“The wrecker’s out there now pulling up the Barringer kid’s truck,” said George. “Soon as I let them know where you want yours hauled, they’ll come back and get it, too.”
When Dwight said he’d take care of it, I didn’t argue.
I left them discussing logistics and went on upstairs, where Mary Kay greeted me with sympathy for my bruised face and coffee for my sore spirits. Everyone knew what had happened and several stopped in chambers to express concern and regret for my ordeal. I thanked them all politely, but it was a relief to get back into the courtroom and have the bailiff call the place to order.
Friday is usually cleanup day for the odds and ends that were delayed earlier in the week, the emergency orders, the documents that need a judge’s signature before they could be put into play. Today was no different. With William Deeck prosecuting, cases moved along at a brisk clip.
I took only a minimum break in midmorning, and Mary Kay came back bringing the freshest gossip. Sunny Osborne had been questioned and had sent for her lawyer. Rumors were starting to circulate about Bobby Ashe, and about Simon Proffitt as well. Deputies had been looking for him for three days now, but he seemed to have vanished.
“They’d be out with search parties except that his truck’s still parked by the Trading Post and his shotgun’s there in his office.”
It all felt very anticlimactic.
Unfortunately for my plans to be finished by lunchtime, we hit a few snags, and when it became clear that there were at least another three hours to go, I adjourned for lunch at twelve-thirty.
There was no sign of Dwight downstairs, so I took the elevator back up to the first level and walked along Cedar Gap’s pristine Main Street down to the Tea Room. The fog or cloud or whatever it was had retreated from the higher peaks, but the lower elevations were still swathed in white and the damp air definitely held a touch of coming winter.
As usual, there was a line, but by now Carla Ledwig was so used to my walking in and out of the kitchen that she just gave me a wave and kept on with her hostess duties.
“You should have called,” said June. “We’d have brought you lunch.”
“I need to walk,” I said. “It helps with the stiffness.”
I watched them fix me a salad, then said, “Is Simon Proffitt your landlord?”
“Where on earth did you get that idea?” asked May, not quite meeting my eyes.
“Something Carla’s mother said Tuesday. She said she was glad her husband hadn’t known about this business venture because he couldn’t stand Simon Proffitt.”
“Well, yeah,” May admitted. “It’s his building.”
“Did you know that he’s been missing ever since Captain Underwood asked him to come in and answer some questions about his threats against Ledwig and Osborne?”
“Simon didn’t kill them,” said June. “The sheriff and the DA are just looking for somebody to hang it on now that they don’t have Danny anymore.”
I held up placating hands before they could gather a good head of protective steam for the Trading Post’s elderly proprietor.
“It’s not official yet, but he doesn’t have to worry. They know it wasn’t him.”
“Really?”
“He’s a feisty old guy, isn’t he?” I asked. “Bark worse than his bite?”
“Exactly!” said May. “He’s really a sweetie, Deborah, and at his age, he doesn’t need to be hounded by deputies.”
“At his age, wherever he is, don’t you think he’d probably be more comfortable in his own bed?” I cast a jaundiced eye toward the pressed tin ceiling, beyond which lay nothing but spiders and mice and dirty old junk were one inclined to believe what they’d told me yesterday.
They both looked at me sheepishly, but before they could blitz me with more twinspeak, Carla came through the door with a dazed expression on her face. “I just heard someone say that Sunny Osborne killed Dad! She and Mom play tennis together. Why would she kill my dad? Was she sleeping with him?”
By the time I adjourned court for the week, the buzz was all over town, and George confirmed it for me when I stopped by his office and found Dwight there.
“It was like you thought,” he said. “Ledwig arranged for Osborne to be tested down in Winston back in August and the tests indicated the onset of early dementia. That’s when he planned the merger so that he could maximize his holdings. The way his condition was deteriorating, he knew he wouldn’t have time to liquidate everything himself and he’d have had to take a huge loss with the economy so soft right now. The easiest thing was just to stick it to the Ashes. When Ledwig heard about the merger, he called Osborne and told him to cancel it or he’d tell Bobby Ashe. Osborne was in such despair that Sunny went over to Ledwig’s the next day to try to persuade him to keep quiet. When he wouldn’t back off …”
“Sunny told you all this?” I asked. “Her attorney let her?”
“He couldn’t stop her once I laid it all out. All she cares about right now is helping us build a case against Bobby Ashe for killing her husband. She’s still trying to protect him.”
“What about Ashe?”
“Claims he didn’t have a clue, doesn’t know what Sunny’s talking about, and, on the advice of counsel, has nothing more to say.”
I shook my head. “He’s going to get away with it, isn’t he?”
“Unless we can find someone who saw him follow Osborne out onto that terrace Monday night, we don’t have a real case. No fingerprints on the candleholder. No proof that he knew what Osborne had done to him.” George gave an exasperated sigh. “Sloppy work on our part. We should’ve confiscated the shoes and clothes he was wearing that night, checked them for blood spatters. There’s another search team up there right now, but he’s had four days to dispose of anything incriminating.”
“Tough luck,” Dwight said sympathetically.
As Dwight and I stood to go, I hesitated. “Jason Barringer. Is he from around here?”
“Louisville, Kentucky. We couldn’t get hold of his parents till late and they’re driving over today.” George looked at his watch. “Should be getting in anytime now.”
“Do they have to be told how he died?” I asked. “I mean, yes, of course, they have to know he lost control when his truck hit a deer, but do they have to know why he was up there? It’s bad enough to lose a son without hearing he tried to kill somebody.”
George nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll pass the word,” he promised.
CHAPTER 33
Driving down from Cedar Gap was an unsettling experience. Visibility was about three inches in front of the grille on Dwight’s truck. We couldn’t see behind us. We couldn’t see ahead.
Which was pretty much how I was feeling.
It took us almost an hour just to get to the Tennessee border, and we were past Johnson City, heading north on I-81, before the fog dissipated into misty rain. Not that I noticed. By then, I had made myself a pillow with Dwight’s jacket and slept most of the way.
At the east juncture with I-77, we pulled off to find a place to eat supper.
“You sure you want to do this?” Dwight asked when I picked out a motel at the same juncture.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Halloween’s right around the corner, and if Cal saw this face, he’d think he’s getting a real witch for a stepmother. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to cut in on his time with you. You need to focus on him this weekend and I need to veg out for a couple of days, sleep off this soreness, do some serious thinking.”
“Not too serious, I hope.”
His voice was light, but the truth was, we were awkward with each other. Our old-shoe easiness had evaporated.
Along with the passion.
He had slept on the couch last night and he’d barely touched me today. Even when he carried my things up to my room at the motel, he merely set them inside the door, brushed my forehead with his lips, and told me that he’d see me Sunday.
More like one of my brothers than a lover.
I
slept twelve hours the first night, took a midday nap on Saturday, and slept another ten hours that night. By Sunday morning, even though my bruises were in full flower, it seemed to me that the deep blue-black places were slowly turning purple.
My body might have been healing, but my spirit was still sore. I found a country music station the first night that played real bluegrass—all the old cheatin’, hurtin’, lyin’ songs that you seldom hear on commercial stations anymore. The music drifted in and out of my troubled dreams all weekend. Some time in the early Sunday morning hours, I came awake to hear Waylon singing “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” and realized that I had been crying. Lying there in the darkness, I finally opened my own eyes and took a hard honest look at the whole worrisome situation. What I saw left me even more unsettled because it wasn’t something I could hide from Dwight, yet telling him was probably going to cost me his friendship.
I had planned a logical and decorous scenario, and then Dwight caught me unaware by showing up two hours earlier than I’d expected while I was still in the coffee shop with coffee and the Sunday paper.
“I couldn’t remember if checkout time was eleven or noon,” he said when he found me.
“It’s one,” I told him as he slid into the booth across from me. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure.” He signaled to the waitress.
“How’s Cal?”
“Fine. It was his first football game last night.”
“How’d they do?”
“Lost, but he scored a touchdown, so he wasn’t too disappointed.”
“That’s nice.”
“So,” he said, when the waitress had brought him his coffee and been assured that no, he didn’t want anything to eat, “you feeling better today?”
I nodded and braced myself for the worst. No point in putting this off any longer. “Look, Dwight, I have to know. Do you really want to do this marriage thing?”
“Is that the serious thinking you stayed here to do?”
“Yes.”
“I’m still game to go, but I told you two weeks ago that if you changed your mind or if someone else came along, I wouldn’t hold you to our agreement, remember?” He stirred his coffee and I couldn’t read his face. It was like being back in that mountain fog.
“There’s no easy way to say this.”
“You don’t need to,” he said.
“Yes, I do. Because things have changed.” I was too nervous to meet his eyes. Instead, I focused on the ring he’d given me. “Did you meet Lucius Burke Friday? The DA for Lafayette County?”
“Yeah. What about him?” Dwight’s voice was grim.
“He brought me home from the Ashe party Monday night. We had dinner together on Tuesday night and he kissed me.”
Across the table, beyond my own hand, I saw Dwight’s tighten around his mug until his knuckles showed white through his tanned skin.
“He kissed you or you kissed him?”
“Well, he made the move and I didn’t stop him.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. Because nothing happened. No sparks, no tingles, and that’s when I started to realize— I mean, even when I’ve been in other relationships, there were always sparks and tingles whenever another good-looking, available guy came on the scene, but not this time.” I looked at him helplessly, feeling myself on the verge of tears again. “I’m so, so sorry, Dwight. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I know we agreed that our marriage would just be a practical arrangement. Good friendship, good sex, and nothing more, but I seem to be in love with you and I don’t think I can keep hiding it. So if that’s going to be a problem for you, if it’s going to make you uncomfortable, we don’t have to do this wedding. Honest.”
I had to look away again from his steady brown-eyed gaze; and his voice, when at last he spoke, was flat and unemotional. “You’re in love with me.”
I nodded.
“And you still want to marry me.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, Deb’rah, since we’re being so open and upfront here, want to know why I joined the Army instead of going off to Carolina to play basketball?”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t trust myself to keep my hands off you if I stayed in the area.”
“What?”
He gave a rueful shrug. “I’ve been in love with you since I was nineteen.”
“But you never said— You never—”
“You were a kid, for God’s sake.”
“Listen, Dwight, I haven’t been a kid for a lot longer than I care to admit. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When the hell did I have a chance?” he asked indignantly. “Every time I came back to Colleton County, you were either over the moon for some guy or else swearing off men forever. Do you know what it’s been like these last two weeks, making love to you and you just calling it good sex? Trying to play it cool, trying not to come on too strong because I was afraid I’d scare you off? Dammit, Deb’rah! You have any idea how I felt when Underwood called me? To know every mile of the way that you could be dying?”
He glared at me across the table until the full import of his words finally sank in. I don’t remember if I was laughing or crying when I got up and went around to his side of the booth and into his arms. That part’s a blur.
What I do remember is that there was absolutely nothing brotherly about that kiss.
Nor the ones that followed.
I could have taken him right there in the booth, but hey! I still had a room, didn’t I?
And checkout wasn’t till one o’clock, right?
We made it with five minutes to spare.
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High Country Fall dk-10 Page 23