Kate nearly choked on her coffee. “Let me see that.” She read with increasing annoyance. “This is just short of libelous. It’s not quite lies, but it sure comes close. Who is this Annabelle Wiggins anyway?” She pointed to the byline on the story.
Arnold wiggled his eyebrows. “I called my new best friend, Sheriff Tait, the minute I read the thing. It would seem Miz Wiggins...” He drew out the “mizzzz” so that it had more than its usual complement of z’s “Miz Wiggins is a thirty-five-year-old divorcée who moved here from Jackson after divorcing the esteemed Mr. Wiggins for flagrant disregard of his marital vows, took a job on the paper and began taking casseroles to David Canfield.”
Kate’s eyebrows went up.
Arnold shrugged. “The man’s a very eligible widower. He probably has enough sweet-potato pies in his freezer to last through the next millennium.”
“And did Miz Wiggins’s suit prosper?” Kate asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. She had to stop thinking of David as an ex-husband. He was precisely what Arnold said he was. No reason he shouldn’t date and bed the entire female population of Athena County.
Arnold grinned and shook his head. “Apparently David has developed a reputation for playing hard to get. Miz Wiggins moved onto greener pastures. Guess who?”
Kate grinned. “Mr. James Roy Allenby.”
Arnold nodded. “The newly divorced Mr. James Roy Allenby. I’m spending the afternoon in Jackson at Whitman, Tarber and McDonough, getting the papers completed to file for change of venue. You better hope we get it.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that. When does the grand jury meet?” she asked.
“James Roy has called a special session on the eighteenth of December to consider Jason’s indictment. If we waive time, the trial will probably take place in April or May, if we’re lucky. If we fight for change of venue, that could set it back six months.”
“Jason might as well write off his freshman year. The courts won’t let him leave the state.” She sat back. “I suppose he could register at the junior college for spring semester. Maybe those credits would transfer to Pepperdine next year.”
“My, my, we are sure of ourselves, aren’t we?” Arnold grinned at her.
“Hey. I’m sure he didn’t do it. That’s why I need to speak to Coral Anne Talley. Maybe Waneath told her about the guy she was seeing.”
“The problem with that is twofold,” Arnold said. “First, if you go near the Talleys they’ll probably shoot you. Second, she’s sixteen. You can’t talk to her officially without a parent present.”
“And third, I can’t get a warrant to depose her this early in the process. Well, damn.” She began gnawing on the cuticle of her index finger, realized what she was doing and quit. She looked down at her hands. The nearly clear polish that covered her nails had begun to chip and flake. “I wonder if Myrlene knows somebody who could give me a manicure?” she asked.
“Might take the opportunity to infect you with blood poisoning,” Arnold said dryly.
“Maybe Myrlene knows where Waneath had her hair done. If she was seeing anybody, the hairdresser would surely know. Might be time for a little wash and blow-dry.”
Arnold gaped at her. “That egomaniac hairdresser you go to in Atlanta will kill you if you let somebody else mess with your hair,” he said. “You said you had to get his permission and approval to have it cut in Hollywood.”
“Ah, but Michel will never know unless you call him up and snitch.” She smiled at him sweetly. “And you like your job, don’t you, Arnold dear?”
“Woman, you are crazy.” Arnold said, and slid out of the booth. “Come on, let’s go back to the motel. I’m hoping for the report on Waneath’s autopsy sometime today.”
As she paid their check, Kate asked over her shoulder, “Will they release her body to the family now?” She glanced up into the avid eyes of the woman at the cash register and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. At least until she was out of earshot.
Arnold caught the glance, smiled back and kept his mouth shut. As they crossed the street, he said, “The funeral home should be able to pick up the body from the morgue in Memphis today or tomorrow. I asked the sheriff to notify the family.”
“I hate to say this, but one of us needs to go to that funeral,” Kate said.
“I’ll go. I’m extremely forgettable. You, on the other hand, are not.”
“Arnold, you stand out in Athena like an elk in Times Square. And I know the way you feel about funerals.”
“And you don’t? You think Canfield and Mays will attend?”
“They’ll want to. So will Jason. She was his friend. He should go, but it may lead to trouble if he does. Damn. I have no idea what to advise.”
“Don’t borrow trouble. Wait until the thing is scheduled.”
“Yeah.” She left him at his door. “If I don’t see you today, we can meet for dinner. There’s got to be someplace to go other than that café. If you’re going to be in Jackson, call me and I’ll meet you. It’s only a forty-minute drive.”
He nodded. “I’ll leave you a note if the autopsy report actually shows up.”
“Fine. I’m off to find Myrlene.”
Myrlene’s cart stood in front of an open door to a room at the back of the motel. Kate tapped on the door frame and called out. She heard running water shut off, and a moment later, Myrlene stuck her head out of the bathroom.
“Hey, Mrs. Mulholland,” she said. She seemed genuinely happy to see Kate, but a moment later she blushed and stammered, “I—I sure am sorry about the other night. Sometimes Jimmy has fewer brains than God gave a goose.”
“That’s okay.” Kate leaned in the door frame and held out her hands. “I just realized my hands are a mess, and I could use a shampoo. Are there any really good beauty shops in Athena?”
“Well, Momma gets hers done at the Crimp and Curl on the square.”
Kate thought about Momma’s hennaed and overpermed ’do and repressed a shudder. “Where did Waneath get hers done?”
“Oh, she went to Jackson.”
Kate’s heart fell. “Do you go to the Crimp and Curl too?”
Myrlene sniffed. “No way. Bunch of old hens. I go to Charlotte out by the bypass.”
“Think she could fit in a manicure?”
“Sure. Waneath used to have her nails done there sometimes. You want me to call her for you?”
Kate nodded, and fifteen minutes later drove into the strip mall opposite the shopping center. She decided that a manicure by itself was safe enough, and wouldn’t put her life in jeopardy with Michel in Atlanta. Every eye turned to her when she walked in the front door. Charlotte had wasted no time notifying everyone in the shop about who she was. Several women surreptitiously slid copies of the Athena newspaper into their handbags and studiously avoided her eyes. Lord, how she hated this! The chances that anyone would open up while she was here were slim.
She slid into the chair opposite the manicurist, an artistically made-up heavyset woman with skin the color of mocha latte. She looked at Kate’s hands and shook her head. “Whoa, honey, you have not been looking after these nails.”
“Uh, I’ve been kind of busy the last few days.”
The woman looked up and grinned. “I’m Juanita. Let’s see what we can do.”
Around her, conversation had begun again, but eyes turned her way from time to time.
“You do most of the girls in town?” Kate asked.
“Uh-huh.” Juanita wiped a cotton ball wet with remover over her thumbnail.
Kate lowered her voice. “I understand you gave Waneath Talley a manicure now and then?”
Juanita looked up quickly. Her brown eyes were extremely perceptive. She nodded. “Uh-huh. Did her fill-ins when she didn’t have time to get to Jackson. Never had her hair done here though.”
“How about her family?”
“Coral Anne, now, Charlotte been cutting her hair since she was a baby.” She arched an eyebrow. “Guess Mrs. Talley doesn’
t feel like wasting a trip to Jackson on that child.”
“You wouldn’t happen to remember the last time Coral Anne came in, would you?”
“Couple of weeks.” Juanita dropped the cotton into the wastebasket beside her and picked up an emery board. “She sure could use a little highlighting and a body wave. Got hair the color of Long Lake after a bad storm—pure mud. Child has nice hands, though. I made her stop biting her nails.”
“You said you did Waneath’s fill-ins. She had acrylic nails?”
Juanita laughed. “Lord, yes. Could not grow a nail to save her life. Been wearing fakes since she was thirteen.”
Kate remembered the scarlet talons waving from Jason’s videotape and Waneath’s incredible body. “Did she ever have plastic surgery that you knew of?”
Juanita threw back her head and laughed. Instantly all activity in the salon stopped and every head turned to her. She looked around, took a deep breath and snickered. After a moment, activity resumed and Juanita whispered, “Added a little on the top and took a little off the bottom, if you know what I mean.”
“Liposuction?”
Juanita nodded. “Everybody in town knows she went off to Birmingham two years ago wearing an A-cup and size-eight jeans and came back wearing a C-cup and size-four jeans.”
“Two years ago?” Kate gaped. “She was seventeen years old!”
“You know you can’t have breast implants and nurse a baby?” Juanita said.
Kate shook her head.
“Guess she didn’t plan on nursing anyway. Probably would have figured out a way to have some other woman carry it if she’d ever gotten pregnant.”
Kate glanced up at Juanita, but she seemed oblivious to what she’d said. So the Athena gossip hadn’t yet picked up on Waneath’s delicate condition. “Was Waneath dating anybody special that you know of?” she asked.
“Lord, honey, she wouldn’t tell me. Didn’t seem to me like she was much interested in boys except for Jason.”
Twenty minutes later Kate tipped Juanita extravagantly, paid her bill and left feeling every eye in the shop on her as she climbed into her car.
She drove to the junior-college campus and almost automatically checked for David’s car in the faculty parking lot. Not there. But then, it was after eleven. His ten o’clock class would be long over by now. She grabbed a cup of coffee in the school cafeteria and sat in a corner wondering whether every attractive male that walked past had known Waneath, then she went in search of Professors Thomasson and Vasquez.
She caught Thomasson outside his noon class. He looked harried, and ropy rather than muscular, but his shock of iron-gray hair and pale blue eyes might well attract co-eds. She noticed that he wore no wedding ring, and that there were tufts of black hair on the backs of his knuckles. He smelled strongly of a nauseatingly sweet aftershave.
She crossed him off instinctively. Waneath was much too canny to fall for this poor imitation of Richard Gere. Five minutes later, his vehement denials of involvement with Waneath ringing in her ears, she went in search of Vasquez.
She heard a deep male voice behind his office door, knocked and entered at his invitation. Vasquez stood and came around the desk with his hand outstretched the moment she told him who she was. He clasped her right hand in both of his and held on while he led her to the wooden chair across the desk from him.
He wore elderly jeans that seemed painted on his lean, muscular legs, and were worn a paler blue over the considerable bulge at his crotch. His black turtleneck sweater stretched over his chest and shoulders. He was only about five foot seven or eight, and had snapping black eyes, more than the normal complement of blinding teeth, and a head of black curls that would have made Shirley Temple envious.
Maybe Waneath had decided to go for a man who was as pretty as she. If he were the father of her baby, the combination of this guy’s genes with Waneath’s would probably have produced an exquisite child.
Ten minutes later she decided that he’d probably never tried to get Waneath into his bed. He was the kind of man whose ego wouldn’t allow him to bed a woman more beautiful than he was.
Discouraged, she drove back to the motel and found a note from David asking her to dinner. At his house.
She was supposed to meet Arnold in Jackson, but he wouldn’t mind if she reneged on that promise. They were both used to last-minute changes of plan.
They’d been friends for a long time. When she’d first come to work for Alec, she’d wondered whether Arnold might be gay.
He never seemed to have a serious girlfriend, but at bar functions he always had a different girl on his arm—beautiful, charming and forgettable.
One long night in Chicago he’d confided in her. She’d come down with a twenty-four-hour bug and had begged him to take over cross-examination of a minor witness in a wrongful-death suit the following morning.
He’d gone into her bathroom and thrown up.
Alec had known, of course, but Alec was a genius at keeping confidences.
Before he came south, Arnold had been an up-and-coming litigator, building a career in New York, and building a life with his young bride, Shirley, in an apartment on Long Island. Life was good.
They’d only been married a couple of years when she burst an unsuspected ectopic pregnancy and wound up in the emergency room.
At the time, Arnold was summing up before a tough judge. By the time he arrived at the hospital, Shirley had bled to death on the table.
Nobody blamed him. He endured the sympathetic stares and pats, and went every Friday evening to dinner with his in-laws, who shoved Shirley’s younger sister at him, until he couldn’t take it anymore. One day he called Alec Mulholland and asked for a job in Atlanta. One where he would never have to stand up and speak in a courtroom again.
Kate knew that in some way he loved her, just as she loved him. When Alec had died so suddenly, Arnold was the first person she called. He had stayed until after the funeral. He had handled probate of Alec’s will, set up the details of the transfer of power in the firm. She trusted him implicitly and worked with him every chance she got.
The perfect team.
But they never spoke of his marriage again. Not quite a secret, but still an unacknowledged elephant in the corner of the room.
An unpleasant thought crossed her mind. Alec had concealed the seriousness of his heart trouble from her. David had taken refuge in Melba’s arms to avoid dumping his angst in her lap. Her mother had tried to conceal her father’s infidelities.
She must give off serious “I don’t want to know” vibes. Was she really that weak a reed?
Her stomach growled. Enough introspection. She went to see what she could dredge up from the vending machine in the motel office to serve as lunch.
She ate a couple of packets of peanut-butter crackers and two bags of potato chips. She knew she ought to be out doing something, but for the life of her, at that point she was so tired and so dispirited she couldn’t think what. She sank onto her bed and turned on the television in time to catch the noon news. Halfway through, she looked up at a commercial.
“Hey, folks, Big Bill Talley here, telling y’all to come on down to Talley Motors and let ole Big Bill make you a deal on that new car or truck better’n anything south of the Mason-Dixon line!”
Big Bill Talley deserved his name. Hard to tell on television, of course, but he looked about the size of an eighteen-wheeler with an extra-wide load. He had massive amounts of wavy brown hair that Kate would have bet was the result of a toupee, and his fancy blue-and-white cowboy shirt stretched across his barrel chest and around biceps as thick as her thighs.
And cheerful! Militantly, terrifyingly cheerful. Judging from his short-sleeved shirt and the leaves on the trees behind him, the commercial had been filmed months ago, long before Waneath’s death. But there was still something scary about that broad grin. Like an alligator waiting in the shallow water of a lagoon for an unsuspecting crane to meander by.
Easy to tell where Wane
ath got her teeth and her height. But her enormous eyes came from her mother. Big Bill’s were small, narrow, piggy, and set a couple of millimeters too close to the bridge of his nose. Despite his happy demeanor, Kate could well understand Jimmy Viccolla’s discomfort. This was not a man to cross.
She felt a frisson of fear. Amazing that Talley had not so far attempted to burn down Long Pond with Jason inside. Or come after Kate herself. He looked like a man who would feel his family, particularly the female members of his family, were his possessions. And resent bitterly anyone who deprived him of one of them.
Nonsense. That sort of thing only happened in bad Hollywood B-movies.
Still, the fact that he had not attended Jason’s bail hearing, nor put up more than token resistance to the second autopsy of Waneath’s body was worrisome. Kate’s grandmother had once warned her that copperheads were more dangerous than rattlers, because at least rattlers gave advance notice that they were angry.
She jumped when the telephone rang, and only then realized she’d been dozing. She brightened when she heard Arnold’s voice on the line.
“Kate? Autopsy report there yet?”
“Not unless they’re holding it in the office. I haven’t checked.”
“Nuts. Look, can we cancel dinner tonight?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I intend to work straight through on the change-of-venue thing. They’ve got a great library here, and I’m coming up with some dandy case law. I feel certain that we can convince a judge that Jason can’t get a fair trial in Athena County.”
“Great.”
“And what have you been up to?”
“I saw two of Waneath’s professors. I don’t think either of them qualifies as daddy of the month, although I must admit Vasquez could out-handsome Antonio Banderas.”
“My, my. Hormones acting up, are they?”
“My hormones are my business, thank you.”
“See that you keep them to yourself. Speaking of hormones, what’s the latest on Canfield?”
Fathers and Sons (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 18