It was. Kate spotted the fluttering end of ribbon tied to a scrub locust tree. David pulled over and cut the engine. Beside them the incline was not steep, but about ten feet high.
“The grass is short,” Kate said as she opened her car door.
“That’s why there were no footprints. They keep it mowed. Wait,” David said. “Warm as it’s been, the snakes are still out, but they’re too sluggish to get away from you.” He reached across her, opened the glove compartment and took out a long, heavy black flashlight. He clicked it on, and shone it out Kate’s door toward the slope. Something rustled away.
Kate caught her breath and drew her feet into the truck. “Do I really want to do this?” she asked.
“You said you did.” He chuckled. “Come on, I’ll protect you.”
She waited until he opened the door for her. She glanced down and saw that he wore heavy brown boots.
He followed her glance. “These suckers will stop the fangs of a timber rattler.”
She pointed down at her own chic little black ankle boots. “Well, these suckers will not.”
He swept the light back and forth over the grass. “Don’t worry, anything that was here is long gone at this point, and mighty annoyed that we disturbed it in the middle of the night. Come on, I’ll help you. The grass is slippery.” He reached for her hand, entwined his long fingers with hers. Even their hands fit like two halves of a puzzle. “Kate,” he began.
She shook her head. “Up, up and away. This is business, remember?”
Five minutes later they stood on the top of the levee. Long Lake glinted under a path of moonlight. On the far shore stood a thicket of some kind of scrub trees. The water barely rippled against the reeds and cane at their feet. A night bird called grumpily, but this late in the year, there were no insects to buzz or bullfrogs to thrum.
“We could almost dance on that moonlight,” David whispered. He slipped his arm around her waist. For a moment her head rested on his shoulder.
“Such a beautiful place.” She shivered and moved away. Business. She had to keep reminding herself she wasn’t some teenager out spooning.
“The dam’s that way.” David pointed to his left. “It’s not much of a lake, but it’s big enough to ski on.”
“And Waneath’s body was all the way up here?” Kate asked.
“Top of the levee.”
“Then he wanted her found quickly,” Kate said.
“How do you get that?”
She kicked a clod and sent it spinning down the slope toward the reeds. “Because if he took the trouble to drag an inert form up that slope, it would have been simpler just to roll her down the other side and into the water.”
“You’re right,” David said.
“That fits with the way the body was laid out—very neatly, as though she were sleeping.”
“Someone who knew her well.”
“And didn’t want her parents to worry any longer than they had to. How much worse would it have been for them to wait and search for a week or so until the body floated up out of the bottom of the lake? And how hideous would it have been at that point?” Kate shuddered. “A caring killer.”
David put his arm around her shoulders. “But a killer nonetheless.”
She leaned against him. “Not a premeditated murder. My guess is the father of her baby.”
“Have you seen enough?” he asked.
“More than enough.” Kate turned and started down the slope.
“Wait a minute,” David said.
Two steps on the dew-slick grass in her shiny boots and her feet slid out from under her as neatly as though she’d slipped on a banana peel. “Oh, damn!”
David reached for her, missed and ran down the levee beside and past her. She slid all the way down to sprawl at the foot of the hill on her rear.
David reached for her and pulled her up. “Are you all right?”
“Nothing injured but my dignity.” She brushed her wet, muddy bottom. “And my clothes. Yuck!”
He wrapped his arms around her. She realized she was breathing hard. She could feel the pulse in her chest against his shirt. She tried to pull away.
“No,” he whispered. “Stay here. You feel so damn good.” He bent his head and buried his face in the angle of her neck. “I need to hold you again.” He raised his face to look into her eyes, then he bent to kiss her.
This time there was no denying the fire that leaped in her veins when his mouth met hers, his tongue touched hers. Twenty years fell away in an instant, leaving her gasping and hungry for him as she had always been. When his fingers trailed her throat and slipped down to caress her breast, she felt as though her heart would burst. She pressed her body against his. He was erect against her and breathing as hard as she was.
What would happen if they allowed their bodies simply to slip down on the levee? David dropped the flashlight, and suddenly they were surrounded only by moonlight.
His fingers were slipping under her sweater to find the clasp of her bra when suddenly headlights swept around the bend and caught them as fully as though they’d been in a spotlight center stage.
Kate jumped away.
Instead of sliding by, the truck pulled to a stop.
“Oh, good grief,” Kate whispered.
Behind her, David began to chuckle. “Hey, Jimmy,” he said.
“Hey, Mr. Canfield,” Jimmy Viccolla answered. “Y’all got trouble with the truck?”
As Jimmy opened his door, the dome light came on to reveal Myrlene sitting beside him, wide-eyed. “Hey, Mr. Canfield,” she said. “Mrs. Mulholland.”
“We’re fine, thank you, Jimmy,” David said.
Kate was aware that he kept his body behind hers to hide the state of his arousal.
“Okay,” Jimmy said doubtfully.
“Come
on
,” Myrlene hissed. “Jimmy, you are such a fool.”
“Huh?”
She reached across and slammed his door, and a moment later waved out the window as they drove away.
David leaned against the fender of his truck, crossed his arms and began to laugh. After a moment’s silence, Kate joined him, but when he opened her arms to her, she sidestepped him. “I think you’d better take me home.”
“Kate, come home with me. Finish what we started.”
“Uh-uh. Arnold expects to find me in my own bed tomorrow morning and that’s where I intend to be.”
“You’re a hard woman.”
“And don’t you forget it, buster.”
KATE ROLLED OVER in bed to check the luminous dial on her alarm clock. Six-thirty in the morning. Still dark outside. The day loomed ahead of her.
She had a good idea that her clinch with David would be common knowledge all over town long before noon. Lovely.
And if they hadn’t been interrupted? Would she have allowed David to drive her back to his house to spend the night? Possibly. No, probably. When he touched her she still caught fire. If anything, the flames had grown hotter for having been banked for twenty years. She thought she had outgrown wild passion. Apparently not. She squirmed in bed and realized that her nipples had grown hard.
Well, why not? What was the harm? Their lives had taken such different paths that there was no chance they could ever get back together on any permanent basis, but what was wrong with savoring the re-creation of the passion they had shared? They might even continue to see each other from time to time the way old friends and lovers sometimes did. They were adults. They were both free.
Bull. One night with David and she’d be as much in thrall to him as she’d ever been at twenty. He’d consumed her then, and he was a lot more man now than he’d been in New York.
Nope. She’d have to continue to fight him and her own desires unless she wanted to wind up traipsing after him down a soybean field for the rest of her life. Which, she did not intend to do. No way. Never.
She jumped out of bed, brushed her teeth and threw on sweatpants, sweatshirt and running shoes. She needed to get her blood moving in her veins if she intended to think clearly.
She let herself out of her room into the semidarkness and strode off through the parking lot. One good thing about a town the size of Athena. She was safe on the streets, and there was little likelihood she’d get lost.
She warmed up by power walking, then swung into an easy lope along the tree-lined streets. November had stripped the leaves so that she had to watch her step where Athena’s residents hadn’t yet raked their front lawns or swept their sidewalks.
The streets were well lighted with old-fashioned lampposts. Many of the houses were already lit up as children got ready for school and adults for work.
Nice town. About the same size as the town she grew up in. Still rural, although this close to Jackson, chances were it would become a bedroom community before too many more years.
Would Long Pond survive? Kate found herself hoping that Jason would discover he didn’t like directing movies. Places like Athena and Long Pond were fast vanishing, and that was a shame.
But she hadn’t thought that when she was Jason’s age and setting out to become the wife of a star. Young people fled places like Athena all over the country. Making a living could be tough. Most farmers had to take second jobs to make ends meet. Even wealthy planters like Dub were having to work harder and smarter to keep their heads above water.
Would he survive without David?
She didn’t begrudge David his need to run his own show. She simply wished he weren’t thinking about moving away in order to do it.
The problem was that all three of them seemed to be right, and yet no matter who won, the others would lose. If David left, Dub and Long Pond would suffer, and in the final analysis, so would Jason. If Jason stayed away, Dub and David would suffer. If Jason came home, he would suffer.
And probably make everybody else miserable as well.
Kate gave great thanks that she was not a part of the equation. Or was she?
By the time she rounded the corner back to the Paradise Motel parking lot, the nape of her neck was sweating. She dropped back to a walk to cool off. Halfway across the parking lot, she heard the sound of a car engine behind her. It was coming much too fast. She looked over her shoulder and froze as a red Trans Am careened into the parking lot, jammed on its brakes and skidded to a halt two feet from her thighs.
She was too stunned to move.
The door opened and Jason Canfield jumped out. He didn’t bother to turn off his lights and left his door gaping. She looked into his furious face and felt fear. Whoever he had been before, the young man in front of her was more than capable of murder.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Y
OU’RE MY DADDY’S EX!” Jason screamed.
“What?”
He waved a newspaper at her. “It says so right here!”
“Give me that.” She snatched it from his grasp, looked at the headline on the front page of the little Athena newspaper that David had assured her never printed anything but wedding announcements and recipes: Canfield Hires Ex-Wife to Defend Son in Murder Trial.
“Oh, Lord,” she said. Beneath the headline was a picture of her, Jason and David leaving the jail after the bail hearing. Without knowing any better, she’d have picked herself as the murder suspect rather than the lawyer.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” He took a step toward her.
She backed up a pace. “Come to my room, sit down and let’s discuss this before somebody calls the cops and tells them there’s a riot going on in the parking lot.”
“Just tell me, is it true?”
“Calm down, park your car, turn off your lights and come in.” She hoped she sounded strong and certain, because she felt as though she were about to fall through the asphalt straight to perdition. She turned her back on the boy and walked over to unlock her room. With each step, she expected him to smack her. Instead, she heard his car start, move a few feet and then turn off.
She left her door open and pulled up her bedspread quickly. No sense in allowing the boy to see how restless a night she’d spent.
He slammed the motel-room door so hard that she jumped. When she turned, he was leaning against it. She realized suddenly that he was every bit as tall as his father and both broad and muscular.
“Well?” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. Your father and I were once married.”
He crumpled. He felt for the chair beside the window and sank into it with his head between his hands. “Oh, man, I’m screwed.”
“What are you talking about? I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but it doesn’t alter the facts.”
He stared up at her. “My momma broke up your marriage, didn’t she? He married her because she was pregnant with me, didn’t he? If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be married. It’s my fault. I caused it all.”
“You give yourself entirely too much credit. Besides, how do you know all that?”
“She told me before she died. Man, talk about getting back at somebody.” He ran his hands through his long sandy hair in much the same gesture his father used when he was distraught. “And he didn’t want to use Dub’s lawyer because he wasn’t competent. Oh, man, I can’t believe this.”
“Listen,” she said, and sat down opposite him. “Whatever else I am, I am a damn fine lawyer. I’m also about the only person around here who truly believes you didn’t kill Waneath, although the way you’re acting at the moment, I’m beginning to wonder.”
“Yeah, that would make it better, wouldn’t it? Get me sent to prison for something I didn’t do?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Talk about payback. Man. I spend the rest of my life in jail and you get my dad back.”
Kate threw up her hands. “You can’t be serious. Turn that into a movie script, why don’t you? This is the real world.”
“Can I fire you?”
“Officially, your father is paying me, but you can in theory fire me. Why would you want to?”
“Because you’re gonna get me convicted is why.”
“Oh, Jason, don’t be ridiculous.”
“It makes sense. He’s a lot better off with me in jail.”
“Are you crazy? Your father loves you.”
“Yeah, right.” He turned his face away from her. Despite his hunched shoulders, she could see that he was breathing hard. Every muscle in his body was taut. She wondered if she should bang on the wall and summon Arnold.
Nonsense. This was just a boy. He’d had a blow, but it wasn’t fatal.
And maybe now, when he was vulnerable, he could be persuaded to tell her the truth. She took a deep breath and spoke in what she hoped was a calm and rational tone. “You haven’t fired me yet, so everything you tell me is privileged. I can’t divulge it even if I want to. Why don’t you tell me the truth about what happened between you and Waneath? All that nonsense about girlfriends at Pepperdine never did wash.”
A cunning look crossed his face. His eyes narrowed and his upper lip curled. “What the hell, why not, since you’re so hot to get back together with my daddy.”
She blinked at the non sequitur.
“Yeah. When I told Waneath I didn’t plan to marry her or anybody else for a long time, that’s when she hit me with the baby.”
“So she did tell you about the baby. I was certain she had.”
He shrugged. “I knew it wasn’t mine.”
“Condoms aren’t a hundred percent safe.”
“They are when they don’t break or leak, and mine never did.”
“So you argued?”
He laughed mirthlessly. “You could say that. She started screaming at me, then she jumped out of the car and slammed the door. Said she’d walk home before she’d drive another mile with me. I got out and followed her. I wasn’t about to leave any girl on the side of the road, even one I was mad at.” He glanced up at Kate. “I mean, it being late and all.”
Kate nodded, afraid to interrupt him.
“Anyway, she started walking down the road away from me. That’s when she said that if I wouldn’t marry her, she’d just have to go tell the real father that he’d have to.”
He paused, and that cunning look came back into his eyes. Kate braced herself. Something told her this was not going to be good.
“Said he’d had plenty of practice since he had to many my mother.”
She caught her breath. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t this.
“Yeah, dear old Dad.” Now that he’d told her, she could see that his eyes were full of tears. He was deeply angry, but he was also deeply wounded.
And something else lurked in his eyes. Fear?
“You believed her?”
“Why would she lie? Daddy doesn’t have any money—not real money. Waneath wouldn’t give a poor man the time of day unless she was trapped into it.”
Whether Waneath’s story was true or not, it was obvious to Kate that Jason believed her.
He dropped his eyes. “I kind of lost it then. I jumped back into the car and drove off to find my dad. I don’t know what I was planning to do—beat the hell out of him, probably, for stealing my girl when my back was turned.”
“Why didn’t you?”
His voice dropped to a whisper. “He wasn’t home. His car was gone and the house was dark. I banged on the door and yelled for ten minutes. Then I sat down on the step and tried to think straight. That’s when I started worrying about Waneath out there alone. I drove back to where I left her, but she was gone.” He dropped his head in his hands. His shoulders shook and he began to sob. “I loved her and I left her out there.”
“Did your father say where he’d been?”
Jason shook his head, but didn’t raise it from his knees. He spoke through his sobs. “He doesn’t even realize I know he wasn’t home.” He looked up. “Where was he? I mean, it was past midnight.” His voice elevated to a wail. “Where was he?”
“You can’t seriously believe he killed her?”
“No!” Jason yelped. His eyes, his body language, all said yes.
Kate leaned forward and took both his hands. He froze, but he didn’t jerk away from her.
“Do you honestly think he’d let you take the blame?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. He got you to save me, didn’t he?”
She shook his hands. “Make up your mind. Did he hire me to get you convicted, or because he was guilty and wanted to save you? You can’t have it both ways.”
He jerked back sulkily. “Yeah, I can. He hired you to save me, but you want to get me convicted. So I’m screwed, no matter which way I go.”
Kate ran her hands through her hair, stood up and walked over to lean against the desk. “Jason, you have the imagination to be a great director, but you live in a fantasy world. Why don’t you ask him where he was and stop worrying about it?”
“No!” It was a piercing cry.
“Because you’re afraid to hear the answer?”
“Oh, God.” He turned away from her and crouched low in the chair, curling into some kind of sitting fetal position.
“Even if he did it, I can’t send him to jail.”
“You think he just happened by when she was walking home? I don’t believe in that sort of coincidence.”
“Maybe he was coming home from someplace, or out hunting for us. If somebody called him from the joint about our fight...”
“Had he ever come looking for you before?” She heard her voice turn lawyer in an instant. She had no idea whether the tone would help or hinder the situation.
“Yeah. He’s dragged me out of parties a few times when he thought there was dope or liquor. He’s always kept me on a pretty tight rein.”
“But you and Waneath were sleeping together since ninth grade?”
“Well, not that tight a rein—I mean, parents forget it’s just as easy to get into trouble at four in the afternoon as it is at four in the morning.” He managed a tiny grin.
“Very true. So you think he was worried about you and went cruising to find you, found Waneath instead, had a knock-down-drag-out fight with her and beat her to death? Then drove ten miles and deposited her on the levee?”
“Maybe.”
“Even if I buy that, which I don’t, I can’t see your father allowing you to take the blame even for a second. He knows how serious this thing is, unlike your grandfather, who thinks it’s all a big joke.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t let me actually be convicted.”
“He wouldn’t have allowed you to spend five minutes in jail, young man, and if you weren’t so angry at him, you’d know that was true.” But was it? He’d ducked out on the truth at least once before. If Waneath’s death had been an accident, might he have been afraid to come forward, afraid of the scandal?
No, she couldn’t believe it of David.
What she could believe was that he and Waneath had had an affair. She’d been a beautiful woman, much more mature than her years. David was an extraordinarily handsome and charismatic man, as she had reason to know. Maybe it started simply as two people who missed Jason. Things could get out of hand quickly, especially if Waneath pushed it.
The main thing was that David might have lied about his relationship with the girl.
Big surprise.
She stood up.
“Go home, Jason, before somebody recognizes your car and starts a bunch of gossip we don’t need.”
“What are you going to do?” Jason asked.
“I’m going to find your daddy and ask him if he killed Waneath.”
“You can’t!” Jason squawked. He surged to his feet. “Listen, you said you could maybe plea-bargain for me. Could you maybe get me parole if I plead guilty to manslaughter?”
“I doubt the people of Athena would be amenable to parole and no jail time for killing another human being.”
“I can’t let you send my daddy to prison.”
“Nobody’s sending anybody to prison. But I am going to talk to him and clear this up once and for all. For pity’s sake, Jason, he’s baffled because of your attitude and you’re scared to talk to him. What kind of family do you people run anyway?”
“The kind where everybody keeps his mouth shut and minds his own business,” he said angrily. “And as my lawyer, I order you not to talk to my father.”
“Good try.”
Jason stepped in front of the door. David had said Jason was too small to play football, but at the moment he looked capable of taking on an entire defensive line. “I can’t let you do that,” he said.
She stood her ground. “Move, Jason.”
“No.”
“Listen. Arnold is coming over here to pick me up for breakfast any minute now. He’s more than capable of handling you, even if I’m not.”
His shoulders sagged, and suddenly he looked about twelve, very tired, very frightened and very confused.
She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure your father has a perfectly good alibi for the night of Waneath’s death. You have to give him a chance to explain.” She moved him gently away from the door so that she could open it. “Go home. Let Neva answer the phone. Take a nap, watch a movie, eat something. I promise I’ll call you after I’ve talked to your dad.”
He began to cry again, and this time she put her arms around him. In a moment, he hugged her back. She patted him and wished she’d had more experience in mothering. She had no idea how to handle him.
After what seemed like a long time, but was actually probably no more than a minute, he snuffled and looked at her. “Everybody thinks I’m such a jerk, you know, for leaving her.” His face crumpled again. “I loved her, I really did. I miss her so much.”