The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (Charley's Ghost Book 1)

by Sally Berneathy

  “Schizophrenia meds? Bi-polar?” Amanda picked up the glass and wiped the moisture from it then set it in the cabinet.

  “Don’t know. But whatever that medicine was, Claude didn’t take kindly to it. He threw an awful fit and run them both off his land. Threatened them with a shotgun.”

  “Does Claude live close to the lake where Dianne was killed?” she asked.

  “Nope. Not close to the grocery store she went to either. The police couldn’t find anything to say Claude did it. No trace of her purse or the money in it anywhere on his farm. They said he cried when he found out she was dead.”

  Amanda dried the final plate, a little disappointed the ritual was ended. It had been soothing and had established a connection between her and her mother-in-law, as if the two of them were bonded in some important activity. She’d never dried dishes with her own mother. She doubted her mother had ever washed a dish in her pampered life. Too bad.

  “Did the police question Mayor Kimball about her death? I mean, since they used to date and broke up.”

  Irene pulled a plug, and the soapy water gurgled as it rushed down the drain. “You mean just because he seems like a bad person?”

  Irene’s response surprised her. Amanda had expected her to think the question was totally out of line. “Something like that.” Because your son claims he was blackmailing Kimball for Dianne’s murder.

  “No, the mayor was never a suspect.”

  As she watched Irene wipe off the counter and table top, Amanda reflected that the evidence was building to support Charley’s claims. It was possible Kimball had killed his former girlfriend. She had no idea why and didn’t suppose that really mattered. All that mattered was that she somehow get her gun back from the psycho mayor and prove she hadn’t shot Charley.

  A terrible thought hit her. What if he’d thrown her gun away like Charley said he did with the gun he used to murder Dianne? In that case, she had no choice but to forget about Kimball, go back to Dallas, and trust in the legal system.

  After all her years of watching judges and lawyers in action, she knew she’d be better off trusting Charley than the legal system, and she’d be better off trusting the hangman than trusting Charley.

  The jury might even deem it premeditated murder since she and Charley had been fighting so much, and, by her own admission, she’d had the gun in her possession before his murder.

  Twenty-five to life.

  The more she learned about this mess, the worse it got.

  When she got out of prison—if she got out of prison—would she still be able to ride a motorcycle? Would they still be making motorcycles or would everything be hovercraft?

  Suddenly she wasn’t feeling so good.

  Maybe she’d better call her dad and see if they could work out some kind of a deal.

  “Amanda, are you okay?” Irene asked. “You look kinda pale. Did that food not set well?”

  “I’m fine. No, I’m not fine. I probably shouldn’t have eaten that second piece of pie.”

  “You only had one piece of pie.”

  “I should have had two. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go lie down for a few minutes.”

  Irene looked worried. “Holler if you need anything.”

  Amanda fled upstairs to Charley’s old room. Before she could call her father, she saw Charley sitting on the window sill.

  “Now do you believe me?” he asked.

  “Were you eavesdropping?”

  He shrugged. “I was listening.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “I’m always there for you, whether you see me or not.”

  She moved toward him, pointing a threatening finger. “If I find out you’ve been spying on me in the shower or when I’m changing clothes, I’ll...” She stopped. It was hard to threaten somebody who was already dead.

  “Amanda, I’m shocked. I’m dead. I’ve risen above all that sort of thing.”

  “Ha!”

  “What are you going to do now? I’ve got an idea. If you get me inside Kimball’s house, I can look around and see if I can find that gun.”

  “Get you inside? Why don’t you just zap yourself over there the way you do everywhere else?”

  “Can’t. I seem to be attached to you. I can only go where you go. Like when you rode down here, I didn’t want to come with you, but I got yanked along.”

  Amanda groaned. “Are you saying you can’t leave even if you want to? I can’t get rid of you no matter what?”

  “That sounds right. If you take me to Kimball’s house, I can look around.”

  “Hey, no problem. I’ll knock on the door and he’ll invite me in for a glass of wine or maybe to stay for dinner because I’m his new best friend. What makes you think he’s even still got the gun? You said he threw away the one he used to kill Dianne. The one you think he used to kill Dianne. If he killed her. Why would he kill her? They broke up years ago.”

  “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “My gun’s probably at the bottom of White Rock Lake or the Trinity River right now. Nobody’s going to search the Trinity River. They’d die from the smell in the first five minutes.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  Amanda sank onto the bed and covered her face with her hands. “Call my dad. Turn myself in. Throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

  “I asked if you had a better idea, not if you had an idea that was even dumber than mine.”

  “If you’re here to help me, you’re not doing a very good job of it. I don’t think you’re going to be earning your wings any time soon.”

  Amanda’s cell phone chimed, announcing she had a text message. She pulled the phone from her pocket. The message was from Dawson.

  Cop came by today. Jake Daggett. Asked a lot of dumb questions. R u ok?

  Damn. Daggett again. She could feel the iron bars of prison closing around her.

  I’m fine, she texted back, lying through her thumbs. What kind of questions?

  Do I have a key to ur apt. Did I go in and leave the door unlocked. All about ur fights with Charley.

  What did—

  “Hey!” Charley appeared beside her on the bed, reaching for the cell phone, causing the letters she was laboriously typing on the small keypad to become gobbledygook. “That’s it! The geek!”

  “What? Stop that!”

  “Dawson. He’s a computer geek.”

  “He’s an amazing artist and motorcycle repair assistant. He’s smart and trustworthy and honest, unlike you.”

  “He does all that stuff on computers. He’s a freaking genius on computers.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Like on TV. He can run a check on Kimball and find out all kinds of stuff about him.”

  “Charley, there are limits to the information on the Internet. I don’t think there’s going to be a website dedicated to the exact location of my former gun.”

  “I’ve watched these crime shows. You can’t imagine all the things they find. It’d scare you to death if you knew what’s on the Internet about you.”

  “To death? Really?”

  “Go with me on this. I got a feeling about it. Just ask him to do it. What have you got to lose?”

  Amanda sighed. “Not much, I guess, since I’m already looking at spending the rest of my life behind bars.” She texted Dawson with the request to find out anything he could about Roland Kimball. As an afterthought she added, And Dianne Carter, especially their years at the University of Texas.

  “That last was a good idea,” Charley said. “Asking about Dianne. I bet we find out all kinds of interesting things.”

  “Right. After Dawson discovers Roland Kimball has excellent credit because he’s rich, and he has no outstanding warrants because he’s rich, and he just bought his wife a ten thousand dollar ring for her birthday because he’s rich, then I’ll call my dad and turn myself in and throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

  “You can’t do that. If you go to prison, I�
�ll be in prison too.”

  Amanda slapped herself on the forehead. “Gee, Charley, I hadn’t thought about that. Now that you’ve pointed it out, why, I guess I don’t want to go to prison after all. I certainly wouldn’t want you to be inconvenienced.”

  “I’ve got another idea.” Charley stood and moved across the room to the window, outside the window, then back in again, his face exultant. “This will work!”

  Amanda stared at him. “What? If I go to prison, you’ll be able to float out through the bars? That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “You don’t have to get into Kimball’s house. You just have to get close to it. I’ll be close to you, and I can get inside his house. Go downstairs, go outside, and we’ll see if I can be inside while you’re outside.”

  “No,” Amanda said. “I’m not going to do it. That’s nuts. I’m not getting anywhere near Kimball’s house. What good will it do if you find my gun inside? How will we get it out? You can’t carry it.”

  “One thing at a time. First we find the gun then we figure out how to get it.”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  A few minutes later she was standing in the yard, looking upward as Charley gleefully sailed in and out of the house several times.

  What had she just been thinking about trusting Charley more than the legal system and the hangman more than Charley? No good had ever come of any of Charley’s ideas. It was a measure of her desperation that she was considering this latest one.

  Chapter Thirteen

  After lunch, Irene suggested a tour of downtown which consisted of the Town Square, Main Street and Grand Avenue. This activity would have taken less than thirty minutes except for the fact that Irene knew everybody. They all greeted her, offered their sympathy on Charley’s death, were introduced to Amanda, then chatted about their kids, their grandkids, the weather, the state of the union, and sometimes their bunions. Rachel in Wood’s Drugstore had pictures of her new granddaughter, and Joe in McAllen’s Feed and Seed had pictures of his new pig.

  It was, Amanda reflected, not a bad way to spend an afternoon. If nothing else, it kept her from thinking about going to prison for the rest of her life, skulking around Roland Kimball’s house in the middle of the night, and any number of other unpleasant activities that could be a part of her immediate future.

  “Here we are,” Irene announced as they approached her ancient faded blue Ford where it sat in a parking space in front of Miss Emily’s Ice Cream Parlor. “Want to go in for one of Miss Emily’s famous chocolate malts?”

  “No,” Amanda declined, “I’m saving myself for some more of that pecan pie.”

  The windows of Irene’s car were rolled down and the doors unlocked. Apparently they hadn’t heard of crime in Silver Creek. Not that it didn’t exist, Amanda thought grimly as she slid into the passenger seat. Silver Creek had its secrets.

  “You know,” she said, “there’s someone I’d hoped to meet today, but we didn’t see her.”

  Irene twisted the key back and forth a few times, and eventually the car choked to life. “Who’s that?”

  “Sunny Donovan, that lawyer we saw at Charley’s funeral, the one you said helped him.”

  “No!” Charley suddenly appeared, hovering between her and his mother in the front seat. Had he been following her all afternoon, or had he just popped in at the mention of Sunny Donovan’s name?

  “Sunny’s office is a few blocks out of downtown,” Irene said. “I’m not sure if she’ll be there right now, but we can stop by. I know she’d love to meet you.”

  Whatever secret Charley was hiding about Sunny Donovan was his alone. Irene didn’t seem to see any reason Amanda shouldn’t meet her.

  “That would be great. I’d like to thank her for helping Charley.”

  “You would?” Charley asked in surprise.

  Amanda smiled.

  “I don’t believe you,” Charley said. “You’re just being nosy. You need to trust me on this one. Stay away from her.”

  “Is she from Silver Creek?” Amanda asked.

  “Born and raised,” Irene said. “Her daddy died when she was three. Hunting accident. Margaret—that’s her mama—raised her alone, and she did a fine job of it. Worked two jobs most of the time, but she made sure that girl got a good education. Sunny got a scholarship to the university down there in Austin. Went to law school. Margaret said with her grades, she could have practiced law anywhere. She got an offer from a big firm in Dallas, lots of money. But she came back here. Margaret’s always been kind of frail, and her health got worse the harder she worked. Sunny takes care of her mama. There’s Sunny’s place now.”

  She pulled over to the curb in front of an older home that sat between a service station and the Silver Creek Library.

  Amanda and Irene strode along the cracked sidewalk with Charley bringing up the rear.

  “You can’t stay long,” he insisted. “We have to figure out our plan for tonight.”

  “She likes to keep her rent low,” Irene explained, “because she does so much work for people who don’t have any money.” She sighed. “Like Charley.”

  “Why would you want to see a woman who knows what a scum your husband is?” Charley persisted. “This is going to look bad on you.”

  “Herbert and I told her we’d pay for Charley’s defense, but she wouldn’t take a penny from us. Made Charley pay what he could. He didn’t have much money. That’s why he was trying to sell those drugs in the first place.”

  “It was a terrible time in my life,” Charley said. “Don’t go in there and make me relive it.”

  They climbed the two wooden steps to the porch, and Irene knocked on the door then pushed it open. “Martha?” The small room they entered had once been a front parlor in someone’s home. Now it held two file cabinets, two green utilitarian chairs and a wooden desk cluttered with file folders, stacks of papers, a computer and a desk phone.

  “Hi, Irene. Y’all come on in. This must be Charley’s widow.” A short, plump woman with a pleasant face rose from behind the desk. “I’m so sorry about your loss.” She looked as if she really meant those words. “Y’all have a seat. Can I get you a cup of coffee or a Coca-Cola?”

  “Thank you, Martha,” Irene said, “but we can’t stay. I know y’all are busy. I’ve just been showing Amanda around town, and she wanted to meet Sunny, thank her for helping Charley.”

  Martha smiled. “She’d like that. Let me just tell her you’re here.” She went over to a door at one side of the room, knocked and peeked inside. “Sunny, have you got a minute? Irene’s brought her daughter-in-law from Dallas to meet you.”

  “I’m leaving,” Charley said, but he made no move to go.

  After a long moment of silence, a quiet voice from inside the other room said, “I’ll be right there.” The words sounded tight, not open and friendly like the other people Amanda had met that day.

  Martha closed the door and turned back to Amanda and Irene. “She’ll be right out. Y’all have a seat. Sure I can’t get you something to drink?”

  Irene shook her head. “No, thanks. Like I said, we can’t stay but a few minutes.”

  The door opened again, and the woman who had stirred Amanda’s curiosity for the last two days walked out. She still wore the same blue suit she’d worn earlier when Amanda had seen her on the courthouse steps, but her red hair had been released from any form of restraint and fell in loopy curls about her shoulders. Up close the woman looked older than she’d first thought, perhaps mid to late forties. Threads of white wove through her hair, and her smiling expression was a little pinched.

  Up close, she looked even more familiar. Amanda knew she’d seen her before, and she sensed that Sunny knew it too.

  “Irene, it’s so good to see you.” She hugged the older woman.

  “That was real nice of you to come to Charley’s funeral.”

  Sunny stepped back, nodded, then moved her gaze—reluctantly, it seemed—to Amanda. “And you must be Charley’s widow.”
She extended a hand.

  Amanda shook the stiff, proffered hand and was surprised when, after a perfunctory, lackluster shake, Sunny squeezed her hand firmly and immediately released it.

  “Yes,” Amanda said, studying Sunny’s shuttered expression. No clues there. “I’m Amanda Caulfield.” She immediately realized her mistake and added, for Irene’s benefit, “Randolph. Charley’s widow. Charley told me so much about you.”

  “I did not!” Charley protested.

  Sunny’s porcelain face seemed to become even paler, her smile more forced, her expression more distant. “Did he?”

  Not exactly an eloquent speaker. Surely she did better than that in front of a jury. So what was this huge secret that could render almost speechless someone accustomed to arguing for her client’s life in front of a judge, jury and courtroom spectators?

  “Yes,” Amanda replied. “He did. He was very grateful to you for helping him with his…uh…problem.”

  “I’m glad I could be of assistance. Sometimes people make mistakes. I try to get them a second chance.” She paused, looking confused...trapped. “Let me know if I can do anything else to help.” She took a step backward toward her open office door. “It was nice to meet you, Amanda.” The tone of her voice, a sudden warmth in her green eyes, made Amanda feel she really meant the throwaway line in spite of her odd behavior. “Irene, always good to see you. I hope you’ll excuse me. I’ve got a deadline for a brief I’m working on.”

  “Don’t let us keep you,” Irene said. “If you have time, we’d love for you to come by after church next Sunday. I’ll kill another one of those pullets. They sure do fry up good.”

  Sunny regarded them for a brief moment, and her expression seemed a little wistful. Or maybe it was a trick of the afternoon sunlight coming through the wavy glass of the old windows. “Thank you. I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.” She spun around and strode rapidly back into her office, closing the door behind her.

  Whatever the big mystery was, Irene didn’t know it, but Charley and Sunny certainly did.

  “That brief must be really important,” Irene said as they walked back to the car. “Sunny wasn’t herself today. She’s usually real friendly.”