My bedroom was disheveled and all my toiletries lay in the sink, but that was okay. The guys had made a surprisingly neat job of it. Beverly and Fred should be pleased when they came up for Parents’ Day.
I plugged my modem into the phone jack and fired up my laptop. Amid the usual spam were judicial notices, a political cartoon from Minnie, and an inspirational tract that had been forwarded through a half-dozen mailboxes before landing up in Naomi’s and thus to every family member currently online. At least I assume she sends them to everybody else and doesn’t single me out as the Devil’s only playmate. Portland had sent a delicious bit of gossip about a pompous state supreme court justice we both dislike, and there was a funny note of congratulations from Terry Wilson. He’s a special agent for the SBI and a onetime boyfriend who still goes fishing with Daddy and Dwight. He’d just heard about Dwight and me but claimed he’d seen it coming for at least a year.
Right.
And from Dwight himself?
Nothing.
Nada.
Zilch.
CHAPTER 21
TUESDAY EVENING
While George Underwood waited for Deborah Knott to start her car and drive away, he called Fletcher’s pager and left a callback message. If that asshole had overlooked something that critical, he was due a serious butt-chewing.
Underwood’s cell phone rang as he circled the monument and headed on down toward the Trading Post, but it wasn’t Fletcher.
“Hey, hon,” his wife said. “I’m putting the biscuits in the oven. You gonna be here when they get out?”
He’d planned to stop and talk to Simon Proffitt, but the judge’s sweet rolls were all he’d had since breakfast and the thought of his wife’s biscuits and smothered pork chops was too tempting.
“Be there in fifteen minutes,” he promised.
For once, luck was with him. As he pulled up at the Trading Post, he spotted Simon at the door and waved the old man over.
“Get out and set a spell,” Simon invited.
“Can’t stop right now, but we need to talk, Mr. Proffitt.”
“Mister Proffitt? What’d I do now?”
“Nothing, I hope, but I do have to ask you a few questions tomorrow. In my office.”
“’Cause Norman Osborne went and got hisself killed last night and somebody tattled that I told him to go to hell?”
“I hear you told Dr. Ledwig the same thing and offered to help him along with Lizzie.”
A nostalgic smile started to spread across the wrinkled face, till a scowl abruptly replaced it as Proffitt realized the implications of what the sheriff’s deputy was saying. “You ain’t trying to hang them two on me, are you? Ledwig won’t shot. Osborne neither.”
“I know, I know,” Underwood said in a soothing tone. “Be at my office at nine tomorrow. I’ll take your statement. You’ll tell me what you were doing when Ledwig died and who-all you talked to last night before Osborne went missing and then I can cross you off my list, okay?”
“Go to hell!” Proffitt said and turned to stomp back to his store.
“Nine o’clock,” Underwood called. He knew he ought to collar that old hothead and get his alibi right then, but it had been a long and hungry day, so he headed on down the hill to Howards Ford, where his wife and children and hot biscuits waited.
He was just pulling into his own driveway when his phone rang again.
“Hey, Captain,” Fletcher said. “What’s up?”
TUESDAY EVENING, 10 P.M.
“Mom?”
Tina Ledwig dragged her eyes from the television screen to her younger daughter standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Her new spaniel scrambled off her lap and bounded over to dance around Trish’s ankles, paws in air, till Trish bent down to pet it.
“Hey, honey. Homework all done?”
The girl gave the dumb question all the attention it deserved by ignoring it completely. “Have you seen a UPS package from Amazon?”
Tina looked at her blankly.
“I ordered some CDs from them, and with all the stuff about Dad and Carla, I forgot till just now. I checked it out on the computer, and according to the tracking number, it came the day Dad died. Have you seen it?”
Tina tried to focus. “CDs? UPS?”
“Oh shit!” Disgust and despair filled Trish’s young voice as she turned away.
“No, wait!” Tina said. “There were some packages and stuff by the deck door that day. I thought they were all for your dad and I put them on the desk in his study.”
If Trish heard, she didn’t respond, just kept going, the little dog at her heels.
Tina turned back to the television. Something else that was going to need cleaning out before they could move. Carl’s study. Where he holed up every night after dinner before coming up to bed. Not her bed, the bed in the room next to this one, through that connecting door.
Only they hadn’t connected in—how long was it?
He’d blamed the vodka for his lack of interest, but they both knew it was his lack of interest that caused her to turn to vodka.
She lifted the skirt of the table next to her lounge chair and reached for the bottle hidden there.
CHAPTER 22
I was rooting around in the refrigerator and not finding much of interest when the phone rang. To my surprise, it was Lucius Burke, who had left the Ashe home shortly before Underwood and me.
“Look,” he said, “I know you’re just ten minutes in front of a preacher away from being a married lady, but I’m down here at the Mountain Laurel and they’re running a special on grilled brook trout and we both have to eat supper, right? And since I’m not arguing any cases before you the rest of the week and I do have a couple of questions about last night, why don’t you come join me?”
I laughed. Not the most subtle invitation I’d ever had, but I love fish of any description and shared meals are always more fun than solitary sandwiches. And it was obvious that Dwight didn’t give a damn about me or how I might be spending my evenings. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Order me a Bloody Mary, not too spicy, and I’ll be there in five minutes,” I told him.
According to the back of its menu, the Mountain Laurel Restaurant on Main Street began life as a summer residence for a robber baron’s granddaughter. Built in the Queen Anne style so popular in the late 1800s, it dripped enough lacy gingerbread from every eave and angle to give a house painter nightmares and stop tourists dead in their tracks with dreams of romantic mountain summers spent lazing in one of the many wicker swings and rockers that dotted the wide wraparound porch.
Inside, most of the downstairs walls had been removed to create an airy open space. Instead of being tricked out like some Victorian fantasy, however, the dining room was almost plain, softened by the pale pink cloths that covered the sensible square tables and by baskets of ferns that hung in front of illuminated stained-glass windows. A few restrained botanical prints hung on the walls.
Here at seven-thirty, all the tables were taken and several people without reservations waited out on the porch even though the night air was cool enough for fall jackets.
The hostess led me to Lucius Burke’s table, and as I approached he stood and held my chair for me. A Bloody Mary awaited in a tall and elegant glass.
“Nice,” I said.
“The restaurant, the drink, or the prospect of dinner?”
His green eyes twinkled in the glow of the tiny lamp on the tabletop between us.
“Everything. I’m glad you called me.”
When I looked around the room, I saw that most of the men wore jackets and ties, although a few bold ones like Lucius wore crewneck sweaters under their jackets. The women were sleek in boiled wool Chanel-type suits and chunky gold or silver necklaces with matching earrings. I took a discreet glance at the prices on the right side of the menu and realized that this place catered to the wealthy seasonal people, not budget-minded day-trippers. Except for the waitresses, there couldn’t have been more than three other women under the age of forty in the restaurant.