The Ex Who Wouldn't Die

by Sally Berneathy

  "Here we are," Irene announced as they approached her ancient faded blue Ford parked 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, thinking of another of the town's secrets, "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? She glared at him.

  "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 answered. "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. 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 flanked on one side by a service station and on the other by 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, but 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. Very embarrassing. Don't go in there and make me relive it."

  Amanda made a note to tell Charley later, based on her experience with him, that she didn't believe for one minute he'd ever, in his entire life, been embarrassed.

  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 obviously once been a front parlor though it now 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 walked around her desk 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 today.

  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?"

  Amanda felt a little uncomfortable and would have liked to have a Coke to ease her nerves, but 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, then 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 this 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. Big mistakes that change their lives. I try to get them a second chance." She paused, looked 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. Abruptly, she turned her attention away from Amanda. "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, kind of sad. Or maybe it was just 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."

  "I hope you're happy, Amanda," Charley said, "inte
rfering with that woman's work. Maybe now you'll leave her alone."

  Not a chance, Amanda thought as she fastened her seat belt.

  "We have more important things to do," Charley continued, "like keeping you out of prison."

  He did have a point. Discovering Charley's relationship with Sunny Donovan became far less important when put in perspective by her potential future behind bars.

  Even so, she had a feeling, especially after Sunny's reaction to meeting her, that the secret Charley and Sunny shared must be important, something way beyond a brief fling between the two of them. The secret, she felt sure, somehow involved her. She and Sunny Donovan had met before. Why couldn't she remember where and when?

  ***

  The fear of a future life behind bars with Charley flitting in and out while she sat trapped inside finally drove Amanda from the house after dark with the excuse of a "motorcycle moonlight ride." Following Charley's directions to Kimball's house, she pulled off the road. It was a perfect night for a ride, but a lousy night for skulking around someone's house. The moon was full in a cloudless sky. Fortunately, the Kimballs liked trees. Large, graceful oaks, elms, magnolias, cottonwoods and other varieties surrounded the place. The gnarled native mesquite trees were conspicuously absent from the lush setting. Too common, Amanda supposed.

  Unfortunately, the Kimballs also liked privacy. A large fence with a gated entrance surrounded their property.

  Amanda opened the face plate of her helmet and glared at Charley. "Had I known I'd have to leap over a six foot fence, I'd have worn the shoes with springs instead of these heavy motorcycle boots." She was actually relieved that they wouldn't be able to get in. Charley had probably done this sort of thing many times, but she was terrified at the thought of sneaking around someone's house…especially if that someone was a murderer.

  "Hide your bike in the bushes. I think I can deal with this gate. It's electronic. Should be sort of like turning on the TV."

  "This bike weighs over seven hundred pounds. I'm not putting it in the bushes. How do you think I'll get it out? Are you going to help lift it?"

  "All right, all right. Get it as far off the road as you can, and let me concentrate on opening this gate."

  Amanda moved her bike to the side of the road, but did not pull off her helmet, gloves or jacket. She waited, ready to roll, heart pounding, adrenalin pumping, terrified that Kimball would emerge from behind her at any moment or a police car could pull up beside her, lights flashing, siren blaring, ready to haul her in.

  What are you doing here, ma'am?

  Oh, just waiting for my ex-husband to jimmy the lock on this gate so I can get in to spy on your mayor.

  Your ex-husband? There's nobody here but you.

  Well, yeah, you see, he's dead.

  Please raise your hands and step away from the bike.

  Jail or the loony bin? Where would they take her first?

  "I did it!" The gate was sliding open so quietly, she wouldn't have noticed if not for Charley's exultant yell.

  Great. He'd never been able to get the lid off a jar of pickles when he was alive, but now that he was dead, he could open security gates. How special was that?

  "Come on," he urged when she sat unmoving.

  "Charley, I don't think this is a very good idea. Let's go back and think of something else."

  "Do you want to stay out of prison or not? I'm trying to help. I'm the one who's going to do all the work. You can stay hidden in the trees and bushes. All you have to do is get me close to the house."

  With a sigh, Amanda climbed off her bike, removed her helmet, gloves and jacket and forced her unwilling legs to walk through the open gate, following Charley. No good could come of this. No good ever came of taking Charley's advice. But she was fresh out of ideas on how to get herself out of this mess Charley had got her into by blackmailing Kimball and getting himself killed.

  "Could you walk a little quieter?" Charley asked as they moved off the driveway and into the undergrowth.

  "No, I can't," she whispered, afraid to speak aloud even though they were still a good hundred feet from the house. "I'm wearing motorcycle boots, and I'm still flesh and blood. If you had real feet, you'd be making noise, too."

  "There's an art to stealth."

  "Oh? And just why would a man of your high moral standards need to acquire that art?"

  Charley didn't answer but kept moving toward the large brick house where the driveway curved in a circle and came back on itself. Amanda followed as quietly as she could, the pounding of her heart sounding louder than her footsteps.

  Finally they reached a spot only a few feet from the side of the house. The drapes were closed, but light shone around the edges of a large downstairs window.

  "This is it," Amanda whispered, so terrified she couldn't have spoken aloud if she'd wanted to. "I'm not getting any closer."

  "Let me see if you're close enough that I can get in."

  He disappeared, and Amanda stood alone, perspiring in the moonlight in the middle of Roland Kimball's yard in the middle of the night.

  She twisted around at the sound of rustling in the darkness behind her. A small animal? A bird? A serial killer?

  Cricket song burst forth as if sounding an alarm.

  Who knew there were so many noises in the night? How did the animals ever sleep?

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she backed deeper into the shadows, gasped and whirled around when she came into contact with a solid object.

  A tree trunk.

  She took a deep breath and told herself to relax.

  Not likely.

  A dark shape swept across the moonlit sky. Amanda's heart went into triple-time.

  Breeze blowing the trees around, she told herself.

  Or a ghost.

  She almost laughed at that idea. Now that she'd met one, ghosts didn't have quite such a scary reputation. Not nearly as scary as the man who lived in that house.

  A mosquito buzzed near her ear, and she slapped futilely at the sound.

  When she got out of here…if she got out of here alive…she might reconsider the idea of spending the rest of her life in prison. It couldn't be much worse than this.

  Finally Charley returned. "Got in," he announced, sounding pleased.

  "Great! What did you find?"

  "Saw him and his wife sitting in the living room. They didn’t even have the television on."

  "Gee, that's really helpful. An obvious sign of guilt. I'm out here putting my life in danger and getting bitten by mosquitos and who knows what other creatures so you can watch Kimball and his wife sitting in the living room not even watching television."

  "That's not all I did. I looked through their closets and cabinets and everywhere I could reach."

  "How did you do that? You can't open doors or drawers, can you?"

  "No, but I can go inside things."

  "So there's no privacy when you're around."

  "Yep." He grinned as if pleased with himself.

  "Stay out of my underwear drawer."

  Charley agreed so readily she was certain he'd already checked out her underwear drawer and anything else of hers he could find.

  "Did you see a gun?"

  "No gun."

  Amanda heaved a deep sigh. "That's it then. This was a complete waste of time. Let's get out of here."

  "No! We're not done. I need to get upstairs, into the bedrooms, the attic, all the places in this big house where he could hide stuff. I need you to move closer."

  "I don't want to move closer. I want to leave. Now."

  "I don't think we can do that," Charley said, his gaze moving past her, over her shoulder, toward the driveway where they'd entered.

  Over the thundering of her heart as it tried to beat out of her chest, the sound of her blood rushing past her ears, crickets chirping and mosquitos buzzing, Amanda noticed another sound. Tires on pavement.

  She turned in horror to see a police car coming down the driveway. A spotlight flashed
through the trees then burst across her face.

  "Put your hands on your head and move into the open," said an electronically magnified voice.

  "You are so screwed," Charley said, helpful as always.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Amanda lifted her arms above her head and ordered her feet to move forward, to carry her within reach of the police. Images of prison bars flashed before her eyes. Why had she ever listened to Charley?

  Two uniformed officers got out of the patrol car, guns drawn and aimed at her.