Shakespeare's Trollop (13 page)

“In the newspaper article, Marta is quoted as saying she'd been dead for somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four hours.”

“Still got the paper?” Jack asked, and I went to rummage through my recycle bin.

Jack stretched out on the floor, pretty much filling my little living room, to read. I recalled with a sudden start that he was moving in with me, and I could look at him as much as I liked, every day. I didn't have to fill up with looking so I could replay it while he was gone. And he'd be taking up just as much space, much more often. We had a few bumps in the road ahead of us, for sure.

“So, the last one to see her was her mother, when Deedra left church on Sunday to walk home to her apartment.” Jack scanned the article again, his T-shirt stretching over his back, and his muscle pants doing good things for his butt. I felt pretty happy about him being displayed on my floor like that. I felt like taking the paper away from him. Tomorrow morning he had to leave, and I had to work, and we were not making the best use of the time we had.

“I wonder what she was doing,” Jack said. He was thinking things through like the former cop he was. “Did she make it home to her apartment? How'd she leave?”

I told Jack what I knew about the population of the apartment building that Sunday afternoon. “Becca was in town but I don't know exactly where she was then,” I concluded. “Claude was gone, the Bickels were gone, Terry Plowright was gone. Tick, I guess, was drunk. The woman who works at Wal-Mart, Do'mari Clayton, was at the store, according to Becca.”

“Where was Becca?”

“I don't know, she didn't say.” I had no idea what Becca usually did on Sundays. She wasn't a churchgoer, and though she often made an appearance at Body Time, she didn't stay long. Maybe on Sunday she just slopped around in her pajamas and read the papers, or a book.

“Had that brother of hers gotten here yet?”

“No, yesterday was the first time I'd seen him.”

“So he never even knew Deedra.” Jack rested his chin on his hands, staring at the wood of the floor. While he thought, I fetched the old
TV Guide
from my bedroom—our bedroom—and opened it to Saturday. This would have been the one day pertinent to Deedra, since she'd died on Sunday.

I read all the synopses, checked all the sports listings, pored over the evening shows. When Jack snapped out of his reverie long enough to ask me what I was doing, I tried to explain it to him, but it came out sounding fuzzier than it was.

“Maybe the
TV Guide
had blood on it or something, so the killer took it with him,” he said, uninterested. “Or maybe Deedra spilled ginger ale on it and pitched it in the garbage. It's the purse that's more interesting. What could have been in her purse? Did she carry those big bags you could put bricks into?”

“No. Hers were big enough for her billfold, a brush, a compact, a roll of mints, and some Kleenex. Not much else.”

“Her apartment hadn't been tossed?”

“Not so I could tell.”

“What's small enough to be carried in a purse?” Jack rolled onto his back, an even more attractive pose. His hazel eyes focused on the ceiling. “She have jewelry?”

“No expensive jewelry. At least nothing worth staging that elaborate death scene for. If she'd been knocked on the head with a brick while she was at an urban mall, that would be one thing. She had some gold chains, her pearls, they would be worth that. But this, this arrangement in the woods…it seemed personal. And her pearls were there, hanging on the tree.”

“Then we're back to her sex life. Who did she actually have sex with, that you know of?” Jack looked a little uncomfortable as he asked. That was sort of strange.

“Anyone she could,” I said absently, beginning to think suspicious thoughts. “Do you want a list?”

Jack nodded, but kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Marcus Jefferson, that guy who used to live in the top front—the apartment you had for a while.” I thought a little. “Brian Gruber's son, Claude, Terry Plowright, Darcy Orchard, Norvel Whitbread, Randy Peevely while he was separated from Heather, plus at least”—I counted on my fingers—“four others. And those are just the ones I saw there, actually saw in her apartment. But I wasn't about to give Marta Schuster a list.”

“You didn't tell the police?”

“It wasn't their business. One of those men may have killed Deedra, but that's no reason for all of them to go through hell. And I'm not convinced any of them
did
kill her.”

“Based on?”

“Why?” I asked, leaning forward, my hands on my knees. “Why would they?”

“Fear of exposure,” Jack said, starting out assured but ending up uncertain.

“Who would fear exposure? Everyone in town knew Deedra was…really available. No one took her seriously. That was the tragedy of her life.” I surprised myself, with my intensity and my shaking voice. I had cared more than I knew, for reasons I couldn't fathom. “Jack, were you lonely enough when you came to Shakespeare?”

Jack turned dark red. It was slow and unlovely.

“No,” he said. “But it was a near thing. It was only because I thought of AIDS that I didn't. She had condoms, and I was horny, but I'd been tested and I was clean and I…could tell she was…”

“A whore?” I asked, feeling rage building up in me. And I could not understand it.

Jack nodded.

It's amazing how easily a good afternoon can evaporate.

 

“Can you tell me why you're so mad?” Jack asked my back. I was kneeling in the bathroom, scrubbing the floor by hand.

“I don't think so,” I said curtly. My hands were sweating inside the rubber gloves, and I knew they'd smell like old sweat socks when I peeled the gloves off.

I was trying to figure it out myself. Deedra hadn't valued herself. That was not the fault of the men who screwed her. And she offered herself to them, no doubt about it. She asked nothing in return except maybe a little attention, a little kindness. She never asked for a long-term relationship, she never asked for money or gifts. She had wanted to be the object of desire, however fleeting, because in her eyes that gave her worth.

So could the men be considered at fault for giving her what she wanted? If something was freely offered, could you grudge the takers?

Well, I could. And I did.

And I was just going to have to swallow it. There were too many of them, among them men I liked and a very few I respected. Men just following their natures, as Deedra had been following hers. But I regretted not giving the sheriff their names. Let them sweat a little. It might be uncomfortable for them, but after all, Deedra was the one who'd suffered.

And yet, in the end, Deedra had finally found Marlon Schuster. He seemed to be a weak reed, but he wanted to be her reed. Would she have been strong enough to turn her back on her way of life and stick with Marlon? Did she even care for him? Just because he offered what she'd always been searching for didn't mean she was obliged to take it.

Now we'd never know. Two years down the road from now, Deedra might've been married to Marlon, a whitewashed woman, maybe even pregnant with their child.

But that option had been taken away from Deedra, and from Marlon.

And that made me
angry
.

I felt better when the bathroom shone. I had relaxed by the time we went to bed, and as I listened to Jack's heavy, even breath beside me, I decided that somehow Jack's near-brush with Deedra absolved me of mine with Bobo. Though Jack hadn't known me well at the time, he'd known me, and now I felt as though my sin had been canceled by his.

I tossed and turned a little, unable to get to sleep. I thought of having to go to work in the morning, of Jack leaving to go back to Little Rock. I wondered if Birdie Rossiter would need me to bathe poor Durwood; I wondered if Lacey would need more help in Deedra's apartment.

Finally, it occurred to me that the remedy for my sleeplessness lay right beside me. I snuggled against Jack's back, reached over him, and began a gentle massage that I knew would wake him up in no time.

I was right.

It was warmer the next day, with just a hint of the sweltering heat of summer: a wake-up call to the inhabitants of southern Arkansas.

Jack and I had gotten up early and gone to work out together at Body Time. We'd done triceps; I was sure to be sore after working triceps with Jack, because I tried heavier weights when he was with me, and I pulled harder for that extra set of reps.

Janet was there, and after she greeted Jack and went back to her leg presses, I noticed that Marshall himself came out of his office to spot her. I was pleased. Marshall needed to notice Janet, who had long had a soft spot for him.

Jack, on the other hand, would never be very partial to my
sensei
because he was well aware that Marshall and I once shared some time together. He wasn't ridiculous about it, but I noticed a stiffness in the way he chatted with Marshall.

Marshall seemed to be in a very good mood, laughing and joking with Janet, and generally going around the room in a circuit to meet and greet.

“What's up?” Jack asked when Marshall reached us.

“My ex is getting remarried,” Marshall said, beaming, an expression that sat oddly on his face.

I'd had some dealings with Thea, who was tiny, lovely, and widely respected. So are small poisonous snakes.

“Who's the unlucky man?” I stood up straight after my second set of tricep pushups. Jack and I usually did them against the rack that held the heavier weights. We would put our hands close together on the top rack, and with our feet as far back as our height allowed, we would begin to lean down until our noses touched the weights, and then we'd push back up. I shook my arms to relieve the ache.

“A guy from Montrose,” Marshall said, actually laughing out loud. “And I stop paying alimony when she remarries.”

“When is the wedding?” Jack asked, planting his hands to do his set.

“Three months.” Marshall beamed at me. “No more Thea. And he owns the John Deere dealership, so she'll be set. She's not even going to go back to work.” Thea had been a child-care worker, and a very poor one, at the SCC day-care center.

“That sounds good,” I said. “I hope nothing happens to the man before she marries him.”

“He's in my prayers,” Marshall said, and he wasn't being facetious. He slapped me on the shoulder, nodded at Jack, and strolled back over to Janet, who was patting her face with a towel. She was trying to restrain her pleasure at being singled out by Marshall, but it wasn't working. She was glowing with something besides sweat.

Back home, I showered and put on my makeup for work while Jack repacked and ate some breakfast. Then he took his turn in the bathroom while I ate some toast and made the bed.

We could make cohabiting work, I figured. It might take some adjustments, since both of us were used to living alone, and it might take some time, but we could do it.

Jack and I pulled out of the driveway at the same time, he to head back to Little Rock, and me to work for Birdie Rossiter.

Birdie was in full spate that morning. Unlike most people, who'd leave when they saw me pull up to their house, Birdie looked on me as a companion who was incidentally a housecleaner. So from the time I entered until the time I left, she provided a constant accompaniment, chattering and questioning, full of gossip and advice.

It wore me out.

I wondered if she talked to Durwood when I wasn't there. I figured Durwood qualified to be some kind of dog saint.

But sometimes, in the middle of all the inconsequential gossip, Birdie let drop a nugget of something useful or interesting. This morning, Birdie Rossiter told me that Lacey Dean Knopp had made Jerrell Knopp move out.

“I guess she's just got unhinged since poor little Deedra got killed,” Birdie said, her mouth pursed in commiseration tinged with pleasure. “That Deedra, she was the light of Lacey's life. I know when Jerrell was courting her, he was mighty careful not to say one thing about Deedra. I bet he was after Lacey's money. Chaz Dean, the first husband, he died before you came to Shakespeare…. Well, Chaz left Lacey one nice pot of money. I knew she'd get remarried. Not just for the money. Lacey is pretty, no doubt about it, and no ‘for fifty' or whatever age. Lacey is just plain pretty. If you marry somebody good-looking who has money, you just get a bonus, don't you?”

I didn't know which element would be the bonus, the money or the looks. Lacey, who had both, did not seem to me to be a particularly lucky person.

While Birdie went to pour herself another cup of coffee, I thought about Lacey making Jerrell move out, and I thought about the nasty speculation Janet and I had developed. I'd thought no one would worry if Deedra said she was going to make a relationship public, but I'd temporarily forgotten Jerrell. If she'd endangered his relationship with his wife, Deedra would have to be ruthlessly eliminated. Jerrell was crazy about Lacey. I'd never liked the man, and from my point of view it would be a great solution to Deedra's murder if her stepfather could be found guilty.

But I caught myself scowling at the sponge mop while I squeezed it out into the mopping bucket. I couldn't make a convincing case against Jerrell, no matter how much I tried. While I could see Jerrell hitting Deedra with a handy two-by-four, even taking a gun to shoot her, I couldn't see Jerrell planning the elaborately staged scene in the woods. The strewn clothes, the positioning of the body, the bottle…no, I didn't think so.

Birdie was back and babbling again now, but I wasn't listening. I was mentally examining what I'd just said to myself, and I was forming a little plan.

It was a Monday eerily like that other Monday; it was clear and bright, and the air had a little touch of hotness to it, like standing just the right distance away from the burner on a stove.

Instead of parking out on Farm Hill Road, I turned into the graveled trail. I didn't want to risk my worn-out suspension on the ruts, so I parked right inside the edge of the woods. I sat in my car, just listening for a minute or two. No bobwhite today, but I heard a mockingbird and a cardinal. It was a little cooler in the shade.

I sighed and got out of my car, removing the keys and stuffing them in my pocket for safekeeping. It never hurts to be careful.

Then I was moving down the trail again, telling myself that this time there wouldn't be a car sitting in the middle of the woods, knowing there was no way a car would be in the same spot again….

But there
was
a car there, parked just where Deedra's had been, and like hers it faced away from me. I stopped dead in my tracks.

It was a dark green Bronco, which explained why I hadn't picked it out before. There was someone sitting in it.

“Oh no,” I whispered. I shook my head from side to side. This was like one of those dreams in which you are compelled to do something you dread doing, something you know will end in horror. When my feet began moving forward, my teeth were clenched to keep them from chattering, and my hand was over my heart, feeling it hammer with fear.

I drew abreast of the driver's window, standing well back so I wouldn't catch the smell again. I didn't think I could stand that without throwing up, and I didn't want to put myself through it. I leaned slightly to look in and then I froze. I was looking into a gun.

Clifton Emanuel's eyes were just as round and black as the barrel of the gun, and almost as frightening.

“Don't move,” he said hoarsely.

I was too shocked to say anything, and I wasn't about to move a muscle. A lot passed through my mind in a second. I saw that if I acted instantly I could disarm him, though he was equally ready to pull the trigger. But he was a law-enforcement officer and my tendency was to obey him, though I knew from experience that some people in law enforcement were just as wrong headed or corrupt as the sociopaths they arrested.

On the whole…. I remained frozen.

“Step back,” he commanded, in that eerie voice that told me he was wound as tight as a coil could be wound.

If I stepped back I wouldn't be frozen anymore, but I decided it wasn't the time to quibble with him. I stepped back. Marshall had always warned us that no matter how skilled you became in martial arts, in some situations the man with the gun would rule.

I watched, hardly breathing, as Clifton Emanuel opened the car door and emerged from the car. Though he took great care to keep the gun trained on me, there was one point at which I could've begun to move, but my uncertainty held me paralyzed.

Though I just didn't think the deputy was going to shoot, I remained tense and strung up for action. His eyes were showing a little too much white to suit me. But when I figured he'd heard me coming up the trail, drawn his gun, and sat in the car waiting for me to approach, it wasn't surprising he was squirrelly.

“Up against the car,” he ordered. Now that I felt sure he wasn't going to shoot me out of hand, I began to get mad. I put my hands against the car, spread my legs, and let him pat me down, but I could feel my tolerance draining away with my fear.

He frisked me as impersonally as I could want, which was saying a lot.

“Turn around,” he said, and his voice was not so hoarse.

I faced him, having to look up to gauge his emotional state from his expression. His body was relaxing a little, and his eyes looked a trifle less jumpy. I focused on looking nonthreatening, trying to keep my own muscles from tensing, trying to breathe evenly. It took a lot of concentration.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

He was in plainclothes, though I noticed that his khaki slacks and brown plaid shirt were not too far from the uniform in spirit.

“I could ask the same,” I said, trying not to sound as confrontational as I felt. I don't like feeling helpless. I don't like that more than I don't like almost anything else.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I wanted to look at the spot again because…” I faltered, not happy at explaining what had really been an unformed feeling.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to think about it,” I finished. “See, I was thinking…” I shook my head, trying to formulate what I wanted to say. “There was something wrong about this.”

“You mean, besides the murder of a young woman?” he asked dryly.

I nodded, ignoring the sarcasm.

He lowered the gun.

“I think so too,” he said. Now he looked more astonished than anything, as if it amazed him that I would think about what I'd seen that day, think about Deedra's last moments after I'd reported her death. It appeared that in Clifton Emanuel's estimation, I was so tough that the death of a woman I'd known for years wouldn't affect me. It would be wonderful, I thought, to be that tough.

He holstered his gun. He didn't apologize for drawing on me, and I didn't ask it of him. If I'd been in his shoes, I'd have done the same.

“Go on,” he invited me.

“I found myself thinking that…” I paused, trying to phrase it so he'd understand me. “We're
meant
to think that a man came out here in Deedra's car with her.”

“Or maybe arranged to meet her out here,” he interjected, and I nodded, waving a hand to show I conceded that.

“Howsoever. So, she's out here, and so is the murderer, however he got here. And then, we're supposed to think that this killer got Deedra out of the car for a little sex, told her to take off her clothes. She strips for his pleasure, tossing her clothes at random, pantyhose here, blouse there, pearls, skirt…and she's out here in the middle of the woods naked as a jaybird. Then she has sex with him, and he's using a condom unless he's a complete moron. Or maybe they don't have sex? I don't know what the autopsy said. But at that point, something goes wrong.”

Clifton was nodding his big head. “They argue about something,” he said, taking over the scenario. “Maybe she threatens to tell his wife he's screwing her. But that doesn't seem likely, since everyone agrees married men didn't appeal to her. Maybe she tells him she thinks she's pregnant, though she wasn't. Or maybe she tells him he's a lousy lay. Maybe he can't get it up.”

That had crossed my mind briefly before, when I'd considered Deedra's artificial violation with the bottle. When Clifton Emanuel said it, the idea made even more sense. I looked up at the deputy in surprise, and he nodded grimly. “For some people, not performing would be reason enough to go off the deep end,” he told me darkly.

I looked off into the shadows of the woods and shivered.

“So he
shows
her potency,” Emanuel continued. “He strikes her hard enough in the solar plexus to kill her, and while she's dying he hauls her into the car and then shoves the bottle up her…ah, up her.” He cleared his throat in a curiously delicate way.

“And then he leaves. How?” I asked. “If he arrived in her car, how does he leave?”

“And if he came in his own car, it didn't leave any trace that we could find. Which is possible, especially if it was a good vehicle with no leaks. The ground was dry that week, but not dry enough to be powdery. Not good for tracks. But it just seems more likely that he was in the car with her, that he wouldn't risk being seen pulling in here with her. So he must've had his car already parked somewhere close. Or maybe he had a cell phone, like yours. He could call someone to come pick him up, spin some story to explain it. Someone he trusted wouldn't go the police with it.”