“Fine. If you want to sleep in the room with her so she won’t wander down to the lake in the middle of the night, I’ll leave word at the desk to have an ambulance transfer her back home. She has spells when she won’t get out of bed, so you’ll have to change the bed linen and persuade her to use the bedpan. And she’s as likely to throw her food as to eat it. But I’ll help where I can.”
Nina disliked the bitterness she heard in her own voice as she hurried down the antiseptic corridor of the nursing home. She hated this place. She hated the soft squish of the nurses’ thick-soled shoes, the smell of disinfectant, the querulous tones and harsh cries from all the closed doors around her. She knew Hattie would hate it, too, if she knew where she was.
“I suppose I should talk to the doctor first. What’s his name? Can I call him from here?” Helen caught up with her.
“His name’s Karpatik. He’s in the Hopkinsville phone book. He won’t get back to you until this evening. I’ve tried a dozen times before. Do you want to wait here until then?” Impatiently, Nina kept hurrying toward the door.
“Then I’ll call when we get home. We can’t leave her in here. Hattie hates it.”
“I know. But there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it.” Nina slammed open the glass front doors and stalked out to the parking lot. They’d arrived in her Toyota because her mother had claimed her Cadillac had a brake lining that needed work. From the looks of the ancient vehicle, Nina suspected a great deal more than the brakes needed work.
“You’ve turned into a heartless monster,” Helen accused as she bent her willowy height into the small front seat of the Toyota.
Nina’s fingers clenched the steering wheel as she set the car in motion. “I’m a heartless monster?” she asked in incredulity. “You desert me for twenty years, and I’m the heartless monster? Do you have any idea, any idea at all what my life is like? Where were you when Hattie fell and broke her hip and couldn’t walk for six months? Where were you the night she nearly drowned in the lake? Where were you when I had to call the ambulance and have her placed in that horrible home because I couldn’t keep working to pay the debts and maintain the house and watch Hattie at the same time?”
Nina fought the tears blurring her eyes. She didn’t even ask about all those years when she’d needed a mother to explain the facts of life, to sew her Halloween costume, to attend her first band concert. Those years were long gone. She needed support now, and instead, she got this mealy-mouthed tirade on the way things should be done.
“Well, I’m here now,” Helen answered huffily, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “You can go play footsie with that criminal of yours. I’ll take care of things.”
“Do me a favor and don’t bother,” Nina said wearily. “Just go back wherever you came from and leave me alone. I don’t need the hassle.”
“You can’t throw me out. I checked with a lawyer. Even if my mother didn’t have a will, by law, her share goes to her children. Half that house is mine. And Hattie always said it would all be mine someday. So if you don’t want the hassle, go live with your lover elsewhere. I don’t need you any more than you need me.”
“He’s not my lover, he’s my boarder. And I’ve poured most of my salary into that place for these last ten years, so don’t go telling me who it belongs to. If it weren’t for me, the taxes wouldn’t have been paid, and you wouldn’t have any land at all. I don’t know how the hell you think you’ll pay for taxes and maintenance if I move out, unless you’ve stashed away a small fortune these last few years. About the only job available around here is waiting on tables, and I can tell you right now, that won’t pay the electric bill.”
“There’s over a hundred acres out there,” Helen said stiffly. “It should bring a pretty good price.”
Oh, Lord in heaven above, forgive her please, but she would have to throttle her mother. Gritting her teeth and glaring at the ribbon of two-lane highway in front of her, Nina said nothing until the thick cloud of her temper cleared sufficiently to speak without shouting. “Eight hundred an acre is the going price for undeveloped land. Good luck. You’ll need it when I sue for every penny I put into it.”
Neither of them spoke for the rest of the hour-long drive home.
* * *
As the clock in the church tower chimed nine, Jimmy MacTavish steered the cherry red Geo into a parking space in front of the cubicle labeled “Sheriff’s Office.” Beside him, Nancy nervously fiddled with her hair. They’d taken rooms at a hotel near the interstate last night after they’d arrived too late to find anyone in the sheriff’s office. Nancy had insisted they drive up and down the streets of Madrid looking for Jackie until it grew dark.
Jimmy had thought it a waste of time, but he had nothing better to do. This town didn’t have a computer store, but he rather admired the tree-lined. residential streets, the huge green lawns, and the neat beds of colorful flowers. Accustomed to the car-clogged highways and modernistic architecture of LA, he’d enjoyed the trip back in time.
Nancy was out of the car before he could open the door for her. Her high heels clicked on the pavement, and he breathed a silent sigh of appreciation at the long legs they accented. She’d taken care with her appearance this morning. Until now, she’d worn shorts and pulled her hair back in a knot. Today, she looked as if she’d just stepped off a movie screen.
The only person in the office was a bespectacled, overweight woman of indeterminable age. She looked up at them with curiosity, obviously more than eager to abandon her project on the ancient electric typewriter.
“I’m looking for Sheriff Stone. Is he in?” Jimmy felt foolish asking since the only other desk in the place was empty. He’d never had an aptitude for communication.
“He’s over at the morgue with the state police. They found a body in the lake last night, and they’re sending it in for autopsy. Could you state your business, please?”
Nancy took over before Jimmy could formulate a reply. “I’m looking for my son, Jackie Marshall. He was in a car accident here with his father a few weeks ago. Do you know anything about it?”
Jimmy almost covered his face with his hand before he thought better of it. JD would slice him into little pieces and feed him to the fish in the damned lake. Putting his hand to better use, he caught Nancy’s arm and pulled her gently behind him. Smiling just a little nervously, he adjusted his glasses, remembered the broken nosepiece, and pushed at it gingerly. “Ummm, I think Mrs. Walker is a little confused. A friend of mine, JD Smith, had a little problem with my truck out here a few weeks back. He was giving Jackie a lift to his father’s place when someone ran them off the road. We were wondering if you know where they went from here.”
The woman behind the desk beamed with enlightenment. “Mr. Smith! Of course. He’s staying out at Nina’s place. I heard all about the garden he’s planning out there. It’s the most exciting thing that’s ever hit this town, let me tell you. My sister is already thinking of opening a flower shop where visitors can buy baskets and pretty pots and things. We’re waiting to see if Nina means to sell her flowers out of the greenhouse, or if we should do it.”
Jimmy sought desperately for some response. Garden? JD didn’t know a houseplant from an azalea. And he’d damned well better be working on the program loop or the business would crash down on their heads. Maybe it wasn’t JD out there. Maybe somebody had stolen the truck and crashed it.
“Does Mr. Smith have a young boy with him? Is Jackie living with this Nina?” Nancy asked before Jimmy could find his words again. At least this time she used her head and followed his lead. Calling JD by his real name could cause real havoc.
“Well, yes, I believe there’s a boy out there with him, but I thought he was Mr. Smith’s brother. I didn’t know his name was Marshall.” The clerk gave them a look of suspicion. “You say you’re his mother?”
Nancy reddened, and relieved to come to the rescue, Jimmy jumped in. “Jackie’s mother. Different fathers. Jackie’s name is Marshall. Could yo
u tell us where this Nina lives?”
“Who’s asking?” a deep male voice rumbled behind him.
Jimmy spun around to discover a stocky, muscular man wearing a badge and a khaki uniform glaring at them from beneath a scowl that would suit a good John Wayne movie. Dealing with the law was up JD’s alley, not Jimmy’s. He’d never had much contact with the police except what he read in the newspapers or saw on television.
“I’m James MacTavish, sir.” He almost stuttered as he had back in school, but he managed to remember he was one of the chief officers of Marshall Enterprises and an important person in his own right. “You filed a report on my truck,” he said, straightening his shoulders. “We spoke on the phone some weeks ago. I came for my truck, but I understand JD and the boy are still in the area, and we’d like to see them. Your clerk tells us they’re with”—he hesitated—”a Miss Nina? We were just asking for directions.”
Nancy clung to his arm as the sheriff glowered at them. Jimmy wanted to reassure her, but he was feeling a mite edgy himself. What in hell had JD gotten himself into this time?
“I was just heading out that way. You can follow, if you like.” Turning on his booted heel, the sheriff stalked out of the office.
Jimmy bit off the curse word he’d like to utter. Something was very, very wrong. Maybe he’d been just a little bit hasty in bringing Jackie’s mother into whatever preposterous scheme JD had concocted this time.
Chapter 20
Keys clacking beneath his fingers, JD grinned diabolically as the “execute” file fell into place. Anyone opening this cartridge would get the latest, greatest version of his newest Monster House game. Let Harry’s thieves find the banking program now.
Finally, something was going right. Car accidents, dead bodies, mothers returned from the dead, and sons appearing from nowhere aside, he finally had one piece of his life in order. The banking loop worked. Champagne, caviar, and a month-long celebration were called for. He’d settle for a night in his landlady’s bed.
Whistling merrily, he plotted his way to that goal as his fingers added the finishing touches to the program’s disguise. Now, he only had to get the cartridge to Jimmy. He kept a backup of his own, and a spare he would send to a post office box. Basic. For challenge, his mind worked over the problem of seducing one commitment-minded lady.
JD wasn’t averse to commitments. He’d married Nancy, after all. He just knew from experience that his luck with women batted somewhere in the zero range. Sooner or later, Nina Toon would discover all the flaws in his character and speed into someone else’s arms. But he damned well couldn’t give up women just because his luck was bad.
He turned his mind to the things that would pave his way into Nina’s heart. He had already sent out a query about lawyers in the vicinity. He expected a reply shortly. JD heartily suspected Nina’s mother could be bought off for a nominal sum. Money wouldn’t matter. In a few weeks, he could be one of the richest men in the country. He chuckled as he imagined Nina buying into that fantasy. She definitely had no trust in his financial capabilities.
Turning off the computer, JD contemplated his next move. The wiring. Nina would appreciate his accomplishing something concrete and visible, like good electrical wiring. Or he thought she would. Sometimes, she didn’t seem aware they lived in the twentieth century. He would drag her kicking and screaming into the technology age if he must. Images of installing a Jacuzzi on that wide back porch danced in his head.
He peered out the lace-curtained window at the sound of tires screeching to a halt in the gravel drive. Cursing at the sight of the sheriff’s car, JD blinked in puzzlement at the tiny Geo chugging up the road behind it. He couldn’t remember Nina having any friends with Geos, but it certainly fit local habits more than a Mercedes. Thank heavens Nina and her mother were still in Hopkinsville. He could straighten out Sheriff Hoyt Stone and his bullying tactics once and for all.
Jackie and friends were still carving order out of wilderness. JD didn’t have to act the part of upstanding citizen for the kid’s sake this time. Tucking in his T-shirt, he threw open the front door before the sheriff could knock. The sight of Nancy climbing out of the Geo blew him away.
How had the woman found him all the way out here? Images of Nina and Nancy trading information on him like baseball cards ruptured every gasket left in his mind. They’d fry him alive. Damn, but he’d known things were working too smoothly.
“Friends here to see you,” the sheriff said dryly when JD said nothing.
“So I see.” Jerking himself back from his first gut panic, JD settled his gaze on Nina’s would-be suitor. “Nina probably has some iced tea made. She’s in Hopkinsville right now with her aunt, but you’re welcome to come in and cool off.”
“Just might take you up on that.” The sheriff waited patiently for JD to move from the doorway, but JD waited for Nancy to join them first. His lips tightened as he watched Jimmy unfold himself from the tiny car. He should have known. Jimmy was a sucker for any woman who batted her eyelashes.
Growling something irascible, JD stood back and let the trio troop in. “Jackie’s out working in the woods,” he replied in answer to Nancy’s darting gaze. “They’ll be in shortly looking for something to drink. You might as well make yourself comfortable while you wait.”
“Couldn’t I go out and look for him?” Nancy didn’t take the seat offered but stood in the hall, glancing anxiously toward the kitchen, then up the stairs, as if expecting a wild horde of motorcycle thugs to descend on them.
Conscious of the rubber band in his hair and the ragged hole in his jeans, JD shrugged. She had every right to think of him as that mixed-up kid she’d married sixteen years ago. He hadn’t precisely behaved any differently by dragging Jackie into this mess. “He won’t appreciate it,” he said in response to her question. “He’s with his friends, trying to act as if he’s grown-up. You have to let up on him, Nancy. He’s fifteen, going on a hundred.”
Biting her bottom lip, she nodded uncertainly. JD couldn’t help but contrast her uptight, hovering anxiety with Nina’s relaxed ease with the boy. Of course, Nina wasn’t Jackie’s mother. Maybe that made the difference.
“We’ve gotta talk, JD,” Jimmy said from behind Nancy.
“Sometime after I punch your lights out, MacTavish. Go get a chair with the sheriff while I bring in the tea.” JD jerked his head toward the living room.
‘Tea?”
JD heard the question behind the question and grinned. “It’s a dry county, and our hostess doesn’t believe in stocking beer or alcohol. Tea, milk, or various ghastly carbonated beverages are available. I don’t recommend the water.”
By the time JD returned to the living room with a pitcher and glasses, his three unwanted guests had struck up a somewhat stilted conversation. JD plunked the tray down on the coffee table and left them to help themselves.
True Southern gentleman that he was, Sheriff Hoyt poured a glass for Nancy first, then poured his own. Before he took a drink, he pinned JD with his glare. “The state police came in this morning. The corpse didn’t drown.”
Holding the glass of iced tea against his sweltering forehead rather than sipping from it, JD glared back. “And?”
“He was shot in the back.”
Nancy’s shocked gasp created just the reaction the sheriff expected, but JD didn’t fall for it. He shrugged. “I have no notion what firearms are kept on the place, but if you suspect any of us, I guess you’ll need a search warrant. I’m not familiar with the area, but I imagine if you have bootleggers in these parts, you have other criminal types, too. People don’t change much wherever you live.”
“Nina threatened to bring out a shotgun if the cell phone guys came back. You don’t happen to know where that is, do you?” The sheriff sipped complacently at his drink.
“Nope. And knowing Nina, she probably doesn’t either. But I’ll have a lawyer after the phone company shortly, so she doesn’t need a gun. I’m sure she’ll tell you you’re welcome to i
t when it shows up.”
The sheriff’s expression indicated JD had hit the mark of Nina’s behavior pretty accurately, and Hoyt didn’t like it a bit. Score one, round one, JD thought smugly.
The conversation lapsed uneasily. “The lady back in town told us about the garden, JD,” Nancy offered hesitantly. “What kind of garden is she talking about?”
Smiling, JD sipped his drink. Nancy had grown into a lovely, polite woman. Boring as hell, maybe, but polite. “A botanical garden. Nina thinks she can turn these acres into a tourist attraction that will draw people year-round. We’re in the process of drawing up a nonprofit corporation to handle it. That’s what Jackie’s doing now, clearing some of the woods that the landscape man wants to make into a woodland garden.”
Jimmy contributed little to the conversation, inhaling his tea and tapping his toe while glancing around at his surroundings. JD imagined him mentally tallying the cost of the ancient sagging sofa, the wooden rocker, the television that would fit in a museum exhibit, and coming up with lots of zeroes. JD knew Jimmy made no judgment on these factors. He just calculated costs out of habit.
When the conversation did nothing more than sputter and start in his presence, Hoyt finished his tea and stood up. “Thanks for the hospitality. Tell Nina I said hello and ask her about that shotgun. If we don’t identify the body, we may have to subpoena her to have a look. If he was shot, it was almost certainly on her land.”
“Water doesn’t move in these parts?” JD asked, following the sheriff to the door.
“Not much along the bank. There’s too much timber in the shallows, and the main current is out beyond the buoys. Nina owns most of that land up toward the dock. I suppose he could have been shot out there, but seems like someone would have heard it that close to civilization.”
“Seems like.” JD could be agreeable if the sheriff would get his rear moving. He needed to talk to Jimmy, and his patience had worn thin.
The sheriff tipped his hat and swaggered back to his car. JD closed the front door just as the back door flew open. Wondering if his timing was good or bad, he waited for Jackie and friends to storm through the house, adolescent feet clattering like a herd of elephants across the uncarpeted floor.
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