Shameless (The Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  She said quietly, “It would have been easier for you than for most.”

  “Easier to accomplish,” he said. “Harder to overcome the well-learned reluctance.”

  She watched him, watched the play of vulnerability and self-hatred across his features, and knew abruptly that he had just let her see a part of himself that he kept hidden from all others. It was not that she had destroyed his defenses, she thought, but rather that he'd deliberately lowered them for her, for reasons that she did not dare begin to guess.

  “Then if you are guilty,” she said in quiet acceptance, “I must share it.”

  “Only,” he said, “if you'll let me share whatever guilt might be yours.”

  Mutual suspicion, mutual lack of belief, mutual willingness to look the other way. Stalemate. Why did it hurt so much?

  Reid's face changed and he took a step toward her. “There's something you should know — something happened between me and Keith at the mill.”

  “I know already,” she said hastily, turning away from him. “It — It makes no difference. I would really rather not talk about it anymore, if you don't mind. And I would like to be by myself tonight.”

  He paused, and there was concentration in his silence, as if he was listening to echoes of meaning in the sound of her voice, which even she could not hear. Or weighing consequences and inclinations she could not name.

  Finally, he said, “Sleep, then, if you can. Wipe it all from your mind. Don't think of anything at all. There's no point in disturbing yourself over things that can no longer be helped.”

  “You speak from experience with violent death?”

  A shadow of weariness darkened his voice. “What else?”

  She did not hear him leave, but when she turned a moment later, he was gone.

  The funeral was held two days later. It might have been sooner if not for the delay necessary for the autopsy.

  Keith's family was anxious to have the services completed in order to put an end to the sensationalism. The calls and visits of the morbidly curious had been incessant. The throngs circling around the funeral home had grown larger hourly. At least four newspapers had called for permission to be present at the services.

  The information came from the usual source, common gossip, and Cammie was not sure how reliable it might be. She debated over whether to attend the funeral because of it, however; the last thing she wanted was to be cornered for a comment from the widow. In the end she couldn't fight duty and tradition. Besides, to stay away would cause more comment than appearing, and she felt she owed some gesture toward the years she and Keith had been together.

  It was nearly as hard to decide what to wear. The black of widow's weeds might seem a mockery, but to wear color could look too much like a lack of respect or even a celebration. She settled finally on a suit of dove-gray with a white silk blouse, and hoped it would be ordinary enough to escape notice.

  A funeral in Greenley was rather like a formal social event. The deceased lay in state in the parlor of the funeral home before the services began, with close relatives in attendance to receive those who came to pay their last respects. Close bodily contact in the way of brief hugs and comforting pats along with soft words of sympathy were extended. Tears and lamentations were silent, though there was a plentiful supply of tissues ready. The number and variety of the floral offerings were seen as a measure of the standing of the one being honored, and much attention was paid to the heft and decoration of the casket.

  The service for Keith was marked by a selection of his mother's favorite gospel songs. A brief eulogy was followed by a sermon, one so fervent it seemed an invitation for converts might be extended at any moment.

  Cammie deliberately came late to the services to avoid having to mingle and talk. She could not evade the photographer who stepped in front of her as she left the chapel, however, nor could she get away from the hard stares turned in her direction, or the whispers. Keeping her face as impassive as possible, she endured the attention, hoping it would soon be over.

  It wasn't. She saw the reason why when the cortege wound its way to the cemetery. Reid's Jeep Cherokee was parked near the fence gate. It was to be expected, of course; the Huttons and the Sayers had been business associates for long years, and he had known Keith in school. He had at least had the sense to avoid the main service, putting in an appearance only for the graveside rites.

  Reid was nearby in the crowd as everyone gathered near the mound of raw earth and the fake grass carpet under the canopy. He did not approach her, for which she was grateful. Still, there was a narrow aisle left open between the two of them, and the buzz of comment had the sound of hovering blowflies.

  At last the graveside ceremony was over. Cammie had declined sitting in the seats reserved for family, but as Keith's mother emerged from under the canvas tent, Cammie moved toward her by instinct.

  For a moment the older woman looked through her as if she did not exist. Cammie did not allow her sympathy to falter, nor did she draw back from the swift hug she intended to bestow. She could feel the stiff rejection in her mother-in-law's body, however, and see the baffled anger shining through the tears that welled into the woman's eyes.

  “I'm sorry,” Cammie said, since there seemed nothing else that came close to being adequate.

  “Are you?” the older woman answered in half-strangled civility. “I find it hard to believe. But I have been meaning to speak to you about any of Keith's things that might still be at your house. I will expect you to send them — home.”

  Vona Hutton, Gordon's plump and awkward wife, stood just behind Keith's mother. “That's right,” she said with a self-righteous nod. At the same time, she glanced for approval toward her husband, who stood talking with the minister who had performed the service.

  “Yes, of course,” Cammie answered, concentrating her attention on the older woman. There was nothing of Keith's left at Evergreen, she thought, except possibly a few rusty tools, an old bicycle, and odds and ends of discarded auto parts. She would clear out every last screwdriver and corroded spark plug.

  “Then we — his brother and I — ask nothing more from you.”

  It was a dismissal, a final break. No doubt it was meant to sting.

  Cammie said quietly, “Whatever you prefer.”

  The other woman turned away with her head held high and her handkerchief clenched in her hand. Vona put her pudgy arm around her mother-in-law, murmuring soothingly. Cammie let them go, and tried not to feel relief.

  Someone moved in close at her side then, and she turned, half expecting Reid. It was Fred Mawley.

  The lawyer smiled down at her with caressing concern and attentiveness. “I was hoping I might find a minute to talk to you.”

  Cammie murmured something appropriate, giving the man only half of her attention. Reid was leaving the cemetery. He joined a group of men, most of them mill personnel, who stood talking off to one side.

  “I'd like to schedule an appointment about the will,” Fred Mawley went on. “The sooner we get things started, the better.”

  Cammie gave him a glance of dry inquiry as she began to walk in the direction of the cemetery gate. “Don't you think it's a little late now?”

  He lifted a brow, then gave an abrupt chuckle. “Not your part of it, Cammie, but Keith's. You're still his beneficiary, you know, since your mutual wills were never canceled, never superseded by other arrangements. His assets come to you — including his share of the paper mill.”

  She stopped short, her eyes widened in unbelieving dismay.

  Mawley, unnoticing, moved on a half step before he turned back. Quizzical amusement gathered in his face. “I can't believe it never occurred to you.”

  “It didn't.” Her lips snapped together as she regained her self-possession.

  “Gordon Hutton thought about it. I had a call from him yesterday morning, wanting to know how things stood. It struck me as hilarious really, since he was the one who—” The lawyer stopped, biting off what he'd
been about to say.

  “Gordon was the one who what?” Cammie asked with care.

  Mawley looked self-conscious, though his smile did not falter. “Nothing. Nothing that has any bearing. Anyway, how about discussing things over dinner this evening? I'd like to have plenty of time for the details.”

  It was possible this development was part of the Hutton family's resentment toward her. Cammie said, “I don't think there's any real rush.”

  “Tomorrow then, or the next day? I'm available at your convenience.”

  Beyond his shoulder, she saw Reid leaving. There was a stiffness in the set of his shoulders that troubled her. Telling Fred Mawley that she would call him, she walked quickly away.

  She reached the cemetery gate before it occurred to her what Fred had almost let slip about Gordon and the will. It seemed Keith's brother might have had something to do with the delay in restructuring the document with its mutual beneficiary clause. If so, it would be a fine joke. The question was, why would he bother?

  She couldn't wait to tell Reid about it. She wanted his reaction, needed to know what thoughts he might have on it. But though she increased her pace in the direction of the parking area, he was gone by the time she reached it.

  The disappointment was so strong, her throat swelled with the press of it. Standing there, staring at where his Jeep had been, she realized how strange it was that she'd been so intent on sharing her news with someone she suspected of killing the man they had just buried. It also came to her that Reid might not think her news amusing at all.

  Back at Evergreen, she changed clothes, pulling on a pair of jeans and a coral-colored knit top. She ate lunch, then went out and stared at the flats of impatiens she'd bought. In a sudden flurry of energy, she pulled up the pansies and ornamental kale that were beginning to fade after blooming during the winter and early spring, and set the new bedding plants in their places. She even planted the hibiscus she had bought for the urns that always sat on either side of the back steps.

  It was only surface motion. As she worked, her thoughts were elsewhere.

  Keith's death, from all reports, had been a professional job, a single shot to the head. Yet, any person in his right mind who wanted to see him dead would have waited until hunting season. At that time the woods — even the game reserve — were full of men with rifles; a shooting could easily be made to look accidental. The way the killer had gone about it seemed to indicate a person who acted out of uncaring rage, or else was sublimely confident of getting away with it.

  Neither category applied to Reid. Cammie thought that if he had wanted to remove Keith, he would have killed him cleanly and quietly, then buried the body so deep and in such a hidden spot that it would never have been found except by purest accident.

  Then again, that might be what she and everyone else was supposed to think. It was possible he had made the killing crude, knowing a too-efficient disappearance or death would have been like an arrow pointing straight at himself.

  Again and again, Cammie went over the stark assurance Reid had given her that he did not kill Keith. She wanted to believe him, but it was so difficult. It made perfect sense that he would rid her of Keith's harassment, so long as she accepted that he was the kind of man who operated from implacable will and within his own flexible version of morality.

  The trouble was, her assessment of his character, combined with what he'd said to her, made it just as possible that she was misjudging him. And she could not decide which would be more devastating: to be proven completely right or completely wrong.

  Going back and forth in her mind was driving her crazy, and had been for days. This morning was the first time she'd seen him since the night he was at Evergreen. His behavior at the funeral gave her no help in making a decision. There must be something that would aid her.

  She decided that staying away from him, avoiding any extension of their relationship, wasn't going to help her understand Reid. In fact, she might have to get as close as possible to him, in order to break through his defenses, to find out the truth once and for all. It was the only way she would ever have any peace.

  Cammie tugged off her gardening gloves and left them lying on the back steps with her dibble and empty flower flats. A short time later, she was pulling into the drive at the Fort.

  Reid wasn't in the house. Lizbeth gave her a long, considering look, then pointed out the direction he'd taken when he went into the woods.

  The trail led to the Big Woods, the tract of virgin timber that lay behind the paper mill and was joined on its north boundary with the game reserve stretching around the Fort. It was rough going for a while, until she reached the old-growth timber. There, the huge, towering pines and oaks, bays and gums and ash trees, met overhead, closing out the sunlight so that the underbrush thinned, then disappeared. What was left was a brown forest floor where mushrooms, moss and thick layers of leaves made a soft cushion underfoot. It was an open, echoing space where bird calls and the distant chatter of a squirrel had a ringing quality. They vibrated around her in the still air as if she were in a giant sound chamber.

  Cammie stopped to catch her breath. Not only had she been walking fast, but she'd come quite a distance. The dubious wisdom of chasing a man she thought capable of murder into this kind of deep woods skittered across the surface of her mind. She pushed it from her as she concentrated on finding him.

  Somewhere nearby she heard a tapping, knocking sound. She smiled as recognition came. Turning from the dim path, she moved in the direction of the noise.

  A moment later she saw its cause: an Indian head woodpecker. The size of a small rooster, with a gray-brown body and a red cockade that began at its shoulders and covered its entire head, the bird was clinging to the side of a pine dying from pine beetle damage. The sun glinted with a copper flare across its feathers as it drilled busily, making a series of holes around the tree trunk. It stopped long enough to cock its head toward her approach. Discovering no imminent danger, it went back to its search for insects and larvae.

  It had been a long time since Cammie had seen one of the rare birds. She felt a certain nostalgic wonder at the sight, a little like a medieval female coming upon a unicorn in the woods. The world would be poorer if such fascinating creatures become extinct. She watched it for some time, turning back to the trail only after the red-cockade winged away deeper into the woods.

  It was the music that guided her to Reid. She heard it from some distance away, a soft and lovely melody in a minor key played on a guitar. It reminded her of old folk airs such as “Greensleeves” and “Scarborough Fair,” yet with something added, an unexpected, upbeat strength.

  He was sitting at the edge of a fern glade. A guitar was cradled in his arms as he sat against the thick trunk of an ancient white beech tree. Just beyond him the green whorls of ferns clustered around a seeping spring in the side of a low hill above a creek. They raised their new fiddle heads out of the greenery and the deep mulch of last year's brown leaves.

  There was a shaft of sunlight caught in his hair, turning it to gold. It shifted in bright gleams as he bent over the strings of his instrument. His face was absorbed as he played, then stopped, went back and replayed several bars of his melody, changed it slightly, then played it again.

  It was music that could, and should, be accompanied by words. It was the beginning of a song, a ballad, perhaps, of love and loss. Beer-drinking music. The only outlet, as he had said, for a common man's emotions.

  She thought of backing away, of leaving before he knew she was there. She should have known better.

  “Don't run away,” he said without looking up. “Come sit down, and tell me what you're doing here.”

  Her voice was tart as she moved to a spot not far from him and dropped down on a half-rotted log. “Looking for you, naturally.”

  He sent her a hooded glance before returning to his intricate fingering of the guitar strings. “Why? Do you need another killing done? Mawley giving you trouble already?”


  “I thought,” she said in constricted tones, “that you were sure I could handle that kind of thing myself.”

  The music ceased with a sudden, twanging discord as he ripped his fingers across the strings. He put the guitar aside. Staring straight ahead, he drew a deep breath and let it out again. Only then did he turn his head in her direction. “Forget I said anything. Just tell me what you need from me.”

  Whatever personal feelings he might have, it seemed, had been put aside while he attended to what she might ask. She said, “There was something you wanted to tell me the other night about the fight between you and Keith at the mill. I stopped you at the time. I think maybe I shouldn't have. Would you tell me now?”

  A blue spark shone between his narrowed eyelids before he gave an abrupt nod. In succinct phrases he explained the visit of the two thugs to Keith's office, and also what followed with Gordon.

  She sat in frowning silence when he finished. Then she said, “I see how it must have been. Keith and Gordon were trying to pull a fast one about the mill title, so you beat them to the punch?”

  “Meaning?” His voice was stringent.

  “You paid Janet Baylor to strip the courthouse records and get out of town. Without that proof, everything was back the way it was, as far as ownership of the mill. You and the Huttons were even again.”

  “And you were out?” he said. “Then I must have miscalculated by getting rid of Keith, since it puts you back in the game again.”

  “You know about the will.” It wasn't a question. When he shrugged without replying, she went on. “With it, my stake is not so large as it might have been. You may not like Gordon Hutton, but the two of you apparently want the same thing. I'm outnumbered on the selling issue.”

  “You always were.”

  He meant, she saw, in the fight to stop the sale, and in public opinion. She said stubbornly, “The money hasn't been paid yet.”

  There was no rise to that bait. His voice even, he said, “It was Keith's activities that concerned me most; what he had been up to could have been serious. So far as I can tell, there's been something like a half million paid out from his department on bogus ink and chemical invoices in the last six months — and who knows how much before then. The discrepancies skew the mill's bottom line, could make it look like a high-risk investment.”