“Something to do with Denise’s murder.”
“That’s ridiculous. Is Rusty still at the station?”
“Yeah. Or he was last I heard.”
Why would they want Rusty? Gentle, sad Rusty, who wouldn’t do anything to anyone? The beignets arrived. Emma picked one up without thinking and burned her fingers. She dropped it on her plate in a cloud of powdered sugar. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Even if Rusty had a way to get his hands on lethal drugs, he’s not the type. They must be desperate to pin this on someone. Finn, we can’t let them push Rusty around.”
He leaned across the table toward her. “He’s agreed to a DNA test.”
“DNA? Oh.”
“Right,” Finn said. “They mentioned rape, remember?”
She looked at the teapot as if she wished it would pour itself, so Finn did it for her. He could see her connecting dots. “Milk, hmm?”
“Yes. Finn, I don’t like talkin’ about my friends’ business, but Rusty really loved Denise, and she was fond of him.”
“I figured that.” He pushed the cup and saucer toward her. “Drink some of this.”
“What I’m trying to say is that they were lovers.”
“Which means the semen could be Rusty’s anyway.”
Emma turned slightly pink. “Mmm.” She drank the tea almost to the bottom of the cup. “Rusty will tell Billy that, won’t he?”
“I should think so. Unless he thinks…aw, hell, I don’t know. It wasn’t a secret, was it?”
“Kind of,” she said, sounding miserable. “Denise wasn’t into commitment, and she never actually said they made love, not in so many words.”
“So maybe they didn’t.”
“They did.” She realized she’d raised her voice and pressed her lips together. “I didn’t mean to shout. I saw Rusty leaving Denise’s place in the morning on more than one occasion. Denise and I used to meet for early coffee. Being me, I just waded in and asked about it. She smiled and didn’t say no.”
“But she didn’t say yes?”
Emma’s faint blush turned scarlet. “I saw something in the bathroom,” she said. “Rusty wouldn’t rape Denise or anyone else. It’s a disgustin’ suggestion, and I’m goin’ to tell Billy so.”
Finn figured it would be a waste of time to suggest Emma stay out of it. He also didn’t think it was his place to say the lab doing the tests thought they had mixed DNA, male and male, as well as Denise’s. They believed two men had sexual contact with Denise shortly before she died.
“Celebration!” Holly Chandall walked into the conversation room at Secrets with four pastry boxes, strung together in twos and carried by a loop, one set in each hand. She had already donned her tunic. “Mrs. Merryfield? Where are you, cher?”
Emma sat beside Eileen Moggeridge on one of several overstuffed tartan love seats. She looked at the other woman and smiled reassurance. “This is Holly,” she said. “She’s—”
“I’ve seen her,” Eileen said, her dark eyes uncertain. “She doesn’t live far from me. Her husband farms rice, I think.”
“Holly,” Emma said. “This is Eileen. She’s our first novice in two years, and she’s understandably nervous, so be nice.”
Holly laughed aloud. Mrs. Merryfield arrived, and Holly gave her the boxes and told her to stay put before marching determinedly to shake Eileen’s hand. “Hi, almost neighbor. I’ve seen you, too. Welcome. I should have made sure we met before now. Your husband works out on one of the rigs, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” Eileen said, with little expression.
“We’re an impossible bunch,” Holly said. “And we’ll only make you impossible, too, but it’s a great way to be.”
Eileen said, “Thanks, I’m lookin’ forward to it.” A tall, voluptuous woman with black hair that waved to the shoulder, her face was a feminine version of her brother’s.
“Where is everyone?” Holly said. “I’m never early.”
“You are tonight,” Emma said, and grinned. “Maybe it was easier to leave home—your current home.”
Holly put a finger to her lips. “Shh. I get to tell all about it.”
The others straggled in, Frances with red-and-white beads in her cornrows tonight and looking beautiful in her pink tunic. Emma hadn’t changed into hers yet, because she wanted Eileen to have a chance to get used to things first.
“How long am I supposed to stand here like this?” Mrs. Merryfield said. Tonight she wore a crushed black velvet hat on top of her red fingerwaves, and Emma figured she’d forgotten to take it off when she returned from shopping. As usual, a pair of rolled-down stockings rested on the tops of Mrs. Merryfield’s black lace-up shoes.
“Mrs. M,” Holly said, making everyone’s eyes widen. They had never been invited to shorten that lady’s name or to be familiar in any way. “Like I said, this is a celebration. A double celebration now we have a new member. Eileen Moggeridge, meet Mrs. Merryfield, who looks after Angela and the house. Mrs. M’s a gem.”
Lynnette, who had already waved at Eileen in welcome, snickered at Holly’s newfound affection for Mrs. Merryfield and at Mrs. Merryfield’s sour expression. Stretched out on a love seat, Lynnette wore pink bunny slippers to match her tunic. She bobbled her feet up and down. Her nails were inevitably an advertisement for her salon. Tonight they were painted in black and silver stripes, with rhinestones adhered along the tips.
Suky-Jo saw Eileen and opened her arms wide. “Eileen, we’ve met, and I’ve seen you with that handsome boy of yours. Time we got to know each other. This is for you.” She swished across the room to give Eileen a rainbow sachet. “Put that under your pillow and dream sweet dreams,” she said in a stage whisper.
Eileen held the sachet to her nose with soft pleasure in her expression.
“I’ve brought tasters of a lot of the desserts Annie and I will be serving for Emma’s big party next week, Mrs. M,” Holly said. “And I hope it was all right for me to put some bottles of champagne on ice in the kitchen.” She didn’t give Mrs. Merryfield a chance to respond. “If you’d rather not fuss with putting all these things on plates, I’ll gladly do it. Just tell me which plates to use. Annie’s the dessert maker. I’ll explain some of how we’re goin’ to present it all at Emma’s.”
Angela, who usually arrived first, came into the room, her silk tunic swishing. She looked immediately at Eileen and nodded. “Welcome, Eileen,” she said. Her hair was combed forward on one side to hide the worst scars, something she’d stopped doing a long time ago. “Emma has told us about you. I hope you understand our little rules.”
Why make a big deal? Emma didn’t often get annoyed with Angela, but she was now. Or maybe she’d been through too much for one day and it wouldn’t take anything to set her off. “Eileen understands,” she said.
“We’re having a celebration,” Mrs. Merryfield announced. “Holly’s brought food and champagne.” She raised her nose. “Is that something I smell cooking in my kitchen?”
“We-ell,” Holly said. “I’m reheating the red-bean soup I made yesterday.”
A long, “Oooh,” went up from everyone present, even Angela.
“It’s my mother’s recipe, and red-bean soup doesn’t come any richer than that. If we’re goin’ to drink champagne, even with desserts, we need a coat on our stomachs.”
Angela sat in her upholstered rocking chair and stretched. If anything, she seemed even more pale than usual, but she gradually relaxed.
“If y’all had asked me what I wanted most in the world, I wouldn’t have known,” Wendy Saunders said, her green eyes bright with anticipation. “Now it’s as obvious as the nose on my face. Holly Chandall’s red-bean soup. I’ll just bet you crushed plenty of those red pepper pods in there. And a mess of onion. And ham bones.” She waggled her head as if in ecstasy.
“And big chunks of ham and a little more cayenne than most people use, on account of my mama says it makes all the difference.” Holly beamed.
Emma suffered through another wave of
misgivings about her friend’s rapid decision to divorce her husband and move out into an apartment. The decision had been Holly’s, but Emma just knew she’d spurred her on.
“I’ll serve the soup,” Mrs. Merryfield said, shocking all of them. “And I’ll take the desserts to the kitchen and put them on plates. Will you have those at the same time as the champagne?”
“Why, yes,” Holly said. “Thank you. I’ll let you do the soup, then I’ll help with the other a bit later.”
“We share everything here,” Angela said to Eileen the instant the door closed behind Mrs. Merryfield. “Our hopes and dreams, and our pain. We laugh a lot, but we cry some, too. Where’s Sandy?”
Emma had noted her absence, though she’d hoped Sandy would change her mind. “She’s really upset about Denise. I don’t think she’ll join us.”
Something like annoyance tightened Angela’s features. “She knows we need to help one another through this sadness. Does she think she’s the only one who feels bad about it?”
The comment wasn’t like Angela, and Emma wondered if she was unconsciously exerting her leadership in front of Eileen.
“Forgive me,” Angela said. “I’m tired. It’s been harder to sleep lately.”
Mrs. Merryfield delivered soup bowls with handles on the sides, each one on a large saucer with a spoon. She set them on top of the large coffee table in the middle of the room and left again.
Seated on the floor around the table, they ate in silence for a few minutes before Holly said, “I’ve got so much to tell all of you.”
“Did you put your name in the book?” Angela asked.
“Of course.”
“If we have something we really want to discuss, we write our names in that book by Angela’s chair,” Emma told Eileen. “Don’t you go thinkin’ we’re just about serious stuff, though. We’re always lookin’ for ideas to help us and just plain havin’ fun, right, ladies?”
“Right,” the chorus came back.
“I’m first in the book,” Holly said. “So I get to go now.”
“Uh-uh,” Angela said, but she gave her whispery chuckle. “Not unless Eileen feels she can share something near and dear to her.”
“She can share when she’s ready,” Holly said.
“Yes,” Emma said quickly. “She understands how much we rely on the group not to repeat anything they hear.”
Angela frowned.
“It’s okay,” Eileen said. “I know you came together at first because you needed to feel safe and be understood—and to help each other be stronger women. You’ve got a lot of history, but you hardly know me. This is the best soup, Holly.”
Holly said, “Thank you.”
Eileen set down her spoon. “If I don’t share something really personal, you won’t feel comfortable talkin’ in front of me.” She looked from one woman to the other. “There’s someone I’ve been in love with for years. Not my husband. He doesn’t know about it, of course. I still hope I’ll get together with him one day—my dream lover, I mean.”
Spoons paused or were set down with care.
Emma’s skin turned clammy.
Laughter rang out. Eileen’s laughter. She laughed until she got hiccups and subsided into gusts of chuckles. “You should see your faces,” she said. “I was supposed to share a secret hope, wasn’t I? I’m hopin’ for a dream lover.”
21
Emma toiled along the roads spreading around the golf club. She hadn’t run since Denise died, but she couldn’t suspend her routines forever.
A storm threatened. This was the time of year for bad weather, and hurricanes could hit at any time. Clammy, her tank top stuck to her skin, she glanced at a sky turned deep green and slashed with black. The wind at her back blew hot, but at least it eased the stillness that fell between gusts.
Tile roofs on the houses shimmered in the heat, and mica glittered on white sidewalks.
Last night she had slept on top of a sleeping bag on the floor of Holly Chandall’s new, very small, apartment over Ona’s. She intended to go there again tonight. It didn’t make sense to isolate herself at her parents’ home until she and Orville came to some sort of agreement.
Yesterday, leaving Sandy to deal with the shop, Emma had spent the day alone in Orville’s house, waiting for him, staying until it was clear he wasn’t coming back for the night. Today had been the same, except she’d left earlier, her car parked out front, to go for her run. She’d expected him to contact her earlier, almost as soon as he’d left her on Friday, but there had been no word from him.
Determination controlled any fear of confronting him alone, but she had taken the precaution of telling Sandy her plans and the pistol stayed close at hand.
The clubhouse came into view on her right, set well back from the road and surrounded by lush grounds. The greens, still dotted with straggling players, stretched behind and in both directions from the club. Sand traps and stands of oaks stood out against the emerald-colored course.
Sunday evenings were busy at the club. She scanned the parking lot for Orville’s Mercedes but didn’t see it, although it wouldn’t be hard to miss among so many similar vehicles.
The next move had to be his. She’d already decided that if she didn’t hear from him today, then tomorrow she would send word to his office that she wouldn’t be available for his party. She would move on and try not to look back. If he didn’t try to complicate her life, she would stay out of his way and never bad-mouth him.
Finn had called yesterday, and she’d told him she needed to get through this on her own. He hadn’t called back, and she wasn’t sure she was glad. Finn had lived through woman trouble before and could have decided he didn’t need more.
Humidity made the going hard. Emma ran around the wide curve that would bring her back to Orville’s—and saw the Mercedes parked in the driveway, with Orville leaning on the trunk and looking up and down the street.
Emma stopped, grasped her knees and let her head hang down while she got her breath. And while she decided if she could face her soon to be ex-husband.
“Emma?”
His voice reached her, stunned her. Orville didn’t shout in public. She looked up and raised a hand before running on, closing the space between them, her feet keeping pace with the drum of her heart, a deep sickness gripping her stomach.
Get it over with. The words sounded good inside her head, but putting them into action wouldn’t be so easy.
As she drew closer, he separated himself from his car and walked to meet her. She wondered where he’d been staying. At Damalis’s? They had rooms there, or so she’d been told.
“Emma,” Orville said when she reached him, his voice soft and foreign. He took her unresisting hands in his and asked, “How are you? I was a pig, and I’m sorry, not that I expect you to care how I feel.”
He must keep clothes elsewhere. The tan suit and cream shirt he wore were uncreased. Apart from the drawn expression on his face, he showed no sign of having suffered.
“I’ll be leavin’ shortly,” she told him. That wasn’t what she’d intended to say but rather what she wanted to do—as soon as possible. Emma wanted to get away from him.
“Aren’t you here to talk to me?” he asked.
“I was here yesterday and today,” she told him. “Now I’m almost out of time, but I can stay a little while.”
The truth was that she didn’t want to be alone with him anywhere without her gun, but most especially inside his house. She walked briskly to a gate in the fence around the grounds and let herself in.
She heard Orville close the gate behind him.
“I ran into Harold Chandall,” Orville said. “He’s lookin’ for his wife. Any idea where she might be?”
Emma managed not to break her stride, but she felt suddenly very cold. “She’s probably shoppin’ or somethin’.” At least it wasn’t an outright lie. Harold had been in New Orleans for the past few days, and that had given Holly a chance to move into Ona’s unimpeded.
&nb
sp; Dragging a chair from a table by the pool, Emma sat in the shade of some clump bamboo. The sky seemed to get closer to the land while she watched.
Orville picked up another chair and placed it so he would face her rather than sit beside her. He took off his jacket and tie, and threw them over the back of the chair. Once he was settled, he regarded Emma steadily for long enough to make her uncomfortable.
Finally she said, “What’s the stare for?”
“I want to remember the way you look now, while we’re still man and wife. I’ve been a fool, and I wish I could change it.”
She didn’t respond, didn’t help him in any way.
“Stay with me, cher.”
Emma had expected that. “It’s too late. It was probably too late the day we married. Like you said the other day, I was pretty young. People change. I’ve changed a lot, and we don’t work together anymore.” They had never worked, not really.
“What will you do?”
“Live at my folks’ place until I can afford to go away to school again. Work. I’ll get a job.”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
She inclined her head and gave him a look that said what she did wouldn’t be his decision.
“You like the shop. Sandy likes it there, too, and she’s your best friend. It’s good for the two of you to be together.”
How long would he try to wear her down? Emma wondered. “We’ll miss workin’ together and havin’ fun with it, but Sandy and I will always be friends. She doesn’t need what I pay her. It’s peanuts, anyway.”
“I’m givin’ you the shop.”
She thought she’d misheard him and squinted into his face.
“The whole property will belong to me. What I do with it is up to me. You get the shop. You’ve earned it.”
What the shop made wouldn’t keep her, but she wanted to accept, even while she feared accepting anything from him at all. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t take it, but I’d like to manage it for you, and you can pay me a small salary. It doesn’t make a lot, but it’s gettin’ better. Would that work?”
“However you want to do it. But whatever you take in is yours—you’ll need it.”
Body of Evidence Page 22