Tell Me Lies (36 page)

“D’you just find out about this?” he bellowed at C.L. when the three of them were sitting around the kitchen table with the money in front of them.

“Hell, yes, I just found out about it.” C.L. scowled back at him. “How damn dumb do you think I am? I’ve been driving around with a fortune in my trunk for two weeks. She just told me not ten minutes ago, so stop yelling. And don’t yell at her because she’s family. We’re getting married.”

“No, we’re not,” Maddie said, and he looked at her and laughed.

“Yes, we are,” he told her. “You just don’t know it yet.”

Henry spoke to C.L. as if Maddie weren’t there. “You know, boy, it’s a possibility that this woman shot her husband. She’s a nice woman, but he was going to take her little girl, and I think she’d do almost anything to keep that little girl safe. You might want to think this over.”

“Well, I’d do just about anything to keep that kid safe, too,” C.L. said. “Which is why she’s never going to shoot me. Go on inside and call about that gun and we’ll wait for you. It’s in Treva Basset’s freezer in Mrs. Harmon’s casserole. Spam and whole wheat noodles.”

“Damfool woman,” Henry said, not specifying whether he meant Maddie or Mrs. Harmon, and went to call.

When he came back, he was slightly mellower but not much. “I have a couple of questions,” he told Maddie, and she swallowed and nodded.

“Why don’t I just tell you what I know. I’ve been thinking about this, and I’ve got some ideas.”

Henry exhaled and then nodded. “Go ahead. Just don’t keep anything back.”

“Well,” Maddie said, “I think this all started because Helena Faraday wanted Brent to be mayor, and because Dottie Wylie is good friends with Lora Hanes, and because my husband’s mistress wanted him to leave me.”

“You’re kidding,” C.L. said. “What the—”

“Shut up, C.L.,” Henry said. “You’ve forgotten how things work around here.” He focused back on Maddie. “Who told who what?”

“About a month ago, Helena told Brent he had to fill out financial disclosure forms for the mayoral race, and Brent knew that could be bad. And about the same time, Dottie told Lora that her daughter’s husband’s company had swindled her, and Lora called Treva, and Treva knew that Dottie was as straight as the day is long and that Howie was, too, which left Brent. So she called Brent and asked him what the hell was going on and threatened to raise a stink. And then about a week later, I found those crotchless pants under the seat of my car, and I figure they had to be planted there, so his mistress must have been pushing him about the same time—”

“Crotchless pants?” Henry said.

“What crotchless pants?” C.L. said.

“—because I don’t think it was an accident that those pants ended up in the car. I thought of this a while back, but I didn’t put it together then, but the thing is, you don’t take off crotchless panties to make love.” Maddie stopped and looked at C.L. “Do you?”

“Probably not,” C.L. said, trying to look virtuous while Henry scowled. “Not that I’d know from experience since I don’t do that kind of stuff.”

“Anyway, I do not believe a woman wouldn’t notice she wasn’t wearing underpants. I noticed that night we went to the Point and I didn’t have any on.”

Henry scowled harder at C.L. and she hurried on. “And they wouldn’t make love in the front seat, either, because there’s no room, and I saw them get into the back the night I watched them. So she left them on purpose, which means she wanted me to find them and confront him. She was pushing him. Which makes me wonder if that accident I had was an accident.”

“Paranoia is not pretty,” C.L. said.

“My car was so old that any damage would total it,” she told him. “And that would mean I’d have to drive the Caddy, and I’d clean it out, and I’d find the pants and divorce Brent. Another thing is, I got hit by the brother of the guy that saw me open the safe-deposit box at the bank. And Brent couldn’t have been working a swindle alone, he wasn’t that good with money, and the bank would be a good place to find a partner who did know money.”

“You’re right about that,” Henry said. “You were having an awful lot of bad luck all at one time, so I did sort of lean on the Webster kid a little. He’s not talking, but he’s awful nervous. I was just going to wait until he folded, but I could step things up a little, I guess.”

“Well, thank you for that,” Maddie said. “I thought you suspected me.”

“I still do,” Henry said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t think there aren’t other interesting possibilities. Keep talking.”

C.L. looked from one to the other. “I don’t believe this. Neither one of you told me anything.”

“I was trying to handle it myself,” Maddie said. “I knew I was innocent, even if Henry did think I was my grandma all over again.”

“What grandma?” C.L. said, and watched Henry grimace at a memory. “There’s a grandma in this?”

“Shut up, C.L., and let her talk,” Henry said.

Maddie was talking again, giving Henry everything she had, and C.L. could see the tension ease as she talked.

“The way I think it was is this. Brent turns everything he can get his hands on into cash and gets ready to leave. But then I find the pants, and C.L. comes to town and chases him, and Treva and I search the office and take the box with the invoices, and he gets so freaked, he hits me. He’s still got two days before the plane leaves, and he knows Dottie’s yelling is going to cause some trouble with his partner, who probably doesn’t know he’s leaving, so he calls his partner to control the damage and gives himself away.” She stopped and looked at Henry. “Especially if he called that Friday night. He was really drunk and you could see right through him. If you’d arrested him that weekend, he’d have given you everything. I think his partner killed him to protect himself. Except the voice I heard on the phone that night saying ‘Fine’ was female. There’s a teller at the bank named June Webster. Is she any relation to Webster?”

“Sister,” Henry said. “I checked. Harold Whitehead’s wife was a Webster. The place is full of them.”

“I’m starting to not like them,” Maddie said.

“Tell me about the money,” Henry said. “If you didn’t move it, how did it get to the Civic?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie said. “But I bet whoever did it was the prowler I had Saturday night. That’s when my safe-deposit key went missing. I know that isn’t enough to get the guy to the safe-deposit box, but it’s something. I think the killer took the money and sat back and waited to see if you’d arrest me. When you didn’t, he planted the gun and most of the money in the Civic and waited for Leo to find it. Only I found it first. And then he hears Em is missing, which wouldn’t be tough since I’d screamed it all over town—” She stopped for a minute and then said, “I went to the bank, Henry. Everybody in the bank knew Em was gone.”

“Everybody in town knew Em was gone,” Henry said.

C.L. finally spoke up. “This guy must be getting really frustrated. Every move he’s made, you’ve ducked. He must be about ready to come out of the woodwork for you.”

“That’s only if Maddie’s right,” Henry said. “There are a lot of loose ends. Like the problem that nobody came off the Point after Brent that night except for her.”

“That’s according to Bailey,” C.L. said. “I want to talk to him tomorrow.”

“We need to do a hell of a lot of things tomorrow,” Henry said. “Starting with that damn gun.”

“That’s another thing,” Maddie said. “Bailey’s dating Candace at the bank, so he’s been there. He could be tied in, too.”

“He worked security there for a while,” Henry said. “He knows everything about the place.”

“We’re definitely talking to Bailey tomorrow,” C.L. said. “Especially now that we know Maddie’s innocent.” He glared at Henry.

Henry was as impervious as usual. “Maybe. There’s still the money and the gun she didn’t tell us about. I should run her in for withholding evidence.”

“You can’t,” Maddie said. “I’ve given you all I’ve got now, so you’d just look spiteful. And I might marry your nephew, and then where would you be?”

“About where I’ve always been with C.L.,” Henry said, but there was no venom in his voice.

“No kidding.” Maddie moved closer to him. “I missed you.”

C.L. backed up. “I missed you, too. Go to bed.”

Maddie stopped. “What?”

“Your kid’s upstairs, and my uncle is waiting to hear you join her. Get moving.”

“You’ve been hanging out with me too long.” Maddie moved in fast and wrapped her arms around him. “I
missed you.”

C.L. kissed her once, hard, and she breathed him in and loved him for it, and then he pushed her away. “I missed you, too, which is why I plan on meeting you at your house tomorrow while Anna baby-sits Em and Henry does sheriff stuff, so leave your morning open because you’re going to be busy naked. But right now, get upstairs.”

She felt empty without her arms around him. She’d just liberated herself from an entire town for him, and she was feeling as if she could and should do anything, and she was empty. “You’re kidding.”

He took a step back and frowned at her, a lousy attempt at discouragement. “No. Go upstairs.”

Maddie put her hands on her hips. “I finally decide to be depraved, and
you
turn over a new leaf?”

“If I’m going to be your husband and Em’s stepdaddy, I have to,” C.L. said. “I have people to protect. Go upstairs.”

He looked determined and stubborn and miserable.

“Oh, hell,” Maddie said, and went upstairs, but when she was in bed beside Em, she began to plan.

C.L. evidently still hadn’t gotten the idea that the old Maddie was gone since he was trying to turn himself into her twin. And if she had to spend the rest of her life sleeping with her old self, she’d have to kill him. Therefore, she had to do something fast to corrupt him again, corrupt him enough that there was no way he could come back as the old Maddie’s double. She wanted him evil and rebellious and full of scandal, and the more she thought of him that way, the more she wanted him. She fell asleep thinking hot thoughts that made her itch under her skin, and they were still with her when she woke up.

“Can I stay with Anna all day?” she asked. “I don’t want to go back there yet.”

Maddie said, “All weekend if Anna can stand it.”

“I’ll take her forever,” Anna said. “We’ll make cinnamon cookies and then this afternoon we’ll crochet. That’s a quiet thing to do. Takes a lot of concentration.” She smiled at Maddie over Em’s head. “Good thing to do when you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

C.L. honked outside, and Maddie pushed her plate away and bent to kiss Em’s cheek. “C.L. and I have to go into town, sweetie,” she said. “We’ll be back this afternoon. Be good for Anna.”

Em shot her a scornful look. “I’m always good.”

“We’re going to work on that, too,” Maddie told her. “But I have other fish to fry first.”

She went down the steps, and C.L. picked his suit coat up off the passenger seat and said, “Ride in with me.”

He probably had an ulterior motive, but so did she, so she got into the convertible, trying to decide how to implement her plan for maximum impact. She couldn’t do anything about the Webster mob who were ruining her life—that was up to Henry—but she could do something about taking her life back and making it her own and not her mother’s or the town’s. She figured she had to do something so bad, she couldn’t ever recover her reputation. Even while one part of her knew she was nuts, the other part, the part that had been freed when she’d faced down so many lies the day before, egged her on.

Today was the day she got rid of the old Maddie completely. And C.L. was going to help her. Maddie patted the condom she’d found in C.L.‘s drawer and stuck in her shorts. He was going to help her naked.

He threw his coat in the backseat, his muscles flexing under his cotton shirt, and she shivered and smiled at him, the sizzle from last night percolating up again just because he was warm and possible beside her. He tossed her the scarf she’d worn before, and she tied it over her head while she plotted her next move. She had to have him soon.

Amazing how your libido came back when you weren’t depressed anymore and your possibly future uncle-in-law was thinking about arresting somebody else.

“I have to go see Henry first,” C.L. said, pulling out into the road. “He’s talking to Bailey and I want to be there. But then it’s you and me, babe, so you stay home.” He grinned over at her, and she bit her lip because he looked so good. “I’ll leave the car at Henry’s so nobody knows.”

Maddie laughed, passion making her loud. “C.L., the whole town knows. You’ll leave it in my driveway.”

“I will not.” He glanced at the speedometer and slowed down.

So he was going to be a hard sell. Maddie looked at him sideways from the corner of her eye. No, he wasn’t. Whatever else he was trying to be, he was still C.L. underneath.

She pushed a Springsteen cassette in, and turned up the volume, and “Born to Run” boomed out in the sunlight.

C.L. turned the music down. “Farmers are still working the fields along here. No point in calling attention to ourselves.”

All right, that was it. She’d fallen in love with a screwup, she was not going to spend the rest of her life with somebody bucking for a good-citizenship medal. She waited until they were on Porch Road, C.L. driving tensely at forty miles an hour, and said, “Go faster.”

“There are speed limits,” C.L. said, and she rolled her eyes and said, “Yes, and the limit is fifty-five on this road. Go faster.”

He sighed and let the needle creep up to fifty, and the song changed to “Thunder Road.” It was a great song, and Maddie scooted herself up to sit on the back of the seat in honor of it, holding on to the windshield with one hand. C.L. said, “What the hell are you doing?” but the wind blew against her, pressed against her, and she wanted to yell and strip off her clothes and drag C.L. into the backseat. Instead she took off her scarf and held it above her head and let the wind blow it away.

“Would you get
down
here?” C.L. said, grabbing her calf, and Maddie tipped back her head and felt her heart kick up another notch as the wind blew through her hair and his fingers closed hard on her leg. Every hot memory she’d ever had of C.L. came back, and she let go of the windshield and stretched her arms out to feel her muscles move, and all the while C.L. yelled at her from below.

“Are you nuts? Get down here.” C.L. tugged on her leg.

She planted her feet on the seat and sat firm, but she dropped her arms. Her muscles should have been moving naked against him, and instead he was bitching at her. She was going to have to take steps.

“You know, I think this is our song,” she yelled down to him. “Definitely our song. Especially the ‘town full of losers’ part. Pull over and let’s make love.”

“Maddie,” he said, and she stripped her T-shirt over her head and let that go in the wind, too, so that when he glanced up, he swerved.
“Maddie,”
he said, and she laughed at the way the wind blew hard on her skin. The Drake Farm was coming up ahead on the right, and she yelled, “Pull in at that driveway, C.L.”

A farmer on a tractor loomed up ahead on the left, and C.L. yanked her feet off the seat so hard she bounced down after all, but it was too late. The farmer’s eyes were huge when they passed him.

“That was Todd Overton,” C.L. said with false calm. “I’m going to hear about this from Henry. I suppose you had to do this.”

“Turn,” Maddie said as the farm entrance grew closer. “
Turn
.”

“Forget it,” C.L. said, and Maddie pulled her bra off over her head and threw it in his lap where it immediately blew back over to her side and out of the car.

C.L. looked over and said, “Oh,
hell,”
and yanked the steering wheel to get them off the road and into the driveway, just the way she knew he would, the car fishtailing sideways as he stopped.

She had the car door open as soon as the car skidded to a halt, and she was out and into the soft grass along the edge of the driveway before he could catch her.