Still Waters

by Tami Hoag

  Jolynn sat down on the bed and busied herself tracing a pattern in the dust on the nightstand. She'd known Elizabeth since their college days in El Paso when she had been an army brat off her father's short leash for the first time in her life and Elizabeth had been a struggling young single mother taking classes and working two jobs. They had forged a bond then that had lasted through good times and bad, through changes in fortune and changes in marital status. She figured she knew Elizabeth better than anyone, and she knew how what she had to say was going to sting. For all her don't-give-a-damn attitude, Elizabeth had a heart more tender than most and an ego that had been sorely abused of late.

  “It's not what you did to Helen,” she said hesitantly. “It's what Helen thinks you did with Jarrold.” Elizabeth blinked at her in confusion and Jo pressed on, her mouth twisting a little on the taste of the words. “The rumor going around this morning is that you and Jarrold had been meeting out at Still Waters to do the horizontal hokey-pokey.”

  Elizabeth's jaw dropped. “I hardly knew the man!” she protested, jerking back a step as if Jolynn had lashed out at her physically. “And what I did know I loathed and despised!”

  Jolynn drew a sad face in the table dust. “Yeah, well . . . so the story goes. I don't doubt but that Helen is more upset about the rumors than she is about Jarrold lying cold on a slab down at Davidson's. You're upstaging her grieving-widow act.”

  “Eeewwl” Elizabeth shook herself, the very thought of having sex with Jarrold Jarvis making her skin crawl. “Where'd you hear all this?”

  “At the Coffee Cup. I stopped in, hoping to catch that BCA guy having breakfast.”

  “And did you?”

  “No, but Phyllis filled me in on this latest tidbit. Everybody knows you found the body.”

  “And everybody knows I'll just drop my panties for anything with testosterone,” Elizabeth said bitterly. She shook her head and blew out a breath. “Doesn't matter what he looks like, acts like, smells like. If he's got a third leg and walks upright, I'll be there with bells on.”

  A storm cloud and jagged line of lightning joined the sad face on the nightstand. Jo's heart squeezed a little. “Phyllis set a few people straight.” Not that they had listened or cared. In Jolynn's experience, people were much more eager to believe the worst than the truth. In a town the size of Still Creek, gossip was served up and devoured as an essential part of the daily diet.

  “Well, God bless Phyllis anyway.” Elizabeth slumped down on the bed beside her friend and stared across the room at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she could have benefited greatly from a generous application of her Elizabeth Arden concealer. With the gold blouse and twinkling buttons, she looked like a pathetic refugee from a bad New Year's party. A sense of despair ballooned inside her, hollow and aching. She raked a hand back through her hair and heaved another sigh.

  “I really wanted things to be different here,” she said quietly, letting a little of that despair trickle out in hope of relieving the pressure. “I wanted this place to be like some kind of magic kingdom where nobody ever heard of Brock Stuart and people didn't snap up ugly like dogs after meat scraps.” She managed a little laugh. “Instead of Oz, I fell down the rabbit hole. Dead bodies, women throwing food at me, the lord high sheriff dragging me around like a captured fugitive. Lord love a duck, I should have moved to Outer goddamn Mongolia.”

  Jolynn gave her an affectionate bump with her shoulder. “You wouldn't like it. You can't get good candy bars there. They make everything out of rancid yak milk.”

  A weak smile tugged at Elizabeth's lips and she chuckled. She had one friend. That counted for something. “Is that a fact?”

  “You bet.” Jo pulled open the drawer on the nightstand and rummaged through her stash. “Snickers or Baby Ruth?”

  “Snickers.”

  She pulled out a candy bar for Elizabeth and one for herself. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, consoling themselves with chocolate.

  “How'd it go at the scene?” Elizabeth asked.

  Jo peeled back a little more of the candy wrapper and cleared her throat. “It was kind of like being at a party, only more macabre. There was this weird sort of festival atmosphere, reporters swarming all around, chatting, drinking coffee. The crime lab guys were a hoot.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Aside from a couple of truly tasteless jokes about severed heads? Not much.” She took another bite of Baby Ruth and talked around it. “I thought this was interesting—he wasn't killed in the car. All the blood was spilled on a spot to the south and west of the building site.”

  Elizabeth worked a peanut between her molars as her brain chewed on the information. “So why put him back in the car? Jantzen says they think some drifter killed him for his pocket money. Why would the guy take the time to put the body back in the car—especially if he was going to steal the Lincoln too?”

  “Maybe he wanted company on the trip to Des Moines.”

  “Jolynn!”

  “No, really,” she insisted, shifting on the bed like a kid settling in for a good ghost story. Her small hazel eyes were bright as glass marbles with enthusiasm for the topic. “Why not take the body? Take old Jarrold and the car and boot it into another jurisdiction. Ditch the corpse in one spot, the car in another, the murder weapon someplace else. That kind of stuff screws the cops up royally. It's what all the great serial killers do.”

  Elizabeth gave her a look. “You been reading up on it, have you?”

  Jolynn shrugged without remorse and took another bite of her candy bar. “It's a fascinating subject, if you've got the stomach for it.”

  “Which I don't. Any whispers of who did it?”

  She shook her head, sending a mass of overpermed curls tumbling into her eyes. She raked them back with her free hand. “Not a word. I managed to get a second with Yeager after the hoopla had died down. He's the regional BCA man. Cute guy.” The corners of her kewpie-doll mouth curled upward, and she dropped her gaze to her lap, concentrating much too hard on picking up a crumb of chocolate and popping it in her mouth. Yeager probably hadn't even noticed she was female. There was really no point in acting like a teenager with a crush. “All he could talk about was what a shame it was they cut down that woods to build Still Waters. He says it was a prime turkey-hunting spot.”

  “That's not what was getting hunted there last night.”

  Sobering, Jo toyed with the ragged ends of her candy wrapper. “No.”

  Silence descended between them again. A moment of quiet in memory of the dead. Most everyone would have respect for Jarrold Jarvis in death, Elizabeth reflected, even if they hadn't in life. That's the way people were—perverse, hypocritical. It was almost enough to make her join a convent. Almost. If it weren't for the fact that nuns didn't drink or smoke or get their nails done in Vivacious Red . . . And then there was that celibacy thing. Even though she'd sworn off men for the time being, that didn't mean she would want to sleep alone forever.

  “So what's the story on Jantzen anyway?” she asked, wishing instantly she would just bite her stupid tongue off and be done with it. She wasn't supposed to want to know more about him.

  Jolynn arched a brow. “Great Dane?”

  Elizabeth scowled and picked at a long-dried fleck of white paint on the leg of her jeans. “I haven't seen anything about him that's all that great,” she grumbled, feigning disinterest.

  Her friend howled, laughing, rocking back on the bed and slapping her thigh. “Oh, come on! The man could cut a swath through Hollywood, and you know it.”

  “If he's so fabulous, how come you're not after him?” she asked peevishly.

  Jolynn didn't bat an eye at the remark. “It doesn't matter who's after him,” she said. “He's not playing.”

  “Get out,” Elizabeth scoffed, giving her a shove. “Do not try to tell me he's gay. If he's gay, I'm the queen of England.”

  “He's not gay. He just doesn't go for local gi
rls,” Jolynn explained, shredding the loose pieces of her candy bar wrapper methodically as she spoke. “He married his hometown sweetheart way back when. Played pro football for the Raiders for a few years. Then he blew his knee, blew his career, and the wife blew him off. Rumor has it, he's seeing someone from out of town, but he manages to keep his private life very separate from his public one—which is no mean feat in a town this size. Why?” she asked, casting Elizabeth a sly look as she nibbled at a peanut. “You interested?”

  “Hardly,” Elizabeth sniffed. “I've done sworn off men. He's been hounding me, that's all. About the murder and everything.”

  She scanned the room in order to avoid the mental image of Dane Jantzen bending over her with his handkerchief, shielding her from the scathing gazes of the ladies of Lutheran guild, wiping the Jell-O off her with a look of disgruntled sympathy in his eyes.

  Jolynn wasn't any more talented domestically than Elizabeth herself. The bed wasn't made. The hamper beside the dresser was overflowing, the clothes looking as though they were trying to escape before they could be subjected to the tortures of the washing machine. A mountain of notes, books, and junk-food wrappers rose up on the back of the nightstand behind the telephone, the alarm clock, and a dirty ashtray.

  The nightstand jerked her gaze back when she would have looked on.

  “How's your headache?” she asked innocently.

  “My what?” Jo bit off a chunk of nougat, but froze in mid-chew as she followed Elizabeth's meaningful gaze to the ashtray. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as she mentally called Rich Cannon a dozen of her favorite names. He couldn't even go to the effort of cleaning up after himself, the lazy bum. He came in, took what he wanted and left, leaving half a dozen cigarette butts and the toilet seat up.

  “Don't say it,” she muttered through her teeth, her self-esteem sliding down somewhere around her feet.

  Elizabeth ignored the request. That Rich Cannon thought he could just swagger in and have Jo service him galled her no end. And that Jolynn let him get away with it galled her even worse. “You deserve better, Jolynn.”

  Appetite gone, Jo set her candy bar aside and pushed herself to her feet, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Yeah,” she said, looking down at her battered Reeboks. “Don't we all.”

  “He was here when I called you last night, wasn't he?” Elizabeth had been too distracted to notice anything odd in Jolynn's voice during the call. She'd been too caught up in her own nightmare to think her best, and nearly her only friend had been lying to her.

  Jolynn didn't answer, which was answer enough.

  “How did he take the news of his father-in-law's demise?”

  She gave a shrug of affected indifference. “With a grunt and a snort. His usual show of sensitivity.”

  The image wasn't difficult to conjure up. From what Elizabeth had seen, Rich Cannon had no concern for anyone or anything that didn't directly affect Rich Cannon. He certainly didn't show any sign of caring for Jolynn. She was a convenience to him, one he took advantage of without compunction or remorse.

  “He's using you, Jolynn.”

  “There's a news flash.” She plucked up the damning evidence and dumped it in the wastebasket, ashtray and all, sending up a fine plume of tobacco ash. “Well, I'm using him too, you know,” she pointed out as she straightened. “Did you ever think of that? The man is hung like Secretariat. Sometimes it's worth a bit of personal degradation to go for a little pony ride.”

  Elizabeth refrained from comment. Jolynn had a look of desperate revelation in her eyes, as if this particular defense had only just occurred to her. Elizabeth didn't have it in her to call her on it. At any rate, there wasn't time.

  “Come on, sugar,” she said wearily, abandoning half her Snickers bar on the night table. “We've got us a circus to go to.”

  THE COURTROOM WAS STANDING ROOM ONLY. LORRAINE Worth stood guard at the door beside Kenny Spencer, checking press credentials with an eagle eye and turning away curious civilians, of which there were many. The hallway was lined with Still Creek residents eager for news or perhaps a glimpse of a suspect. They stood in knots of three and four, casting eager, expectant looks at every stranger who walked by.

  Elizabeth imagined the room had changed little since the 1800s. Soft blue plaster rose up from a skirt of rich walnut wainscoting, fine lines and cracks in the walls denoting age like a matron's wrinkles. Stern men from other eras stared down at the crowd from heavy, ornate gilt frames. Old globe lights hung from a ceiling where ancient fans made a feeble attempt to stir the stuffy air. The Tyler County courtroom didn't look any more ready for the intrusion of the modern world than did the town of Still Creek itself with its quaint Victorian architecture and Amish buggies trudging the streets.

  At the front of the room a podium bristling with microphones had been set up directly in front of the judge's bench. The prosecutor's table had been pulled forward to flank it and provided room for three people, their places marked with hand-lettered placards made from folded pieces of poster board—Sheriff Jantzen, Agent Yeager, Deputy Kaufman. Only the end chair was taken. Mark Kaufman sat behind the table, cracking his knuckles and looking like a man with a fear of public speaking waiting to address the U.N. He caught Elizabeth's eye and flashed her a wave and a nervous smile.

  Lights and cameras crowded around the front of the room in a veritable forest of high technology. There was a general din of excitement as reporters, eager for something to do, grilled one another while they waited for the festivities to begin. Elizabeth and Jolynn slipped into seats at the back of the room just as Dane walked in at the front.

  The noise level rose like a wave rolling into shore as the reporters caught sight of him coming out of judge's chambers. Questions were tossed out in the hope of getting something out of him other than the official statement. He ignored them.

  The town VIPs had been given seats in the jury box and Charlie Wilder, the mayor, and Bidy Masters, head of the town council, popped up out of their chairs as Dane walked by them. He checked his stride and turned reluctantly to face the pair.

  Charlie was plump and jovial, the kind of man people enjoyed voting for. He owned Hardware Hank's and ran sales continuously, which helped endear him to people as well as keeping him from going under. The sales were often on items people had little use for, like Veg-O-Matics and Epilady hair removal devices, but as long as there was a sale on something, folks were more inclined to shop in town than drive to Rochester for cheaper prices at the big discount stores.

  Nobody enjoyed voting for Bidy, a thin, sour-faced man with stooping, hollow shoulders that, coupled with his long, somber face, gave him the appearance of a vulture. But hardly anyone wanted to run for the town council, let alone be the head of it, and Bidy was conscientious and business-minded if not pleasant. Horse and Buggy Days had been his idea—not as a festival that would give locals an opportunity to have fun and relax, but as a tourist attraction that would draw in money from outside the community. He had a shrewd head for the tourist industry, and it was a sure bet he wasn't going to see murder as a long-term boost to the economy.

  “Dane, can we have a word?” Charlie asked, leaning his belly against the rail of the jury box.

  Bidy leaned in close too, beady eyes fastened hard on Dane's face. “We're wondering how soon you might have this wrapped up.”

  “The press conference? Shouldn't take more than half an hour.”

  “No, no,” Charlie said. “This murder business. We heard there was a suspect at large. Have you got him yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, can you give us a time frame here, Dane?” The mayor gave one of his belly-jiggling chuckles that were calculated to soften edges regardless of the topic. He probably could have announced to the whole town he was a devoted neo-Nazi and everyone would think it was just fine as long as Charlie was laughing and smiling. “Are we looking at a day? Two?”

  Dane tried to stretch his threadbare patience a little further, but couldn't q
uite manage to cover his sarcasm. “If you mean, will we have him before the Miss Horse and Buggy Days pageant begins, the answer is—we'll do our level best.”

  Charlie had the grace to blush. Bidy narrowed his eyes and worked his thin mouth like a toothless hag sucking on her gums.

  “A shame about Jarrold,” Charlie said, tossing in the sentiment in an attempt to look less mercenary.

  Dane tipped his head and moved away from the pair, stepping around a light stand and through the gate that led to the spectator seating, where the esteemed members of the press were shouting at him, hands raised like frenzied bidders at the stock exchange. Christ, he hated reporters.

  Elizabeth watched him bear down on her. Whatever had transpired since he had dropped her off at Jolynn's had not improved his humor. His mouth was set in a grim line, his eyes fierce beneath ominously lowered brows. He cut in at her row, stepping around people. Bending down, he closed a hand around her upper arm, his face no more than inches from hers.

  “I want you closer to me,” he said in a low voice.

  An instinctive thrill rushed through her. Elizabeth steeled herself against it and forced a cocky smile. “Really, darlin',” she whispered, “don't you think you ought to see to this press conference first? What will people say?”

  Nothing they're not saying already, Dane thought, his jaw tightening as he bit back the words. He had overheard the secretarial scuttlebutt at the water cooler on his way in and had nearly taken Tina Odegard's head off for gossiping on taxpayers' time. He told himself he didn't need his staff spreading rumors, but there had been something more to his anger that he didn't care to examine too closely, something vaguely proprietary that had risen up at the snide suggestion that Elizabeth had been sexually involved with Jarrold Jarvis.

  “I'm sure you'll manage to incite a riot,” he said sardonically. “I want you where I can have you yanked out of here if things get out of hand.”