Devil's Oven (9 page)

Charity glanced up at the sunburst metal clock above the couch. “Eli’s on his way home. Sometimes he goes to his mom’s for an early breakfast,” she said. “You can bet I’m going to make sure he has the .38 loaded and out on the dresser when we go back to bed, just in case.”

Bud cleared his throat. “Maybe you could warm up that soup for Jolene?” he said, fidgeting with the brim of his hat.  “And have Eli drop you at the club tonight, or give Dwight a call. I’ll make sure there’s someone keeping an eye out on the parking lot. At least until we know what’s going on.”

Charity looked from Bud to Jolene. She had already told Jolene she thought Bud had a thing for her.

“Sure,” Charity said.

Bud watched after her as she carried the bags into the kitchen. When she was gone, he eased a peeling vinyl ottoman closer to the couch and sat down.

“I can’t stay,” he said. “You think you’ve got the flu? You don’t want to mess around with the flu.”

Jolene was touched by the concern in his eyes. She tried to smile back at him. “You need to get to your office. Really, I’m okay,” she said.

“Dwight said you got sick in a pretty big way.” There was finally the hint of a smile on his face. “It’s not easy to make an impression on Dwight. Must have been spectacular.”

“Dwight’s so sensitive,” Jolene said, and they both laughed. Dwight was about as sensitive as a dead snake.

Dwight was hard for her to read. Everything about him was dirty gray, obscured. His body wasn’t sick. His sick was in his soul. She didn’t trust him, and someday she might be close enough to Bud to tell him so. There were so many things she could tell Bud, just because she knew he would listen. He would understand. He had chanced to be in the office that day when she had first come in with Charity, and he had hired her over Dwight’s objection that she didn’t have any experience. She’d been nervous during her brief audition on the stage, but she had let Charity’s excellent coaching and the music take her over. Dancing for even just those few minutes, she’d felt a sweet release of the pain that had been building up inside her since she came out of the woods.

Bud lowered his voice.

“I have to go, but did you think about it? With Claude gone, we’ll need even more help in the office…” The words faded into silence and he looked away.

Jolene wanted to touch him, to heal the worry in him. She watched him struggle with what to say next.

They heard the
beep beep beep
of the microwave and Charity cursing the too-hot bowl.

“You wouldn’t have to start right away,” he said. “Things are up in the air for a while. Messed up.”

Out of the blue, he had offered her a job filing and answering phones at the trucking office. He hadn’t said why he had chosen her out of all the other girls—or anyone else in town, for that matter. Who hired a dancer to answer phones?

 “I like dancing,” Jolene said. She wasn’t sure it mattered where she spent her days or nights. “Plus, I don’t really know anything about computers, except for what Eli’s shown me.”

Bud was about to speak when the cell phone in his jacket began chiming a tinny version of “You Are My Sunshine.” He pulled it out of his pocket and answered.

“Lila. Honey,” he said, his voice full of emotion.

Charity came in bearing the bowl of soup on a metal baking sheet. Bud held up a hand to keep her from speaking.

“I know, baby,” he said. “I’m almost to the office right now. Meet me there, okay?...They what?...Holy Christ.”

Jolene wanted to push away the darkness she saw seeping into the blue surrounding him.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “I’ll come right home to get you...I love you, too, baby.”

Bud stood up and snapped his phone shut.

“Troopers want to talk to me,” he said. “They found Claude’s body way up on Devil’s Oven.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lila met Bud just inside the door leading from the garage. The vacant look on her face told him she had taken more than her usual dose of sedative. Dressed in a simple cotton sweater and blue jeans, with her curls pulled back into a loose ponytail, she looked young and vulnerable. He was a little surprised to find her so devastated. She rarely took much of an interest in his trucking employees, but then nobody they knew well had ever been murdered.

“They’re in the living room. Danelle’s giving them coffee.” She let him pull her to him, and rested her head against his chest. “I missed you so much,” she said.

He stroked her hair as he held her, wishing he could take her upstairs where they could be alone. She needed reassuring. What happened to Claude was a terrible thing, but it didn’t have anything to do with them.

When she pulled away, he touched the quarter-sized bruise on her head with a careful finger. “Hey, what happened here?”

She raised her own hand to it. “Hit my head getting into the truck,” she said. “I’m okay.”

“Poor baby,” he said. He kissed the bruise. “You don’t have to go in there with me if you don’t want to.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to be by myself.”

“I’m sorry I had to leave you alone,” he said. “Financial stuff. They wanted me there in person.” It was enough of the truth. He never wanted her to see him chastised the way he had been by his father.

“Next time,” she said. “Promise?”

“Red, you sure you’re okay?” he said. He had seen her shaken before, but now she seemed to have undergone a complete personality change. Her confidence was gone. She seemed defeated. Maybe he needed to take some of the money he had brought back and get her out of town for a few days. Nothing was more important than making sure she was all right.

But even as Bud looked into her face, he knew they couldn’t do it. The money thing needed to be handled. Dwight had been trying to help him, to protect him, but now the people to whom Bud owed money were getting close. As much as he wanted to believe the best about people, Bud knew he had screwed up. Dwight’s money friends weren’t going to wait anymore.

“We don’t know anything about this. About Claude,” Lila said. “Why do you think they’re here?”

 “Damned if I know. Maybe because he works—I mean,
worked
for me.” He shook his head. “Damn, I can’t believe he’s dead. Such a good guy. I sure as hell hope he wasn’t into drugs or anything like that.”

Panic spread across his wife’s face. “If it’s that, then there might be more of them. They might not stop with Claude,” she said. “What if they come looking for us?”

“Hey, take it easy,” he said. “Whoever killed Claude isn’t going to come after you. Or me. Unless you’ve been hiding a habit I don’t know about.”

“What?” she said. “I don’t understand.”

She seemed afraid. Lila was never afraid.

He put his arm around her and led her down the hall to the kitchen. She didn’t resist.

“It was just my piss-poor excuse for a joke,” he said. “I’m sorry. Claude’s dead, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us. I promise.”

She didn’t look convinced. Pulling away from him, she went over to the stove where a kettle was simmering. As she poured the water into a waiting mug, her hand shook, spilling water on the counter.

“No. I don’t think I want to talk to them if they don’t need me,” she said.

“Sure, baby,” he said. “I don’t know why they would.”

Over on the kitchen table, Lila’s cell phone buzzed. They both looked over at it.

“You want your phone?” he said. “Might be your mother. She probably heard about Claude.”

“It’s nobody I want to talk to,” she said. She picked up the mug and headed toward the back stairs.

He stopped her before she could pass. She looked less afraid, but he knew she was worried. He tried to think of something to say that would make her feel better.

“Get some rest,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek. He would die before he let anything happen to her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Anthony! What have you done?”

Ivy dropped the linen napkins she had gotten from the closet in the guest bathroom.

Thora had spent the afternoon staring at the television or out the window, uncharacteristically quiet, the tension coming off her in waves. Ivy had understood she was trying to decide what to do about Anthony. Two different people had called with news about the murder at the Git ’n’ Go. Ivy had answered the phone herself, but the murder had also been on the news.

Now Thora lay at Anthony’s feet, her body jerking without rhythm, blood welling around the knife blade protruding from the front of her neck and streaming onto the vinyl floor. Her mouth was slack, lips and chin dotted with blood. Her eyes, wide with shock, stared up at Anthony.

Ivy wondered if this was what she had wanted all along. Maybe Anthony had looked into her heart and granted her unspoken, unacknowledged wish.

Anthony stood over Thora wearing his corpse-stupid grin. It was the only thing about him Ivy couldn’t bear. She felt afraid when she saw that smile, and she didn’t want to be afraid of him.

What would he do if he thought I was angry? Or frightened?

Finally the gruesome smile faded, and Anthony took an uncertain step back from Thora.

When Ivy had brought him down from the trailer for dinner, Thora had looked on in silent reproach as they came in the front door. Anthony wore the blue jeans and shoes Ivy had run out to buy, as well as a light pink oxford shirt that one of her clients had brought in for repair and never picked up. It was too short and pulled at the buttons, but she had helped him roll up the cuffs so it didn’t look too bad. He kept his head down, staying close to Ivy, as though he were a new pet, uncomfortable in the house. But when Thora finally said something under her breath—
animal
, or
criminal
, maybe, Ivy wasn’t sure—Anthony’s body went rigid and he turned his empty brown eyes to her half sister.

Thora!

Despite whatever was in her truest heart, Ivy couldn’t bear to see Thora suffer. Kneeling, she took hold of the carving knife that had been meant for the lamb roast cooling on the table, and pulled it out of her sister’s neck. Stunned at the brutal sight of it, she flung it to the floor.

“Thora,” she said. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Thora.” Without the knife, the wound relaxed, releasing a fresh wave of red, red blood. The skin around Thora’s eyes tightened and she focused on Ivy’s face.

Once, emerging from anesthetic after knee surgery, Thora had looked at Ivy for a moment with sudden, surprising tenderness. But seconds later her face blanked into her usual indifference and the complaining had begun. Would there be tenderness now? Forgiveness?

Ivy saw only fear in Thora’s eyes. Thora knew she was going to die, and Ivy knew it, too. There would be no forgiveness.

What could she give Thora?

She took her sister’s trembling hand in her own and felt how fragile it was, even with its protection of well-marbled flesh. Why couldn’t Thora have understood? Why couldn’t she have seen how important Anthony was to her? Ivy had saved him from an endless, bleak eternity buried on the mountain. What had he suffered up there, buried in the dirt? What had he suffered before he was put there?

“Look for Jesus, Thora,” she said. “Look for Daddy. They’re waiting for you. Your mama, too.” She squeezed Thora’s hand between both of hers, as though she could make Thora see the happy, greeting-card picture she wanted her to see—a vista without shadow and her parents coming for her, smiling their welcome. Did their father even make it to heaven? People said suicides went to hell. She hadn’t known him, really. Thora had told her he rarely went to church, and often used the Lord’s name in vain. But Sundays at the sparsely attended Baptist church in town were important to Thora, and for years she had made sure Ivy went with her.

Ivy thought Thora might pull her hand away, but Thora held on.

“Please close your eyes,” Ivy said. “Just close your eyes.”

Thora obeyed. She coughed, her misdirected breath expelling more blood from the wound, spattering Ivy’s white apron.

Ivy had never seen anyone die before, and her body trembled with equal parts terror and fascination. She studied Thora’s face as Thora choked for some particle of air that wasn’t filled with blood. Watching Thora die was like watching her own life twist into some strange, unknown shape. All Ivy could do was wait until it was over.

For the second time in as many weeks, Ivy found herself confronted with violence and death. Both times, she had neglected to call someone for help. No, not neglected—
chose
not to. Worse, she had a murderer in her kitchen who had settled himself in a chair to eat the lamb and potatoes and green beans that had been meant as a kind of peace offering to the woman he had just killed. Had Ivy always been so cold, so selfish? But if she was so horrible, why couldn’t she stop crying?

She looked up at the man who had caused her to betray the one remaining person in the world she actually loved—or at least tried to love. Anthony, whose only apparent emotion seemed to be an eerie, charmless glee. His massive shoulders hunched over one of Thora’s grandmother’s antique china plates as he stabbed a table knife into the softened stick of butter. Freeing a good-sized chunk from the stick, he spread the butter on the roll with the slow deliberation of a six-year-old child.

Taking one hand away from Thora’s, Ivy wiped her tears away and focused more closely on Anthony’s left hand. He held the knife at an awkward angle. Appraising his hand as she might a piece of clothing she had repaired, she could see that something about it was wrong. For all her care, she had sewn it on badly.

Ivy Luttrell, maker of pristine, flawless wedding gowns and sewer of perfect seams, had failed at the most important project of her life.

She began to laugh, and couldn’t stop. Anthony turned to look at her, blinking, the hard roll still in his not-quite-right hand, the knife in the other. A smile spread over his face.

When Thora’s last breath whistled through the hole in her throat, Ivy didn’t hear it for the sound of her own laughter.