Dewey’s face hardened. “Go ahead,” he said bitterly. “I got nothin’ to hide.”
“What do you say we go pick it up now?” Nick said. “I’ll follow you in my truck.”
This early in the day, Dewey’s place wasn’t doing much business. Skip Sullivan was hunched over the bar, nursing a scotch and soda, and in a shadowy corner, a young couple Nick didn’t recognize was playing footsie beneath the table. Behind the bar, Luther Murdock, the emaciated black man who’d tended bar here since the day Dewey opened for business, was polishing glasses with a clean white towel. “What you doin’ back here, Dew?” he said. “You need to take some time for yourself, son. You in no condition to be workin’ today.”
“I ain’t working,” Dewey said. “Chief DiSalvo here wants to get a look at my pistol. He seems to have the crazy idea that I might’ve been the one that killed Wanita.”
Still polishing, Luther silently assessed Nick. “Routine procedure,” Nick said. “That’s all.”
“That boy din’t kill nobody, Mr. DiSalvo.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Luther. But I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t investigate.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dewey said, rummaging frantically beneath the cash register, “where the hell is it?”
Luther set down the glass he was polishing and turned to his employer. “It ain’t there?”
“Hell, no.” Dewey swept the shelf clean with one massive arm, and its contents landed in a pile on the floor. He began digging through it like a dog digging for a bone. There were dozens of register tapes, new and used, a money bag full of change, various pieces of paper. A broken pencil, a couple of dirty rubber bands.
But no gun.
Dewey looked at him in bewilderment. “I swear to Christ, Nick, it was here the last time I looked.”
The back of his neck was itching like crazy. Either Dewey was one hell of a liar, or there was something damn smelly about this. “Who knows you keep the gun here?” he said.
“Hell, I don’t know. Probably half my reg’lars. It’s not exactly a secret.”
Nick said something foul under his breath. “I think you’d better come on down to the station,” he told Dewey.
The man looked thunderstruck. “You’re not gonna arrest me, are you, Nick?”
“No,” he said grimly. “You’re going to fill out a robbery report.”
The note came in the mail on Monday morning. Written in a spidery hand on creamy violet-scented stationery, it was an invitation to meet with Clara Hughes at two o’clock that afternoon. Because she hadn’t yet thanked the woman who was responsible for her freedom, Kathryn called and said she’d be delighted to meet with the bright-eyed octogenarian.
Quite certain that Clara was not the kind of woman who wanted to be kept waiting, she arrived at precisely two o’clock. “I’m so glad you could come,” the old lady said in a quavery voice. “I don’t get much comp’ny any more.”
“I’ve been meaning to come ever since I got back,” she said, “to thank you for what you did. You can’t know what it means to me.”
“Fiddle-faddle,” the old lady said, shoving a strand of white hair behind her ear as she waddled to the kitchen. “They had no business leavin’ you there to rot away in that place when even the village idiot could have seen that you were innocent. Iced tea or lemonade, dearie?”
They settled on iced tea, and sat on the front porch swing to drink it. “I picked two o’clock,” Clara explained, “because it falls right after my nap and right before my stories come on channel seven. I never miss my stories.” She put a bony hand on Kathryn’s arm. “You know,” she said, “I tried to tell the police that you couldn’t have killed Michael. But they weren’t interesting in hearin’ the truth. If it hadn’t been for that nice Raelynn Wilbur comin’ to my door, you’d still be sitting in that terrible place down to Wilmington.”
She felt a tightness in her chest. Lowering her glass from her lips, she said, “You tried to tell them?”
“Oh, my, yes. More than once, I called Shep Henley and told him that you’d come joggin’ by here that night, right on schedule, nowhere near Ridgewood Road at the time the coroner said your husband suffered the fatal wounds. But Chief Henley always told me that justice had been done, the jury had found you guilty, and it was too late to do anythin’ about it now. I feel more than a little responsible for the length of your incarceration. I was stupid enough to believe him.”
Kathryn patted her hand. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said. “What matters is that somebody finally believed you. And because of you, I’m free.”
“It reminds me a great deal of Victoria,” the old woman said. “Do you know Victoria?”
Kathryn smoothed her skirt over her knees. “No,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me about her?”
“Well, Victoria was in the very same situation. It was obvious to anybody with a brain in their head that she couldn’t possibly have killed Stefan. I know she was furious with him for sleepin’ with her sister, but she’s a gentle soul, and besides, she loved him something fierce. She would have forgiven him eventually. And I’m sure she’d never even held a firearm, let alone fired one! It was that wicked Deidre, the one who embezzled all the money from Stefan’s father’s bank. She was the one that killed him. Not poor, dear Victoria.”
Completely lost, Kathryn just stared at her in bafflement. Clara beamed at her. “Do you know what time it is, sugar plum?”
“Uh, yes.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s two-fifteen.”
“Oh, good. We still have plenty of time to visit. My story comes on at three o’clock. Today the verdict is goin’ to be read. I do hope that Victoria isn’t convicted.”
It took her a moment to realize that Clara was talking about the characters in a soap opera. She coughed to hide the laugh that threatened to bubble up out of her. “I’m sure,” she said soothingly, “that if Victoria is as nice as you say, the jury will realize she’s not guilty.”
“Oh, I surely do hope you’re right. Tell me, how is that nice Mr. DiSalvo? He’s always so pleasant when I see him. Not like Shep Henley.” Her forehead drew together in a fierce scowl. “Now, there is one unhappy man. But Nick DiSalvo is the best thing that ever happened to this town. Elba needed new blood, it was gettin’ stale. And he’s so attractive and charmin’ to boot. Why, if I were forty years younger, I’d be chasing after him myself. Tell me
—
” She leaned toward Kathryn and lowered her voice. “Is he as good in the sack as he looks?”
Heat rushed up Kathryn’s face as she stared, dumbfounded, at the old woman. Clara patted her hand. “Don’t be embarrassed, chickie,” she said. “There’s nothin’ wrong with a little heat between a man and a woman. The hotter the better, far as I’m concerned. Enjoy it while you can. Once you reach my age, you’ll be lucky if you can remember what’s supposed to go where. But that’s not why I asked you here today.”
Kathryn cleared her throat, exceedingly grateful for the change of subject. “Why did you ask me here?”
“To warn you, sugar plum. Somebody out there doesn’t like you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“A lot of people out there don’t like me,” she said. “What’s one more?”
“I know, baby. But there’s one in particular who wants you gone.”
Her interest sharpened. “Do you know who?” she said.
Clara shook her head. “I sit here, day after day,” she said, “and I watch what goes on around me. Some of it’s good, and a whole lot of it’s bad. I can’t quite figure out who it is. There’s a piece missin’ somewhere. If I could just find it, I’d know.” She sighed, closed paper-thin lids over her bright blue eyes. “It was that damn house started it all,” she said. “I knew nothing good would ever come of it.”
“House?” Kathryn said. “What house?”
Clara opened her eyes. “Why, the Chandler place,” she said. “With such a notorious past, nothing good could ever come out of that place.”
Intrigued, Kathryn leaned forward. “The Chandler place has a notorious past?”
“Indeed it does. That’s where they used to meet. The Businessmen’s Benevolent Association.”
“Who?”
“They called themselves a civic organization. You know, like the Elks or the Jaycees. It was for gentlemen only. The
crème de la crème
of Elba’s society. Men like John Chamberlain, Kevin McAllister, Manley Pruett, and Eugene Pepperell, Senior. Ladies, of course, weren’t allowed in.”
“And what did they do?”
“Oh, they did charitable works. Raised money to build a new school. Organized Fourth of July parades. Took dinner baskets to the poor folk out by Persimmon Creek on Thanksgiving.”
“And they met in the Chandler place?”
“It was their headquarters. When Hilton Chandler died, he left the place to them. It became a clubhouse of sorts. And there was always stories circulatin’ about what went on in that place behind closed doors. Especially with the women.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you said women weren’t allowed in?”
“You weren’t listenin’ carefully enough, sugar. What I said was that
ladies
weren’t allowed in. There are other kinds of women.”
“You mean that while their wives were home alone, the men were entertaining their, ah
…
female friends?”
“So the story goes. I never saw it with my own eyes, mind you. But the way I’ve heard it, there was a couple of prerequisites that had to be met before a woman could walk through those doors.”
Fascinated, she leaned forward again. “Which were?”
“They had to be young. Very young. Nineteen, twenty, thereabouts.”
In the oak tree above their heads, a mockingbird sang. Kathryn nodded. “And what was the other?” she said.
Clara fanned her face with a bony hand. “They had to be colored.”
Kathryn sat up straight, let out a long, low whistle. “Do tell,” she said.
“It’s not such an unusual thing, you know. Been goin’ on for centuries, rich white men takin’ their pleasures with brown sugar. People that knew what was goin’ on, well, they just looked the other way.”
“What happened?” she said. “The house had been empty for years and years when Michael and I bought it. What happened to the Businessmen’s Benevolent Association?”
“Well, the way folks tell it, some of the wives upped and figured out what was going on. Neely McAllister and a couple of the others, and they put an end to it. The Businessmen’s Benevolent Association disbanded, and the house just sat there empty until you folks bought it.”
“Unbelievable,” she said. “I don’t remember Michael ever mentioning anything about any organization his father belonged to.”
“He probably never even knew about it, sugar plum. It all ended about the time he was three or four years old.” The old woman felt for her cane. “It’s almost three o’clock,” she said. “Would you be kind enough to assist me? I didn’t mean to get off on a tangent like this. My sister always used to tell me that I talked too much.”
“No! No, really, it was fascinating. Amazing.”
She helped the old lady back into the house, got her settled in front of the television. “Y’all come back and visit again,” Clara said.
“I most certainly will come back,” she said. “It’s been lovely.”
“And next time,” Clara said, “you’re to bring young Nicholas DiSalvo with you. You hear?”
It wasn’t a request, it was an order. Kathryn held back a smile. “Next time,” she said, “I’ll bring Mr. DiSalvo with me.”
“All right. Now y’all scoot on out of here. My story’s beginning, and I need to know what happens to Victoria.”
Mary Lou Elkson was a scrawny little thing with bleached-blonde hair and a pockmarked face. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she fidgeted nervously while she talked. “Wanita didn’t have no fear,” she said, folding and unfolding an empty matchbook. “She’d take on anybody or anything. That’s what killed her in the end, you know. She met up with somebody she couldn’t bullshit her way around.”
Nick leaned back in his chair. “Were you aware of her, ah, extracurricular activities, Mrs. Elkson?”
“You mean the hooking? Yeah. I tried not to be judgmental, you know? I mean, it’s not my cup of tea, but, hey, you gotta put food on the table somehow.” Mary Lou glanced at the clock over his head and played with the strap to her handbag. “You mind if I have a cigarette?”
“Go ahead.”
She pulled a disposable lighter from her purse and lit up a Virginia Slim. Blew out the smoke in a thick cloud. “Jesus,” she said, “I’ve needed that for about three hours.”
The smoke swirled around his head and filled his lungs. “Did you know her boyfriend in Baltimore?” he said.
“Chuckie? Yeah, he was a real trip.” Mary Lou tossed a stringy lock of yellow hair back from her forehead. “I went down to visit a couple of times, but he was such an asshole that I only stayed a few days. I woulda booted his ass out the door a long time ago.”
“But Wanita stayed with him.”
“For almost three years. Go figure. Well, they had a couple of kids. She tried to stick it out for their sake, I guess.”
“Was it an amicable split?”
Mary Lou snorted. “Amicable. That’s a great word. She come home one day and caught him screwing some floozy in her bed. She packed up both the kids and caught the next bus back to Elba. Best thing that ever happened to her.”