1 In For A Penny

by Maggie Toussaint

  “Yup. Sex starved. She said you wouldn’t be jumping men in public if you weren’t all revved up by those racy TV programs. Doesn’t that make you wonder which programs she’s watching? Doesn’t sound like they’re the family programs.”

  I smirked. If I didn’t laugh about this, I was going to spend too much time thinking about being sex starved. Which I most certainly was. “My guess is that she’s jealous. She wishes she could lure a man like Rafe Golden into her bed.”

  Charlie and the girls came in just then. The girls swirled through the kitchen for a few minutes foraging like locusts, then swept out to watch TV. Charlie fixed himself a cup of coffee and joined Jonette and me at the kitchen table. “What’s this I hear about Rafe Golden taking the girls to school this morning?” Charlie asked.

  “He brought me home from the golf course because my car was blocked in. It was very nice of him to help out,” I added defensively. I didn’t know if Charlie had heard about this morning’s kiss or not, but I didn’t need him doing any macho stuff in my kitchen right now. I had just been through a terrible horrible rotten no-good day.

  Charlie crossed his arms and scowled at me. “I don’t like him hanging around here, especially in the mornings. People might think he slept over or something.”

  “That’s not really your concern,” I murmured into my coffee. It occurred to me that Charlie’s wife had just been arrested for murder and that she’d tried to frame him to take the blame. His day hadn’t been that much better than mine. “About Denise. Why did she do it?”

  “You’ll have to narrow it down a bit, Clee,” Charlie said. “Denise did a lot of things, and none of them were good. I found out today that she’s been playing me from the get-go. I was her ticket to computer access to unlimited funds at the bank. What my computer passwords couldn’t get for her, she used Dudley’s to obtain.”

  “I thought her alibi for Dudley’s murder was solid. I saw that logbook myself.”

  “Her mother lives on the first floor. Once her mother went to bed, Denise went out the window and no one was the wiser.”

  I ran my finger around the rim of my daisy-splashed coffee mug. I wasn’t surprised that Denise didn’t have any love in her heart for Charlie. She hadn’t minded sleeping with him and taking him away from me because that furthered her own interests.

  How did Charlie feel about being used in such a callous manner? I’d never liked her and now I felt completely vindicated about my distrust of her.

  “Was that what this was all about then? She killed Dudley because of money?”

  “Not just some money. Millions of dollars. Dudley found out what she was doing when he checked into Ed Monday’s bank problem. She’d been authorizing loans in Dudley’s name and siphoning the funds to an offshore account in her mother’s name. I’ve spent the day combing through our records for the police. The bank guard could place Denise at the bank the night of my supposed fishing trip, so that’s why she killed him.”

  Charlie’s hand reached out to cover mine. “She’d have killed you too if you weren’t so quick on your feet. I’m still in shock over what she tried to do.”

  I edged my hand out from under his. I felt sorry for Charlie. His life had been turned upside down by Denise. But if he’d been content in our marriage, he never would have strayed in the first place. I was absolutely positively certain I didn’t want him back.

  Charlie cleared his throat. “I was wondering if I might speak to you for a moment, privately.”

  His tone of voice was carefully calculated. He and I both knew that I had always melted whenever he lowered his voice and put that sort of heat in his eyes. But it wasn’t happening today.

  Hallelujah!

  I had finally exorcised the man from my thoughts and desires. I was a free woman. “Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of Jonette.”

  “Dammit, Clee,” Charlie said. “I wanted to do this right. The thing is, I hardly know what to say. I’ve used some really bad judgment these past two years. I should have listened to you in the beginning. You said Denise was a two-bit hustler when Dudley hired her as a bank teller. You were right. I was wrong, so wrong that it almost cost you your life. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Forgiveness was cheap, and surprisingly, I didn’t want to snap Charlie’s head off any longer. He’d made some whopper mistakes, but he’d paid for them too. “No problem.”

  Charlie shot an imploring look at Jonette to leave the room, but Jonette sat as if her butt was glued to the chair. I didn’t mind Jonette hearing this conversation. We’d shared so many private conversations over the years, she knew Charlie as well as I did, better even because of her objectivity.

  Charlie leaned closer to me. I was glad the dog lay on the floor between us so that he couldn’t scoot his chair next to mine. “I want you and the girls to move back home, Clee. I want us to try again.”

  His ludicrous suggestion made me laugh out loud. “You’re joking, right?”

  Unfortunately he didn’t crack a smile. “I’m serious. This whole thing made me realize that there’s no substitute for family, and you and the girls are my family. I need you, Cleo.”

  This was what I’d been secretly hoping for over the last year and a half, to have Charlie beg me to come back to him. But now that he’d come to his senses, I wasn’t the least bit interested in his offer.

  Denise may have led Charlie out of the rose garden, but he’d gone under his own power. What Charlie and I had had in our marriage, though it had been enough for me, it obviously hadn’t been enough for him.

  And even if I had a brain seizure right here and now and actually thought moving back in with him was a good idea, I’d always be wondering where he was when he was out of my sight. Every month, I would be scouring the charge card bills for evidence that he’d been cheating on me again.

  No, the situation we had right now was best for all concerned. Charlie was here on the rebound. Once his wife was sentenced he could move on with his life and he’d forget that he’d been over here groveling.

  My silence must have unnerved him. “I swear I’d never so much as look at another woman,” Charlie pleaded. “Please, Cleo. I’ve missed you.”

  It took me about three seconds to formulate my reply. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m moving on with my life. I’m seeing someone now and I don’t know if I’ll ever marry again.”

  “You can’t mean that.” From his dark expression you’d have thought I wanted to leap off the cliff at Hogan’s Glen Overlook Park.

  “I do mean it.” I held his gaze so that he’d know I was firm in my decision.

  He leaned back in his chair and didn’t say anything for a few long moments. Then he grinned his special sexy grin. The one he always flashed when he had sex on the brain and about ten minutes until blast off. The one that used to curl my toes.

  I noticed right away that my toes weren’t curling. I was absolutely impervious to “the look.” No matter what was in my future, it wasn’t being Mrs. Charlie Jones again.

  He rose from his chair. “I can see you just need a little more time. I’ll be back.”

  Unexpectedly, he leaned down to kiss me on the mouth. I turned my head so that his lips brushed my cheek. I rejoiced because I wasn’t awash in gooseflesh.

  I stood with him. “What we had is over, Charlie. Get that through that thick melon head of yours. The entire police force witnessed another man kissing me this morning, and you want to know what? I was kissing him back. Right there in broad daylight.”

  “So what? I got married. But I still think of you all the time. We were meant to be together, Cleo. Just like the original Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.”

  I ushered him to the door. “Now you’re scaring me, Charlie. Since when do you know anything about ancient history?”

  His eyes twinkled. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get my woman back.”

  “I’m not your woman,” I hollered to his back.

  He grinned from his Beemer. Charlie Jones alway
s rose to a challenge and my refusal to take him back had awakened his competitive instincts. I might as well have lit the Olympic torch and proclaimed, “Let the games begin.”

  Jonette put the empty coffee mugs in the sink. “Well that was entertaining. Who would have thought he’d be here begging for you to take him back?”

  “It’s not going to happen. I’m so over him.”

  Jonette eyed me dimly. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to here. I know how sex starved you are and how lonely you’ve been. If you mess this thing up with Rafe, you’ll be thinking of pulling Charlie up from the injured reserve list.”

  “I’ve never thought of men as interchangeable. I can barely handle them one at a time. I can’t imagine stringing Charlie along while I date Rafe.”

  “Honey, you’re not going to have to string him along. Charlie finally wised up. He was a better man when the two of you were together. Now that he knows that, he’s gonna try to get you back.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Ruth. I kind of got that on my own.”

  There was another knock at my kitchen door. I peered out the window and recognized a now familiar red convertible. Rafe’s car. “Hell. When it rains, it pours.”

  Jonette headed for the front door. “This is my cue to leave. I wouldn’t be complaining too loud if I were you. Most women would kill to have it raining men.”

  Raining men. Did that mean I could reach up and catch the one I wanted? Interesting concept. I opened the back door and stepped into Rafe’s embrace. “I thought you’d never get here,” I murmured in his ear.

  Here’s a sneak preview of Maggie Toussaint’s On The Nickel, the second book in the Cleopatra Jones mystery series!

  Numbers flowed in satisfying streams through my ink pen onto the Sudoku puzzle. A nine here. A two there. I scribbled a possibility in the corner of a grid square and sipped my coffee. Patterns emerged. I inked a seven in the top row, leading to three other filled-in numbers.

  Without warning, Mama upended her oversized purse on the kitchen table. Junk clattered. Loose coins clinked. A tube of mulberry-colored lipstick rolled on top of my folded newspaper. Alarmed, I studied her as she pawed through the mound of personal items. A can of hair spray tottered on the edge of the table, and I caught it a moment before it fell.

  “Lose something?” I asked, placing the can squarely on the table.

  Mama muttered out of the side of her mouth. “My car keys.”

  Her color seemed a bit off. I set aside my puzzle to help sort through the jumble. I lifted the umbrella and plastic rain bonnet and moved them to the side. Her wallet was large enough to give birth. No keys hiding under it. I checked beneath her new hairbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a pack of breath mints. Nothing under the mini-photo album, tissue packet, or her dog-eared credit card bill.

  “Don’t see any keys,” I said. “Where did you have them last?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be looking for them,” Mama huffed.

  Was something else wrong? I chewed my lip and replayed the morning in my head. Mama ate a good breakfast. Her buttercup yellow pant suit appeared neat and tidy as did her mop of white curls. Her triple strands of pearls were securely clasped around her neck. So, her appetite and grooming were fine, but her behavior was off. Probably not a medical emergency.

  I breathed easier. “What’s wrong, Mama?”

  “What’s right, that’s what I’d like to know.”

  There was just enough vinegar in her voice to make me think I’d missed something big. Like maybe a luncheon date with her. Or broken a promise. But I hadn’t done those things. I pulled out a chair and invited her to sit down. “Tell me what’s on your mind, Mama.”

  “The price of gas keeps rising.” Mama sat and enumerated points on her fingers. “World peace is a myth. Social Security isn’t social or secure. And Joe Sampson had no business dying on me.”

  She’d run out of fingers, but I got the message. Guilt smacked me dead between the eyes. I had forgotten something. The anniversary of daddy’s aneurism. Usually we took a trip to the cemetery on August 21. I gulped. “Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say something yesterday?”

  “I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.” Mama’s voice quivered. “It’s been three years, Cleo. I should be able to go by myself.”

  I reached over the kitchen table and covered her hands with mine. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll drive you to your meeting, then we’ll swing by Fairhope on the way home.”

  Mama sat up soldier straight. “That will eat up your whole morning.”

  “No problem. We mailed all the quarterly tax payment vouchers to our Sampson Accounting clients last week. I can’t think of anything at work that won’t keep until this afternoon.”

  Half an hour later, I was sitting in the hall at Trinity Episcopal while Mama attended her Ladies Outreach Committee meeting. I’d brought a magazine to read, but there was something else about Mama this morning that worried me. Something more than our delayed cemetery visit. I wished I knew what it was. Even though I’m good at puzzles, I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. Knowing Mama, I wouldn’t have long to wait. I dug my magazine out of my purse and flipped through the glossy pages.

  In a little while, the gentle murmur of conversation from the meeting room rose to an angry buzz. Mama’s sharp voice sliced through the fray. “Mark my words. If you don’t change your ways, Erica, someone will change them for you.”

  My heart stutter-stepped at the heat in her voice. This was not good. How should I handle it? Mama would not appreciate me trying to straighten this out. My intervention would be the equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a penned bull. I hesitated, hoping that the women resolved their difference of opinion on their own.

  “You threatening me, Dee?” Erica’s nasty tone ruffled the hair on the back of my neck and spurred me into defense of my mother.

  I stashed the magazine in my shoulder bag and hurried down the pine-scented corridor, the soles of my loafers smacking against the hard tile. After years of insulting each other, would the hostility between Mama and her arch nemesis turn physical?

  I entered the back of the meeting room in time to see Mama stride up to Erica’s podium. Ten seniors sat transfixed by the live drama. I had a very bad feeling about this. As emotional as Mama was today, her patience wouldn’t last for long. And Erica seemed to be spoiling for a fight. That wasn’t going to happen on my watch. I hurried forward, edging past the U-shaped log jam of tables and chairs. My eyes watered at the thick cloud of sweet perfume.

  Mama planted her hands on her hips. “I’m saying what nobody else has the guts to say. You are despicable. That outreach activity was supposed to bring joy and laughter to those dying children. You crushed their hopes. Worse, you gave them false hope. They were crying, Erica. You caused those dying children to suffer more.”

  Except for the red stain on Erica Hodges’ rigid cheeks, I couldn’t tell she was upset. Next to Mama’s sunny yellow suit and old-fashioned pearls, Erica’s sleek jewel-toned slacks suit, gold-threaded scarf, and apricot colored hair looked fresh, contemporary, and on-point.

  Looks could be deceiving.

  “Errors happen, Dee,” Erica said.

  Mama huffed out a great breath. “This one could have been avoided. Francine was doing a good job with scheduling before you horned in and messed it all up.”

  Across the room, Francine gasped at the mention of her name. She slid down in her seat, covered her face, and ducked her white-haired head.

  Erica surveyed the room, staring down the other matrons, before turning back to Mama. Her back arched, and her thin nose came up. “You think you could have done better?”

  “I know so. All that hard work the committee put in. You wasted it. You hurt those kids. Those circus tickets were nonrefundable. You threw away money we worked hard to raise.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Erica barked out a sharp laugh. “We’ll find more needy kids to show our civic merit. The hosp
ital has a never ending supply.”

  A collective gasp flashed through the room. My stride faltered as distaste soured in my stomach. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A glance at Mama’s flame-red face and I knew Mount Delilah was about to erupt. I hurried forward.

  “That does it. I demand your resignation as chair of the Ladies Outreach Committee!” Mama shouted.

  “You’re out of order, Delilah Sampson,” Erica shrilled. “Sit down and shut up.”

  Mama’s mouth worked a few times with no sound emerging. She clutched her heart. I stepped up and planted my hand on her shoulder. “Mama?”

  She glared at Erica. “You can’t talk to me that way.”

  “Think again.” Erica smacked her open palm on the podium. “This is my meeting, my committee, my church, my town. I can talk to you any way I want.”

  Mama turned to face her friends. “Say something.”

  Brittle silence ensued. Not a single eyelash fluttered on the downturned gazes. Disbelief flashed through me. These women were Mama’s friends. Her best friends, but they were all intimidated by this big fish in our tiny pond. Poor Mama. We needed to get out of here before both of us did something we’d regret.

  I tapped Mama’s shoulder again. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a family situation and have to leave. Please come with me now.”

  Mama nodded to me and inhaled shakily. She narrowed her eyes at Erica. “This isn’t over.”

  * * * *

  The events of the day returned in a rush as I locked my car. I ticked them off on my fingers.

  One, there had been a vehicular accident at the church. Two, Erica Hodges was dead. Three, Mama had a history of run-ins with Erica Hodges. Four, on Monday I listened to Mama and Erica Hodges exchange insults in public. Five, Mama’s whereabouts today were a mystery and her over-the-top behavior even more of a mystery.

  I don’t know what made me look at her Oldsmobile. Honestly, I don’t know why I looked at all. But I did. And then I wished I’d gone straight inside the house and minded my own business.