In the pictures her love for Tom looked sordid and
nasty. Naked couplings and open-mouthed kisses that had been magical when shared only between the two of them were obscene when laid out in a public forum for the world to see and snicker over. “Ronnie, over here!”
“Ronnie, sweetie, can you shed a tear or two for us?”
“Hey, Ronnie, did you ever do the President? Or the governor?”
“Is it true you’re going to do one of those
Playboy
layouts?”
“Did you kill him, Ronnie?”
The idiotic, impertinent questions were hurled at her thick and fast; even when she and Dan Osborn were safely in the limousine, photographers pushed their cameras against the glass, snapping away at the two of them inside.
Overnight, Ronnie realized with a shuddering sense of horror, she had become notorious, a byword, a fallen woman of such epic proportions as to make Donna Rice and Gennifer Flowers seem like virgins in comparison.
The humiliation was soul crushing. The sense of injustice was strong. But Ronnie kept her head high and her back straight as she exited the limo on Osborn’s arm.
To let them know that she suffered was to let them defeat her.
The funeral was a nightmare. The President and First Lady came, with their accompanying security detail. Nearly all the members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives were present with their spouses. Every Mississippi politician from the governor
on down was there. From the look of it, half of Mississippi—no, half the nation—was there. Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church was full to overflowing. Hundreds of spectators stood in the streets surrounding the Gothic Revival building, ready to listen to the eulogies that would be broadcast over a loudspeaker system.
Braving the gauntlet of public and reporters as she entered the church, Ronnie felt like Hester Prynne, who had been forced to appear in public with a huge scarlet
A
for
adultery
emblazoned on her breast. She felt like the biblical woman taken in adultery, on her way to be stoned. Heads craned as she passed; catcalls and epithets were hurled her way.
The word
whore
was shouted more than once.
The atmosphere inside the church was charged. People she had known for years looked at her and talked excitedly behind their hands, hardly bothering to whisper. Except for the reporters, who surrounded her in a yapping, flashbulb-popping pack until they were turned back by state troopers just inside the vestibule, and her own small coterie of security and supporters, she was left strictly alone.
The family—Dorothy, Marsden, Joanie, Laura, and their spouses and children, and even Lewis’s ex-wife, Eleanor—were already seated together in the front pew in the center of the church when she came in. They didn’t acknowledge her presence by so much as a glance. The dignitaries were seated in order of importance behind the family. By prior arrangement between her lawyer and security detail and the security detail working the church, she was seated in front, but at the far right, near a door.
So that she could be escorted out quickly if the need arose.
Her father and sisters had flown in for the funeral, and were waiting in the section set aside for her. Her mother had called the night before to offer condolences and vague assurances of support, but her husband was ill and thus she was not, she told Ronnie, able to come. Which was just as well, Ronnie thought. From the time her mother had abandoned the family, she and Ronnie had been the opposite of close.
Tom had stayed away, under strict orders from Dan Osborn to do so. His family and Kenny were also forbidden to be present, so as not to give the press any (more) reason to comment on him or his associate.
She knew that having him by her side at such a moment would only unleash another firestorm of scandal. The media would have a field day. Gossip would reach new levels of viciousness. They would be universally condemned.
But still she needed, no, craved, his presence.
Her father, Dave, sat on one side of her, in a black suit that she suspected was new for the occasion. Debbie and Lisa, her sisters, were on her other side. Debbie held one of her hands, her father the other.
Dan Osborn and his wife, who had also been waiting inside the church, sat beside her father. Thea sat on the other side of her sisters. Except for Kathy and Michael Blount—who, Ronnie knew, risked great public disapproval to sit with her—and her security detail, that was the sum total of her support.
Her little corner of the church was as cut off from the rest of the mourners as an island.
Closing her eyes as the priest began the service,
Ronnie concentrated on saying good-bye to Lewis. Despite his failings, he deserved that she should mourn for him. And she
had
cared for him in a way. She just hadn’t loved him.
He had not deserved to die.
Especially not like that. Ronnie shuddered, and forced the memory of his slumped body from her mind.
Pray for us, Father
.
Though she bowed her head and intoned the words of the prayer along with everyone else, she could not escape the knowledge that people were looking at her. Even during the prayer, she felt that she was the cynosure of all eyes.
She was very conscious of the fact that now she was a pariah even there, in church.
“Osborn should have kept her from going.” Tom was in the living room at Kenny’s house, watching TV coverage of the funeral. Kenny was with him, sitting on the couch while Tom stood in front of the big-screen TV, chewing on a knuckle. Ronnie had just emerged from the church after the service and was headed for a limousine waiting in the street. As she went down the stone steps on Dan Osborn’s arm, the press nearly swarmed over her. The state troopers surrounding her had to battle to force them back. “Look at that, would you? Jesus Christ, get them back! She’s going to get hurt!”
For a moment Ronnie’s face, fine-boned and lovely, filled the screen. Her brown eyes were wide and thickly lashed and underlined by shadows. Her mouth was full and soft and unsmiling, her skin as pale as one of his
white shirts. Her hair, flaming red in the pouring sunshine, made the translucent pallor of her skin seem even more marked in contrast.
She looked haunted, and haunting.
“I can’t believe this!” Tom gnawed his knuckle harder, feeling sick. He should be there with her, no matter what Dan said. Hell, if he could, he would be there
instead
of her, taking all the shame and vilification on himself.
Watching her being publicly pilloried made him wild.
She finally reached the limousine. The door slammed shut on the howling press. The limo rolled.
The station cut to a commercial, promising to be right back.
Tom swore savagely, and turned away from the screen to find Kenny regarding him with a frown.
“Remember that heart attack I had last year?” Kenny asked.
“Yeah.”
“Stress. It was caused by stress. And you’re stressing out big-time yourself right now, buddy.”
“Jesus.” Tom closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Who wouldn’t?”
He walked over to the ugly tan recliner in a corner of the room and sank down on it. Singing cats on the television made him want to throw a lamp through the screen. Picking up the remote, he hit the mute button and watched as the cats became voiceless.
“I’m sorry about this, Kenny,” he said after a minute.
“Hey, I don’t like listening to cats sing either.”
The attempt at humor fell flat. They both knew Tom hadn’t been referring to the commercial.
Tom looked at him steadily. “The business is just starting to make decent money again. This is going to send it right down the toilet.”
“
C’est la vie,
” Kenny said with a shrug.
“I’d let you buy me out, but I don’t think that, under the circumstances, there’s anything worth buying. This thing with Ronnie makes the deal with the campaign contributions seem like nothing.”
“It’s sure a hell of a mess.”
“Maybe we could switch to corporate consulting. There’s more money in that than in politics anyway.” Tom met Kenny’s gaze. “And the plain truth is, I am now dead in the water as far as politicians are concerned. After this, nobody’s gonna touch me—or the firm as long as I’m part of it—with a ten-foot pole.”
“Hey, man, don’t sweat it on my account. I know how it is. I’ve been there myself.” Kenny glanced around as though checking to make absolutely certain they were alone. “Thea—”
“I know about Thea,” Tom said curtly.
“Thought you did.”
“It’s damned stupid, let me tell you. You’ve got a great wife, a great family, and you’re going to frigging screw it up. Thea’s not worth it.”
“It’s over anyway.”
“I’d keep it that way if I were you.”
“I hate to point this out to you, Mr. Puritan, but you—”
“I’m not married.”
“
She
is. Was.”
“Yeah.” He sounded morose. Tom slumped lower in
the chair. Kenny got up and walked into the kitchen. He returned a moment later with two beers, one of which he handed to Tom.
“The point I’m trying to make is, I don’t blame you for any of this,” Kenny said, sitting down on the edge of the couch and looking at Tom earnestly. “Ronnie is one goddamned beautiful woman. From what I saw, she must’ve come on to you like gangbusters. Who can blame you for taking her up on it? It’s the same thing that happened to me with Thea. She came on to me, and I couldn’t resist. The only difference between what you did and what I did is Thea isn’t—wasn’t—married to the Senator. And nobody was taking pictures.”
“It wasn’t like that.” As the funeral coverage resumed, Tom stood up and walked to the far end of the room before turning to face Kenny. The sound was still on mute. “What happened between Ronnie and me wasn’t like that. She didn’t come on to me any more than I came on to her. It was mutual. We—fell in love.”
Kenny stared at him. “You’re kidding.”
Tom grimaced. “Sounds pretty damn schmaltzy, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Shut up, Kenny.” Tom glared at him.
“Hey, you said it first.”
“Okay. I know.”
Neither of them said anything more for a moment, just watched the silent images of limousines filling with dignitaries and driving away from the church.
Then Kenny said slowly, “Tom, you know I like Ronnie and all that. But she’s kind of a million-dollar baby, isn’t she? I mean, she is used to the finer things in
life, and you don’t have any goddamned money. Especially now.”
“I know that. Do you think I don’t know that?”
Kenny was silent for a moment, staring at the TV. When he looked up at Tom again, his forehead was deeply creased in a worried frown. “Tom, buddy, did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, Ronnie
did
shoot the Senator? Maybe she killed him for the money.”
Tom put his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “She didn’t kill him.”
“You were in California.”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“How can you be sure?”
“She didn’t kill him!”
“Fine,” Kenny said, sinking back into the couch and reaching for the remote. “If you say so. But I just want you to think about the possibility.”
Before Tom could reply, he punched the mute button, and the chatter of the talking heads covering the funeral service once again filled the room.
Chapter
41
September 14th
6:30
P.M
.
T
HERE WAS NOTHING ON
TV. Just some old senator’s boring funeral. Marla got up to change the channel (Jerry had somehow managed to lose the remote) and stopped just as she came nose-to-glass with the screen.
Reporter Christine Gwen was doing a retrospective on the dead man’s life.
“Here is Senator Honneker in happier days, shown with his second wife, Veronica, at the Biloxi Yacht Club on the deck of their yacht, the
Sun-Chaser
. According to police sources, Veronica Honneker is now a prime suspect in the Senator’s murder.…”
The Biloxi Yacht Club. The
Sun-Chaser
.
“Jerry!” she screeched. Tearing her gaze away from the TV, Marla dashed into the kitchen and threw open the back door. With supper just over, Jerry was in the backyard with Lissy, painstakingly painting a playhouse he had bought her the day before. Golden early-evening sunshine and cooler temperatures made it the ideal time for such work. “Jerry!”
Pausing in the act of stroking another brushful of
candy-pink enamel (Lissy’s emphatic choice) onto the side of the little house, Jerry looked around inquiringly.
“I found it! It’s on TV! The name of the boat is the
Sun-Chaser!
Come quick, come quick!”
With deliberate care Jerry laid the brush down along the corrugated edge of the rectangular metal paint pan and stood up. When he joined Marla back in the house, Lissy was with him. Marla was too excited to send her daughter from the room.
“What now?” Jerry asked, coming to stand beside her. He wore a white undershirt adorned with splatters of candy pink and ancient khaki shorts that made his beer belly look more pronounced. Marla neither noticed, nor cared about, his unattractive attire. She was practically jumping up and down in her excitement.
“It’s the boat! The name of it is the
Sun-Chaser!
It belonged to that senator there, and now he’s dead too! Don’t you see, Jerry, everybody connected with that boat is ending up dead! Oh, my God, it must have been him!
He
took Susan and Claire out that night on the boat!
He
must have killed them! Look, it’s the
Sun-Chaser
—” another picture of the yacht was just coming up—“and it’s his! It had to be him!”
“Marla,” Jerry said. He was staring dubiously at the screen and apparently at the same time trying to unscramble what she was talking about. “If, as you say, the Senator there took Susan and Claire out in his boat and killed them, then who killed him? He’s dead now too.”