“Ten o’clock,” Quinlan warned.
“Midnight,” the boy shot back, slamming the door.
“Ten,” Quinlan responded, unyielding, but if the boy heard, he gave no indication of it. He was already looking over his shoulder as he backed down the driveway with more speed than care. The car reached the road, pulled out, and was off in a shower of gravel, with a honk and a wave from both occupants.
“Loren invited him to go swimming, so he called in sick.” Ronnie looked around to find a sixty-ish woman wearing blue gingham slacks and a white blouse standing on the side porch Mark had just vacated. She had weathered skin and short white hair, and she was frowning distractedly as she addressed Quinlan.
“I figured it was something like that. That little girl is pure bad news.” Quinlan sounded grim. He then seemed to recollect his audience and looked around for Ronnie, who stood uncertainly on the other side of the car.
“Mom, this is Mrs. Lewis Honneker, wife of His Honor the Senator. Miz Honneker, this is my mother, Sally McGuire.”
“Oh, my,” Mrs. McGuire said, stepping down off
the porch, hand outstretched. “This is a pleasure, Mrs. Honneker. I knew your—my goodness, would he be your stepson? That’s Marsden, of course. Well, I knew him pretty well at one time, and I know the rest of the family too. At least I did. Anyway, it’s good to have you visit.”
“Thank you.” Ronnie smiled her best senator’s-wife’s smile and shook hands. The other woman’s gaze ran over first her and then Quinlan with growing surprise.
“My goodness, whatever happened?” she asked, eyes wide as she looked at her son. “That’s not blood, is it?”
“We got in the way of some paint,” Quinlan answered, shepherding Ronnie toward the house. “Miz Honneker here needs a shower and a change of clothes and then maybe something to eat. You got anything good in the kitchen?”
“You know I do.” His mother was behind them as Quinlan ushered Ronnie through the screen door and into the cool dimness of what looked like an old-fashioned back parlor. There was even an organ against one wall. “There’s turkey, and some ham, unless Mark ate it all, which he probably did. And I have some cake, too, fresh baked. Red Velvet.”
“My mom’s the best cook in Mississippi,” Quinlan informed Ronnie with conviction, putting his arm around his mother as she joined them. “Wait till you taste her Red Velvet cake. But first things first. The shower’s up those stairs, second door on the right.”
“Those towels on the rack are clean,” Mrs. McGuire said. “I just put them out. And there’s shampoo
in the closet. Anything else you find you need when you get up there, you just holler.”
“Thank you.” Ronnie hesitated, feeling that it was slightly rude to go off to take a shower just like that, as though she belonged in their house. But from the expressions on the faces of both mother and son, she saw that they expected nothing less. She headed toward the narrow staircase at the far end of the room, all too conscious that they were still watching her. What would Quinlan tell his mother when they were alone? she wondered.
The full story of what had happened, no doubt.
The knowledge made Ronnie squirm inwardly as she climbed the stairs. It was humiliating to be so disliked, and for such a reason.
Chapter
6
3:30
P.M
.
BILOXI
TV E
VANGELIST’S
Daughter Found Dead
The body of the 23-year-old daughter of televangelist Charlie Kay Martin was found at 4:00
P.M
., Friday, floating in the Gulf of Mexico just off Deer Island. Biloxi police spokesperson Sgt. Connie Lott said that the coroner’s findings were not consistent with an accidental drowning in the death of Susan Marie Martin, and foul play is suspected. Long estranged from her family, Martin was thought to be living in Biloxi at the time of her death. A spokesperson for Mr. Martin said that the televangelist would have no immediate comment, but added that he and his wife were “heartbroken.” Sgt. Lott said the investigation is continuing
.
The article in the daily newspaper was small. Marla Becker would have missed it altogether had it not been positioned right over a travel agency’s ad for a two-night, three-day junket to Las Vegas for the incredible price of $199, airfare and a daily buffet breakfast included.
A trip to Vegas was Marla’s dream. To her it was the ultimate destination, the one place where her fantasies could actually come true.
It wasn’t that she wanted a vacation. She figured that, with her blond, leggy good-looks, Vegas was just the place to hook up with a high-rolling sugar-daddy type who would be interested in introducing her to the kind of life to which she was dying to become accustomed.
But then there was Lissy. Lissy was her daughter, a pony-tailed blond pixie whom she loved with a fierce devotion even though the mere fact of her daughter’s existence was enough to explode that daydream like an overfilled balloon. What sugar daddy would want a mistress who came complete with a seven-year-old daughter? And even if he existed, who would watch Lissy while she took off to Vegas to catch him?
Still, Marla liked to imagine her dream might one day come true, so she hungrily read every travel article and ad pertaining to Vegas. And today her obsession had led her to the story about Susan.
Even though it was there in front of her, printed in the newspaper for everyone to see, Marla found it hard to grasp the reality of it: Susan was dead. Marla had been growing increasingly worried about her roommate over the past three days, but she had never expected
this
. Susan shared the two-bedroom apartment with her and Lissy, and she hadn’t been home since Thursday night. Susan partied hard, and sometimes she’d stay away over the weekend, or even longer, if she met a hunky guy, but she always called to let Marla know. This time Susan hadn’t called.
Marla wet her lips, staring down at the article. She
was surprised to find that she couldn’t reread the story because the paper was shaking.
Just like her hands.
Thank God Lissy wouldn’t be home until after five. She had been invited to spend the afternoon swimming with a friend, whose mother had promised to drop her off when they were done. Marla didn’t want Lissy to see her so upset.
Oh, God, how was she going to tell Lissy about Susan? Lissy really liked Aunt Susan, as she called her, though they weren’t related by blood.
Lissy had already experienced so much loss in her life. Now this.
Susan was dead
. Even though Marla deliberately put the thought into words and then said them aloud, they didn’t seem real.
How could such a thing have happened?
She had last seen Susan at about six
P.M
., Thursday, when she had driven her and Claire Anson to the Biloxi Yacht Club and dropped them off. They had dates, they’d said, with some rich guys on a huge yacht—the
Sun Cloud
, or something. The
Sun Ray?
She couldn’t quite remember its name, though she had a feeling that it might be important. Sun-something, she was sure. Pretty sure.
Susan had expected to make a lot of money from that date, maybe as much as a thousand dollars. She’d better, Marla had half threatened. Ever irresponsible, Susan was two months behind with her share of the rent, and Marla couldn’t afford to carry her forever.
She had Lissy to think of. The money she earned had to support Lissy, not Susan, dear friend though Susan was.
Marla dropped the paper. It fluttered to the floor and lay there in an untidy heap while she got up from the couch and took the three steps needed to carry her to the kitchen phone.
What was Claire’s number? Marla was so rattled she couldn’t remember. She had to look it up, in Susan’s red suede phone book that was kept in a drawer near the phone. Touching Susan’s phone book made her sick to her stomach, like she was touching her friend’s corpse or something.
Oh, Susan! They’d been roommates for two years, in three different apartments. It was hard to imagine that she would never see her again. She and Lissy and Susan had been—family. There was no other word for it.
Claire’s cheery voice answered on the fourth ring. “I’m either out, showering, or sleeping. Whatever, I can’t talk now. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you. ‘Bye.”
Marla left her name and phone number, and added that it was urgent. Then she hung up.
For a long time she simply stood there staring at the phone.
Susan was
dead
, all her zest for living reduced to a corpse that had been found floating in the Gulf of Mexico. The paper said the cops suspected foul play. So she’d probably been murdered.
But who would want to kill Susan?
Marla pondered: What should she do?
Should she call the cops and pass on the information she had? No. She couldn’t risk it. She had fled with Lissy years ago, when it started to seem likely that the judge in her divorce case would hand down a custody
ruling favoring her right-wing, religious-fanatic husband over the teenage pothead and recreational dope user she had been then. Marla had never learned exactly how the legal issue of Lissy’s custody had turned out, but she had little doubt that her husband (ex- by now, surely) had prevailed. Not that it mattered. Lissy was
hers
, just as she was Lissy’s. Neither of them was ever going back.
Should she call Susan’s family? She didn’t know any of them, and from what Susan had said, she didn’t particularly want to. She doubted that they even cared that Susan was dead. Certainly Susan had severed all ties with them. Her father, Charlie Kay Martin, was famous, on TV every week with
The Family Prayer Hour
. He was a fist-shaking, fire-breathing, hell-prophesying preacher who reminded Marla of Lissy’s dad. Certainly the way Susan had turned out was an object lesson in what happened to girls who were raised in harshly punitive, religious fundamentalist homes.
She couldn’t go to Susan’s family.
Who, then?
Marla reached for the phone, meaning to call the Beautiful Model Agency for which she, Susan, and Claire worked part-time. Not exactly as models, though that was what they called themselves. Well, they did model sometimes.
The thought of what they occasionally modeled almost made Marla smile despite the circumstances.
Billie, who set up their dates for them, would know what to do. Maybe she had even set up the date for Susan and Claire on that boat Thursday. Marla
wouldn’t have been included, because she didn’t do overnights. Lissy kept her home.
Just as her hand curled around the phone, there was a knock at the door. It was a small apartment—a living-room-dining-room combination, galley kitchen, and two bedrooms, one of which she and Lissy shared. The only door was in the dining-room section. Standing in the kitchen as she was, Marla was maybe five feet away from it.
The knock was soft, polite, not at all alarming. Not one of her friends, who would have banged or done shave-and-a-haircut, six bits, or something equally silly; not the landlady, whose knock was brisk and no-nonsense. Not Lissy, who would have called out to let her mother know it was her.
Who, then, could be knocking on the door in the middle of a Monday afternoon? A salesman maybe? For vacuum cleaners or something?
Marla knew she was spooked by what she had learned about Susan, but still she was surprised by the hesitation with which she approached her own front door. It was as if a little voice inside her head was whispering, “Careful, honey.”
Susan’s voice?
Marla moved quietly, her bare feet soundless on the stained beige carpeting. Another knock came just as she reached the door. She jumped nearly a foot in the air. She had to draw a deep, steadying breath before she was calm enough to press her eye to the peephole.
There was a man outside, a man in a gray Nike T-shirt and an Ole Miss baseball cap. His face was round, pudgy, pale. His hair on either side of the baseball cap was short and dark. The best word Marla
could come up with to describe him was nondescript. He was glancing impatiently up and down the hall.
As Marla watched, he pulled Susan’s key ring from his pocket and slid a key into the lock.
Chapter
7
4:00
P.M
.
JACKSON
D
ESPITE A CERTAIN
self-consciousness about her appearance, Ronnie eventually came downstairs. The sound of Quinlan’s voice as he talked to his mother guided her to the kitchen. She hesitated outside the entrance for a moment, feeling awkward about intruding. But she would feel equally awkward hanging out in the hallway, or the living room, or upstairs. Sooner or later she knew she would have to join them, or else one or both of them would come looking for her. Might as well assume an air of confidence and sail right in.
She would not feel so ill at ease if she’d had access to a lipstick or a powder compact, or even a curling iron. Having left her purse behind, she had no cosmetics with her. Consequently, there was nothing on her face except for what remained of her faithful mascara and a touch of the hand lotion she’d found on a shelf in the bathroom. Without mousse, gel, hairspray, or curling iron, she had been able to do nothing with her still-damp hair besides blow it dry and tuck it behind her ears.
But there was no help for it, she told herself, and walked into the kitchen.
Quinlan and his mother were seated at a round oak table at the far end of the kitchen, where a large, multi-paned window overlooked the backyard. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was old-fashioned, Squares of white and gold linoleum, worn in places, covered the floor. The cabinets were painted a mustard color, presumably to match the harvest-gold appliances. The counters were white laminate and held such items as a wooden, bread box and spice racks. Yellow gingham cafe curtains hung from simple brass rods at the windows. Near the stainless steel sink, an automatic coffeemaker dripped, filling the air with the bracing scent of fresh coffee. A red-striped dish towel hung from the handle on the front of the stove. That clue, plus the unidentifiable but savory aroma that mingled with the smell of coffee, led Ronnie to conclude that supper was in the oven.