A One-Woman Man

by ML Gamble

  “Do you know her sister?” Elizabeth added quietly, noticing the look of discomfort on Tommy Lee’s face.

  “Who’s her sister?” the judge asked.

  “Luvey Rose, darling,” Miss Lou said with a twinkle. “The beautiful redhead who helped us when you were last at the hospital.”

  “Oh. Her.” The judge grinned.

  “She’s Tommy Lee’s ex-wife,” Elizabeth deadpanned.

  “Oh. Oh, my,” the judge said, looking confused.

  Tommy Lee shook his head. “God, sometimes I really hate small towns.”

  The four of them sat in a silent circle for a moment, each wondering over the tangle of relationships involved.

  “Chief Foley’s just pulling in,” Sissy Lane suddenly hollered, returning to the kitchen carrying a platter of sliced ham retrieved from the pantry. She was tall and tawny-skinned, blue-eyed and beautiful, her front teeth capped with gold. “I’m going to get you a decent breakfast, chére,” she said to Elizabeth. “And you folks, too. Can I get you more coffee, Judge?”

  “Oh, please don’t bother, Mrs. Lane.”

  “I told you to call me Sissy, Judge.” She turned her bright gaze to Tommy Lee. “And you’d better get some more chairs. Chief Frank’s got three big old boys with him, and if I know cops, they’re not going to turn down breakfast”

  “Three guys?” Tommy Lee turned and headed for the door, opening it to admit a grim-faced Frank Foley. Two patrolmen stood leaning against a second car, and Foley’s day sergeant, John Bulow, was standing behind the chief.

  “Frank, come on in. What the hell you doing with such an escort?”

  “Is Miss Monette still here, Tommy Lee?”

  “Yes, she is,” he answered, his voice wary. “As is her daddy, Judge Baylor Monette, and his wife. Why don’t you boys come on in. I think the judge has some questions.”

  Frank Foley’s face darkened and he muttered an oath under his breath. He stomped in and removed his hat, his sergeant on his heels. “Hey, Sissy,” he said to the housekeeper.

  “Chief, I’m cooking right now. My biscuits and gravy. Big plate for you. Come in.”

  “Don’t make nothing for us, Sissy, we’re leaving right away.”

  The chief continued over to the table, his hat pressed against his chest. He and Tommy Lee exchanged a look, but the chief directed his remarks to the table. “Good morning, everyone. I’m sorry to bust in on you all so early. Miss Monette, Mrs. Monette,” he added, nodding a greeting to Miss Lou. He extended his hand, “Judge Monette, how are you, sir?”

  “Chief. Good to see you again. Have a seat, if you will. I have several questions I’d like to ask.”

  “I’m sure you do,” the chief replied. “But I’m afraid they’re going to have to wait. I need to take Elizabeth and Tommy Lee with me back to Belle Fleur.”

  “What for?” Tommy Lee demanded. He was standing behind Elizabeth’s chair, gripping it with both hands. He knew Frank Foley as well as anyone, as well as cop procedures. He didn’t like what he was hearing because it could only mean one thing: something worse had happened.

  “Two men were murdered in town early this morning,” the chief announced. “We think they might have been involved in the attack on Elizabeth yesterday. I want you two to take a look at them.”

  “Murdered!” Judge Monette barked.

  “Oh, my God!” Miss Lou added.

  “I don’t like this,” the judge continued. “What in the hell happened to them?”

  “Shotgunned. Out by Belle Fleur Elementary.” Chief Foley kept his eyes on Elizabeth. “Can we ask you to come along now, Miss Monette? I’ve got to get an investigation under way.”

  Elizabeth felt her ears ringing. The smell of the frying ham made her feel dizzy. In her mind she heard a far-off echo of a woman screaming, and the sound of glass breaking. She wanted to run and hide and not think. Her arms began to tremble and she grabbed the edge of the table, willing the memory to recede.

  Suddenly Tommy Lee’s hand was on her shoulder. He squeezed it gently.

  “Why don’t you go get dressed?”

  She stood. “Mom and Daddy, you go on home. I’ll be there later. There’s no reason for you to come along, Daddy,” she told him, reading the stubborn set of his jaw. “Go home and rest. I’ll call as soon as we’re done.” Elizabeth hurried from the room, glad to escape, though followed by the memory of Tommy Lee’s telling her that the past was often best left buried.

  Chapter Seven

  Elizabeth and Tommy Lee found themselves back inside Dottie Betts’s office, exactly twenty-four hours after they had met there.

  Tommy Lee crossed to the window, which was still wide-open, then turned and hung up the phone, which was listlessly beeping “busy.” He moved up the thermostat, since the air temperature was only about forty degrees, and motioned to Elizabeth to sit down.

  “Let me call over to Lester’s Café and get some lunch and some coffee.”

  Elizabeth, shivering inside her sweater and Tommy Lee’s borrowed coat, nodded her agreement She sat with her arms wrapped around herself while Tommy Lee ordered soup and sandwiches. He hung up the phone and stared at her.

  She stared back. “Now what?” she asked, pulling off her gloves and blowing on her fingers to keep them warm.

  “We look in your file. Dottie said on the phone that she’d left a call for Emmett Peach. She must have come up with his number before she got benched by her obstetrician.”

  Elizabeth nodded. She looked behind Tommy Lee at the magnolia-tree limbs, frost-covered in midafternoon. Tears stung her eyes and she brushed them away. Suddenly she didn’t want to be in this office, in this town, in this state. She didn’t want to be who she was, or whoever the hell she might be. And she didn’t want to have seen with her own two eyes two dead men she didn’t know lying naked and bullet-ridden in the Belle Fleur morgue.

  “When did Chief Foley think they would have a confirmed identity on the two men?”

  Tommy Lee jerked his head around and stared hard at Elizabeth. “He thought by tomorrow. Stop thinking about those men, Elizabeth. You didn’t even know them.”

  “I didn’t know them, and they didn’t know me, but they tried to kill me yesterday. I heard Sergeant Bulow tell Chief Foley that they found New York license plates in the parking lot.”

  Tommy Lee didn’t respond. He didn’t like the feverish, tight look of Elizabeth Monette’s face. He should take her back home, right now, and put all this investigation crap on hold. He slapped the folder he was looking in closed and stood. “Put your gloves on again. We’re going.”

  “Are you nuts? You just ordered lunch,” Elizabeth retorted, her voice full of tears. “I’m fine,” she said angrily, then louder, “tSop staring at me like that. I’m fine.”

  Tommy Lee went to her and pulled her out of the chair, folding her stiff and frightened body into his arms. Immediately she began to cry—huge, lung-filled sobs. She clung to him, burrowed her face into his chest, collapsed against him. He held her as tightly as he could and still let her breathe.

  For five minutes she cried and he held her. A knock sounded on the glass door, and a male voice called out, “Delivery!”

  Tommy Lee still held her and yelled, “Charge it to the account and leave it.”

  A few seconds later Elizabeth took a deep, shuddering breath and looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He brushed her soft hair out of her eyes and gently touched the tiny, zigzag line of stitches at her hairline. “Don’t be, Elizabeth. Looking at dead people is a shock for anyone.”

  He was acutely aware of her body, of its curves and warmth. Without thinking anymore, he bent his head down and covered her mouth with his own.

  He had meant to be tender and calm and comforting. But his passion flared the moment his lips touched hers, and he put aside his good intentions and was greedy, and demanding and thorough in his kiss. And Elizabeth Monette, electee of the Queen of Midnight Pageant, kissed him back like anything but
a debutante.

  Tommy Lee broke away from her while he still could and took a step back. His hands, and if he wasn’t mistaken, his knees, were shaking. He ran into the desk, knocked over Dottie’s lamp, bent to pick it up and knocked over the chair.

  Elizabeth started to laugh—discreetly at first, then with full-throated mirth. He glared at her, then broke up himself. Laughter was good; it let off steam as readily as a fistfight. The two of them sat on the desk, their arms wrapped around each other, for a full twenty seconds, laughing like kids. Then he squeezed her shoulder and glanced at the office door where a bag of food sat waiting. “Hungry?”

  Elizabeth’s blue eyes looked into his and her mouth, puffy from his demanding kisses, pursed into a smile. She raised her left brow. “Starving. How about you?”

  Tommy Lee felt the heat emanate from the center of his body outward. He wanted her. Badly. It was insane, he told himself.

  Elizabeth turned to him and took his face in her hands. “You know, I never thanked you properly for jumping out of that window over there for me.”

  Tommy Lee circled her waist with his hands and pulled her close. “I was thinking about reminding you of that last night when you were lying half-naked in my guest room.”

  “I wasn’t half-naked…”

  “You weren’t nearly naked enough for my taste,” he replied. He kissed her, openmouthed and passionate, hiding none of his intention. When they broke free from each other, Elizabeth’s eyes were shining.

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Why didn’t I what?”

  “Remind me to thank you. Properly.”

  Her teasing was womanly and self-confident His heart raced. “You were pretty beat-up last night. The way I was feeling, I didn’t want to start anything that would cause you any more pain.”

  “I’m pretty tough, Tommy Lee.” With that she pulled him closer.

  His body responded to her in what Tommy Lee feared was an inappropriate client-detective manner.

  But he didn’t care. He moved his left hand to her neck, then down to her waist and under her sweater, and finally, inside her bra. Her nipples were hard and silky. He laid her gently down and kissed her neck and breasts and belly, feeling light-headed and as hungry as a wolf.

  The phone ringing two inches from his ear stopped him at the last possible moment. Elizabeth reached to push it away but Tommy Lee intervened. “Wait, it might be Chief Foley.” He picked up the receiver and watched hungrily as Elizabeth pulled her sweater down over her incredible body.

  “Betts Investigation. This is McCall.”

  “Tommy Lee?” Chief Foley said. “You okay?”

  “Fine, Chief, what’s up?” Tommy Lee smiled at Elizabeth, who was tucking her sweater back into her pants and trying not to limp. He’d forgotten how banged up her knees were, and felt a moment’s remorse that perhaps he’d hurt her.

  “And the second guy was Ray Robinson. Drifter. Ex-con. Cracker must have met up with him in prison.”

  “Who?”

  “Aren’t you listening, man? I told you, Henry Jackson, Cracker Jackson, was positively ID’ed as the guy with the shotgun blast to the face. Robinson is the other corpse the unit picked up by the school. You knew Jackson, right?”

  “Yeah. I ran into him a couple of times, but he was bounced off the force when I was a rookie.”

  “Well, anyway, got something really interesting on the bullets we dug out of the body. Hand cast and antique. Bulow remembers some old case that had the same bullets, he thinks. We’ve sent them to New Orleans, FBI, for a match against anything on file.”

  “What about the witnesses?” Tommy Lee asked, forcing himself to stop looking at Elizabeth so he could concentrate. “Did the woman who called in get a look at anything?”

  “Naw. But we talked to an old guy who lives over on Kings Landing Lane, in a shotgun cottage behind the big houses. He was walking his dog and thinks he saw a gray pickup truck parked across from the school, with a guy in it.”

  “Did he get the plate?”

  “Right,” the chief drawled sarcastically. “You been watching too many cop shows, Tommy Lee. But he did remember the bumper was tied on with some kind of wire or rope. So we’ll be looking.”

  “I’d appreciate being informed of any developments, Chief.”

  “You aren’t a cop anymore, Tommy Lee,” Foley said. “Don’t you remember you’re a private eye?”

  Tommy Lee smiled and swore at his friend, low enough so Elizabeth couldn’t hear. “Thanks, Chief.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll expect the same in return, McCall. Did you get Miss Monette back home safe?”

  “Not yet,” he replied, accepting the coffee cup she handed him. “But I’ll do that soon.”

  “You’d better. She looked like hell,” the chief said. “And I’ve already had fifteen messages this morning from executive board members of the Queen of Midnight Committee chewing my ass about security. Plus that damn pantywaist Mayor Prince. So I don’t want any more close calls for Miss Monette. Word I’m hearing is she’s the new Queen.”

  “You don’t say,” Tommy Lee answered, suddenly picturing Elizabeth—who was eating a ham-and-Swiss sub sandwich like she’d never seen food before—wearing a crown and littie else. He tugged at the corner of his mustache. “Okay, Chief. I’ll talk to you.” He hung up.

  “How are things going?” Elizabeth asked, handing him an unwrapped sandwich.

  He accepted it and nodded. “Good. The two dead guys are ex-cons, one an ex-cop named Jackson. Robinson was the phony doctor. Foley has a couple of leads about a third guy they’re sure was at the scene.” Briefly he recounted the information about the rare bullets and the pickup truck. “I expect we’ll know more pretty soon.”

  “Good.” Elizabeth dusted crumbs from her mouth and walked around the desk. She retrieved her file folder and began reading from the two pages of handwritten notes.

  She hoped she seemed nonchalant to him, but her heart was still racing from what had transpired. She was no stranger to romance, had had her share of boyfriends and gone through two serious relationships, both of which she had broken off when the men involved wanted something more permanent.

  But she had never been kissed like Tommy Lee bad kissed her. Had never wanted someone like the way she wanted him. Had never considered ripping the clothes off a man she had known for only twenty-four hours with the intention of making love with him until he could no longer walk straight. Despite her intentions to be cool, she flushed and found herself grinning.

  “Something funny in the file?” Tommy Lee asked.

  “No. Just a private thought,” she said, risking a direct look into his brown eyes. A tremor went through her as she watched him bite down on the sandwich. “There’s a number in here by Peach’s name. Why don’t I call it?”

  He took another bite and nodded. “Why don’t you. We’ll go out and see him.”

  Great, she thought. Then we’ll go to the first place that has a bed so I can feel your naked body on me. Elizabeth flushed and knocked the phone off the desk. She picked it up, realizing he was enjoying her awkwardness as much as she had his.

  “Don’t laugh at me, Tommy Lee. I’m a little weakkneed.”

  “Why’s that?” he challenged, his hand once again on her waist.

  “Why do you think?”

  Tommy Lee stared hard at her. She wasn’t being coy. She was vulnerable, open, wanting to know how he felt. “I want to kiss you again, Elizabeth. A lot.”

  She licked her lips. “You want ‘a lot,’ as in ‘much,’ to kiss me? Or you want to kiss me a lot, as in several times?”

  “Both,” he said. He dropped the sandwich on the desk and pulled her against him. His hands explored her body while she watched him, her eyes heavylidded with desire.

  “I want to make love to you, Elizabeth. In a proper room, with a proper bed. And a fire. And a lot of time, as in hours.”

  “When?” she breathed.

  He inhaled and brought his
hands to her face, kissing her on the nose. “As soon as I’m sure you’re safe from whoever the hell hired those two thugs.”

  “No mixing business with pleasure, Mr. McCall?” Elizabeth countered, but her brain told her Tommy Lee was right. First things first Everything in her life was a jumble now. Adding a relationship with this passionate, complicated man wouldn’t do anything to solve the mysteries swirling around her.

  Worry clouded his eyes. “Don’t misunderstand me, Elizabeth,”

  “Shhh,” she replied, her fingers on his lips. “We’ll slow this freight train down, Mr. McCall. But only for a little while.” Elizabeth took a step back and gave him an up-and-down scrutiny. “Though it looks like you might need a cold shower to completely cooperate in this decision.”

  Before he could reply, Elizabeth picked up the phone. “Okay, on to business. I’ll call Mr. Peach.”

  He looked a little dazed, but raked his hair back with his hand and picked up the discarded sandwich. “Do that.”

  Elizabeth dialed and was startled when a woman answered.

  “Baptist Haven, this is Lucille.”

  “Ah, may I speak to Emmett Peach?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Mr. Peach is resting now, ma’am. Would you like to leave a message or call back later?”

  “Ah, yes. But may I ask, what is ‘Baptist Haven’?”

  “We’re a full-care-facility retirement home, ma’am.”

  “And Mr. Peach lives there?”

  The woman’s pleasant Southern voice took on a suspicious tone. “May I ask who’s calling, please?”

  Elizabeth looked at Tommy Lee, wondering if she should leave her name, then decided to go ahead. She didn’t need his okay, Elizabeth told herself. “Elizabeth Monette. My father, Judge Monette, is a friend of Mr. Peach’s. I wanted to check and see how Mr. Peach is doing, since we haven’t heard from him for a while.”

  Tommy Lee started choking and shaking his head violently, waving his hand to indicate she shouldn’t say anything more. His actions so surprised Elizabeth that she didn’t hear what the woman said.