother by choice. Losing him hurt you as much as it did me. Even as much as it hurt Daddy. It’s taken me some time to realize that.”

  She closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe. Then, opening her eyes, she quietly said, “I don’t want to think of the other possibility. It hurts, but I have to know. Were you driving the car?”

  Jazz sighed, his shoulders slumping. Sixteen years, and she was the first to ask. And he couldn’t even give a certain answer. “I don’t know.”

  “But that’s why you came back, isn’t it? Because you don’t know?”

  His voice rough, he said, “Anne, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s logical, it makes sense, and if it had happened to somebody else, I’d probably buy right into it. But it doesn’t feel right.” Dragging his hands through his hair, he turned and looked at her. “It’s like I got halfway through a book and then somebody went and put another book in its place.”

  “I know.”

  He opened his mouth to apologize for not making sense, to try to convince her he wasn’t crazy, he wasn’t making excuses. And then when her words sank in, they knocked the wind out of him. “You know?” he repeated dumbly.

  “Yes. I know. I was just a kid when it happened, Jazz. I don’t remember much of the first couple of days; I think I blocked it out. But one thing I remember clearly is standing in room 116A in this hospital, seeing you lying there on the bed, and thinking, this isn’t right.”

  “I could accept that he was dead, as well as a girl can accept something like that. Death was something I was pretty familiar with, after losing Mom and Grandma. And then your mom dying.”

  “I accepted his death, maybe a little too easily.” She frowned a bit, shaking her head and whispering, almost to herself, “But I couldn’t accept the story I was told.” Turning back to the window, she rested the flat of her hand against the cool windowpane, staring out at the field of rolling grass. The sun sank lower to the horizon, painting the sky with colors of golden and red.

  “I can’t remember how many tickets Dad paid for. You drive like you belong on a racetrack somewhere. I’ve never seen anybody handle a car the way you do. You driving drunk? It’s unlikely. But you crashing a car? I just don’t see it at all.”

  He walked to her. In the fading sunlight, they stood at the window, staring out, but seeing nothing.

  Taking a deep breath, Jazz decided if he was in for a penny, he was in for a pound. “Anne, there’s one other thing. The back seat was full of empty beer cans. There were a few found at the lake.”

  She stared up into his eyes.

  “I hate beer. The taste of it, the smell of it, it makes me sick; always has.”

  Her body went stiff as she remembered that. How had she forgotten? How? He hate
d beer, reminded him too much of his stepfather. It had come up one night when Desmond had been drinking a cold one out on the deck. Jazz, in his surly, teenage fashion, had curled his lip and sneered in Desmond’s direction.

  After skillfully drawing out the reason for that, Desmond had sipped a bit more from the bottle, looked at it and shrugged. “It’s an acquired taste, son. But you have to remember, not everybody who acquires a taste for beer acquires a taste for roughing up women and kids.”

  Jazz had accepted that. For years, Jazz had associated the sight of beer with beatings. After time passed, the smell of beer or the sight of a bottle stopped turning his stomach and his knees no longer went watery. Still, he didn’t like the taste of it.

  So how had he gotten drunk enough to wreck a car on a deserted road that he could drive blindfolded and half-asleep?

  Irritated, Jazz stood in the doorway, watching as Maribeth climbed from her car. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “You don’t look happy to see an old friend.” Maribeth smiled at him, her raspberry-red lips looking dewy and soft.

  “I’d be happier to see a cottonmouth,” Jazz said flatly, propping his naked shoulder against the doorjamb, eyeing her with acute dislike. “What in the hell do you want?”

  She raised her shoulders in a shrug. “I thought we could just talk about old times.”

  “We don’t have any old times to talk about. Alex was the one fool enough to go out with you. I knew you were trouble from the get go,” he told her, moving to close the door.

  “But you wanted me anyway.” She knew it; he had to have wanted her. All men did. In a low, sultry voice, she said, “Why don’t you take what you wanted back then? Take it now.”

  He paused, looking back at her. “I never wanted you. When you’re a horny teenager that sees a walking advertisement for sex, you’re going to check it out. No matter how cheap or well used it may be.”

  Jazz ran his eyes over Maribeth from her head to her toes. She wore a form-fitting tank top and a skirt just barely long enough to be legal. Just as she had been sixteen years ago, Maribeth was still a walking advertisement for sex. Her small feet were shod in leather, gladiator-style sandals, her toes painted to match the red of her lips. “You haven’t changed much. But I have. I didn’t want you then; I may have wanted sex, but it had nothing to do with you.