“Maybe you already have.” She turned and ran down the steps to the car. As she drove away, she heard him calling after her.
She had been so sure she was free of him, and now she felt ensnared as completely as she had the first time she saw him. Was there really only one woman for one man in the entire universe? If he truly was the other half of her soul, then it was a darned inconvenient pairing.
He swore he never wanted to lie to her, but his whole life with her had been a sort of lie. Melba was simply the last, and maybe not even the worst. All those months in New York he’d kept up a facade, although he must have been desperately unhappy. Was he right about his talent?
Didn’t matter. What mattered was that he believed he had failed, had lost his way, and had been afraid to share his failure with her, as though she was only allowed to share his triumphs, and couldn’t be trusted to share his defeats as well. What kind of a marriage was that?
And he’d been right, damn him. She hadn’t seen it then, but Melba was a defeat for both of them.
Had she let him go too easily? Was principle really more important than love? She’d been so blasted self-righteous at the time, so wounded, so angry, that she hadn’t even allowed him to open up to her then. Who had she been punishing? David, for betraying her? Her father? Herself? Other marriages survived adultery to become stronger than they were before.
God knows she had been wounded deeply in the one place she was most vulnerable.
No. Moral principle was important—at least the one about fidelity. Sympathy and understanding were all very well, she thought as she felt the old anger well up in her again. In the final analysis, he was the one who had gone to bed with someone else. His choice, not hers.
She’d had a right to protect herself. Cheating husbands didn’t reform—her father had protested over and over again that he’d never cheat again. He always had. And her mother had endured.
Well, Kate hadn’t endured. Why live through the heartache, the broken trust, and hope that things would change, that his fling with Melba would be his only fling, when two months later David would probably have bedded some chorus gypsy?
One adultery invariably led to another. She’d been right to cut her losses the first time it happened.
She could never have lived with herself if she had let him get away with it as her mother had. She deserved better than that. She had been faithful. He hadn’t.
DAVID WATCHED her drive his shiny new Navigator somewhat erratically down the gravel road and wondered whether she had any idea which direction to turn to go into Athena. He’d planned to draw her a map, but there hadn’t been time.
What he hadn’t planned to do was kiss her that way and unload all his emotional baggage into her lap. Nothing could justify what he’d done with Melba all those years ago, but even murderers were paroled eventually. He’d spent those years knowing that Kate was out there somewhere in the world and he wasn’t with her. Knowing was the hardest part of his sentence.
He went back into the house and picked up the telephone to dial long distance.
He heard the cheerful hello on the other end of the telephone with a lifting of his heart. “Hi, Mrs. Hillman,” he said.
“David? Did you manage to reach my daughter?”
“Yes. She arrived yesterday. You were right to convince me to call her.”
“Oh, I’m so glad, dear. Has it been terribly awkward meeting her again?”
He laughed. “Awkward enough.”
“I’m so terribly sorry it has to be under these circumstances. I feel almost as though Jason were part of my own family—my own grandson. He should be. How are you holding up?”
“Better than I would without Kate. She managed to secure bail, so at least he’s not sitting in jail. She wasn’t happy that I conned her down here, Mrs. H.”
David heard the laughter of a young girl echoing down the line. “She’d be furious if she knew you and I had stayed in touch.”
“She’s always been a pretty tough cookie,” he said.
“We both know that inside she’s very fragile. I suppose when you live with the professor and his ways for most of your life, you develop a skin like one of those alligators I see on the golf course.”
“Your marriage survived,” David said. “Mine didn’t. How did you manage to hold it together?”
“For one thing, one always assumes children are blind to the problems and affairs of adults.”
“But Kate knew.”
“Oh, yes, she knew. Blamed me. Thinks I was weak not to kick him out.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Kate needed a father as well as a mother. I had no career, no desire to be anything except a faculty wife. If I had divorced Walter, there would have been a nasty scandal that might have ruined his career, probably forced him to resign from the college. Whatever else he may have been, he was a fine teacher.”
“But didn’t your patience wear thin?”
“Certainly. I was furious for a very long time. I began to realize after about five years that he was simply congenitally unable to be faithful to any woman. He had to have that wonderful elation you feel when you first fall in love—only he had to have it over and over again. He always said his relationships had nothing to do with us.” She laughed. “That’s what they all say, of course, but in his case I think he meant it. I did learn to live quite a full life on my own and conceal my pain better. The amazing thing is that we remained friends despite everything. His affairs became—irrelevant. You were never irrelevant to Kate.”
“I was sure you’d never forgive me, either.”
“My dear, when you hurt my daughter I was ready to dismember you, but you were so contrite, and she was so adamant. How many years did it take you to get back into my good graces? Four? Five? You paid the price for her father’s sin.”
“I paid the price for my own sin, Mrs. Hillman.”
“You’ve paid enough. So has my daughter, come to that. She and Alec Mulholland were a nice couple, but he treated her more like a daughter than a wife. He wasn’t a passionate man. All women need passion, David, whether they admit it or not.”
“I still love her, Mrs. H.,” David whispered.
“Then, dear, go after her. What have you got to lose?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
F
IFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Kate nearly drove past the Paradise Motel before she spotted the small neon sign in front. It didn’t look much like paradise. More like one of the early motels from the thirties where Bonnie and Clyde hid from the police.
Still, it was better than staying at Dub’s where she might run into David unexpectedly. Each time she met him she felt a nearly physical blow to her senses. One extra quirk of those eyebrows, one good tilt of that smile, and she might just fall into his arms like some sappy Victorian heroine. Well, she wouldn’t.
She pulled in and checked in the office, where a fiftyish lady with dyed red hair took her credit card and read her name with avid curiosity.
“Has Mr. Selig checked in? Mr. Arnold Selig?” Kate asked.
“Uh-huh, he’s in the room right next to yours.” The woman arched an eyebrow. “Don’t have no rooms with connecting doors.”
“That’s all right.”
“Y’all here about that Canfield boy killed Warieath Talley?” the woman asked.
Kate picked up her room key. “We’re here about the boy who is accused. That’s not the same thing at all.”
“I don’t know how it is in big cities, but in Athena the sheriff don’t arrest innocent folks.”
Kate smiled. “We’ll see.” She turned away. “Oh, could I have some extra towels and hangers?”
“Sure. I’ll send Myrlene down with some.”
Kate pulled David’s car down to the end of the row outside room fourteen. Arnold’s rental car was not in evidence, so he’d obviously gone out again.
She dragged her two big bags into the room and grimaced. Quite a comedown from her suite in Los Angeles. Although it seemed clean and neat, the room looked as though it had been caught in an early sixties time warp with an orange and blue geometric bedspread and orange shag carpet. The walls were paneled in the cheapest possible veneer and the television set was small and balanced precariously on a combination bureau and desk. Kate wished for a moment she’d taken Dub up on his offer of a room at Long Pond.
No, she and Arnold needed independent space, and this one was certainly not conducive to romance. Much safer than Long Pond or David’s house in the woods.
If she and Arnold stayed in Athena very long, they might want to rent someplace more congenial, particularly when and if they hired a private investigator to look into the case.
She threw her largest suitcase onto the bed, opened it and began to hang up her clothes in the open rack opposite the bathroom.
She started at the knock on the door. When she opened it, a young woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt with her blond hair in a ponytail smiled at Kate over a stack of blindingly white, but suspiciously thin towels.
“Hey, Mrs. Mulholland, Momma said you needed some towels and stuff.”
“Come in,” Kate said, and stood aside. “Just put the towels on the counter in the bathroom. I’ll take the hangers. Did you bring extra skirt hangers?”
“Sure did.” The girl returned from the bathroom empty-handed. “Well,” she said, obviously stalling.
Kate pulled out her purse and took five dollars out of her wallet.
“Oh, no ma’am, you don’t have to do that.”
“Sure I do, uh, Myrlene, was it?”
The girl blushed. “Yes’m. You need anything else, you just tell me.”
Kate sat on the bed. “Myrlene, you look about Jason’s age. Did you know him?”
“We graduated together in June.”
“Really.” Kate gestured to the straight chair beside the window. “You have a minute to talk?”
The girl shrugged. “Sure. I’m just cleaning part-time for Momma. I don’t have to be at work at the hardware store until two.”
“So you were in Waneath’s class too?”
“Uh-huh. We were sorority sisters.”
Kate blinked. “Really?”
“Sure. Les Debs. Everybody is mostly in it. We have parties and stuff. I was a cheerleader,” Myrlene said proudly.
“Was Waneath?”
“She didn’t have time for stuff like that. Too busy with trying to be Miss America.” Myrlene sniffed.
“Stuck-up?”
“Well, Momma says I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead...”
“You should tell the truth, whatever it is.”
The girl hesitated a moment, obviously dying to unburden herself about Waneath. “We weren’t real close, you know? I mean, my momma runs a motel and her daddy’s rich. I wouldn’t have gotten in the sorority if I hadn’t made cheerleader.”
“Did you get along?”
“She didn’t pay much attention to anybody except Jason, and that’s just cause his granddaddy owns most of the county and she thought he’d take her off to Hollywood. They were going to get engaged at Christmas.”
“Really? Waneath told you that?”
“Sure did. I ran into her at Wal-Mart a couple of weeks ago, and when she saw my ring, she said Jason was going to give her her ring at Christmas.” Myrlene held out her left hand. A tiny diamond sparkled on her ring finger.
“Lovely. So, you’re engaged?”
“Uh-huh. Me and Jimmy Viccolla are getting married after Easter.”
“I’ve met Jimmy. He seems very nice.”
She shrugged as though it didn’t matter, but the flush on her cheeks belied the casualness of her words. “My momma says he’ll be a good provider.”
“I’m sure he will. Did Waneath say when she and Jason were planning to get married?”
Myrlene snickered. “I’ll bet Jason didn’t know a thing about it, tell the truth. Waneath always figured she could make him do anything she wanted if she pouted and sulked hard enough.”
“So she wasn’t angry at Jason?”
Myrlene kneaded her left shoulder with her right hand while she considered. “I hate vacuuming,” she said by way of explanation. “Waneath was sure mad at Jason that last night. Man, they went at it in the parking lot like Hail Columbia, which is what my momma says when she blesses me out.”
“Do you think maybe Jason told her he didn’t plan to give her a ring?”
“She’d have been mad about that, all right. But she still had her backup plans.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Waneath had all these plans from the time she got her first bra. She was going to be Miss America, but she only came in third runner-up for Miss Mississippi. She said that was all right because a lot of rich men wanted to date the runner-ups too.”
“I take it she liked rich men.”
“Did she ever! Her momma’s been teaching her since grade school that a woman’s job is to marry a rich man. Jason Canfield’s going to be real rich when his granddaddy dies. He gets Long Pond. I mean, I used to go to parties out there. Have you seen how big that place is with that pink marble staircase and all?”
Kate nodded. “But if Jason didn’t want to marry her... ?”
“He was just her first choice. I mean, he wants to be something in the movies, and Waneath thought she could marry him, move out there with him, and become a big star or something while they waited for the old man to die.”
“What was her backup plan? Do you know?”
Myrlene frowned and waved her hands. “Sure. Waneath talked about her plans all the time. Like anybody cared.” She sniffed again and considered. “Well, she was still in training for Miss Mississippi, although I don’t think she was doing many pageants this year. She was going to the junior college and taking sports education, or something like that.”
“And she was in pageants to meet rich men?”
“Sure. She used to say beauty queens marry doctors and lawyers. Around here they mostly do, too. Waneath wanted a big house and to be in society. Her daddy’s rich trash, and her momma thinks she married beneath her. She wants Waneath to marry rich
and
socially prominent. She wanted, that is. ’Cause her sister is never going to do it.”
“Her sister? I didn’t know she had a sister.”
“Sure. Coral Anne. She’s only sixteen, and she inherited her daddy’s looks, poor thing. She’s smart, but that never cut much ice with Mrs. Talley.”
“So Waneath was the favorite child?”
“Listen, next to Waneath, what chance does fat little Coral Anne have?”
“Interesting. Did
anybody
like Waneath?”
“Sure. All the boys. And most of the girls made up to her because of who she was. She was head of the ‘in’ crowd, you know. Jason always seemed to. I mean, they were close all through school.”
“From what you’ve said, I can’t see Waneath sitting at home alone and waiting for him to come home on vacation. Was she seeing anyone else?”
“Don’t know. If she was, it was probably somebody from the junior college. She wouldn’t give the time of day to anybody she was in school with. Not that way, at least.”
“Thanks, Myrlene, you’ve been very helpful.”
Myrlene stood up. “Yeah, and my momma’s gonna kill me if I don’t get the rest of the rooms clean before work.” She walked to the door. Again, she eased her shoulder.
“Thanks for your help,” Kate said.
Myrlene stopped with her hand on the door, and said, “I don’t think Jason killed Waneath, Mrs. Mulholland. He’s a real sweet boy.”
“I’ll tell Jason you said that. He’s feeling pretty abandoned at the moment.”
Kate shut the door after Myrlene. So Waneath had expected her ring at Christmas? Not from any undying love for Jason, apparently, but because he would inherit Long Pond, and in the meantime, he could take her to Hollywood to try her hand at starletdom, or whatever passed for starletdom these days.
And then there was always the backup plan.
Somebody
was going to marry Waneath, somebody rich and socially prominent. At least if Waneath had her way somebody would. In the meantime, how was she keeping her hand in? Even courtesans needed to practice, didn’t they?
Kate decided she’d go to the junior college that afternoon, get a list of Waneath’s classes and speak to some of her teachers. Maybe they knew if she’d been seeing anyone regularly. For now, she decided, she’d finish unpacking and getting organized.
She unpacked both bags and stowed everything, set up her laptop computer on the small round table beside the window and looked around with satisfaction. Getting organized always made her feel as though she was on her way to progress.
In this case, however, progress seemed pretty illusory. She reached into her briefcase and pulled out the photographs from the crime scene. She had seen plenty of gruesome pictures during the years when she was handling criminal law, and some almost as grim in civil cases. But Waneath’s pictures were almost attractive.
Kate curled up on the bed and spread them out around her. Waneath’s body had been found lying on the grass ten miles outside of town on top of some kind of levee. The farmer who had discovered her body had been on his way to check on a sow who was having problems farrowing.
Kate read his statement aloud under her breath. “Thought it was some kind of joke. Almost drove right past. Looked like she was lying down sleeping.”
Kate checked the pictures. Waneath did look as though she were sleeping. Her body lay neatly, dress down over her knees, legs straight, arms by her side. Arranged. Not tossed out of a car, or abandoned by a rapist or dumped by a terrified killer. Almost as though whoever had laid her out had done just that—laid her out as she would lie in her coffin. Decently.
Someone who cared about her.
Jason?
That’s what the district attorney would say.
Kate already knew he’d have to drop the rape charge. There was no evidence of trauma indicating rape and there was a history of consensual sex.
She might even get him to go for voluntary manslaughter instead of murder if Jason would plead guilty. Mold would, no doubt, be investigating that option on his own this morning.
If so, she’d have to put the deal up to Jason. She didn’t think he’d go for it, but even an innocent man might prefer a guaranteed short sentence to the risk of standing trial.
Her stomach rumbled and notified her in no uncertain terms that she’d eaten that breakfast roll a long time ago. She moved off the bed, changed to slacks, a heavy sweater and ankle boots that might protect her feet a bit from the mud on the levee where Waneath had been found. She shoved her arms into her black blazer. If she intended to stay in Athena, she’d have to get someone from the Atlanta office to raid her closet and send her some warmer clothes, or maybe she’d stop by the Wal-Mart and pick up a down jacket.
She shoved the pictures back into their envelope, picked it up, closed down her computer and checked to see that she had her room key.
And realized she had no idea where to find lunch. She had no intention of going to another drive-in.