She looked out over the field, where the game was now underway. A cool breeze had picked up and low clouds gathered on the horizon. Some of Lindsay’s previous baseball knowledge came from movies like A League of Their Own and The Natural, and she was dismayed at the languid pace of the real game. She clapped dutifully along with the other fans, but by the third inning, the monotony of the throwing, swinging, and catching was making her yawn. “Hey, I’m going to go and get some nacho cheese. Do you want anything?”
“God, no.” Drew visibly recoiled at the suggestion that he partake in Lindsay’s unholy feast. “That stuff is as bad as cigarettes. It’s nothing but trans-fat and hydrogenated oil. I don’t think cheese even appears on the list of ingredients.”
She knew it wasn’t real cheese. It probably wasn’t real anything. Still, the gelatinous, bright orange goo was her favorite food. When she and Rob made their annual pilgrimage to the North Carolina State Fair, she would watch, untempted, as Rob gorged himself on giant turkey legs, fried Oreos, and various foodstuffs ‘on a stick’. But when they passed the nacho stand, she would ask the quizzical vendor for a paper cup full of gooey cheese—hold the nachos—and a spoon.
“That must be what makes it so tasty,” Lindsay replied, undeterred. As she stood up, a bolt of pain radiated from her knee. She sat back down heavily, wincing.
“Are you okay?”
Lindsay hiked up the hem of her dress to reveal the angry, red swelling on her knee. “I had a little accident the other day. I think it’s getting worse.”
“That looks really nasty. May I?” He gestured toward her leg. She nodded and he began a tender examination of her leg, bending and unbending her knee and checking various points for sensitivity. As he bent over her, she caught the soapy, lemony scent of his hair—masculine, and very, very clean. If her knee hadn’t already been troubling her, it was certainly beginning to feel a bit weak now. “You should stay off that leg until you’ve had it looked at by an orthopedic surgeon. You need to make sure there’s no damage to the ligaments.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a little tender.” She began to rise again.
Drew stopped her. “You stay there. I'll get some food for you.” He handed her his scorecard and pencil. “Would you mind keeping up with that until I get back?”
She looked uncertainly at the card as he made his way down the aisle. Drew had inscribed a series of mystifying symbols in the little boxes. She realized that the diamond shapes must represent the bases. “H” was probably hits, “R” was probably runs, and the numbers along the left probably corresponded to players. Beyond that, however, she was rapidly out of her depth. The series of “Ks” Drew had written was a complete mystery, and “LOB” was certainly something from tennis, wasn’t it? She looked around to see if she could find someone to copy from, but the rows in front and behind were empty. She could see Drew returning now, so she rapidly colored in some squares on the diamond and scribbled some numbers into boxes.
Drew sat down and handed her a hot dog. “It’s turkey,” he said. “On a whole wheat bun. That’s the best I could do.” As she returned the scorecard to him, a streak of lightning forked across the sky, followed immediately be a peal of thunder. Within seconds, gentle drops began to fall.
She frowned. “I asked for nacho cheese and a spoon.”
“I know. I tried to buy it, but the vendor said that he wasn’t going to stand idly by while I enabled your dangerous addiction.” His smile was so disarming that Lindsay could almost forgive him. Drew looked down at his scorecard. “Whoa! I missed a crazy inning. Six errors and four bases on balls! Wait, how were there nine guys left on base?”
As Lindsay opened her mouth to answer, a torrent of rain swept over them. Another bolt of lightning ripped through the sky just over their heads. The players ran for the dugouts, and the grounds crew hurried out with a tarp to cover the field. Lindsay rose from her seat, but the pain in her knee again forced her back down. Drew wordlessly lifted her into his arms and carried her under the cover of the awning, where he gently set her down. They stood there a moment, watching the sheets of water blow across the sky. Lindsay wiped the drops off her face. Her linen dress clung to her like a second skin. With deepening horror she realized that the rain had rendered the light, blue-green fabric completely transparent. She was wearing a pink polka-dot bra and leopard-print panties. And now everyone knew it.
Drew, whether through delicacy or embarrassment, made no reference to Lindsay’s unintentional peep show and kept his gaze above neck level. “I’ll pull the car around to the entrance,” he said, surveying the worsening storm. “I’m pretty sure the game is over for the night.”
Chapter 36
Drew drove Lindsay straight home after their rained-out game. Not wanting the night to end so abruptly, she invited him to come inside for a drink. Her heart gave a little flutter at his instant agreement. She immediately realized her folly, however, when she opened the front door to reveal the still-disordered contents of her house. “Oh no! I forgot about the house!” She slammed the door shut and blocked it with her body.
“It can’t be that messy. I’m sure mine’s just as bad. I’ve still got boxes sitting around my apartment that I haven’t unpacked yet,” he said, gently wresting the doorknob from her grip. He paused at the threshold. “Okay, you were right. It’s pretty bad.”
“It’s not usually this way. I’m actually very tidy.”
“It’s okay. Honestly.”
Lindsay went into the kitchen to open a bottle of wine, while Drew went to use the bathroom and to try to dry himself off. She caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the pantry cabinet. She was greatly relieved to see that her dress was now sufficiently dry to have returned to its opaque state. Lindsay emerged from the kitchen a moment later carrying two wine glasses. She was startled to see Drew fling the bathroom door open with tremendous force. He backed quickly into the hallway, keeping his wide eyes fixed on some unknown menace inside the bathroom. He continued this hasty backward egress and collided hard with Lindsay, sending a crimson shower of wine arcing through the air. He let out a small scream, spun around and grabbed her forcefully by the shoulders. The glasses slipped from her hands and exploded into a hundred jagged diamonds on the wood floor. “Oh Jesus! Sorry.” He loosened his grip, his shoulders relaxing slightly. Suddenly, his eyes again widened in horror, and he glanced down at his crotch. He spun away from her again. Lindsay could see him shifting and maneuvering, and she heard the sound of his fly being zipped.
“Is everything okay?”
“No, it’s not,” he said, his voice tremulous and uncertain. Lindsay’s hands became clammy with fear.
“What is it?”
He gestured for her to be silent. He lifted bare-footed Lindsay across the broken glass to the opposite side of the hallway, and set her down next to the door to the bathroom, which gaped open like the mouth of a slavering beast. He inched along, his back pressed tightly to the hallway wall. A muffled scratching came from within the bathroom. Together, they peered around the corner of the door.
“A squirrel!” Lindsay laughed with relief at the sight of the small, grey form perched on the tank of the toilet.
“They’re vermin. Those things can carry diseases! And it was this close to my, you know, exposed manhood,” Drew said, holding his thumb and index finger up to demonstrate. Seeing the look on her face, he added hurriedly, “That indicates proximity of the squirrel to my manhood, not the size of my manhood.”
“He must have come in through the screen. A tree branch came down against the house during a thunderstorm a few weeks ago. It busted the screen and messed up the window in there. I haven’t gotten around to fixing it yet. Let’s see if we can lure that little guy out of there, shall we?”
“Is there some kind of very hands-off, distant supporting role I can play?”
“No, sorry. I need your help. I don’t think it can get out the way it came in. That’s not a very big opening, and it’s going to be ki
nd of panicked now. You probably scared it. I’ll try to catch it in a bag, but I need you to stand over there and move it in my direction.”
Lindsay retrieved a heavy canvas grocery sack from the kitchen and took up a position near the door. “Okay,” she said, motioning for Drew to move toward the squirrel. “Wave your arms or something.”
Drew waved his arms noncommittally and made a low grunting sound through his gritted teeth. The effect was something akin to a talentless actor portraying a very unconvincing Frankenstein’s Monster. He took a step toward the squirrel. Instead of fleeing away, the squirrel made some kind of irrational calculus in its terrified brain; it dashed straight toward Drew. Drew hurtled himself backward to evade it. His knees buckled as he hit the edge of Lindsay’s large, claw-footed bathtub, and he tumbled head over heels back into it. The squirrel, in a surge of adrenaline-fuelled frenzy, leapt upwards. With the grace of a kung-fu master, it kicked off a wall, using its momentum to propel itself sideways out of the small opening in the window screen. No wires, no special effects. Just 15 ounces of raw squirrel power and the will to get the hell out of that bathroom.
Lindsay ran over to the tub, where Drew lay wide-eyed and gasping like a freshly-caught trout. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Is it gone?”
“Yes. Can you move?”
“I think so.” He rolled over and awkwardly extracted himself from the tub, using one hand to rub the back of his head.
She put her arm around his waist and guided him carefully out of the bathroom. They stepped into the hallway, where splattered wine was still dripping off the ceiling and down the walls.
“I’m sorry about the wine. Jeez. It looks like there was an axe murder in here. Oh, watch your feet!” He indicated the shards of the broken wine glasses.
“It’s okay. I’ll clean that up later. Why don’t we get you to the couch? I’ll get you some ice for your head.”
She guided him to the couch, painfully supporting his weight on her injured knee. “Well, you sure do know how to show a lady a good time.”
“Just imagine our second date. Don’t know how I could top this one.”
Lindsay paused to consider. “Maybe we could get caught in a blizzard at a football game. Then you could throw split pea soup over all my furniture and break your femur while evading a rampaging butterfly.”
“I’ll see if I can arrange that,” he laughed. “Well, I think I’d better get going now before I find some other way to humiliate and degrade myself.”
“Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”
“I’m fine. Luckily I have a very hard head. It’s one of my many excellent qualities.”
She got up and walked him to the door. They stood awkwardly for a moment, not quite knowing how to end the night. He bent down and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “I’ll see you soon.”
She gave a little wave. “Thanks for an exciting night.” She closed the door behind him and walked straight to the kitchen. She retrieved a mop, bucket, broom and dustpan—preparing to clean up after yet another messy night.
Chapter 37
Lindsay was working the night shift the next day, so she spent a busy morning cleaning. The sun was shining brightly, and the previous night’s storm had ushered in cooler weather. The sandals and purse she’d brought with her to the baseball game were both still damp, so she set them in a sunny spot on the back porch to dry. As she emptied the contents of her purse onto her wooden patio table, she saw a number of missed calls and texts registered on the phone—three calls from her father, one from Warren, and several text messages from Rob and Anna. Lindsay first read Rob’s text: All ok with Tim & bitch/wife. Smoothed it over. U owe me. p.s. don’t do this again or ur fired xx.
Lindsay next scrolled through Anna’s texts. The first one was from yesterday afternoon: Nice flower beating of evil ex. All nurses cheered. How r u? The next one said: How goes date? Naked yet? A few hours later, the message read: Why no updates on date? That good? Then, from earlier that morning: Update me, punk. Thought we were BFFs. Then: Am trapped in a well. Help! And finally: Not actually trapped, but still call me. Lindsay was notoriously negligent with her cell phone—the battery was nearly dead and the ringer had been turned off for at least two days.
Lindsay retrieved the cordless phone from the kitchen and plugged her cell phone into the charger. She sat on the top step of the back porch and dialed Anna’s number. “How was it? Tell me that he swept you off your feet and you had a night of wild passion.”
“Well, he did carry me for a little while when we got caught in the rain.”
“Sounds romantic.”
“It was. Kind of. Until the part where a stadium full of people saw my underwear and Drew ended up almost unconscious in my bathtub.”
“Flashing your underwear and getting a man in your bathtub sounds like a stellar date, if you ask me.”
“He’s afraid of squirrels.”
“So? You’re terrified of those bald cats.”
“Lots of people are scared of those. Hairless cats are genuinely scary!”
“Yeah, but you freaked out that time that Beyoncé singed her back fur on the wood stove. You wouldn’t go near her until it grew back.”
“Well, he also bought me a turkey dog and a light beer that I didn’t ask for,” Lindsay continued.
“What’s wrong with that? Turkey dogs are good for you.”
“Yeah, but I asked for nacho cheese. He should have respected my choice.”
“When you are over the age of thirty, you need to give up your feminist ideals. You should be grateful that attractive men are still willing to buy you drinks.”
“Thanks, Gloria Steinem.”
“This is not about turkey dogs or feminism. You, Reverend Harding, are a psychotherapist’s dream—a classic case of fear of rejection leading to commitment phobia. An attractive, eligible man shows interest in you, and you don’t even give him a fair chance. You’ve been on one date, and you are already thinking of reasons not to be with him. Remember, Linds, I am the bitterly-disappointed, barb-tongued spinster. Got it? Not you. Me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”
“Good, just to make sure, let’s go down to the animal shelter this weekend and pick me out some cats. I’m going to need at least a dozen to cement my status as spinster-in-chief,” Anna said, signing off. Lindsay closed her eyes, enjoying the cool breeze that washed through the yard and thinking about Anna’s comments. If Drew liked her enough to care about the long-term accrual of cholesterol in her bloodstream, surely that was a good sign. And being afraid of the disease-carrying potential of squirrels was a little neurotic, maybe, but also kind of adorable. Actually, very adorable, she thought, remembering the scent of Drew’s hair and his tall, athletic frame laid out on her couch. The squirrel attack was the kind of story that she and Drew could tell at their wedding reception. Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of tires crunching on gravel. She walked through the house to the front drive, where Warren was emerging from his police cruiser. He greeted Lindsay with a serious expression. “They’ve brought Silas in.”
“How did that come about so suddenly? I thought you still needed more evidence,” Lindsay asked.
“Richards’ secretary. She said that Vernon came to Silas’s office a couple of days before the murder to talk about the catering for the engagement party. She didn’t hear the conversation, but she remembers that Silas was very agitated. We checked his phone records. After Vernon left, he immediately placed two calls: one to his lawyer, and one to Morgan Partee.”
“Is Partee in on it?”
“He definitely knows more than he is telling. Lawyered up as soon as they brought Silas in, and won’t talk to us. Silas’s lawyer, of course, can’t say what she and Silas discussed. But we were able to run down the lead on the land out by the interstate. The Partee family, in partnership with Richards, is planning to put a huge dealership and retail park out there. Partee RV and Camping W
orld. I had a look at the contractor’s records. The afternoon that Vernon came to see Silas, they got a stop work order, issued by Silas’s lawyer. The day after Vernon died, the work started up again. Silas also had plenty of opportunity to do the shooting. None of the other reenactors saw him for about twenty minutes during the window of time that Vernon got shot.”
Lindsay let out a long exhalation. “So I guess he did it after all,” she said, shaking her head.
Warren threw his hands up in exasperation. “Don’t tell me you are having second thoughts now. We’ve got evidence piling up by the bucketful. We’ve arrested him, for heaven’s sake, based on your testimony and the things you discovered in the diary.”
Now that the case against Silas seemed more certain than ever, Lindsay found herself voicing all the doubts that she had harbored since the moment she saw Silas’s name in the Wilcox diary. “I know. I know. It’s just that Silas owns plenty of other land and has plenty of money, enough to pay lawyers who probably would have fought off any rival claim on that land anyway. The potential of a few months’ delay in this project was worth a man’s life? It all seems so out of keeping with his character. But then,” she added, remembering her encounter with Timothy, “I may be the world’s worst judge of character.” She suddenly remembered that she was still in possession of Geneva’s letter. Oops. She had been so caught up in the drama with Timothy and the excitement of her date that she had completely forgotten to give it to Warren. “Wait here a second,” she said. She went into the house and retrieved the letter. “Here’s another nail for the coffin.”
“This is perfect,” Warren said, scanning the letter with thinly disguised glee. “It backs up the ‘family honor’ motive. Silas probably wanted to keep Richards family skeletons in the closet.” Warren scanned the address lines in the heading of the letter. “How did you come to have this? Who is Reverend Maurice Williams?”
“He is the deceased husband of my fearsome colleague, the Reverend Geneva Williams—a colleague who, by the way, would skin me alive if she finds out that I gave this to a policeman.”
A Murder in Mount Moriah Page 18