Hush My Mouth (5 page)

“Give—she shot herself?”

He half shrugged, half nodded. “Can’t say for sure. I reckon the autopsy report will give us a better idea.”

“I take it there wasn’t a note.”

“No. No ID either, so they’re working up a sketch or some computer version—something a bit more presentable than that photo—to put online and release to the media, see if someone recognized her.”

Two plus two equals four. “Why didn’t somebody do the math and put it together with the call from her sister?”

“That,” he said with a touch of disgust, “is what I intend to find out.”

That didn’t bode well for whoever had worked the desk when Fran called.

I took a deep breath. “Wow.” I’d been so intent on the hunt. I never expected this. “What’s the next step?” I hoped he would tell me a cop would break the news to Fran.

“We need an official identification, especially since she didn’t have any ID on her.”

“Can her—sister give it from that photo, without having to—”

“Probably.”

“She’s going to have a lot of questions. She’s not going to buy that it was suicide.”

“Nobody ever wants to. But sometimes, them’s the facts.”

We crunched through the last of our hot French fries in silence, and I wiped my fingers on a tissue-thin paper napkin.

“Thanks for the lunch invite,” I said as I opened the door. “Wish I could say I enjoyed it.”

“Same,” he said with a wry grin. “You reckon you can bring her by midafternoon?”

“I’ll call her.”

As he fired up the cruiser’s big engine, I leaned in the open window.

“Rudy, how sure are you about the suicide? I mean, is there any question?”

“You mean, would I tell her sister that she killed herself? At this stage, it’s not for certain. Not until the ME has finished.”

“Did you work the scene?”

“Personally? No. A new guy did it, with help from Lester Watts.”

I gave him a wary eye. Lester Watts was notorious for his poor crime-scene photos.

“Lester’s got a new digital camera. And he’s a damn good cop.”

Rudy was trying to convince himself and me at the same time.

“No need to tell her anything about the circumstances just yet,” he said. He knew all too well how difficult breaking such news would be. He was telling me I could let myself off the hook. “Nobody wants to believe a loved one would do such a thing.”

I didn’t want to believe it, either. I gave the door of his cruiser a farewell pat and jaywalked across the four lanes of Main Street to my office, the lights at the end of the block shining favorably for me. I hoped it was a good omen.

Monday Afternoon

I was only partially relieved when the ringing phone transferred to Fran’s voice mail. The delay in talking to her would give me more time to plan what to say, but also more time to dread her reaction. I left her a message asking her to call me and hoped my voice gave no hint what our conversation would be.

I brushed my teeth, touched up my pale lipstick, and tucked the file folder for the Swindell divorce under my arm for the short walk to the courthouse.

I didn’t expect the hearing to last long. The Swindells had already worked out their property settlement amicably between themselves and had been separated for almost the requisite year well before Mrs. Swindell called me a month ago and asked if I’d represent her at the final decree hearing. Mr. Swindell would have no lawyer, she said. I’d told her the judge would have to question
him, to make sure Mr. Swindell wasn’t being flimflammed. South Carolina law doesn’t allow a lawyer to represent both parties in a divorce, but those who’ve already settled their property division can opt to have one side unrepresented, to save money.

In our initial conversation, I’d questioned her about their separation and gave my usual spiel: explained that separation meant no sex or cohabitation; told her that if they didn’t stay separated, they’d have to wait another whole year; asked if the property as divided still held roughly the same value; and asked her to have a character witness at the hearing.

Shouldn’t take more than half an hour, I thought as I entered the courtroom, my mind leaping ahead of the hearing to fret over talking to Fran French.

The hearing progressed as the other domestic cases I’d watched had. Because I’d spent most of my lawyer life as a trial attorney defending corporations and physicians, I’d had to spend the last six months boning up on all kinds of law I’d never practiced—real estate closings, simple incorporations and business formations, simple criminal procedural cases, and domestic cases.

Everything was moving as expected until the judge asked Mr. Swindell what should have been a simple question: “Mr. Swindell, have you and your wife been separated and living apart for a full year?”

Mr. Swindell hesitated for long enough that the judge looked up from his note-taking. I glanced at my client, who intently studied a spot on the table where we sat.

“Yes, Your Honor.” He bit his bottom lip. “Except for Tuesday a week ago.”

The judge had been doing this so many years that the routine cases were probably nothing more than background noise. He now sensed a schism in his quiet, predictable universe and fixed his gaze on Mr. Swindell, who sat below him and to his left.

“Mr. Swindell, could you elaborate? What took place last Tuesday?”

The witness leaned closer to the microphone, to make sure everyone, including his wife’s mother who’d come to serve as a character witness, heard what he said. “We had sex.” His big ears flushed red above his snug shirt collar.

Was it my imagination, or did he sound particularly proud of that?

Judge Lane turned his baleful eyes in my direction, as if I had personally served as their pimp. “Miz Andrews?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” I stood beside the not-soon-to-be-divorced Mrs. Swindell, who was rubbing her index finger back and forth along the table edge.

“Does your client refute the testimony of this witness? Is your client aware of the consequences?”

“A moment, Your Honor.”

I sat back down and leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Is that true?”

Her nod was almost imperceptible.

“Did he force you or coerce you in any way?” Not that that would change anything.

She looked up at me for the first time, her eyes startled wide, She shook her head.

“Whose idea was it?” I asked that question only to determine whose neck I was going to wring after the hearing ended.

She blushed and looked down, then leaned close without looking at me. “It—just happened. He stopped by and . . .”

I waited, but she wasn’t going to finish the sentence.

“Did you remember what I told you? That you wouldn’t be able to divorce for another year?”

She shrugged, pinching her skirt between her fingers, then gave a half nod.

I stood and faced the judge. “Your Honor, my client will not refute the witness’s testimony.”

“Mrs. Swindell, would that be your testimony?”

She bobbed her head and squeaked, “Yessir.”

The judge gave a dramatic sigh, magnified by the microphone in front of him, as if the failure of this marriage to dissolve had personally cast him as Sisyphus, eternally shouldering the same divorce up a never-ending hill.

“You will file the proper affidavits and order of dismissal, Miz Andrews. Get your client and the petitioner into marriage counseling. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“This hearing is adjourned.” The gavel cracked with finality.

I took Mrs. Suellen Swindell by the elbow and practically lifted her out of her chair. I wanted to grab her cock-of-the-walk husband by his outsized ear, haul them both out in the hall, and knock their heads together.

Lou Swindell followed without me having to grab hold of anything. I knew I shouldn’t be angry. Maybe they’d saved their marriage. That was wonderful news. But they’d wasted the judge’s time, and that could haunt me in future cases.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Call me ahead of time, so I could postpone the hearing. Tell me in the hallway before we went in. Something.”

The two of them stood staring at their feet like a couple of teenagers caught making out in the back pew at church.

Mrs. Swindell kept nervously bunching a handful of her flowered skirt. They both wore neatly pressed Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. Had she also pressed his shirt and freshened his polyester sport coat when he stopped by her trailer?

I stared at them, trying to decide if their goofy ingenuousness was real on both sides. I wanted to be sure Lou hadn’t tricked her
into having sex so he could delay a final decree—a popular trick if one spouse didn’t want to see the other spouse and half the assets leave. Lawyers routinely warn their clients not to succumb to blandishments. The Swindells had already divided their assets, though, and neither party had sought alimony. Maybe I was witnessing a miracle—a couple that had gotten to the brink and redeemed themselves.

“Both of you, look me in the eye. You understand what the judge said? The clock started ticking again when you—um, ceased to be separated.”

They both nodded and cut their eyes at each other. Suellen looked like she wanted to giggle, but bit it back when she saw I wasn’t in a giggling mood.

“Do you want to withdraw your petition for divorce? Or do you want to proceed?”

Lou’s face got serious as he turned to his wife. “Suellen?”

Her eyes actually sparkled. Her heavy face, which had looked older than her thirty-five years when I first met her, glowed through her dime-store makeup.

She reached for his hand and nodded. He looked ready to let out a war whoop.

True love triumphs. How often had the institutional beige hall outside the Family Court chamber seen that? While we’d talked, a few people had walked past, some studying signs on doors in search of an office, others moving with purpose, at home in the courthouse annex. None of them knew they’d passed that close to a miracle.

“Listen to me. Both of you.” I tried to channel my mother and great-aunt Letha to make sure I was stern enough. “You two have to see a marriage counselor. You understand?” I should send them to my mom for counseling. She’d jerk the knots out of them right quick.

They glanced at each other and nodded, still holding hands.

“Do you know one?”

They looked hesitant.

“Here’s my card.” I handed it to Suellen. “Call me and I’ll give you a name. The judge is going to insist.”

She nodded.

I had to smile. They were so goofy, like junior high schoolers. Who could stay mad at them just because they’d ticked off a Family Court judge I’d have to appear in front of time and again in other cases?

“Good luck and best wishes to you. This is certainly a happy ending.”

They floated off down the hall toward the back parking lot, still holding hands. I left by the front door, turned right, and crossed Main Street to my historically accurate mauve office building, my ears still burning from Judge Lare’s displeasure.

The phone started ringing as I unlocked the doors into my office.

“I already know.” Fran’s voice was steady but husky, as if she had been crying.

“I’m so sorry.” What else could I say? How had she found out so quickly?

“I went by the newspaper, to see if they would run an article about Neanna. Someone had just delivered—this picture.”

The police sketch. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to find out like that.”

A tiny part of me felt miffed. Why had she bothered to hire me if she was going to run around town on her own? Checking in at my dad’s newspaper, for Pete’s sake.

Instead of airing my pique, I asked, “What can I do?” She’d have more details to contend with than she might realize, making arrangements for the funeral and to transport the body.

“I want you to find out what happened.”

“What—”

She cut me off. “How she died. Where she was, everything that happened after she left Atlanta.”

Uh-oh
. She didn’t know everything. “Fran, we need to talk in person. You want to come here or—”

“What’s there to talk about? She was found shot.”

“Fran, we need to sit down face-to-face.”

“Avery, what are you trying to tell me?” Her voice shook with emotion, whether anger or fear, I couldn’t tell. “Just tell me, dammit. I’m tired of all this bullshit.”

“Fran.”

“Tell me!”

Best to spit it out. “It’s not official, but the cops are considering it might be suicide.”

The silence on the phone line was exactly what I had dreaded. In person, I could have at least offered a consoling arm around her shoulders.

“Bullshit! That’s—just—bullshit.”

The venom burned through the phone line.

“Don’t even start to fall for that pile of—who do I talk to? Take me there right now. There’s no way Neanna would do that. There’s no way she’d leave me—” Her voice broke into husky sobs.

“Fran, I’ll be right there. It won’t take me five min—”

“No,” she barked. “I’ll come there.”

The line went dead. No time to ask if she should be driving. Had Neanna been this volatile? This pigheaded? I checked myself. To be fair, I wouldn’t be anywhere near as lucid and decisive as Fran was if I’d just learned my sister Lydia was dead. Thinking about it tightened my throat into a painful knot. If somebody said she’d killed herself, I’d move out to do battle, just like Fran. Come to think of it, Fran’s reaction wasn’t so extreme after all, though still painful to face.