by Lind Howard
Roanna had ignored the avid, insistent voice, keeping her face turned toward the window. “Tell me!” Corliss insisted. A vicious pinch on the back of her arm made Roanna’s eyes sting with tears, but she stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge her cousin in any way. Eventually Corliss had given up and left to badger someone else for the gory details she craved.
Aunt Gloria’s son, Baron, lived in Charlotte; he and his wife and three kids were expected to arrive later in the day. Even without them, that meant ten family members were grouped in the living room or around a comforting pot of coffee in the kitchen, with the makeup of the groups changing as people shifted back and forth.
No one was allowed to go upstairs yet, though Jessie had long since been taken away, because the investigators were still taking pictures and gathering evidence. With the deputies and all the others there in various official capacities, the big house was teeming with people, but still Roanna managed to shut them all out. She felt very cold inside, a strange chill that had spread to every cell of her body and formed a protective shell, keeping her inside and everyone else outside.
The sheriff had taken Webb away, and she had nearly choked on her guilt. This was all her fault. If only she hadn’t kissed him! She hadn’t done it on purpose, but then none of the messes she caused were on purpose.
He hadn’t killed Jessie. She knew it. She’d wanted to scream at them for even thinking something so ugly about him. Now that was all Aunt Gloria and Uncle Harlan were talking about, how shocking it was, as if he’d already been tried and convicted. Only a few hours before, they had been equally convinced that Roanna was the killer.
Webb couldn’t do something like that. He could kill; somehow Roanna knew that Webb would do whatever was necessary to protect those he loved, but killing under those circumstances wasn’t the same as murder. No matter how nasty Jessie had been, no matter what she’d said or even if she’d attacked him with a poker or something, he wouldn’t have harmed her. Roanna had seen him tenderly helping a foal into the world, sitting up all night with a sick animal, taking turns with Loyal walking a colicky horse for hours on end. Webb took care of his own.
It wasn’t her fault Jessie was dead, but because Roanna loved Webb and hadn’t been able to control her stupid impulses, it had set in motion a chain of circumstances that caused Webb to be blamed for Jessie’s death. She had no idea who had killed Jessie, her thoughts hadn’t gone that far; she only knew that it wasn’t Webb. With every cell in her body, she knew he couldn’t have done it, just as she knew this was all her fault and he’d never forgive her.
When Sheriff Watts had taken Webb away for questioning, Roanna had been paralyzed with shame. She hadn’t even been able to lift her head and look at him, sure that she would see nothing but hatred and contempt in his eyes if he happened to look at her, and she knew that she couldn’t have borne it.
She had never felt so alone, as if there was an invisible bubble around her, preventing anyone from getting close. She could hear Grandmother behind her, softly weeping again, and hear Aunt Gloria’s murmured attempts at consolation, but it didn’t quite touch her. She didn’t know where Uncle Harlan was; she didn’t care. She would never forget the way they had accused her of killing Jessie, the way they had pulled back from her as if she had the plague. Even when Sheriff Watts had said he didn’t think she’d done it, none of them had approached or apologized. Not even Grandmother, though Roanna had heard the soft “Thank God” she’d uttered when the sheriff had said he thought she was innocent.
All her life she’d tried so hard to earn these people’s love, to be good enough, but she had never succeeded. Nothing about her had ever equaled the standards of the Davenports and Tallants. She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t even presentable. She was clumsy, untidy, and had the unfortunate habit of saying the most appalling things at the most inappropriate time.
Deep inside her, something had given up. These people had never loved her, never would. Only Webb had cared, and now she had messed that up, too. She was alone in a fundamental way that left a huge, aching void inside. There was something devastating in knowing that if she simply walked out of this house and never came back, no one would care. The despair that she had faced earlier, when she realized that Webb didn’t love her or trust her, had settled into mute acceptance.
All right, so they didn’t love her; that didn’t mean she had no love to give. She loved Webb with every fiber in her body, something that wasn’t going to change no matter how he felt about her. There was also love for Grandmother, despite her obvious preference for Jessie, because after all it had been Grandmother who had firmly said, “Roanna will live here, of course,” easing the terror of a seven-year-old who had abruptly lost everything. Even though she had more often found disapproval than approval from Grandmother, she still felt enormous respect and affection for the indomitable old woman. She hoped that someday she could be as strong as Grandmother, rather than the bumbling, unwanted fool she was now.
Both of the people Roanna loved had lost someone dear to them. All right, so she herself had despised Jessie; Grandmother and Webb hadn’t. It wasn’t her fault that Jessie was dead, but if Webb were blamed for it, that definitely would be her fault because of that kiss. Who really had killed Jessie? The only person who readily sprang to mind was the man she had seen with Jess the day before, but she had no idea who he was and wasn’t certain she could either describe him now or even identify him if he walked in the door. Her shock had been so great that she hadn’t paid a great deal of attention to his face. If she had decided before to keep quiet about what she’d seen, her reasons now were even more crucial. If Sheriff Watts found out that Jessie had been having an affair, he would see that as a motive for Webb to kill her. No, Roanna decided dazedly, she would only hurt Webb by disclosing what Jessie had been doing.
A murderer would go free. Roanna thought about that, but her reasoning was simple: telling the sheriff about it wouldn’t guarantee that the murderer was caught, because she couldn’t give him any more information than that, and Webb would be harmed. For Roanna, there was no question of justice or truth, and she was too young and unsophisticated for subtleties of philosophy. The only thing that mattered was protecting Webb. Right or wrong, she would keep her mouth shut.
She watched as a county car silently rolled up the long driveway and stopped. Webb and Sheriff Watts got out and walked toward the house. Roanna watched Webb; her gaze stuck to him like a magnet to steel. He was still dressed in the clothes he’d worn yesterday, and he looked exhausted, his hard face shadowed with both fatigue and a day’s growth of beard. At least he was home, she thought, her heart leaping, and he wasn’t in handcuffs. That must mean the sheriff wasn’t going to arrest him.
As the two men walked up the semicircle of brick-paved sidewalk, Webb glanced up to where she sat in the big bay window, outlined by the lights behind her. Though it still wasn’t full daylight, Roanna saw the way his face hardened, then he looked away from her.
She listened to the confused, awkward flurry of family members behind her when Webb entered the house. Most of them didn’t speak to him, but instead made an effort to make their own conversations seem casual. Under the circumstances, the effort was ridiculous, and they merely sounded stilted. Only Yvonne and Sandra rushed to him, and were gathered into his strong arms. In her reflective window, Roanna watched him bend his dark head down to them.
He released them and turned to Sheriff Watts. “I need to shower and shave,” he said.
“Upstairs is off-limits for now,” the sheriff replied.
“There’s a bath with a shower next to the kitchen. Would you have a deputy bring me some clean clothes?”
“Sure.” The arrangements were made, and Webb left to clean up. The voices behind her resumed a more normal rhythm. Watching them, Roanna could tell that both Aunt Yvonne and Aunt Sandra were furious with the others.
Then suddenly her view of the room was blotted out as Sheriff Watts appeared directly behind h
er. “Roanna, do you feel up to answering some questions?” he asked in a tone so gentle it seemed out of place, coming from such a rough, burly man.
She clutched the blanket even tighter and silently turned around.
His huge hand closed over her elbow. “Let’s go where it’s quieter,” he said, helping her to slide from the window seat. He wasn’t quite as tall as Webb but was easily twice as wide. He was built like a wrestler, with a barrel chest and thick belly, and without any jiggle to his middle.
He led her into Webb’s study, seating her on the sofa rather than in one of the big leather armchairs, and eased down beside her.
“I know it’s hard for you to talk about it, but I need to know what happened tonight, and this morning.”
She nodded.
“Webb and Jessie were arguing,” Sheriff Watts said, watching her carefully. “Do you know—”
“It was my fault,” Roanna interrupted, her voice flat and hollow and strangely raspy. Her brown eyes, usually so lively and full of golden lights, were dull and haunted. “I was in the kitchen trying to eat when Webb came home from Nashville. I—I’d missed supper. I was upset … Anyway, I k—kissed him, and that’s when Jessie came in.”
“You kissed him? He didn’t kiss you?”
Miserably Roanna nodded. It didn’t matter that, after a few seconds, Webb had held her tight and returned her kiss. She had initiated it.
“Has Webb ever kissed you?”
“Some. Mostly he ruffles my hair.”
The sheriff’s lips twitched. “I mean on the mouth.”
“No.”
“Do you have a crush on him, Roanna?”
She went still, even the breath halting in her chest. Then she squared her thin shoulders and gave him a look of such naked despair that he swallowed. “No,” she said with pitiful dignity. “I love him.” She paused. “He doesn’t love me, though. Not like that.”
“Is that why you kissed him?”
She began to rock back and forth, the movement slight but significant as she fought to control her pain. “I know I shouldn’t have done it,” she whispered. “I knew it then. I never would have done anything to cause Webb so much trouble. Jessie said I’d done it on purpose, that I knew she was coming down, but I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. He was being so sweet to me, and all of a sudden I couldn’t resist it. I just grabbed him. He never had a chance.”
“What did Jessie do?”
“She just started screaming at us. She called me all sorts of ugly names, and Webb, too. She accused us of—you know. Webb tried to tell her it wasn’t like that, but Jessie never listened to anybody when she was pitching one of her fits.”
The sheriff put his hand over hers, patting it. “Roanna, I have to ask you this, and I want you to tell me the truth. Are you sure there’s nothing between you and Webb? Have you ever had sex with him? This is a serious situation, honey, and nothing but the truth will do.”
She gave him a blank look, then hot color washed into her white face. “No!” she sputtered, and turned an even darker red. “I’ve never—with anyone! I mean—”
He patted her hand again, mercifully interrupting her mangled reply. “There’s no need to be embarrassed,” he said kindly. “You’re doing the smart thing, placing such a high value on yourself.”
Miserably Roanna thought that she didn’t have a high value on herself at all; if at any time Webb had so much as crooked his finger at her, she would have come running and let him do whatever he wanted to her. Her virginity was due to his lack of interest, not her own morals.
“What happened then?” he prompted.
“They went upstairs, still arguing. Or rather, Jessie was. She was screaming at him, and Webb was trying to calm her down, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“Did she threaten to have him cut out of Lucinda’s will?”
Roanna nodded. “But Grandmother just looked surprised. I was so relieved, because I couldn’t have stood it if I caused Webb to lose Davencourt.”
“Did you hear anything violent happening in their room?”
“Some glass breaking, then Webb yelled at her to go ahead and get a divorce, and he left.”
“Did he tell her he’d do anything to get rid of her?”
“I think so,” Roanna answered readily, knowing that the others had likely confirmed this. “I don’t blame him. I’d have added my allowance to her alimony, if that would have helped.”
The sheriff’s lips twitched again. “You didn’t like Jessie?”
She shook her head. “She was always hateful to me.”
“Were you jealous of her?”
Roanna’s lips trembled. “She had Webb. But even if she hadn’t, I know that he wouldn’t be interested in m-me. He never has been. He was nice to me because he felt sorry for me. After she caused such a ruckus last night—I mean after I caused it—I decided I might as well go away to college the way they’d been wanting me to do. Maybe then I could make some friends.”
“Did you hear anything from their room last night after Webb left?”
Roanna shuddered, an image of Jessie as she’d last seen her flashing through her brain. She gulped. “I don’t know. Everybody was mad at me, even Webb. I was upset and went to my room. It’s at the back of the house.”
“All right now, Roanna, I want you to think carefully. When you go up the stairs, their rooms are across the front hall to the left. If there’s a light on in the room, you can see it under the door. I checked that myself. When you went to your room, did you look in that direction?”
She remembered that very well. She had cast a fearful glance at Jessie’s door, afraid she would come storming out of it like the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, and she had tried to be very quiet so Jessie wouldn’t hear her. She nodded.
“Was there a light on?”
“Yes.” She was certain of it, because otherwise she would have thought Jessie had gone on into the connecting bedroom and thus wouldn’t hear her.
“Okay, now tell me about later, when you found her. What time was it?”
“After two. I hadn’t been asleep. I kept thinking how I’d messed everything up and caused Webb so much trouble.”
“You were awake the entire time?” the sheriff asked sharply. “Did you hear anything?”
She shook her head. “I told you, my bedroom’s on the back, away from everyone else. It’s real quiet back there. That’s why I like it.”
“Could you tell when the others came up to bed?”
“I heard Aunt Gloria in the hall about nine-thirty, but my door was closed and I couldn’t tell what she was saying.”
“Harlan said that he started watching a movie about eight. It shouldn’t have been off at nine-thirty.”
“Maybe he finished watching it in their room. I know they have a television in there, because Grandmother had a connection run for them before they moved in.”
He pulled out his notebook and scribbled a few words, then said, “Okay, let’s go back to when you went to Jessie’s room this morning. Was the light on then?”
“No. I turned it on when I went in. I thought Jessie was in bed, and I was going in there to wake her up so I could talk to her. The light was bright, and I couldn’t see good for a few minutes, and I—I stumbled over h-her.”
She shuddered again and started shaking. The bright color of a moment before leached out of her face, leaving it chalky again.
“Why were you going to talk to her?”
“I was going to tell her that it wasn’t Webb’s fault, that he didn’t do anything wrong. It was just me—being stupid, as usual,” she said dully. “I never meant to cause him any trouble.”
“Why not wait until morning?”
“Because I wanted to fix it before then.”
“Then why didn’t you talk to her before you went to bed?”
“I was a coward.” She gave him an ashamed look. “You don’t know how nasty Jessie could be.”
“I don’t think you’re a coward at all,
honey. It takes guts to say something’s your fault. A lot of grown-ups never do learn how to do it.”
She began rocking again, and the haunted look came back. “I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Jessie, not bad like that. I’d have laughed if her hair fell out or something. But when I saw her head … and the blood … I didn’t even recognize her at first. She was always so beautiful.”
Her voice trailed off, and Booley sat in silence beside her, thinking hard. Roanna said she’d turned on the light. All doorknobs and light switches had already been dusted for fingerprints, so it should be her print on that particular switch, something easy enough to check. If the light had been on when she’d gone to her room, and off when she went to talk to Jessie, then that meant either Jessie had turned off the light herself after Webb had gone, or someone else had. Either way, Jessie had been alive when Webb had left the house.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t have returned later and gone up the outside stairs. If his alibi at the Waffle Hut checked out, though, that meant they likely didn’t have enough circumstantial evidence to charge him. Hell, there was no motive anyway. He wasn’t having an affair with Roanna, not that Booley had pinned much credence to that theory to begin with. It had been a shot in the dark, nothing more. The hard facts were, Webb and Jessie had argued over something Roanna said was her fault while totally absolving Webb. Jessie had threatened him with the loss of Davencourt, but no one had believed her, so that didn’t count. In a temper, Webb had yelled at her to go ahead and get a divorce, and slammed out of the house. Jessie had been alive then, according to both Roanna’s testimony and the coroner’s estimate of time of death, based on the degree of rigor mortis and the temperature of Jessie’s body. No one had seen or heard anything. Webb had been at the Waffle Hut close to the time of Jessie’s death. Now, they weren’t talking about any great distance here, nothing that couldn’t be driven in about fifteen or twenty minutes, so it was still within the realm of possibility that he could have returned, bashed her in the head, and then calmly driven to the Waffle Hut to establish his alibi, but the odds of convincing any jury of that were pretty slim. Hell, the odds of convincing the county prosecutor to press charges on that basis were even slimmer.