Beckett's Convenient Bride

by Dixie Browning

  Carson digested the information, processing it into what he already knew. Which was too damned little. “Who found him?”

  “Couple of kids. They was messing around in Martha’s Creek when they saw something floating up from under an eel pot. Turned out, it was ol’ Tank’s shirttail. One of the kids called his pappy, and he went and brought him in. Been me, I’d’ve called Billy or Mooney.”

  “Billy or Mooney,” Carson repeated.

  “Deputies. Billy, he’s local. Mooney, he comes from somewhere up north. Been here a couple of months. Seems like a nice kid, though.”

  Nice didn’t cut it. Smart would have been better. From where they were standing, Carson could see the two uniformed deputies talking to a couple of school-age kids. One of the boys was talking; the other looked as if he’d just been sick and was about to offer up an encore.

  Gulls circled overhead, adding to the noise level. The smell of diesel fuel mingled with the effluvia of fish-cleaning tables, shell heaps and deep-frying grease. Carson took it all in—the sounds, the sights, the smells. He was tempted to wander over, flash his credentials and see what he could learn, but small-town law had a way of being territorial.

  So did big-town law, for that matter, but he had a feeling this one might spill over into DEA territory before it was over.

  He also had a feeling the restaurateur might know more than he was saying. Smart man. He had to live around these parts, and Carson was a stranger. Had Kit confided in her boss last night when she’d gone to work? And if so, to what extent?

  Carson reminded himself that this wasn’t his case. Every few minutes Jeff’s gaze would stray over to where the two waitresses were talking. Carson didn’t have to wonder which of them he was watching. The pocket Venus, Bimbo or Babette—whatever she called herself—was easily enough to attract a second look. But Kit was…

  She was simply Kit. Outrageous, elegant, flaky, flamboyant. Add to that gutsy and vulnerable and it still wasn’t the sum total of the woman he’d driven some four hundred miles to find.

  Trouble was, now that he’d found her, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her. He knew what he’d like to do with her.

  Oh, yeah.

  The ambulance pulled away, sans sirens. The crowd showed no sign of dispersing. More than once Carson heard the word drugs being whispered. Like any interstate highway that ran roughly north and south, the inland waterway was a convenient conduit.

  These people might live in the backwoods, but that didn’t mean they weren’t aware of what went on in the world. Not only did they have ready access to information, but living in the slow lane they had more time to process that information. To ponder, as PawPaw would’ve said. Country wisdom wasn’t entirely a myth.

  Had Hubble been a bit player? Or had he simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Seen or heard something he wasn’t supposed to see or hear? The proverbial innocent bystander.

  Like Kit. The way things were shaping up she was definitely at risk if she was even suspected of having been on the scene.

  A pelican settled heavily on top of a post near the end of the wharf to size up the crowd, gauging his chances for a handout. With a brief nod to the other man, Carson turned away, his eyes instinctively searching for a familiar purple shirt.

  Well, hell. Like he needed this. With a mother who was disappearing deeper into her own world every day, a fiancée who was on her way to New York to discuss hooking up with an established interior design firm, and a check he was obligated to deliver that the recipient didn’t seem interested in accepting, he really didn’t need another problem. Not to mention the fact that his bones weren’t healing as fast as they had ten years ago, or even five.

  He’d been fifteen the first time he’d broken a bone. He’d been seventeen the first time he’d gotten drunk—even younger than that when he’d discovered what sex was all about.

  Meanwhile, not quite a generation apart, but close, little Kitty Dixon had been drawing stick figures and making up ghost stories to entertain her kindergarten pals.

  He caught a drift of some faint spicy fragrance an instant before she came up behind him and hooked her arm through his. “I told you so,” she murmured. “Do you believe me now?”

  Her touch made him suck in his breath. “I believed you all along,” he lied.

  In unspoken alliance they turned toward her house, following the weed-bordered footpath past a few dockside sheds, a thicket of wild plum that was just now starting to bloom and a vacant house that had evidently been used for target practice a time or two.

  A place like this could grow on you, Carson mused.

  Yeah, like moss. Like a fungus.

  “Sure you don’t want to talk to the deputies before they leave?” he felt obligated to ask. “They’d probably listen to you now.”

  “They had their chance. Besides, this is turning real ugly—I’m not sure I want to get involved after all.”

  “Murder’s always ugly.” Still, he couldn’t much blame her for wanting to back off. She was a woman alone, with no visible support system.

  An anxious expression clouding her eyes, she said, “Is it all right? I mean I was a witness…sort of. Is there some law that says I have to keep going back until they’re willing to listen?”

  Carson considered the extent of his own obligations as a fellow law officer. He had a choice. He could tell her what she wanted to hear—that she’d made the effort and been rebuffed, which ended her duty as a citizen—or he could he tell her what she didn’t want to hear, but needed to: that anyone with any knowledge of a crime had a duty to come forward. If she’d left her name they could have found her for any further questioning.

  He waited until they’d reached the single section of picket fence in front of her house where she parked her car, to make up his mind. To hell with duty. He was off-duty now, not to mention way out of his jurisdiction.

  They gravitated toward the kitchen, and a few minutes later they were seated at the table, mugs of reheated coffee in hand, more for comfort than stimulation. Under that big, bold shirt, she looked too fragile. He’d already explained about the condition of the stock certificates, but he hadn’t had time to show her the letter that had been handed down through the generations that was supposed to explain it all. Written in faded ink in an elegant hand his mother had referred to as copperplate, it was all but impossible to decipher after an army of insects had helped themselves. Still, it might prove just the distraction she needed.

  He brought in his briefcase, opened it and set the stuff out on the table between them. It even smelled old. “I’ve already explained what this is all about,” he said.

  Had he? So much had happened in so short a time, damned if he could remember what he’d told her and what he’d only rehearsed in his mind. “The rest of this stuff is pretty much window dressing, but the check’s good. It was cut less than a week ago, so you see—”

  “What day is this?” Kit asked suddenly.

  Puzzled, Carson glanced at his watch. “Uh…Friday.”

  “Oh, shoot!” She jumped up, leaving the check and documents on the red-enameled table.

  Carson raked back his chair to follow. “Kit? Is something wrong?” Her bedroom door was open. He followed her inside.

  She was standing in front of her open closet, scowling at the contents. “This week has been just plain crazy. Or maybe it’s psychological. Do you think that’s it? Like I didn’t want to remember, and so even though I kept reminding myself, when the time came, I forgot?”

  Off into the wild blue yonder again, Carson thought, half-bemused. He was fairly certain the woman had a full complement of gray cells, but either there was a short circuit somewhere along the line or a few of her dip-switches needed attention.

  “You want to give me a hint?”

  “A hint? Oh—the party. I told you.”

  He nodded as if he understood exactly what she was talking about. “Right. The party.”

  Gradually, as if a hologram were
taking shape around him, he became aware of his surroundings. Her bedroom walls were the kind of old-fashioned paneling called beaded ceiling. The color of strong tea, it had never seen a lick of paint. Instead of the wild colors and patterns he might have expected, the accessories were plain white cotton, from the curtains that graced the two tall, double-hung windows to the bedspread that covered the single bed, to the cheap scatter rugs on the worn pine floors.

  And while the décor was the last thing he would have expected, the scent that lingered there was hers alone. Fruity, spicy, with a hint of something that reminded him of his mother’s flower border.

  While he watched, she reached inside the closet and brought forth a dress made of some slithery material, the color and pattern so bright he almost flinched. She eyed it critically, as if trying to make up her mind about something. If she offered him a vote, it would be a resounding negative. The thing was neither red nor purple but somewhere in between, covered with flowers roughly the size of hubcaps.

  She held it up in front of her and turned this way and that, examining her image in the oval dresser mirror, like a little girl playing dress up.

  Only Kit wasn’t a little girl. And what he’d like to play with her wasn’t dress up, it was more like undress.

  Could a broken leg affect the brain?

  Obviously it could. He’d outgrown hotwired hormones about ten years ago.

  “I caught my heel in the hem the last time I wore my black and I never got around to mending it,” she said as if that explained everything.

  Wrenching his eyes away from her backside, where her shirt was hiked up over those tights, he looked down at her red sneakers, then at the dress she was still clutching against her body.

  Oh, no, he thought. You wouldn’t….

  Yeah, she probably would. And on her, it would probably work. Like whatsername, the actress who’d worn orange sneakers with a black designer gown to the Emmy Awards a few years ago.

  Make that a few decades ago, he thought ruefully.

  “Look, I’ve got to shower. I don’t suppose you brought a suit with you, did you?”

  “Huh?” Totally bemused, he shook his head. “Sorry. Clean pair of khakis, blue shirt and navy blazer. I wasn’t sure what I was going to be dealing with when I left home.”

  “It’ll do. You want the first shower, or me? My hair takes longer to dry, but if I use the dryer it frizzes up all over.”

  If she wanted to blame it on her dryer, that was all right with him. Personally, he sort of liked it. “Go ahead, then, I’ll wait. What shall I do with your check?”

  “My what? Oh, that. Put it in the refrigerator, will you? I’ll have to think about whether or not I’m going to accept it.”

  “The refrigerator,” he repeated, not sure he’d heard her correctly.

  Beam me up, Scotty.

  “Well, it’s metal and insulated, in case the house burns down before we get back.”

  Before we get back. Right.

  Impatiently, she said, “Look, I don’t have a safe, so if you’re worried about your check, put it in the freezer compartment.”

  It’s your check, dammit, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Wouldn’t do any good. She was switched onto transmit now, not receive.

  Jerking open a dresser drawer, she grabbed a handful of underwear. Surprisingly enough, it was plain white, too, just like her bedroom accessories. Carson decided he’d been right about one thing, at least. Kit Dixon was making a statement.

  Now all he had to do was figure out who the recipient was supposed to be—the world at large, or someone in particular.

  Correction: he didn’t have to figure out a damned thing. It was none of his business.

  A few hours later he had his first clue as to what might have provoked her aggressive-defensive attitude. Her grandfather, the judge, was a type he recognized, having testified in a number of court cases over the years. The man was biased, opinionated, with a mind set in concrete that had long since hardened. The law was whatever the judge said it was on a given day. Argue and find yourself in contempt.

  “And you are—?” The portly old guy in the three-piece suit and old-fashioned ribbon tie deliberately stepped just inside what Carson considered his personal space. Kit had been swept away by three older women, hastily introduced as friends of her grandmother.

  Judge Abner Andrew Dixon looked him over as if he were peering through a magnifying glass. He didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “Carson Beckett, sir. Friend of your granddaughter’s, up visiting from South Carolina.”

  “South C’lina, hmm? How did you meet my granddaughter?”

  Bracing himself for cross-examination, Carson decided the money was none of the old despot’s business. He had a feeling there were issues between Kit and her grandfather that wouldn’t be helped by any explanations he could make.

  “Kit’s cousin married mine last summer. She might have mentioned it?”

  Bushy white eyebrows lowered, the judge took a moment to ruminate. “Must be on her mother’s side,” he dismissed.

  Carson nodded.

  “Thought so.” His sour expression spoke volumes. And without another word, the old gent wheeled and left.

  Both amused and irritated, Carson remained for several minutes between the entrance hall door and a Kentucky Derby-sized flower arrangement, watching as well-dressed and obviously well-heeled guests merged and broke apart to circulate, only to merge and circulate again. Aside from one or two curious glances, few paid him any attention, which suited him just fine.

  Although he wasn’t exactly dressed for it, Carson felt comfortable enough. His own family no longer did much entertaining, but he’d attended his share of such events back when his uncle Coley had been active in politics.

  He nodded to the few people who offered him tentative smiles. They were obviously trying to place him, trying to figure out if he was someone important. Probably figured if he was confident enough to show up tieless at what was not quite a black-tie affair, but almost, then he must be someone important.

  From time to time he caught sight of Kit, usually with a tall, well-dressed guy in tow. The guy reminded him of an actor whose name he couldn’t recall. Once she’d given him a little finger wave, her expression one of silent commiseration. At a guess, he’d say she was having about as much fun as he was. Better than a dental appointment, but not much.

  Who the hell was the guy who kept following her around, hovering over her like an Armani-clad guardian angel?

  Leaning against the only spot on the wall that wasn’t covered by furniture, flowers or a gilt-framed portrait of some grim-faced ancestor, Carson sized up the crowd. Roughly three-quarters of them he figured for lawyers—well-dressed, well-schooled, a few of them already well lubricated. Among the remainder were probably a few politicians, as they usually stemmed from the same source. Spouses, naturally, all monotonously suitably dressed, with pearls and black crepe predominating. Now and then a red dress, but nothing even close to that horror Kit was wearing.

  God love her, she was something else.

  For the third time since they’d arrived, Carson checked his watch. Seventeen minutes. Twenty was his minimum, forty his maximum, but then, this was Kit’s gig, not his. He braced his feet apart and continued to take in the scene before him as if it were a crime scene he was trying to get a read on. Old habits died hard.

  He was beginning to get a fix on the enigma that was Kit Dixon. The judge had obviously disapproved of her mother—in which case, loyalty alone might have forced Kit to strike out on her own after both parents had died.

  What about her father, the judge’s son? Where did he fit in? Give the man some credit; he’d chosen to marry Elizabeth Chandler, hadn’t he? Carson was biased toward the Chandlers, if only for what they’d done to jump-start the Becketts after the war. Then, too, he thought a lot of Lance’s wife, who’d been born a Chandler.

  He was tempted to ask Kit about her parents—that is, he might if he were going to
be here long enough. She might even give him an answer. Then again, she might give him a response straight out of Star Wars or some Disney epic. Whoever she was—whatever drove her, Kit Dixon lived in a unique universe all her own.

  Actually, the dress wasn’t all that bad, now that he was used to it. Earlier that evening, she’d emerged from her bedroom about the same time he’d opened the bathroom door. He’d still been trying to brush a few wrinkles out of his best khakis and wishing he’d thought to bring along another pair of shoes.

  He distinctly remembered gaping. The coat hanger hadn’t done justice to the dress. Hubcap-sized blossoms and all, it was…something else. Sleeveless, cut straight across her collarbone, it skimmed her body, clinging to a few points of interest along the way, like breasts and hipbones, to swirl around her ankles.

  Her ankles. Delicate didn’t begin to describe them. If Occupational Safety and Health Administration ever got a look at those shoes she was almost wearing—four-inch heels, a paper-thin sole and a single narrow band across the toes—she’d be in real trouble.

  Even thinking about her, his gaze unconsciously homed in on her location across the crowded room. She was moving. He’d noticed that about her before—that even when she was standing still, some part of her body was always moving. Shoulders, hands—a tapping foot.

  Was she as impatient with this whole tea party as he was?

  At the moment she was talking to a rake-thin blonde in a black dress whose ankles, incidentally, were almost as fine. Without taking time to think, Carson levered his way from the wall that had been supporting him and headed across the room.

  “’scuse me. Oops, sorry.” He was halfway there before he noticed the well-dressed Ralph Fiennes type standing a few feet away, but clearly a part of the small group. Kit happened to look up and catch his eye. Either he was crazy, or she was trying to send him a message.

  Back off? Get me out of here?

  Oh, good, he was coming to rescue her. Tired beyond belief, Kit allowed the words to flow around her. She was good at tuning out. She’d been doing it all her life for one reason or another.