Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me

by Jennifer Crusie

  Liz reached for the door. “That’s ridic—”

  “I understand. I’d do almost anything to protect my family, too. You want the best for Phin and Dillie, and I’m not it, and that’s all right because I’m leaving.” Sophie leaned forward, projecting sincerity and sanity. “But you have to stop attacking people, Mrs. Tucker. I think you should get help. I know a wonderful therapist in Cincinnati who is very discreet.” Liz gaped at her, and Sophie said, “Look, I’m leaving, but sooner or later somebody else is going to get in your way, and this isn’t a good method for handling it.”

  Liz found her voice. “You really think I’d try to kill you?”

  “I think you’d do anything to protect Phin and win the election,” Sophie said. “I’m not sure which you think is more important, and I don’t like that part of you, but I can understand protecting Phin. Just not that way.”

  Liz sat back. “Exactly what’s been happening to you?”

  “Mrs. Tucker—”

  “I didn’t try to kill you.” Liz’s voice was so dry and matter-of-fact that Sophie began to have second thoughts. “If I’d wanted to hurt you, I have other ways. I’d never put my family in jeopardy by breaking the law.”

  “Oh,” Sophie said.

  “What happened?” Liz repeated, and Sophie hesitated and then told her about the river and the gun under the bed and the gossip and the electricity. “And you thought I’d be that stupid?” Liz said when she was finished. “To try to kill you that sloppily?”

  “I knew you hated me that much,” Sophie said uncertainly. “I didn’t think about stupid.”

  “Whoever’s doing this isn’t thinking it through,” Liz said. “He’s stupid and impulsive.”

  “Stephen Garvey,” Sophie said. “But he doesn’t have a reason.”

  “Stephen wouldn’t try to electrocute you.” Liz stared into the distance, frowning. “He might push you in a rage, but he wouldn’t plan to kill you. He’s not insane.”

  “Well, nobody else hates me except for you and him,” Sophie said. “I’m generally well-liked. Really.”

  The silence stretched out, and then Liz said, “No, there’s somebody else who hates you.”

  Sophie swallowed. “Oh?”

  “Do you know where Hildy Mallow lives?” Liz asked her. “Drive there.”

  “The Garveys will be here any minute,” Hildy told them when they were sitting on her couch. “I still think this should wait until after the council meeting. Have you seen the water tower? There’s so much—”

  Her doorbell chimed, and Liz said, “Get it. We do this now.” She sounded like Phin, and Sophie wasn’t at all surprised when Hildy shut up and went.

  Virginia Garvey came in, and Sophie could see past her to Hildy’s porch, where Stephen checked his watch, bouncing on his heels in anticipation of his greatest council meeting ever. Virginia said, “Are you ready, Hildy? We’re running a little—” and stopped dead when she saw Sophie. “What is she doing here?”

  “Shut the door, Hildy,” Liz said, and Hildy did, keeping her back against it. “Virginia, did you push Sophie into the river?”

  “Liz!” Virginia looked outraged. “What a thing to—”

  “I’ll be damned,” Hildy said. “Of course you did. It would be just like you. Impulsive and dumb as a rock. What did she do, wear white shoes after Labor Day?”

  Sophie looked down at her white Keds and pulled her feet back a little.

  “Hildy!” Virginia turned from one woman to the other. “This is ridiculous. I don’t have to stand here—”

  “Actually, you do,” Liz said. “You tried to kill Sophie. Twice.” The disgust in her voice was plain, and Virginia whipped her head around as if she’d been struck on the raw.

  “Don’t you defend her,” she said. “You’re on my side. You know what she is. If it hadn’t been for her, Rachel would be married to Phin—”

  “Phin is never going to marry Rachel,” Liz said.

  “Rachel was going to marry him until she showed up,” Virginia said. “She’s the one who introduced Rachel to that man who told her he’d find her a job in Los Angeles.” The way Virginia spit the words out, she might have been saying, “Gomorrah,” which was fair, Sophie thought. “She’s the one who seduced Phin away from Rachel.”

  “I swear to God, he seduced me,” Sophie said.

  “You think it’s funny.” Virginia took a step forward, and Sophie sank back a little into the sofa cushions. “You ruined my baby’s life. I made sure Phin coached her at softball, I made sure she baby-sat his daughter, I made sure she got a job on the council, I made sure he was going to marry her.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Liz said. “Virginia.”

  “And then you come in and you take Phin and you tell Rachel she should leave, and she does.” Virginia shook with rage. “She called me. She’s in California. And it’s all your fault.”

  Virginia was breathing hard now, and Sophie tensed to duck if she came after her, no longer doubting that Virginia was the one who’d shoved her into the river. Virginia would have shoved her into Hell if she could have.

  Then Virginia got a grip. “But I didn’t try to kill her,” she said to Liz, with a tense little laugh. “That would be . . . insane.”

  “Exactly,” Liz said.

  Virginia laughed again, buddies. “Liz, our kind of people don’t do that kind of thing.”

  “There is no kind of people that includes you and me,” Liz said. “I always said Stephen married beneath him.”

  Virginia went white, only two spots of color high on her cheeks.

  “Did you push Diane?” Liz said.

  Virginia drew herself up. “If I had, it would have been just what she deserved, grabbing your son like that, ruining his life. If I had, you should be thanking me now. But I didn’t. Nobody pushed her. She was a slutty little drunk who fell down her own steps.”

  “Here’s what I know,” Liz said. “I know you took my husband’s gun from my house because you’re the only one who visited me there. I know you put it in Sophie’s bed because you started the gossip that it had been found. I know you know the farm and could have frayed that wire in the fuse box with no trouble at all.”

  “That’s not proof,” Virginia said. “You don’t have any proof because I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know you were out there watching with Stephen the night Sophie was pushed in the river,” Liz said. “You wouldn’t miss something like that. Sophie saw Stephen right before she was pushed—so it couldn’t have been him—so you pushed her in, and when that didn’t work, you stole my gun and put it in her bed, and when that didn’t work you tried to electrocute her. You are dumb as a rock, Virginia, but what I still don’t know is if you shot that man.”

  “He met somebody on the river path,” Sophie said. “Wes got that far: that Zane had an appointment to meet somebody behind the Garvey house.”

  “He was trying to blackmail all of us,” Hildy said, helpfully. “He must have had something on her.”

  “He had a file on Diane’s death,” Liz said. “He brought it to me and tried to convince me she’d been murdered. He said if we didn’t stop the video, he’d do a human-interest piece on it, investigate it, solve the mystery, create a scandal. Except I didn’t push Diane, and neither did my son, so I sent him away.”

  “My God,” Sophie said, watching Virginia’s face. “You did push Diane.”

  “You just shut up,” Virginia said. “You’re just like her, but I did not push her.”

  “You met him on the path because he was trying to blackmail you, and you shot him,” Liz said. “How did you get him to the farm dock? He would have been heavy. Unless . . .” Liz frowned in thought. “Unless you convinced him to let you take him home.” She nodded. “That was it, wasn’t it? You told him you’d take care of him and you rowed him across the river, and when he got out onto the dock on his own, then you shot him. You mothered him to death. That would be like you. And you got Stephen to cover your car accidents
, and me to harass my son about Sophie for you, so you could certainly get that stupid man to travel to his own death.”

  “You shot him from a boat?” Hildy looked at Virginia with disgust. “That’s why you missed at close range and why the angle was so off. You shot him while you were standing in a boat. What kind of idiot are you?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Virginia said. “But I want you to know I’m deeply hurt by this. And I’m leaving.”

  She looked deeply enraged, to Sophie.

  “Of course, we can’t prove any of this,” Hildy said gloomily to Liz, as Virginia reached past her to tug at the door.

  She’s going to get away with it, Sophie thought, and then she saw Liz smile her cobra smile.

  “We don’t have to prove it,” Liz said. “We’ll just talk.”

  “What?” Hildy frowned, and then brightened. “Oh. Yes. We will. We’ll talk a lot, Virginia.”

  Oh, excellent, Sophie thought.

  Virginia stopped tugging on the door.

  “About how much you hate Sophie,” Hildy went on happily. “About how you don’t have an alibi for the shooting.” Hildy let her eyes slide to Virginia’s face. “About how Rachel ran to L.A. to get away from you.”

  Virginia’s face went red. “She didn’t. Rachel and I are very close. And—”

  “We’ll tell everybody what a lousy mother you are,” Hildy said. “We don’t have to take you to Wes. We’re taking care of this ourselves.”

  “Unless,” Liz said.

  Virginia turned to her, seething.

  “At the council meeting today,” Liz said. “We’re going to be watching your vote very closely.”

  “You can’t—” Virginia began again.

  “Yes, we can.” Hildy was practically bouncing on her toes now. “One wrong vote and we hit the phones. And people will listen. They always listen, don’t they, Virginia?”

  Virginia’s eyes darted from Hildy to Liz. She looked like a trapped mink, and Sophie would have felt sorry for her if she hadn’t been such a miserable excuse for a human being.

  “Cross me again and I’ll destroy you,” Liz said to Virginia. “Don’t ever come after my family again.”

  “I didn’t—” Virginia said.

  “And that includes Sophie,” Liz said.

  Sophie felt a catch in the back of her throat.

  “Right, that’s the other part of the deal,” Hildy was saying. “You have to stop trying to kill Sophie. She gets a hangnail, and we pick up the phone.”

  Virginia drew a deep breath in through her teeth and looked at Sophie like death.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Liz Tucker said. “You touch her, you say one word against her, and I’ll bring you so low not even Junie Martin will give you the time of day.”

  “Jeez,” Sophie said.

  Liz looked at Sophie for the first time since they’d arrived. “Don’t ever cross a Tucker.”

  “No ma’am,” Sophie said.

  The council hall was full by the time Phin got there, and the crowd was clearly not a happy one, but only Ed and Frank sat at the council table.

  Amy and Sophie came in and sat down in the front row.

  “ ‘This isn’t the junior chamber of commerce, Brad,’ ” Sophie said to Amy.

  Amy nodded, looking around at the marble and walnut. “ ‘Thank goodness we’re in a bowling alley.’ ”

  Nervous, Phin thought, and couldn’t blame them.

  Sophie turned and saw him. She stuck her chin out, and he thought, Oh, good, still frosty. Then Stephen and Virginia came in followed by Hildy and Liz, and he ignored Sophie to concentrate on the problem at hand.

  Stephen looked fat with satisfaction as he stopped to shake hands and nod to the populace, but Virginia looked tense and mad as hell. Hildy detoured around them and plopped down in the seat across from Phin. “ ‘Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,’ ” she said, but she didn’t look nervous at all.

  “What are you up to?” he said, and she beamed and said, “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

  Phin frowned at her, but then his mother sat down and shook his concentration. She had that look in her eye, the one she got right before she mutilated somebody: implacable will mixed with certainty of triumph.

  “Mom?” he said, and she shook her head and said, “It’s all right, Phin,” and he sat back, wary as hell.

  “All right,” Phin said. “Now all we need is Rachel and we can get started. Where—”

  “She’s gone,” Virginia said through her teeth, and Stephen looked at her, startled. “That woman—” She broke off as Hildy leaned forward and met her eyes. “She’s not here.”

  “Okay.” Phin nodded to Hildy. “Keep the minutes, please.”

  “Of course,” Hildy said. “Although I’m only going to write down the intelligent things, so if anybody here was going to make a stupid speech, he can forget about getting it into the record.”

  “Hildy,” Phin said, and Stephen said, “I don’t need the record. I’ve got the whole town here, or most of it. And the ones that aren’t here will hear about it later.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Hildy said, and Phin wondered what the hell was happening under his nose. Besides his political ruin.

  “The first item of business,” Phin said, when they were all settled and the crowd had stilled in anticipation, “is the streetlight vote that Stephen Garvey wants recalled.” A soft murmur of disappointment went up from the crowd, and Phin knew how the lions had felt in the Coliseum. “The motion on the floor is from Hildy Mallow, to purchase vintage reproduction streetlights for Temptation. Hildy, do you want to address this again?”

  “Just what I’ve said before,” Hildy said. “It makes a difference to people when they’re surrounded by beauty. We owe it to Temptation to look to the future.”

  “Anyone el—”

  “But we also owe it to Temptation to be fiscally responsible,” Stephen said, and waxed eloquent on fiscal responsibility for five minutes.

  Phin tuned him out and felt uneasy. The crowd was restless, but his mother and Hildy sat back, calm. That was wrong. “Anybody else?” Phin said, when Stephen had wound down. “No? Call the roll, Hildy.”

  “Garvey.”

  “Certainly not,” Stephen said.

  “Garvey,” Hildy purred, and Virginia turned to look at her. Across the table from Phin, his mother shook her head and Hildy nodded.

  Virginia smiled. “No.”

  Hildy turned to glare at Liz, who looked taken aback. “We need a little consensus here,” Hildy hissed at Liz, who whispered back, “Well, Stephen’s convinced people they’re too expensive.”

  The vote split, three to three—Frank voting with Hildy and Ed because fancier streetlights would make his development look better—and Phin broke the tie, saying, “Yes. Let’s go with posterity.”

  “Oh, sure,” somebody from the crowd called. “You care about our kids.”

  “That’s progeny,” Phin said. “Posterity is your kids’ kids.”

  “Phin,” his mother said, and he shrugged.

  “New business,” he said.

  “The water tower,” Stephen said, taking him by surprise. “We’re going to have to paint it again. It looks . . . well, we’re just going to have to paint it.”

  “I like it,” Hildy said. “It’s not as good as the original color, of course, but if somebody hadn’t messed with it before, we wouldn’t have this problem now. It’s still pretty. Leave it be.”

  “You want that thing—”

  “Can I have a motion?” Phin said.

  “I move we paint the water tower white,” Stephen said, and Virginia started to say, “I second,” and then stopped.

  “We need a second,” Phin said to prod her.

  “I second,” Frank said. “What’s going on here?”

  “Call the roll, Hildy,” Phin said, before Stephen could get into the water tower as a further corrupter of the town’s children
.

  “Garvey,” Hildy said, and Stephen said, “Yes!”

  Hildy turned to Liz and whispered audibly, “It does not get painted.”

  “It looks awful,” Liz hissed back.

  “Hildy?” Phin said. “The roll?”

  “Garvey,” Hildy said, and Virginia looked down the table. Liz nodded and Hildy shook her head.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Sophie said from behind them, and Liz and Hildy flinched.

  The vote split again, and Phin broke the tie by saying, “No, we’re not spending any more time or money on the water tower.”

  “Just what we’d expect from a porn mayor,” somebody in the crowd called out, and Phin said to Hildy, “How come you paint it and I get the flack?”

  “Because I’m a sweet old lady,” Hildy said. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

  “Oh, sure,” Phin said. “If there’s no other new businesses—”

  Stephen opened his mouth.

  “—I have some. It has come to my attention that this council passed an ordinance that is unenforceable because of the vagaries in its wording.”

  Hildy blinked at him, and his mother looked alarmed.

  Phin said, “I move that the council repeal the antiporn ordinance it voted into effect two weeks ago before we get sued for overstepping somebody’s constitutional rights.”

  The murmur from the crowd sounded angry, but Ed’s “I second,” cut right across it.

  It was the first motion Ed had seconded in thirty years, and Phin looked at him appraisingly.

  “Good to see you got your thumb out of your butt, boy,” Ed said.

  “Thanks, Ed,” Phin said. “Discussion?”

  “I have discussion,” Stephen snapped. “Somebody clearly violated that ordinance—”

  “Can’t talk about that, Stephen,” Hildy said briskly. “We can only talk about the issue on the table.”

  “It didn’t violate anything,” Stephen said.

  “Yes, it did,” Phin said. “You can’t make a law against something you can’t define. And we didn’t define pornography. Therefore the ordinance is unconstitutional. We could get sued. For the protection of the town’s treasury, we have to repeal it.”

  “That is the biggest—”