Leave it to Cleavage

by Wendy Wax

  Her husband had taken off and left her behind. Alone. Unwanted. Unnecessary to whatever new life he was planning to live. An image of Tom on a white sandy beach materialized. Palm trees swayed in the breeze and a big blue ocean shimmered in the background. He had a great big pirate’s chest full of money, and a naked woman was rubbing coconut oil on his naked buttocks. With her perfectly manicured fingers.

  Miranda located the magnifying glass in the kitchen junk drawer and carried it into Tom’s study. Opening the packet of photos, she pulled out the hand-on-butt shot and forced herself to study it through the glass.

  Magnified, the blond hairs on Tom’s rear became . . . magnified . . . as did the intricate weave of the fuchsia lace, but the woman’s hands must have been moving when the picture was taken—Miranda definitely didn’t want to think about that—because they were slightly blurred and the angle wasn’t right to expose the back of the woman’s wrist. If it had an amoeba-shaped birthmark, she couldn’t make it out.

  But if they were Helen St. James’s hands, what would that prove? Wouldn’t he have taken the woman and her hands with him?

  Miranda’s mind swam with questions for which she had no answers. Over and over she asked herself: If Tom was so unhappy, why hadn’t he said something? Why sneak away rather than ask for a divorce? And how could there have been so many things about him she hadn’t known?

  What she wanted to do was sic the police on him, or at least tell her family so her father could beat Tom to a bloody pulp while Gran tucked her back into bed with a bowl of soup and a beautifully laid tray. But it was all too humiliating. And she couldn’t bear to become fodder for the Truro gossip mill until she knew where Tom was and what action she could take. And, of course, there was Ballantyne. Given how easily Tom had jettisoned her, who knew what he had done to the company.

  Desperate to do something, Miranda hauled out her laptop, set it up on the kitchen table, and logged on to AOL. Holding her breath while she keyed in Tom’s password, she sighed with relief when she was able to pull up his mail. Only to discover there was nothing there worth finding.

  No mail had been sent from Tom’s account since the day before he’d left, and the incoming mail, which consisted primarily of Helen St. James’s progressively more panicked pleas for his attention, had tapered off to almost nothing as he’d apparently failed to respond—at least from this account.

  Scrolling down she found unread ads for Viagra, a penis enlarger, and discounted antidepressants. A brief tour of his Favorite Places revealed porn sites and other men in women’s underwear—none of whom looked half as good in them as her husband did.

  Logging off, she dialed Tom’s older brother Brad in Richmond, hoping Tom’s only living relative might be able to provide a clue.

  “Oh, hey, Randa,” he said. “How’s Tom?”

  No help there. “He’s away,” she said, once again sticking as close as possible to the truth. “I wondered if you’d heard from him lately.”

  “We talked on New Year’s Day like we always do, and he said he was going to be out of the country. Been meaning to call and see if he was back.”

  But Miranda knew that call would probably have taken place on Easter; the Smith boys were not much for chitchatting in between major holidays.

  Tears pricked her eyelids as Miranda contemplated all the information she’d managed to gather: Tom had initiated no E-mail activity or contact with his only living relative. And he had a hairy butt. If this represented the extent of her sleuthing abilities, Nancy Drew had nothing to worry about.

  The damned tears welled up again until she could barely see through the sheen of them. She was no Nancy Drew, and her husband needed ladies’ underwear and other women. But he didn’t need or want her. The tears slid down her cheeks and plopped onto the keyboard. She wasn’t even good at being Miranda Smith.

  And what was she doing about it? She was sitting at her kitchen table in her horribly empty house blubbering like a child. Again. How pathetic was that?

  The tears kept coming and the dull ache that had begun in the center of her chest spread outward. She tried to whip up fresh anger at Tom, but deep down inside she knew that somehow she had failed.

  Stumbling upstairs, she searched for something—anything—positive to cling to. In the end she was forced to settle for feeling lucky Truro didn’t have a tattoo parlor. Because then she’d feel compelled to have an L for loser tattooed on her forehead.

  chapter 4

  C hief of Police Blake Summers cruised the main business district of Truro, which took about ten minutes. It was colder than any mid-January he could remember—it had barely hit the teens yesterday—and not too many folks were rushing to work any earlier than they had to. The snow was undoubtedly piled high up at Ballantyne Bald, and most of the narrow mountain roads outside of town were bound to be impassable.

  Calls today would be weather-related and require tow trucks and Truro’s lone snowplow rather than guns and bullets. Not that there was a hell of a lot of what qualified as real crime in Truro even when it was warm. He’d seen a lot more action on the force in Atlanta, but he didn’t regret coming home. There was a certain symmetry to the town bad boy coming back as its chief of police, even if he’d had to leave a wife behind to do it.

  Blake stashed the cruiser in the lot behind City Hall and walked down Main Street to the Dogwood Café. Here he knew everyone, and found satisfaction in that fact as he waved his hellos to the morning crowd and took his usual seat at the counter. He smiled his thanks when Jewel Whitman set a steaming mug of coffee in front of him.

  Fifteen minutes later he’d read The Atlanta Journal-Constitution from front to back, demolished the He-Man Breakfast Special, and drunk enough cups of coffee to enable him to float to his office.

  “Jewel, if you pour me one more cup of coffee or put one more morsel of food on my plate, I’m going to have to arrest you.” Blake put a hand over the top of his cup and gave the waitress a look that had once made an armed felon throw down his gun.

  The waitress patted her beehive hairdo and flashed him a smile. “You sure you don’t want some more grits? I could fry you up another egg or two.”

  “Jewel, you’re killing me, here.”

  “Well, I know you’re not getting enough real food with no woman there to do for you.”

  “Do I look underfed to you?” Blake unfolded his six-foot-two-inch frame from the stool and patted his trim stomach before reaching into his pocket for his wallet. “The women in this town seem to think being male eradicates the cooking chromosome. Grandpa and Andie and I have been on our own for almost three years now. I think it’s time to scratch us off the Meals-on-Wheels list.”

  “Joke all you like,” Jewel said. “But two crotchety males trying to raise a teenage girl? Why, you’ve turned that cute little thing into the biggest jock in six counties.”

  Blake grinned and pulled a couple of bills out of his wallet and laid them on the counter. “Don’t you worry about us; we’re doing just fine. And I’ll lay you odds that little jock of mine will be heading to Duke on a full athletic scholarship in two years’ time.” Sport had been his salvation, and he intended to make sure his daughter reaped its benefits as well.

  “Be that as it may . . .”

  “We’re used to doing things ourselves. It gives a person backbone and determination.”

  “Not to mention ring-around-the-collar.”

  “Possibly.” Blake stuck his wallet back in his pocket. “But we’re fine, Jewel. Really. If it’ll make you feel better, you can give me an extra piece of bacon tomorrow.”

  The dry cleaner and the hardware store were open by the time Blake made his way back up Main Street. Diane Lowell was turning on lights in the Blue Willow Antique Mall and Sandwich Emporium. At the end of Main, Blake stamped his feet on the mat outside the Truro Police Department and stepped through the door into the luxurious warmth of the brand-new building. Unlike the original hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure, which had been move
d to a final resting place just outside of town, this one had shiny linoleum floors and smooth plaster walls. It also had new desks and an even newer computer, but its most impressive feature—at least in light of recent temperatures—was the central heating and cooling.

  Blake stepped into the toasty warmth of the reception area, hung his coat on the hall tree, and stopped at the front desk for messages.

  Anne Farnsworthy’s fingers flew over her keyboard at top speed, and she had a phone cradled between her shoulder and ear. When she noticed him, she stopped typing long enough to hand him a pile of message slips, then finished up on the phone.

  “Morning, Anne. What do we have so far?”

  “Well, Tyler Poole’s pickup got stuck in a snowdrift, and I sent Jim out to help him. Got a couple more of those strange hang-up calls—evidently somebody only wants to talk to you—and Andie’s math teacher called. She left her homework at home again, but I called your grandfather and asked him to run it on over. Ed’s going to be a little late getting in. Other than that it’s been real quiet.”

  She looked him up and down. “Did you have breakfast? I brought in some sweet rolls in case you didn’t have time to—”

  Blake groaned. “How in the world did I get appointed chief when the female population of Truro believes I can’t feed or clothe myself? How helpless do I look?”

  “Those are trick questions, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  In Blake’s experience, which was vast, watching a man and child get dumped by their respective wife and mother did one of two things to a woman. It either turned her on or heightened her maternal instincts. And it almost always sent her scurrying to the stove.

  The phone rang and Anne picked up on the second ring. “Truro Police Department,” she said. “Uh, wait, hold on. He just walked in.”

  She clamped a hand over the mouthpiece and motioned to Blake. “It’s her,” she said quietly, “the one who keeps calling and asking for you, but won’t leave a message. She’s calling from a pay phone.”

  “I’ll take it in my office.” Blake moved quickly through the reception area and closed his office door behind him. A second after he picked up the phone, the call was put through.

  “Chief Summers.”

  “I want to report foul play.” It was a woman’s voice, muffled and distant sounding, but definitely a female.

  “Who is this?”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that Tom Smith is missing and nobody’s doing anything about it.”

  “Mrs. Smith?” He tried to picture the elegant Miranda Smith huddled in a phone booth placing an anonymous phone call to the chief of police.

  The woman’s laugh was muffled, but he could tell how lacking in humor it was.

  “Hardly. But then maybe she hasn’t noticed he’s gone. The Ladies’ Guild can be soooo time-consuming.” Though her voice remained unidentifiable, the sarcasm came through loud and clear.

  “And what makes you think something’s happened to Tom Smith?”

  “Because he’s disappeared. And I know he would have contacted me if he were able to.”

  “If you want me to investigate, you’re going to have to give me more than that.”

  There was silence on the other end, but he could hear the woman’s breathing.

  “If you don’t identify yourself or give me something concrete, there’s not much I can do.”

  “Wouldn’t want to upset the Ballantynes, would we, Chief? Sort of like taking a stab at the Royal Family.”

  He ignored the jibe. “It is up to the family to file a missing persons report. Don’t you think a woman would file a report if her husband were missing? What possible reason would she have for keeping such a thing to herself?”

  “Now those are real good questions, Chief. And if I were you, that’s exactly what I’d be asking Miranda Smith.”

  Then there was a click, and a moment later he was listening to a dial tone.

  Miranda stayed in bed for two days. She crawled under the covers after her unsuccessful Nancy Drew imitation and just couldn’t make herself get out. She watched a Brady Bunch marathon, a documentary on sheepdogs and the herding instinct, the movie Titanic, followed by a special on the real-life tragedy, and back-to-back episodes of Sesame Street before she finally turned off the television and simply lay there listening to the phone ring. Around midnight of the second night she forced herself downstairs to play back the messages.

  “Miranda.” Her mother’s voice rang out in the silence. “You cannot continue to hibernate in this way. I want you out of that house and over here for dinner tomorrow night at six. No excuses.” She could hear Gran’s voice in the background. “Your Gran is threatening an intervention. Don’t make us come over there and drag you out.”

  The rest of the messages were from Ballantyne. “Uh, Mrs. Smith . . .” Leeta’s tone was tentative and laced with worry. “Mr. Smith didn’t come in yesterday like we expected and we, uh, have a few questions. Can you ask him to call the office?”

  The next voice belonged to Tom’s assistant, Carly. “Um, Mrs. Smith? We’re not sure what’s happening, but we really need to talk with Mr. Smith. There’s a problem in production and we’ve had some orders returned. Will you ask him to call in?”

  The last voice was Helen St. James’s and it held an odd mixture of panic and anger. “It’s imperative that I speak to Mr. Smith. Fidelity National is ready to set a date for the audit.” There was a pause. “I’m not sure how to proceed. They want to come in next week.”

  The early morning sky was steel gray and the promise of snow hung heavy in the air as Miranda drove through a just-waking Truro to Ballantyne.

  Even as she passed under the archway and parked in the employee lot, she wasn’t sure why she had come or what she hoped to accomplish. All she knew was the ship seemed to be foundering and there was no one at the helm. And although she was too ashamed to call her father, she couldn’t just lie in bed while the ship went down.

  She greeted Leeta in the lobby and walked toward Tom’s office, analyzing possible outcomes. Best-case scenario, Carly Tarleton would provide some clues to Tom’s whereabouts so she could hunt him down like the dog he was and make him fix whatever was wrong. Worst-case scenario, the crew would realize they’d hit an iceberg and their captain had not only deserted the ship but taken the only lifeboat.

  She really shouldn’t have watched that Titanic special.

  In Tom’s office, she closed the door behind her and took her place at his desk. Do not panic, she instructed herself as she placed her laptop on the mahogany surface and booted up. Only her self didn’t seem to be listening.

  At 9 A.M. muffled voices rose out in the hallway and phones began to ring. It was clearly time to do something, but the best she could manage was to swivel around in the desk chair and stare out the window at the distant peak where her family’s lake houses perched.

  She was still staring out the window when a sharp knock sounded on the office door. Before she could spin around, the door opened.

  “Thank goodness you’re back.” Quick footsteps tapped across the office floor and approached the desk. “I brought my diploma in, Mr. Smith, just like we talked about. And Myrna really liked my new drawings. I know you must be tired from your trip. Did you get held up in—”

  Miranda swiveled around to face her husband’s assistant.

  “Oh!” The young woman’s blue eyes widened in surprise, and her mouth snapped shut.

  Embarrassment suffused the apple-cheeked face and the hands that held the document in its cheap black frame fell to her sides, but not before Miranda took in the stubby, unpolished fingernails. These hands, at least, had not been photographed on her husband’s butt.

  “Good morning, Carly.”

  The young woman swallowed and wiped her free hand on her navy skirt. The diploma still dangled from the other. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith. I was expecting . . .”

  “Yes, I know. But Mr. Smith won’t be in today.�
�� She didn’t add the “or ever” that flew to her tongue. “What do you have there?”

  “My college diploma. It took me a while, but I did it.” The blonde raised her chin, along with the document that bore the name of a small commuter college two towns away.

  Carly Tarleton was somewhere in her mid-twenties, and to Miranda’s knowledge was the first of the Tarleton clan to earn a degree of any kind. Several of them had barely made it out of grade school; a few of the men were languishing in prison. The women had a reputation for reproducing, with and without benefit of marriage. If Miranda remembered correctly, Carly had a young daughter and no evidence of a husband.

  “Earning a college degree is a great accomplishment. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” Carly looked around the room. “So when will Mr. Smith be back?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s still in China.” She swallowed. “I think he’s moved out of Hong Kong, gone farther, um, inland.”

  Carly’s gaze swung back, interested. “Do you think he’s found any new suppliers?”

  Miranda felt a flash of annoyance that this young woman with her illegitimate child and poorly framed diploma knew more about what her husband might or might not do than she did.

  “I, uh, don’t know.” But she thought it unlikely, unless they were supplying G-strings in Big & Tall Men’s sizes.

  Miranda studied the chunky blonde with the earnest blue eyes. “Did you book Tom’s flight and accommodations for this trip?”

  “Yes.” Carly studied her back. “He was booked from Atlanta to San Francisco and then on to Hong Kong. With a return two nights ago.”

  Miranda looked down at her own fingernails for a moment. “Was anyone traveling with him?”