Our Husband (a humorous romantic mystery) (7 page)

"What did you say to Ray?" she demanded. When they refused to acknowledge her presence, she sent a wooden clog

bouncing off a wall, denting the plaster, but getting their attention. "Answer me!"

Beatrix's mouth twisted. "Nothing."

But Natalie's eyes narrowed as she turned on Beatrix. "Nothing? You told him if he died, you'd serve Dom Perignon at the

funeral!"

Ruby shook her head to clear it. The situation was beginning to resemble an episode of
Murder, She Wrote
, with strangers

popping up at every turn. Who the heck was this Dom fellow?

Beatrix spun toward Natalie, her eyes blazing. "And what exactly did you expect me to say? 'Hello, Raymond, I'm here

with wives number two and three and we're all praying for a speedy recovery'?"

"You don't honestly want him to die, do you?" Ruby asked.

"Only if it's slow and painful."

"She doesn't mean that," Natalie said, shaking her head.

"Oh, don't I?" Beatrix laughed, a bitter sound. "You're telling me the man deserves better after what he's done?"

Natalie jammed her hand through her dark hair that cried out for a permanent wave and said, "Stop acting as if you're the

only person involved here. If Raymond dies, we'll
all
be left with the mess he created. If he lives, at least he can help set things

right."

Worry began niggling at the back of Ruby's brain. If Ray died, she would be left standing in a heap of debt. With her

expanding waistline, she wouldn't remain the featured performer at Paddy's much longer—she doubted her boss Mac would

even let her drop back to waitressing. Ruby nibbled on the skin around her thumbnail. How would she make the trailer

payment? And what about the big-screen TV?
Oh, fudge
.

Beatrix faced Natalie, her eyes blazing. "What could Raymond do to set things straight?" Then her face lit up. "Oh, I know

—he can divorce
me
to marry
you
, then divorce
you
to marry
her
!" She jerked her head toward Ruby, who brightened, thinking

that when Ray was well enough, that was exactly what he would do.

Cheered, Ruby snatched up her shoe, then claimed the chair in the farthest corner of the waiting room. She drew her knees

up to her chin, and concentrated on the old episode of
Laverne & Shirley
playing low on the TV, sending happy thoughts to her

unborn baby. She hadn't really lied when they asked if she and Ray had children. They didn't—yet.

Ray's other wives staked out opposite sides of the room, the skinny one crying softly, the old bag twirling a cigarette like a

baton from pinkie to thumb across the top of her hand. Ruby was impressed with the trick, but she wasn’t about to let on.

Instead she crossed her fingers on both hands into four sets of good luck charms and repeated prayers for Ray's recovery until

her mind wandered.

She dozed through the late news, the late show, the later show, and the late late show, jerking awake each time the door to

the ICU opened to accommodate the flow of medical personnel in and out. Around three in the morning, she awoke to find

Beatrix coming out of the ICU, alone, a smug look on her face. Furious, Ruby sprang to her feet and hobbled across the room on

sleep-numbed legs to confront the woman. "Why didn't you let me go in to see him?"

Beatrix barely looked in her direction as she settled into a chair. "Because."

Ruby frowned. "Because why?"

The woman rolled her eyes upward. "Because he's
my
husband and we had unfinished business. Don't you have a curfew

or something?"

Ruby made a face at her, then scooted to the nurses' station and asked to see her hus—
father
the next time he was allowed

visitors. The woman gave her hand a sympathetic pat and whispered, "I don't get along with my mother either."

Beatrix shot a scathing glance toward them. "I'm
not
her mother." Ruby slunk back to her chair.

Natalie had fallen asleep, she noticed, her slim, tear-streaked face milky and drawn next to the dark fabric of the chair she

leaned against. The lab coat was really cool, though, Ruby acknowledged with a sigh. She'd always wanted a job that required

a smart-looking lab coat—doctor, nurse... hairdresser.

She picked up a worn copy of
Good Housekeeping
and read an article on removing stains from upholstery. Her Shih Tzu,

Miss Mame, had peed on the new couch, and although an afghan covered the spot just fine, the cushion was beginning to smell.

Ray liked a clean house—he rinsed the sink after he shaved and everything. He was a dreamboat, always doing nice things for

her, like bringing supplies to help control her diabetes, and setting the DVR to tape
Jeopardy
every evening so she could watch

it when she got off work. The first time through she simply enjoyed the show, but the second time through she memorized the

answer to every question. Even Ray didn't know she hadn't finished the tenth grade, and no one would if she crammed her head

full of smart-sounding stuff she read in magazines and heard on television. She wanted to make her husband proud.

While the other women were sleeping, she was able to talk a nurse into sneaking her in to see him for one minute. Ray was

so pale, with so many tubes everywhere, it gave her the heebie-jeebies. He looked old. But they wouldn't even let her speak to

him before they ushered her back outside. She must have dozed for another couple of hours, then was jarred awake by a flurry

of motion in and out of the ICU door. When Ray's doctor swept by, she shook Natalie's shoulder. "I think something's wrong,"

she whispered, needing the reassurance of a doctor.

Natalie bolted up and fired questions at the nurse, but was told they would have to wait for the doctor. Thankfully, Dr.

Everly emerged, but the look on his face sent a stone to the bottom of Ruby's stomach.

"Family of Raymond Carmichael?" he asked, his gaze darting among them.

Beatrix rose and pushed past them, the witch. "Yes?"

The man braced his feet wide and spoke to the floor in a gentle tone. "Mr. Carmichael lapsed into cardiac arrest again and

we tried to resuscitate him for twenty minutes, but despite our best efforts... I'm afraid he didn't make it."

The room exploded into little dots of color that reminded Ruby of the strobe light Mac used for special numbers at the

club. "What... are you saying?"

"He died," the doctor said.

Ruby swallowed hard, her ears clicking from released pressure.
He died
. At least this doctor was nicer than most. When

she was little and her drunkard grandfather had croaked in the shack they lived in, the doctor hadn't bothered to hide his disgust

when he announced he had choked on his own body fluids. And when her mother's boyfriend had checked out in a recliner and

rigor mortis had set in, the coroner had spared no detail in describing what he'd have to do to get the body into a casket.

He passed away, kicked the bucket, bit the dust, bought the farm
. Overall, the words "he died" were the best, she

decided. Sensitive, but to the point. Still, her heart reeled at the awful finality of the phrase.
He died
.

The doctor glanced around, as if he expected them to storm him. "I know this is very sudden," he continued, "so when

you've had a chance to think about burial arrangements—"

"Oh, my God," Natalie said behind her hand. "Oh, my God." Her blue eyes watered.

"You can bet Raymond's not anywhere near God right now," Beatrix muttered.

"Shut up," Natalie choked out. "This is not the time!"

Ruby blocked out the rest of their angry exchange. When she'd passed the early home pregnancy test, she'd known in her

heart that she'd give birth to a baby girl with curly hair, blue eyes, and dimples. She'd dress her in pink ruffles and teach the

toddler to walk properly with a book on her little head. Then she'd enter her in the Little Miss Leander pageant and show those

women who ignored her in the grocery store that her child could upstage their fat brats. And Ray would be at her side,

handsome and bursting with pride, further proof that Ruby Lynn Hicks had acquired a genuine, upstanding family.

Only now, her baby would be branded as she'd been: the dirty-faced product of a white trash mother, with questionable

paternity. "One-third of all babies in the United States are born to single mothers," she whispered, for her ears only. Ruby

watched the just-vacuumed carpet rise to meet her with considerable amazement—she'd never fainted before in her life.

Chapter 5

"Did you know?" Natalie demanded, her jaw hurting from days of clenched teeth. "The truth, Lowell. Did you know?"

Attorney Lowell Masterson averted his gaze to his Tumi briefcase. "No." Then he raised sheepish eyes and fanned his

hands wide against the pecan-colored boardroom table. "But I... suspected something wasn't quite right. Raymond was a little

vague about some areas of his life, but I never imagined—"

The door burst open, admitting a glassy-eyed Beatrix in a classic black pantsuit, and a white-suited man who looked as if

he'd just swaggered off the set of
Dallas
.

"Mornin'," Whitey boomed, then dropped a black alligator-skin briefcase on the table with a
thwack
, and thumbed open

the brass closures. "Name is Gaylord Gilliam, representing Mrs. Raymond Carmichael." He paused and, from beneath the brim

of his absurd white hat, scanned the room—even the empty chairs—for effect. "
The
Mrs. Raymond Carmichael."

Natalie sat numbly, but next to her, Masterson pushed himself to his feet and shook hands with the man across the table,

murmuring, "Ma'am," in Beatrix's direction. Natalie nodded to her, um... counterpart, as Beatrix lowered herself into the chair

her lawyer held out. Tight-lipped and steady-handed, the woman seemed remarkably calm.
The
Mrs. Raymond Carmichael

must have gotten more sleep in the past two days than she, Mrs. Raymond Carmichael, The Impostor.

"Well now," Mr. Gilliam shouted. "Who're we waiting for?"

"The other one," Beatrix muttered, shooting a look of veiled loathing toward Natalie, effectively lumping her into the same

category as absent wife number three. The dig should have hurt, but it didn't. Nothing hurt. The doctor in her knew her body had

kicked into a phase of self-preservation, so she didn't fight the cottony insulation. She did, however, have her wits about her

enough to dread the inevitable awakening.

After a quick rap on the door, the receptionist from the Paducah law office, which had made their boardroom available to

Masterson out of professional courtesy, stuck her head into the contentious room. "Coffee or tea, anyone?"

Natalie and Beatrix declined, the lawyers accepted—in anticipation of a long meeting, she guessed. The two men made

small talk about traffic, Masterson mumbling, Gilliam hollering. The man had to be hard of hearing. Natalie chewed on the one

fingernail she had left and studied the intricate carving on the edge of the enormous table that reached all the way to her

breastbone. How many lives had been made and broken over this table as negotiations were hacked out—prenuptial

agreements, divorces, custody battles, wills, trusts?

She'd bet, however, that the faux gray marble walls had never heard the likes of a predicament such as this one.

Beatrix drummed her long fingers on the table top, keeping an irregular beat punctuated with elaborate sighs as she shifted

her gaze to the four corners of the room. The woman had a regal presence about her, an aura of entitlement and indifference that

Natalie envied—how did one graduate past caring about what other people thought? Rose Marie had mastered it, though with

considerably more outward grace than Beatrix exhibited. Her aunt might have liked Beatrix, Natalie realized suddenly, save

for the fact that she was married to Raymond.

Her tears welled involuntarily, increasingly harder to blink away because her eyelids were raw and leaky. She was able

to stem the flow with a sharp pinch to her palm with blunt-tipped fingers. Funny, she hadn't bitten her nails since leaving home

for college. Her mother had tried everything to get her to stop—foul tasting creams, cotton gloves, even Band-Aids, but the

cure had been stepping onto the bus that carried her away from fractious parents and a hell-raising brother. Surely, though, if