Kansas Troubles (16 page)

“Really?”

“I guess Cordie June’s practicing her temperamental artist act, ’cause Buck says sometimes they want to wring her skinny neck she gets so high on her horse. Her and Tyler used to fight about that all the time. Tyler was smarter than Cordie June, that way. She knew which side to butter her bread. Buck says the backup band can do a lot to make a singer look good or bad. You know, my money is on Cordie June. According to Buck, she has a real hot temper. He said one time he worked with her in a bar in Kansas City, and she tried to stab another woman with a fingernail file for insulting her outfit.”

“No kidding! Do you think . . . ?”

I heard the toilet flush and started to back out.

“Now, Marsha, it’s a long way from stabbing someone with a fingernail file and outright killing somebody. Besides, you know about Lawrence and Tyler. Maybe
he
did it. I’m just glad that Janet wasn’t here today. That hundred dollars would have been the very last straw on that camel’s back. Sometimes Becky’s just
too
nice, you know? Anyway, Buck says Lawrence . . .”

The stall door opened, and I never heard what Buck said or about Lawrence and Tyler. To avoid getting caught, I ducked in the men’s room next door and, since I was there, decided to make use of it. I heard Marsha and her friend chattering past the door, and I waited a few minutes before cautiously peeking my head out to see if the coast was clear. What they had to say started me really wondering about Cordie June. And about Lawrence. Maybe that fight between him and Rob at Becky’s party didn’t actually have anything to do with Lawrence’s daughter, Megan. With a little voice that sounded an awful lot like Gabe’s telling me none of this was my business, I wondered just how competitive Tyler and Cordie June had really been, and where Lawrence fit into Tyler’s life besides being her boss. As the owner-manager of the club, maybe he had ultimate say in who was the headliner. What would Tyler do to get that spot? What would Cordie June do to snatch it away? Even though I knew I’d get a lecture, I couldn’t wait to tell Gabe all this. Then again, why should he get mad? I hadn’t gone looking for this information. It just dropped in my lap. Serendipity.

The committees had broken up by the time I came back into the recreation hall, and most of the guild members were gathering up their purses and leaving. I scanned the crowd of women and wondered which ones were Marsha and her gossipy friend.

“Where have you been?” Becky said, coming over to me. “When’s Gabe supposed to be home and what are you two doing for dinner tonight?”

“In the bathroom,” I said. “And we’re having dinner with Dewey.”

“Well, drop by if you get away early, though knowing Dewey, you probably won’t. He’ll show you his stables, and we’ll never see you again.”

I laughed. “I’m not that bad. Besides, I’m going to help Otis with Sinful, so you’ll be seeing plenty of me, I’m sure.”

She glanced at her watch. “Oh, dear, it’s five o’clock already. Stan’s going to be home soon. I still have to pick up the girls at the community center. I guess it’s a Charlie’s Chicken and Barbecue night.”

Kathryn’s beige Plymouth was in the driveway when I drove up. I walked into the living room and was greeted by my friend Daphne. She shot a halfhearted snap in my direction, not bothering to get up because of the heat.

“You know, there are certain groups of people in this world who would gladly put you in a stewpot,” I told her.

“Oh, you’re back.” Kathryn walked into the living room with a startled look on her face. She held an embroidered tea towel in her hands. I felt myself flush and wondered if she’d heard my comment. “Where’s Gabe?” she asked, her face becoming bland again. Maybe her hearing is going, I thought optimistically.

“Still with his friends, I guess.”

We contemplated each other silently for a moment. Gabe’s coming and goings seemed to be the only topic of conversation we’d been able to manage so far. I stood there awkwardly searching my mind for something to keep the conversation going.

“Well,” she said finally, “are you finding enough to do around our little town? There are some museums in Wichita, and we do have two malls. I’m sure they’re not what you’re accustomed to, but they’re quite nice.”

“I’m keeping busy,” I said politely, wondering where she thought I lived in California—Beverly Hills? “If Gabe doesn’t have anything planned, I think I’ll go out to Otis’s tomorrow and work with his horse.”

“Yes, well, that’s good,” she said, folding the tea towel carefully. Luckily, before either of us was forced into thinking up any more painfully polite small talk, Gabe walked in.

After promising his mother that tomorrow night for sure we’d have dinner with her, he started up the stairs to change. I dogged his heels, listening to him reminisce about his old friends, waiting for him to finish so I could bring up what I’d heard at the quilt guild meeting.

“So, did Dewey take you out to lunch?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, Chief Ortiz,” I answered. “He kept a
real
good eye on me. And he even took off the handcuffs to let me eat.”

“That’s not how I meant it,” he protested. I poked him in the stomach when his T-shirt was only halfway off. “Hey, offsides. Ten-yard penalty.”

“I’ll penalize you, Friday,” I said, poking him again.

“You’ll what?” He laughed and, using his shirt as a lasso, slipped it around my neck and pulled me to him. “Now, tell me again what you’re going to do to me?” We kissed deeply; he dropped the shirt and moved his hands down to hold me firmly in the small of my back. His chest was hot and damp, and a deliciously familiar desire rose up in me.

“
Querida
,” he whispered. “You’re driving me crazy.”

I broke away. “Put an ice pack on it, pal. We’ve got a dinner date with Dewey and Cordie June. Did you find out what time?”

He glanced at the nightstand clock. “We’re supposed to meet him in thirty minutes. We’re going to a steak place in Wichita.” He reached into the closet where he’d neatly hung all his shirts and pulled out a white polo shirt.

“Steak? You? Isn’t he aware you are no longer a bovine flesh eater?”

He pulled the shirt over his head. “They have fish, too, Miss Smart Mouth. Just don’t come crying to me when they’re having to ream out your veins so your blood can find a path to your heart.”

I clasped my hands to my chest dramatically and fell backward on the bed. “Oh, baby, I get so turned on when you talk healthy. Please, tell me about protein supplements again and I’ll tear my clothes off right now.”

He balled up his damp T-shirt and threw it at me. “You’re asking for trouble big time,
nĩna
.”

I slipped on clean denim Wranglers, a pink sleeveless shirt, and boots. I was looking forward to seeing Dewey again and to touring his stables. On the twenty-minute drive to the restaurant, I filled Gabe in on what I’d heard at the guild meeting.

“You shouldn’t be involved in this,” he said predictably.

“Look, I’m telling you everything I hear just so you can’t say I don’t trust you.”

That had been a bone of contention between us from the first time we met—my tendency to, as he puts it, run off half-cocked. “I’d fire you in two minutes if you worked for me,” he’d told me more than once. “Hotdoggers only get themselves or other people hurt or killed.”

“I still don’t like you snooping around,” he said now.

“I
wasn’t
snooping around,” I argued. “I happened to overhear an interesting conversation while seeking a place to answer nature’s call. And let’s not forget I
am
telling you about it.”

“That’s true,” he reluctantly conceded.

“So, what do you think? I mean, about Cordie June? And about Lawrence? What do you think the thing between him and Tyler was?”

He was quiet for a moment, then slowly pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel for a few seconds before facing me. The muscle under his eye twitched again. “Benni, these people are my friends. I grew up with Lawrence. When I was six years old he gave me my first bloody nose. He was quite a fighter.”

“Lawrence?” I exclaimed, astonished. Remembering the fight at the party, it appeared my theory was once again proven true; you really can’t judge people by outward appearances.

Gabe’s mustache tilted in a glimmer of a smile. “He hit me with his Superman lunchbox because I smashed his Twinkie. I deserved it.” His smile disappeared. “The point is, I grew up with these guys, and you want me to speculate whether one of them is a cold-blooded killer. Would you want to consider Elvia or Miguel or Mac in that light?”

His naming of my best friend, one of her younger brothers, and the local minister who had been a childhood buddy brought me up short. He was right. I wasn’t considering his feelings in this. These people were strangers to me; it didn’t matter to me who the killer was. But to him they were his personal history, a part of who he was and is.

“I’m sorry,” I said, laying my hand lightly on his forearm. “I wasn’t even thinking. Honestly, I didn’t go looking for that information. I just overheard it. Should I just ignore it next time?”

He ran his fingers through his black hair. “No, that wouldn’t be right. Tell me if you hear anything else, and I’ll pass it on to Dewey. As for the thing between Lawrence and Tyler, if those two ladies from the guild knew about it, I’m certain Dewey knows, too.”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t agree with him. In my experience, there’d been more times when the women I knew sensed a conflict or fluctuation in a relationship long before the men did. I don’t know if most females communicate better or just flat out pay more attention to the people around them, but I suspect Randy Travis sang the answer best when he sagely pointed out that old men sit around and talk about the weather and old women sit around and talk about old men.

Gabe restarted the car. “I’m glad
that’s
settled,” he said in a tone that implied he was crossing something off a list. I wasn’t quite sure what it was we got settled, but I wasn’t about to debate it right before meeting Dewey and Cordie June.

The decor at the restaurant, Buffalo Barney’s Hoof and Fin, was strictly Hollywood Western, but the Midwestern steaks were cornfed, thick, and juicy, and even Gabe had to compliment the cook’s broiled Alaska salmon. In her heehaw accent, Cordie June, dressed in a minuscule red suede skirt and chest-hugging matching vest, kept us laughing with tales of one-night gigs at county fairs and redneck bars back in Oklahoma. When she turned on the charm, Cordie June was an original, no doubt about it.

“I swear,” she said, holding up a long-nailed hand. “There was chicken-wire fence in front of the stage so we wouldn’t get hit by flying beer bottles. Out near Hooker, Oklahoma. They got some rowdy bars out there on the panhandle. You gotta really want it to keep going through that kind of crap.” She grimaced. “But my daddy was a mean old Okie dirt farmer who raised me not to take no shit from no one. ‘Cordelia June,’ he’d say to me, ‘don’t you never take no shit from no one, girl, or I’ll whip your butt.’ ” She gave a throaty laugh. “He always told me there wasn’t nobody gonna give me a free ride in this ole world, and that old fart was right as rain.”

No one mentioned Tyler or her murder until we were sipping iced tea and picking at the remains of our strawberry shortcake. Cordie June wasn’t going with us to the stables because, as I’d heard on the radio, she and the band were playing at Prairie City Nights that evening.

“We’re making an announcement about Tyler’s reward fund before each set,” she said, licking her skinny straw. “Are y’all coming by later?”

“Not tonight, babe,” Dewey said. “How about tomorrow ?” He looked at Gabe and me. “That okay with you two?”

Gabe looked at me, and I nodded. “Count us in,” he said.

“Okay,” Cordie June said. “I’ll tell Lawrence to reserve y’all a table.” She slipped her fringed leather purse over her shoulder and nudged Dewey with her hip. “I need to hit the little cowgirls room before I drive to the club.” She stood up and tugged at the bottom of her short skirt, causing the Western-clad waiter behind her to almost drop his tray of dessert samples.

“I’ll join you,” I said.

“Why do women always go in pairs?” Dewey said, giving Gabe a mystified look. “Is it some kind of herd instinct, this desire to pee in unison?”:.Slap him around

I turned to Gabe and said sweetly, “Slap him around a little while we’re gone, okay?”

“My pleasure, ma’am,” he said.

Dewey groaned. “Gabe, Gabe, old buddy, only five months married and already—”

“Your comment better not have any feline references in it,” I warned over my shoulder.

“Henpecked,” Dewey finished. Their hearty laughter followed us.

The women’s restroom was huge and designed to look like a Western brothel with red-flocked wallpaper and fancy gold-plated faucets. In front of the gilded mirror, picking at her lion’s mane of hair, Cordie June rambled on about the songs she was singing that night and how her greatest dream was to sing in the Grand Ole Opry before her daddy died. I inspected my thirty-five-year-old complexion, trying not to compare it to hers, only half-listening until I heard the word “producer.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?” I pulled a comb out of my purse and, trying not to look directly at her, poked at my own curls.

“I said a real famous producer from Nashville is pass-in’ through here for a Randy Travis concert, and he’s dropping by to see the band perform tomorrow night. It could be my . . . our big break. All you need these days is the right management.” She pulled a miniature can of hair spray out of her purse and misted her glossy hair and everyone in the general vicinity. “I heard he was the one who made Trisha Yearwood famous.” In the mirror, her shiny lips tightened around the edges. “You know, sometimes you only get one shot in life. I intend to take advantage of it.”