"It started off small. At first, he just came over to talk. Then he started wanting sex. Eventually, he demanded money. Lot's of it. More than once, I thought about just telling everybody the truth. But I couldn't. I just couldn't."
"Of course you could have. Nobody would have blamed you." I regretted those words as soon as I said them.
She snorted. "Get real, Marty. Everybody in town would just ignore the fact that I pretended my husband was dead, held a memorial service, and went around pretending to be a widow. I don't think so."
She had a point.
"So, Wart was blackmailing you." I tried to think of a delicate way to ask her if she'd killed him. Finally I just blurted it out.
She looked appalled. "Kill Warren? You think I killed him?" She stood up and paced around the room.
"God, what a mess. What am I gonna do? If you think I killed him, everybody else will too!"
"But you didn't."
"No. I didn't." She sat down next to me and grabbed both my hands. "Marty, you have to believe me. Please."
I believed her. I told her so.
"Thanks. I really needed to hear that."
"The thing is, if you didn't kill him, who did?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. To be honest, I don't really care. I know that sounds cold, but I'm glad he's dead. He made my life even more hellish than it already was. I ended up having to sell my furniture to pay him off. And it didn't stop. The more I paid, the more he wanted."
"Is that why you took the watch?"
"That's part of it. He owed me, you know. At least that's the way I saw it at the time. I mean, I barely had enough money to feed my kids and there he was wearing a fancy Rolex watch. I gotta tell you, when I looked in that trash can and saw that it was Warren, I felt so relieved. It didn't last though."
"Why? What happened?"
"Nancy cornered me at the funeral home the other night. She said she had something to talk to me about. I couldn't imagine what it was. We walked out to the cemetery and she said that she had found something that might interest me."
"The box?"
"Yes. She wanted seven thousand dollars to keep it all a secret. I flipped out. I didn't have seven thousand dollars. She said she'd work something out."
"Your van! That's why she has your van."
"That's why she took my van. She gave me that raggy old T-bird."
"When did you make the trade?"
"Thursday morning. Before the funeral."
So Charli was right; Nancy had lied. No surprise there.
"That's why you were at her house Friday? So she couldn't blackmail you anymore?"
"She came over Friday morning and demanded that I give her another five thousand dollars, otherwise, she'd go public. She said she was going to give it all to Giselle St. James. I decided to try and find it. It was pretty easy. She left her back door unlocked. The box of stuff was in her bedroom closet. Along with the gun."
"But I still don't understand why you ran off."
"I couldn't take the chance that Nancy would find me and get the box back. That's why I took the gun. She scares me. I think she killed Warren." She hesitated. "Are you mad at me for locking you in the shed?"
"Weren't you afraid Nancy would come home and find me in there?"
"Come on, Marty. I didn't tie you up that tight. I figured you'd be out of there in about ten minutes. All I wanted was a head start. Forgive me?"
"Yes. No. I don't know. I guess I forgive you."
She smiled. "That's all I can ask for."
I stood up and reached down toward her. She took my hand and I pulled her to her feet.
"Come on in here and I'll make some coffee. Maybe we can figure out how to get you out of this mess."
I let Delbert out of his cage and went in the kitchen. She sat on my sofa, absentmindedly rubbing Delbert's head while I made the coffee. I stood in the doorway and watched her while it brewed.
"Are you hungry?" I asked.
"Starving."
I scrounged in my freezer and found some frozen waffles. I toasted them, dumped some syrup over them and took them in to her.
"Here you... "
Vanessa pointed the gun at my chest. "I'm sorry, Marty. I really hate to do this, but I've got to go. I need to take care of this once and for all." She grabbed one of the waffles off the plate and stuffed it in her mouth. "Remember, you promised not to tell anybody."
I guess all those years of hanging around Tim finally sunk in. I opened and closed my mouth several times, not able to say a thing.
"Give me your keys," she said.
I shook my head.
She bobbed the gun up and down. "Give me your freaking keys. And your cell phone."
I handed her the keys to the truck and my phone.
"Thanks for listening," she said. "You helped me figure out what I need to do. And, tell the kids I love them. I'll be back as soon as I get this mess all straightened out."
She backed out the door, then turned and ran down to the truck. I finally got my brain to make a connection to the rest of my body and ran over to the phone to call Tim, once more grateful I still had a landline. He didn’t answer. I tried Charli. Ditto. I ran out the door. John's truck disappeared out of sight.
"Damn! Damn, damn, damn!"
I turned to go back inside.
"Hey, Marty," Tim called out.
He pulled into the parking space the truck had been in. I ran over and jumped in the passenger side. "Drive!"
"Drive? Where?"
"Go out to Main Street. Look for John's truck."
He backed out and drove toward Main. I told him what had happened. Sort of. In spite of everything, I'd made a promise to Vanessa, and besides, Tim is a cop. No sense making things worse.
"See if you can catch up and follow her."
When we got to Main, the truck was nowhere in sight.
"What do we do now?" Tim asked.
"I don't know," I said. "I just don't know."
We spent a couple of hours driving around, looking for Vanessa. She wasn't at Nancy Winslow's. Neither was Nancy. Beth Turner said she hadn't seen Vanessa since the funeral home visitation. Vanessa and the black truck seemed to have disappeared into thin air. It looked like we were back to square one. Or maybe negative one.
One good thing did happen, though. I yelled at Tim for not getting to my place sooner. He yelled at me for leaving my apartment key in such an obvious place. Things between us were blessedly back to normal.
34
John wasn't even mad at me for losing his truck. Charli, on the other hand, was royally ticked off at me for losing Vanessa. I hadn't told the whole story -- after all, I'd promised Vanessa -- but I did say that I'd spoken to Vanessa and that she'd sort of 'borrowed' John's truck for a 'little while'.
"Why on earth did you let her go? She's obviously unstable. We really need to get her some help. Come on, Marty, how could you be so stupid?"
"I'm not stupid! For goodness sake, Charli, she had a gun!" Oops. Just as I spit that out, the phone rang.
It was Vanessa. She talked to Charli. She talked to her kids. She talked to me. She talked to Charli again. In the end, Charli agreed to keep Vanessa's kids for a few days and Vanessa promised not to do anything foolish. I sure hoped her definition of foolish was at least in the same neighborhood as ours.
We were still worried, but we realized we were going to have to let it go for the time being. Tim said she was no longer missing, she hadn't committed a crime, (unless I wanted to have her arrested for locking me in the shed at gun point or for stealing John's truck. I didn't) and, after all, she was an adult.
That night, Tim took me to work, picked me back up when I finished my shift at midnight, and then took me home and slept on my sofa. He woke me up at six thirty Monday morning to tell me he was leaving for work. At nine, the doorbell rang. I put my pillow over my head. It kept ringing.
"I'm coming, I'm coming. Keep your pants on."
It was Zach. He looked good. Virg
inia Tech t-shirt, khaki shorts, Tevas, and a big, twinkly smile. So, so good.
After a few minutes of enthusiastic greetings, we went inside and sat on the sofa.
"You survived," I said. Real astute.
"I did. They were pretty nice to me, actually. I'm supposed to go to court in a couple of weeks, but we might plea bargain it out before then. I'll probably have to pay a fine and issue a formal apology. Do some community service. Anything's better than more jail time."
"I'm just glad you're okay. I missed you."
After several more minutes of showing him how much, I told him about my weekend.
"You'd have been safer sitting in jail with me."
"Maybe not safer, but definitely happier."
He grinned wickedly. "Definitely not safer. Come here and I'll show you how we would have passed the time."
He was showing me quite nicely when the doorbell rang. “Crap,” we said, simultaneously.
It was Mom. She had a huge pile of clothes across her arm.
"I brought these over for you to try on." She pushed past me and headed toward my bedroom, still talking the whole time. "I want you to look extra nice for the party tonight. By the way, I made an appointment for you to get your hair, nails, and makeup done."
She came back into the living room minus the pile of clothes. "It's at four." That's when she noticed Zach.
She took one look at his disheveled shirtless appearance and me in my robe and arched a carefully shaped eye-brow. "Well," she said. That's all. Just 'well'.
"Hello there, Mrs. Sheffield," Zach said. "Nice to see you. Sorry to run off so soon, Marty, but I really have to be going. I'll see you tonight." He stood up, pulled his shirt on, high-tailed it out the door.
I watched him wistfully. With a big sigh, I turned back around to face Mom. "What?"
The rest of the day was a big blur. I tried on eighteen dresses. Sorted through three hundred songs looking for music I wanted played at the party. (Arranging for a DJ had been at the top of my to-do list. The play list was supposed to have been done a week ago. The day I found Wart’s body.) Spent an hour and a half at the salon. Wondered what Destiny and her minions had up their sleeve.
I got home just in time to change into the dress Mom and I had compromised on and hoof it over to the hotel. Charli had turned the ballroom at the local Holiday Inn into a balloon and flower-filled paradise.
A huge table overflowing with all kinds of hors d'oeuvres sat in the center of the room. There was a bar on each end of the room, a table holding a beautiful cake off to one side, and several big round tables for people to sit at when they weren't dancing. It looked like an elegant wedding reception. And in many ways, it was one. Mom and Dad had eloped and had never had a party to celebrate.
At about ten 'til seven, the first guests began to arrive. In lieu of gifts, we'd asked that they come prepared with an anecdote for a video scrapbook. I helped the videographer figure out where to set up and discussed the play list with the DJ I'd hired. Charli and John ran around taking care of the last minute details while Mom and Dad greeted their guests. Dad looked elegant in a black tux with a crimson cummerbund and tie set that exactly matched the color of Mom's silk dress. She looked even more gorgeous than normal. They both beamed.
Zach arrived about seven-fifteen. He had on a light tan summer weight suit that looked so good, I couldn't take my eyes off of him.
He kissed me. "You look beautiful. I like that dress. Shows off your legs."
"Thanks. I had to do some serious talking to get Mom to agree to it. You wouldn't believe what she had picked out. She wanted me to wear one like Charli's."
We both looked over to where my sister stood. She looked really pretty in an ivory linen suit. The skirt was just above her knees and the jacket fit loosely. My dress was black, short, and a wee bit tight.
"I like the one you have on better," Zach said. "Much better."
His mom arrived about fifteen minutes later. Alone. She looked sober, but she headed to the bar first thing. Zach left me to go after her. He sat her down at a table and fixed her a plate of food. He had just given the plate to Roberta when Fred walked in.
Roberta dropped the plate, spilling food all over the floor. Fred didn't even look at his wife or son, choosing instead to talk to Steve LeFever and Beth Turner, who had arrived together. Zach frantically tried to clean up the mess. Roberta stared at Fred. Fred ignored her.
Nancy Winslow waltzed in while Zach was scrubbing at the carpet. She carefully avoided Fred, Roberta, and Zach. Fred shot her a nasty look, but kept his distance. I fought off a brief panic attack, remembering the fight at the remote broadcast and hoped that they didn't decide to resume their feud right away.
Charli appeared from behind me. "Do you realize that one of these people is most likely a murderer?" she said.
"Pretty scary, hunh?"
She scanned the crowd. "Which one do you think it is?"
"I don't know. Nancy, maybe?"
"Nancy. That's who I think it is, too. I decided that I'm going to get the goods on her tonight."
I looked at my sister carefully. No overt signs of mental illness. "Are you nuts? If you ruin this party, Mom will kill you. Absolutely kill you."
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going to ruin the party." She nibbled on a mini egg roll. "I showed that betting slip to John. He heard a rumor that Nancy was in cahoots with somebody and they were running a betting ring. And that they were maybe fixing local softball games. I think Warren was her partner. All I've got to do is get some sort of proof. I’ve got my phone ready so I can record her confession when I confront her with the slip."
Had my sister become an alien-infested pod person? "Charli, you've really lost it this time. What makes you think Nancy is going to confess to you? She's more likely to pound you into the ground. Does John know about this little plan of yours?"
"Of course not. He'd try and put a stop to it. You know how he is."
"He's not the only one that's going to put a stop to it. Give me the betting slip. Now! If you don't, I'm going to tell Mom."
"No."
"Yes! Give it to me."
"No." Charli's voice rang out over the music.
"Girls, what is the meaning of this?" Mom said.
Charli and I glared at each other. "Nothing," we said at the same time.
Mom sent Charli on a mission to talk to the caterer. "Here, I'll hold your purse," I said to Charli, before she could get away. I grabbed her bag. She tried to jerk it out of my reach, but Mom's look was enough to change her mind. She reluctantly handed me the ivory leather purse.
As soon as she was out of sight I switched the paper to my purse, turned off Charli’s phone, and went to the lobby for some fresh air. Tim and Detective Theresa Luray were in front of the entrance to the hotel restaurant, hugging. I turned to go back into the ballroom, hoping they wouldn't see me. They did.
"Marty, come here," Tim said.
"Hello, Marty," the detective said. "It's nice to see you again." She smiled.
I mumbled a hello. A really good looking man called for Tim.
"Excuse me. I'll be right back," he said.
Theresa watched him walk away, smiling that ever-present smile of hers. "Isn't he just the greatest?" she said.
"The greatest." Okay, so I might have sounded just a wee bit sarcastic.
She cocked an eyebrow at me. "You don't agree? Well, that's too bad. He certainly thinks the world of you."
"No, no. It's not that. I think Tim's fine. Really. I'm sure you'll be very happy. Oh, he has some bad habits, but who doesn't? He has really lousy taste in music. Did you know he whistles while he's driving? Barry Manilow. He also likes Donny Osmond. You know, that really old stuff from when he was a teen idol? He drools when he sleeps, too. He never remembers to put the toilet seat down. I tell him all the time he needs to....”
Theresa had her head cocked to the side and a puzzled smile. Why was she looking at me like that? She looked over my shoulder and posit
ively beamed. Tim and the man who had called to him joined us. My face felt like I'd sat under a sun lamp too long. How much had Tim heard?
He scowled at me. Not a good sign. The other man put his arm around Theresa Luray's shoulders. It was my turn to look puzzled. He smiled at me.
"I don't believe we've met," he said.
"Michael, this is Marty Sheffield. Tim's friend. Marty, this is my fiancé, Michael Yancey."
Her fiancé? When did she get a fiancé?
"They just got engaged tonight," Tim said. "Isn't that great?" He smiled.
Michael smiled. Theresa smiled. Marty felt like crawling under the rug, but, being a well-brought-up young southern lady, smiled too.
"Congratulations." I managed to stammer it out before I excused myself and high-tailed it to the restroom to try and get my size seven-and-a-half black leather Aerosole out of my mouth.
35
I turned the doorknob and pushed open the restroom door. Only thing, I got the wrong door. The door I opened was to some sort of small meeting room. Fred and Roberta were inside, obviously arguing.
“Damn it, Roberta, you promised!" said Fred.
"I promised? What about you? You knew that woman was going to be here. How could you? What are you planning to do? Go up to one of the rooms with her?"
Someone's hand reached around me and grasped the doorknob. I looked up at Zach's face as he quietly pulled the door closed. I felt about two inches high.
"I'm sorry, Zach. I was going to the ladies room and opened the wrong door." I slipped under his arm and practically ran into the ladies room. I glanced over at him before I went in. He just stood there watching me, his hand still on the doorknob of the meeting room door, his face expressionless.
I went into one of the stalls to try and compose myself. How could I have been so stupid? Theresa Luray probably thought I was an idiot. Maybe I was the one who was a pod person. I was still beating up on myself over my back-to-back no-brainers when the door to the ladies room opened and someone came in.
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