Like yesterday, I could hear the girls playing in the backyard, so like then, we headed in that direction and knocked on the gate. After a moment, Dix opened it.
“Oh,” he said, “it’s you.”
“Who did you expect?”
“Nobody. Come on in.” He stepped aside, and nodded to Rafe as the latter moved past him. I watched closely, but I could see no sign at all that Dix didn’t like my boyfriend.
Granted, they didn’t greet each other like long lost friends. But they weren’t long lost friends, so that would probably be too much to expect.
“What’s going on?” Dix wanted to know as he turned and headed back toward the deck.
I followed, leaving Rafe to lock the gate and bring up the rear. “Since the last time we spoke? One more murder and one attempted.”
Dix stopped dead in the middle of the grass, and turned to me. To us. “Two more people? Who?”
“Matt Perkins is dead. Danny Emerson is on his way to the hospital.”
“Prob’ly there by now,” Rafe added.
Dix said a word Mother would have frowned upon. I’d heard it before, so I didn’t blink. Rafe didn’t either, being someone who uses that word regularly, albeit not usually around me.
“How?” Dix started walking again.
“Matt was stabbed,” I said, following, “the same way Ethan was. Or so I assume. I didn’t really get a good look at Matt, and Rafe didn’t see Ethan.”
“There’re only so many ways to stab a man,” my boyfriend informed me as we gained the stairs. “Whoever did it hacked at him. No slashes, just stabs. Multiple wounds. I didn’t count, but I’d guess maybe a dozen.”
It sounded familiar. Familiar enough that my vision turned black around the edges.
“Shit.” He took my elbow. “Sit down before you fall down.” He propelled me up the last step onto the deck and positioned me above a chair before pushing me down onto it.
“Sorry,” I muttered, bending over to see if I could get some blood back into my head.
“My fault. I forgot.” He turned to Dix. “You got any ginger ale?”
Dix blinked, and for a moment it seemed like he might have forgotten how to speak. “No,” he said after a moment. “But I have Coke.”
“That’ll be fine,” I managed from between my knees. The caffeine wasn’t the best thing for the baby, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“I’ll be right back.” Dix’s steps receded.
I lifted my head and directed a glare at Rafe. “Thanks a lot.” A request for ginger ale was a dead giveaway, if you’ll pardon the pun.
He looked and sounded singularly unsorry. “We were gonna tell ‘em anyway.”
“I know.” Although I had sort of forgotten that in all the excitement this afternoon. “It’s still scary.”
He didn’t speak, just looked at me.
“It isn’t you. I’m happy it’s you. I just don’t want anything to go wrong this time. I guess I’m afraid I’ll jinx it if I talk to anyone.”
“No such thing,” Rafe said.
“I know that. I just wanted to wait until we were sure.”
“We’re sure.”
“Sure that nothing’s going to go wrong.”
“Nothing’s gonna go wrong,” Rafe said.
“You can’t know that.”
He squatted in front of me. “Yes, I can. Nothing’s gonna go wrong. We’re gonna have a healthy baby and it’s gonna be great. I promise.”
He was so convincing I almost believed him, even though I knew very well that the outcome was out of both of our hands. We hadn’t done anything to cause the miscarriage last time. There was no way to avoid it this time, if it was going to happen.
Steps on the porch made him turn around, and the lack of eye contact gave me the ability to lift my head and greet my brother. “Thank you.”
I took the can of Coke out of his hand and took a sip.
“No problem.” He handed a bottle of beer to Rafe and looked from him to me. “So you’re pregnant again.”
I nodded. Rafe got to his feet and moved to the closest chair.
“We’ve been keeping it quiet,” I added, “because of what happened last time.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“It’s too late for that. Yvonne McCoy figured it out this morning. By nightfall, it’ll be all over town.”
Dix’s mouth quirked, but the quirk disappeared when I added, “She asked about you.”
Yvonne McCoy is Dix’s age, and has had something of a crush on him ever since they were in school together. He’d never looked twice at her, of course. Again, ‘not our sort.’ Mother would have had a conniption. And anyway, she isn’t his type. Very different from Sheila, and equally different from Tamara Grimaldi.
Who has nothing in common with Sheila, either, come to think of it.
But anyway. Yvonne McCoy.
“Good Lord.” My brother threw himself into a chair.
“Don’t worry. She was drooling all over Rafe, too. You’re probably safe.”
“He’s taken,” Dix said, slanting a glance at him.
“So are you.”
He didn’t confirm it. But he didn’t deny it, either. Instead, he changed the subject. “Tell me again about Matt Perkins and Danny Emerson?”
I let Rafe run down the day’s events while I concentrated on sipping Coke.
“That’s horrible,” Dix said when he was finished. He looked at me. “And you have no idea why?”
“Why are you asking me?” It wasn’t like I’d know any more than he did, was it?
“You were the one who went to school with them. We were both older.” He glanced at Rafe.
“I didn’t spend any time with Ethan and his group of friends. Mother wouldn’t have approved. And I live in Nashville now. You’re the one who’s still here.”
“Unless one of them came into my office for a will,” Dix said, “I wouldn’t have any reason to see them.”
“And I assume none of them did?”
“I couldn’t tell you if they had,” Dix said. “Attorney-client privilege. But no, I haven’t seen any of them for years, to the best of my knowledge.”
So it seemed an inheritance was not the motive for murder, then. In books, people always kill each other because of wills and inheritances.
“Danny Emerson’s a car mechanic,” Dix added. “He works at a place in Columbia. I take my car to Leroy here in Sweetwater.”
Just like our father and probably his father before him. Leroy Jackson was old enough to remember when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
“Ethan worked at the high school,” I said. Dix’s girls are much younger than high school age, so it wasn’t likely my brother had had any business at Columbia High. “I’m not sure what Matt did.”
“Accounting,” Rafe said.
“How do you know?”
“Framed diploma on the wall.”
Ah. I leaned back and took another sip of Coke.
“I did do some research on your old buddy Billy Scruggs,” Dix said.
This was directed at Rafe, who said, “He ain’t my buddy.”
“Savannah asked me to find out what he’s been up to since you put him in the hospital.”
Rafe turned to me, brow arched.
“It was before you got here,” I said. “Just after I found him. I knew the sheriff would think you were involved, even though you weren’t even here then, so I asked Dix if he could find some information on who else Billy might have had dealings with over the past few years.”
Rafe turned back to Dix, who toasted him with his beer bottle.
“Before the two of you went at it, Billy Scruggs worked in construction. After he got out of the hospital—and it took a little time; you worked him over pretty good—he went on disability. He was forty five back then. He’s fifty-eight now. Or was fifty-eight when he died.”
“That ain’t old enough to sit around,” Rafe said. “He musta been doing something.”
�
��Of course. He did handyman work. Under the table. He also did a brisk business in controlled substances.”
“Drugs?”
That was me, obviously. Rafe didn’t need to confirm what controlled substances were. He knew.
Dix nodded. “The sheriff told me they’d pulled him in for dealing prescription drugs more than once, but he always got off with a slap on the wrist. Even down here, they have bigger fish to fry than Billy Scruggs buying and selling a handful of hydrocodone tablets.”
“Anything else? Anything that might have gotten him killed?” By someone other than Rafe.
“This is plenty, darlin’,” my boyfriend told me. “He got the drugs from somewhere. Someone gave ‘em to him. Or sold them. That person mighta wanted him dead. It ain’t exactly legal to supply someone with prescription drugs for resale.”
“I’m aware.” I might be innocent, but I’m not stupid.
“And he sold the stuff to someone, too. That someone—or someones—mighta wanted him outta the way. He coulda been killed for whatever supply of drugs he had on him, or because someone didn’t have the money to pay what he owed, or for some other related reason. And if he did handyman work in people’s houses, he mighta seen or heard something someone didn’t want him to know.”
“Maybe that’s how he got the prescription drugs,” I suggested. “He stole them from people’s medicine cabinets. And whoever he stole from killed him.”
They both nodded.
“That could be anyone in town, though.” Anyone Billy Scruggs had done handyman work for. Over the course of thirteen years, I imagined that might have amounted to quite a few people.
“What did you think, sis?” Dix wanted to know. “That I’d be able to tell you that he’d had a loud and acrimonious argument with someone on the town square in the middle of the day two days ago, where everyone would have seen them? If it were that simple, the sheriff would have already arrested the killer.”
“So what’s the plan? We can’t track down everyone Billy Scruggs did handyman work for over the past thirteen years.” I looked from one to the other of them.
“I was gonna stop by Dusty’s later,” Rafe said.
“Dusty’s Bar?” Dix sounded interested, while I was still trying to catch my breath. “Isn’t that where...?”
Rafe nodded. “Yvonne said Billy still spent time there.”
“Have you lost your mind?” I wanted to know. “If that’s where you and Billy fought, and he still hung out there thirteen years later—and now he’s dead!—you can’t imagine that they’ll let you walk out of there in one piece.”
“I can take care of myself...” Rafe began.
“Nobody doubts that. But going to Dusty’s still doesn’t seem like a smart idea.” A bit like willingly walking into the lion’s den, really. I didn’t doubt he could take care of himself, but that was no reason to deliberately put himself in harm’s way.
“If anybody knows what Billy was up to, it’d be the folks there.”
“They probably think you shot him. Especially if you walk in there with that gun on your hip.”
He glanced down, and then up again. “I’ll put the holster at my back.”
“Where someone can more easily take the gun away from you.” Great.
“Nobody’s gonna get close enough to take the gun from me, darlin’. I’ve been carrying a weapon for ten years and ain’t had nobody take it yet.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” And a bar full of people who disliked him seemed like just the place for this particular first to take place.
“If it’ll make you happier, I can leave it at home.”
“That’s even worse!”
Dix had been watching the conversation, twisting his head from side to side to follow the verbal ball. “I can go with you,” he said now.
It was quite comical to watch the expression on Rafe’s face as he tried to imagine Dix at Dusty’s Bar, and failed. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”
Dix looked annoyed. I giggled. But only until Rafe added, “It’s better if I go alone.”
Alone? “What do you mean, alone? What about me?”
The look he leveled on me was equal parts incredulous and annoyed. “You think I’m gonna risk taking you to a place like Dusty’s? In your condition?”
Oh, low blow! “That’s not fair,” I said.
“Life ain’t fair, darlin’. Did nobody ever tell you that?”
Yes, of course someone had. But I didn’t expect it to be him. “You’ve never told me I had to stay home before.”
In fact, it was one of the things I most appreciated about him. Unlike Todd and Bradley, he never treated me like a delicate doll who had to be kept out of harm’s way.
“You ain’t been pregnant before.”
“Yes, I have.”
And I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that, because he looked at me. Just looked, without saying a word. It wasn’t necessary for him to speak. And look what happened.
“That had nothing to do with it,” I said, my voice shaking. “It wasn’t anything I did. It happened while I was just going about my business as usual. Before you came back to Nashville. Before anything happened.”
He didn’t say anything to that. At least not directly. “Dusty’s ain’t safe, darlin’.”
“Less safe for you than for me, I bet.”
“I’ll go with him,” Dix said, as if somehow that was supposed to make me feel better.
“No offense,” Rafe began, and I added, “But he’ll probably be safer on his own.” At least then he would only have himself to worry about.
Dix scowled. “I can take care of myself.”
“You ever been to Dusty’s Bar?” Rafe demanded.
“No. But it’s a bar. I’ve been to bars before.”
“Not like this one, you ain’t.”
“Besides,” I said, “you have the girls.”
“You can stay with them.”
I could, I suppose. “Can’t you give them to Catherine for a few hours?”
“It’s a school night,” Dix said. “They have to go to bed early.”
“Catherine’s kids go to the same school as yours. I’m sure she’d be happy to take them there in the morning.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Tell you what,” Rafe said. This time, he was the one who had been following the exchange like a spectator at a tennis match. “If you stay here, I’ll take your brother with me to Dusty’s.”
Dix looked pleased and gratified. I stuck my lower lip out. “You’d rather have him than me?”
“I think he’ll do better in a fist fight than you. Marginally better. And he ain’t pregnant.”
“Is this going to be a problem from now on? Because if it is, I might as well have married Todd.”
“Bite your tongue,” Rafe said. “Dusty’s ain’t your kinda place even if you hadn’t been pregnant. I don’t want your brother there, either. But I’ve learned to compromise.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll stay here. This time.”
“Thank you.” The expression in his eyes told me he meant it, and for a moment or two I couldn’t look away. Until Dix cleared his throat.
“When are we leaving?”
Rafe turned to him. “Later. First we gotta figure out where to find a guy named Willem.”
“Gunther?”
“Probably.” How many guys named Willem could there be in a town the size of Columbia, after all? I fished the photograph I had snagged from Jan’s kitchen counter out of my pocket and put it on the table. “This man. Some drinking buddy of Ethan’s and Matt’s.”
Dix nodded. “Willem Gunther. He’s an electrician. Gunther Electric. I think I have his number on the fridge.”
He got to his feet and headed inside the house. I glanced at Rafe. He toasted me with his beer bottle. I got up and followed my brother. “Do you know him?” I asked his back.
He glanced at me over his shoulder as we made our way through the family ro
om. “He’s local. Of course I know him.”
“I meant personally.”
“Yes and no,” Dix said, making a beeline for the refrigerator. “We went to school together, but that was a long time ago. I never spent much time with him. But Gunther Electric was one of the subcontracters Copper Creek used for the development. So I saw him around here a lot when they were building the house. Here.”
He peeled a calendar magnet from the fridge and handed it to me. It had Gunther Electric across the top in big, blue letters, along with a couple of phone numbers.
“Thanks.” I pulled out my phone and dialed. The tone sounded a couple times on the other end, and a man’s voice came on.
“This is Willem.”
I had my mouth open to speak when he continued, “I can’t take your call right now, but leave me a message. You know what to do.”
I closed my mouth again while I waited for the beep. After it sounded, I gave Willem my name and number, reminded him who I was, and told him to call me. “It’s about Ethan and Matt. And Danny.” Then I tried the other number and got another machine, this one for Gunther Electric. I left a message there too, and handed the magnet back to my brother. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He held it up to the fridge and let it latch on before he turned back to me. “So.”
“So?”
“Another baby.”
I nodded.
“When?”
“Best as I can figure, a few weeks before Christmas.” I was fairly certain we had conceived on Mrs. Jenkins’s kitchen table, although that could have been wishful thinking on my part. I’d been wanting to get Rafe up onto that table since last fall.
“Congratulations,” my brother said.
“Thank you.”
“Are you nervous?”
I admitted I was, a little.
“What are you afraid of?” He glanced toward the back door, the deck and the yard.
“Another miscarriage. Losing the baby.”
“Not about anything else?”
I shook my head. “I was only nervous last time because I wasn’t sure how Rafe would feel. Now that I know he’s onboard, I’m fine.”
Dix nodded.
“Do you like him?” I asked.
“Who?”
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