Our Husband (a humorous romantic mystery)

by Bond, Stephanie

  Natalie sat back on her heels. "I'd like to know how the day our husband is buried could be further ruined."

  Beatrix's mouth tightened and she looked away. "Just hurry the hell up."

  Within a few minutes, Ruby was passably clean, and her color restored. The driver returned with dirty hands and the ice bucket full of sandy soil, which Natalie dumped over the mess.

  "Do you feel well enough to continue?" she asked Ruby.

  The girl nodded, shoving her hand into her long hair and leaning back in the seat.

  "Hallelujah," Beatrix said, moving as far away from them as possible. "Let's go already."

  When they were underway again, Natalie studied the limp Ruby, obsessed with the thought that her husband's baby was inside the pitiful young woman. "Have you had a lot of morning sickness?"

  Ruby shook her head.

  "You should see your obstetrician for a full prenatal checkup."

  The girl nodded unconvincingly—Natalie bet she'd never seen the inside of an OB/GYN's office. She swallowed a lecture, telling herself that Ruby and her baby were none of her business. Soon they would bury Raymond, and the three of them would probably never see each other again.

  Beatrix snorted. "Don't guess you considered birth control."

  "We tried to be careful," Ruby said softly. "But we couldn't keep our hands off each other."

  Natalie closed her eyes at the wistful note in her voice, giving in to a stab of jealousy. Raymond probably couldn't wait to get to Ruby's bed every week, where the skin was tight, the boobs high, and the novelty keen.

  "I'm so sorry I asked," Beatrix said.

  "How come the two of you never had children?" Ruby asked Beatrix.

  Natalie waited, equally interested.

  "I couldn't," the woman said, her gaze trained on the window.

  Her heart squeezed for Beatrix—how incredibly hard this must be for her. To find out on top of the double betrayal that Raymond had fathered a child with someone young enough to be his own offspring. She must hate him... and them. No wonder she was so bitter. The ill feelings Natalie held against the dour woman dissipated a few degrees.

  "Oh," Ruby said softly. "What about you, Natalie?"

  What about her? She was the only one of them who had no legitimate tie to Raymond—Beatrix had a valid marriage license, and Ruby had his progeny. "I... I never wanted children."

  "Why not?" Ruby asked, a little crease rumpling her beautiful brow.

  Why not? Natalie's defenses soared. "Because I would've had to give up more than a career of striptease."

  "Oooh, good one," Beatrix said from the corner.

  Ruby sniffed noisily, then swallowed. "I read somewhere that most women fantasize about stripping. I feel lucky because I'm good at it and I make decent money."

  "Well, I certainly never fantasized about it," Beatrix informed them.

  Natalie squirmed—after splitting a bottle of particularly good wine, she'd once performed a striptease for Raymond, but had been so mortified the next morning that she refused to even talk about it. Her cheeks flamed at the thought of him comparing her clumsy technique to Ruby's. On the heels of that disturbing thought came the question of what Ruby would do when she became too pregnant to perform. Was the woman's financial situation as dire as her own?

  The dividing window buzzed down and the driver announced they were approaching the cemetery. Silence fell among them as the vehicle bumped its way over an uneven asphalt road. Through the windshield, she saw their surroundings were green and lush, the arch above the entrance gate gnarled with vines and rust. Oak Gardens.

  "It's lovely," she murmured.

  "Raymond and I always thought so," Beatrix offered, her mind seemingly a thousand miles away.

  The hearse drove nearly to the end of the cemetery before pulling off onto a wide shoulder. A green canopy had been erected over an open grave and a row of three folding chairs sat waiting. Natalie's insides knotted at the knowledge of what lay ahead.

  Silent and teary-eyed, they waited in the limousine until the coffin was drawn from the hearse. The limousine driver alighted to help carry the casket, and a handful of dirty city workers who apparently had done the digging filled in as impromptu pallbearers. They shouldered the casket to the gravesite, then the funeral director returned to the limo to retrieve the women.

  They climbed out, noiseless and, in Natalie's case, numb, then picked their way among gravestones and pitted ground to the grave, above which sat Raymond's shiny coffin on a lift. A spray of red roses covered the curved top. His favorite.

  Natalie allowed herself to be led to one of the chairs, but she couldn't tear her gaze from the gaping hole beneath the coffin. Her husband would be lowered into that cold, deep cavern and covered over with dirt as carelessly as the roots of a shrub.

  Ruby dropped into the seat next to her, crying softly and reeking of throw-up. Beatrix sat closest to the head of the casket. As the funeral director delivered a generic send-off, Natalie tried to imagine Raymond's face, terrified that bits of his features were already fuzzy in her mind. Tears leaked down her chapped cheeks, burning in the brisk spring chill.

  She realized the funeral director had stopped talking when the pallbearers circled the casket. As the casket was lowered into the grave, red roses were passed to all three of them. Ruby was sobbing so loudly, she had developed the hiccups. Natalie assumed some of the girl's weight, even though Ruby towered over her. Beatrix tossed in her rose first. Ruby went next and very nearly threw herself in as well, but was saved by a quick jerk from Natalie. When the commotion subsided, Natalie finally opened her own hand to let the third flower drop into the grave. It bounced off the coffin, red petals exploding, then disappeared down the side.

  The funeral director led a quick prayer, rushing to "amen," which everyone repeated, including the sweaty gravediggers. The director shook their hands again, gently steering them away from the tent, obviously eager to return to Paducah. Natalie kept looking back at the grave, biting deep into her lip as the first shovels of dirt were tossed on top of the coffin. She stumbled and tried to focus on something other than the fact that the man she loved was being buried.

  She straightened her shoulders, and walked toward the road. She and Ruby would be riding back together after they dropped Beatrix at her home. Natalie massaged the bridge of her nose, longing for a dry, clean handkerchief. Considering the stench of the interior of the vehicle, she hoped they could trade for another limo. She sighed in relief when she realized that another long car was already sitting behind the limo, but squinted when a second, then a third car arrived.

  A heavyset graying man climbed out of one of the cars. He wore a sport coat and stood in a wide-legged stance, waiting for them. From the puzzlement on Beatrix's face, she didn't know the man. Natalie's heart lurched—was he a bill collector? An IRS agent? Had Raymond's debt caught up to them already?

  When they neared the limo, the man stepped forward and read from a small card. "Mrs. Beatrix Carmichael?"

  "Yes," Beatrix replied after a split-second hesitation.

  "My name is Detective Aldrich, from the Kentucky State Police."

  "Whatever this concerns, Detective, it can wait," Beatrix said in a queenly voice that Natalie admired. "I just buried my husband."

  The man scratched his temple, seemingly unmoved. "Mrs. Carmichael, your husband is the reason I'm here. The medical examiner received the autopsy results a few hours ago."

  Beatrix frowned. "I didn't order an autopsy."

  "Well, you got one anyway," the man said, adopting a flat smile. "The report shows that your husband died of a massive heart attack."

  "Tell me something I don't know, Detective."

  "Okay. Your husband was murdered."

  Natalie swayed, but caught herself, trying to make sense of the man's words. It was ludicrous. Who on earth would murder Raymond? At the sound of streaming water, she turned and stared at the growing dark stain on Ruby's shiny red dress.

  "Oh, my God
," the young woman whispered. "I just peed my pants."

  Chapter 10

  Tony scoffed. "You're shitting me. Three wives?"

  Wrapped in a holey chenille robe, Natalie stood at the kitchen sink with her back to her brother, holding a cup of coffee that had grown cold. God, how she'd hoped she wouldn't have to tell Tony the sordid truth. "No, I'm not."

  "Where are the other two? I mean, what do they do?"

  "His real wife lives in her family mansion in northern Tennessee." She'd been in a stupor when they'd dropped Beatrix at her home, but later Ruby said it looked like "a freaking public library." "I got the impression that she doesn't do much except complain. The other woman he duped lives in Kentucky outside Paducah. She's... a stripper."

  He grunted. "A rich bitch, a doctor, and a stripper?"

  She was glad she couldn't see his face. "Raymond was nothing if not magnanimous."

  "Damn, sis. No wonder you look like hell."

  "I've missed you, too."

  "Now I know why you didn't want me at the funeral. I just thought you were ashamed of me."

  She was. But at the time she'd been thinking only of her own shame.

  "Christ," he said with his mouth full. "I knew Raymond was a player, but I never dreamed he'd go and do something that stupid."

  She set her jaw at Tony's assessment—not criminal and unconscionable, just stupid. Mrs. Ratchet was right, she conceded as she looked across the dewy back yard; Rose Marie's flower garden was growing wild. Just another in the long list of things she'd neglected, apparently. Her husband, her finances, her brother, her garden. She turned, already regretting her decision to allow Tony to stay for a while. "What do you mean, you knew Raymond was a player?"

  Tony shrugged and licked the mixing spoon he was using to consume an enormous bowl of pasta salad. Her parents had been hard pressed to keep enough food on hand when he was growing up—she remembered because her mother had made her do the shopping. In hindsight, Tony had needed his strength to pull off his many heists.

  He looked toward the ceiling. Tony was so handsome, with dusky skin and aquiline features. And she should be so lucky as to have those long black eyelashes. Prison had given him hard, lean angles, but he was still a striking man.

  Tony made a rueful sound with his cheek. "Raymond had the look, you know? Something in the eyes."

  Her pulse spiked. As if he, the delinquent, had been savvy enough to see Raymond's flaws, but she, the physician, hadn't. "Coming from a professional player's point of view, of course," she added, not nicely.

  His shoulders sagged, and he resumed eating with somewhat less gusto. "I suppose."

  She closed her eyes. How did he do that? Her brother had been a screw-up his entire life, yet was able to make her feel bad for pointing out that she didn't trust his opinion. Was she so easily manipulated? Had Raymond been attracted to a weakness in her that made him feel powerful? Was what she'd deemed a cheerful disposition actually him laughing at her the duration of their counterfeit marriage?

  Regardless, her brother wasn't accountable for Raymond's sins. "I shouldn't have said that," she murmured.

  "It's okay, sis. What Raymond did was pretty lousy. I know you were crazy about him."

  Crazy—how fitting. She turned back to the window because she didn't want him to see her choke up. She was the strong one. If she broke down, the laws of nature would be set on end.

  "Sis, you're still young, you're a doctor, you still got your face and figure. I know it sucks right now, but—"

  "There's more." A spider was spinning a web in the branches of an overgrown shrub outside the window.

  He scoffed. "What, does he have a bunch of kids running around or something?"

  She poured the coffee down the drain of the porcelain sink. "As a matter of fact, the younger woman is pregnant."

  "The stripper?"

  She nodded.

  "Wow, good thing you don't need Raymond's money because it sounds like you'd have to stand in line."

  "As it turns out," Natalie said, thinking she really should take down the café curtains and wash them, "Raymond also had a gambling problem I didn't know about. He depleted our accounts."

  Behind her, Tony's spoon clattered against the table. "Are you saying you're broke?"

  From the outrage in his voice, she surmised he had indeed been hoping for a handout. "It appears so."

  "But we still have Rose Marie's house," he said, his tone elevated. "This place has to be worth a bundle."

  We—how typical. "I'll do all I can to keep Rose Marie's house."

  "So you're behind on a few bills—you have your own practice, for heaven's sake."

  An unfortunate bug flew into the web, and the spider made short work of the insect. "Not for long. The town will hold it against me when word gets around that my husband was a bigamist."

  "Well, technically, he was a trigamist, but have you told anyone?"

  "Just you." Had the windowpane always been cracked? She must be the most unobservant person breathing.

  "Then you don't have anything to worry about. The funeral was in Kentucky, and he's buried in Tennessee. As long as the two other broads keep quiet, why does anyone here in little old Smiley, Missouri have to know Raymond pulled a fast one on you?"

  Natalie set down her cup and turned back to face him, holding on to the counter. "Because it's possible that Raymond's death wasn't from natural causes."

  "I'll say—having all three of his wives show up at once is damned unnatural."

  "Tony, the medical examiner thinks Raymond might have been... murdered."

  He came out of his seat, spewing pasta. "What? How?"

  She lifted her hands. "The Kentucky State Police showed up in Tennessee yesterday after the funeral, but all they would say is they suspect Raymond was given something to trigger the heart attack."

  Tony frowned. "Who'd want to kill—" His eyes bulged. He crossed to the sink and clasped her shoulders. "They'll go easier on you if you confess. Just tell them the mailbox told you to do it and they’ll send you to a hospital instead of prison."

  Natalie shrugged off his hands. "Are you insane? How could you even think such a thing?"

  "Well... you're a doctor, and besides, who could blame you if you did kill the bastard?"

  "But I didn't!"

  He held up his hands. "Okay. So, do you think one of the other wives could have offed him?"

  She pressed her hands to her temples. "I'm not thinking, period. It hasn't sunk in."

  "So what now?"

  "The police want to question me. I'm meeting my lawyer in Paducah in a few hours."

  "Do the police know about the bigamy thing?"

  She nodded. "They linked him to the woman in Kentucky first, but the funeral home led them to his wife in Tennessee and to the gravesite. They knew we were all connected to him somehow, they just didn't know the specifics."

  "Have they already questioned the other two women?"

  "No, they're supposed to be questioned today, too."

  "Who's going first?"

  She frowned. "What does it matter?"

  "The person they interview first has the advantage."

  "I don't care who is interviewed first, because I don't believe Raymond was murdered. I was there, I saw him have a heart attack."

  "They must have some kind of evidence. You shouldn't take this lightly."

  "Take what lightly? Even if Raymond was murdered, which he wasn't, I don't have anything to worry about because I certainly didn't kill him."

  Tony frowned. "The prisons are full of innocent people, Nat."

  "Oh, right."

  "I'm serious. Some people break under the pressure and look guilty even if they aren't. All it takes is a motive, circumstantial evidence, and a persuasive prosecuting attorney."

  "Now you're an expert in criminal law?"

  "The lockup had a great legal library." He suddenly looked sheepish. "Thought I might even give law school a try if I could scrape together the cash.
"

  She bit her tongue. Tony had tried his hand at everything from pyramid marketing schemes to raising Christmas trees, but burglary was the only occupation at which he'd truly excelled. "And as usual, the conversation revolves back to you," she said, pushing past him. "I could've sworn we were talking about my husband being murdered."

  "But you just said he wasn't murdered."

  She kept walking, dismissing him with a wave.

  "I was trying to help," he said behind her.

  "I don't need your help," she flung over her shoulder as she jogged up the stairs.

  "No, you never needed anyone, did you, Nat?"

  She stopped at the landing and considered sending a massive clay vase down to oblige his long-suffering expression. "No one was there if I had needed someone."

  "I'm here now. And I want to be here for you, Nat."

  Clutching the banister, she stared down at the man who had consistently proved that he didn't care about anyone but himself. Men. What made them feel so entitled to use the women who loved them most? Her handsome brother disappeared through a blur of tears. She was drained, exhausted... and done trying. Natalie turned and resumed climbing. "Just don't steal anything from the house while I'm gone."

  Chapter 11

  "Don't tell these yahoos any more than you have to," Gaylord Gilliam declared as he held open the door of the Kentucky State Police Paducah post.

  Beatrix pressed a finger against her eyebrow to ease a relentless tic. "When this mess is over, I never want to see the inside of this state again."

  "Relax," her lawyer drawled. "We'll be in and out of here in no time. I wouldn't be surprised if they roll in and say it was all a big fat mistake."

  She'd thought the same thing when the limo had dropped her off at her home yesterday afternoon. Around two this morning, however, she began to worry that the police did indeed have something—else, why would that detective Aldrich have looked at her as if he'd already spent the raise he would get for locking her up?

  "You know, Gaylord, Raymond was no saint—the fact that his death is suspicious could look bad on me."