The Jezebel Remedy (4 page)

“Yeah,” she said, “and the turtles would usually somehow escape and you'd find them dead or dying, dry as a bone, smothered in carpet fibers.” She laughed. “They were banned when I was really young, right?”

“I think so,” Brooks said. “For sure, you don't see them these days. Haven't for a long time.”

The gin was warming her cheeks and neck and bumping everything a tick toward the good, the bar noise and other people welcome, happy, Impressionist background, the give-and-take with Brett Brooks now past chatter about statutes and courtrooms. She rearranged herself on her stool, crossed her legs and slid closer to the bar. She sipped the drink, matter-of-factly ate a toothpicked olive and set the glass down, still a third full, her lips imprinted in red on the rim above the clear alcohol. “Do you smoke?” she asked him.

“No, never have. Took care of my mom in her last few years. She died of lung cancer. Would light up even when she was on oxygen. Horrible. The experience did away with any chance I might try it.” He shrugged. “But feel free if you'd like.”

“That's okay. It's hit and miss with me.”

“I didn't mean to sound so negative.” He smiled and flipped his hands open.

They ate all the sushi, but she left her drink unfinished. When she
said she needed to leave, Brooks gestured for the bill, and she objected to him paying, reached in her purse and had her wallet ready before the tab made it to them. The bartender hesitated and diplomatically placed the brown leather folder smack in the middle between their glasses.

“Split it, then?” Brooks said.

“Fair enough.”

“Come to think of it, maybe you ought to treat me—I'd say you had a far more profitable afternoon than I did.”

“I did have a very nice afternoon,” she said, but didn't look at him when she spoke, instead studied their bill and slid thirty dollars—her share—into the leather cover.

“I'm glad you decided to come. Enjoyed the company.”

Brooks added his portion to their tab, gathered his topcoat from the stool beside him and went with her to the exit. Two women eating by themselves, salads and white wineglasses on their table, were watching him, and he had to sense their flattering stares, but he didn't acknowledge them, acted oblivious. It was dark now, and chilly, and he walked Lisa to her car and waited for her to unlock the door. He kept his distance, but after she'd cranked the engine and dialed the heater fan to its highest speed, he took hold of the door handle to shut her in, the interior light burning, her file haphazardly tossed into the passenger seat, the gauges and displays of her base-model Mercedes glowing white and amber. There were splashes of red in the dash, too, mostly in the warning symbols and letters that spelled out important cautions.

“Drive safely,” he said, looking down at her. “Thanks again for the fun visit. I understand Gentry, Locke is sponsoring another seminar in a few weeks. A freebie and a great way to complete your CLE hours if you haven't already done them. They've lined up Judge Weckstein to speak. He's smart as hell and always entertaining. I think Justice Lemons is coming from the Supreme Court. I'll drop you an e-mail with the particulars.”

“That would be great,” Lisa answered.

“Give Joe my regards.” He shut her door, and much of the light vanished.

She stopped a few miles later and bought a Blue Moon beer for the
remainder of the trip, and when she pulled into their yard, the barn lights were burning and the winter sky was clear and flush with pinpoint stars and she could see Joe in the breezeway, his sorrel horse, Sadie, cross-tied at one end, a saddle and blanket straddling the top rail of a stall gate. She shifted the car to Park but left the engine running, and she walked to where he was, toe-stepping to keep her heels from sinking into the pasture. Brownie trotted to meet her, his tail going great guns.

“Been riding?” she asked. She petted the dog.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “I got your message. We did the trail down toward Snow Creek. Filled a flask and off we went.” He was wearing a heavy jacket. His shirttail was loose on one side, untucked. “I'd forgotten how long it takes. We came home in the dark.” He smiled. “Pretty deluxe, though. A nice ride.”

“Want to go again?” she asked.

There was a slapstick instant before he understood exactly what she meant, and he half-turned and checked his horse—just for a second—and then he grinned and looked at her full on and said, “Hell yeah, I'll follow you to the house.” He fished out his flask and had a pull of bourbon. Instead, she was waiting when he turned the corner, and she stopped him at her Mercedes and opened the door, and they had sex in the backseat, jammed in and wrapped around each other, struggling to fit, her hose and panties and fancy shoes on the floorboard, a DJ's patter and commercials and songs on the radio, the smell of perfume and brown liquor and quarter horse curling and roiling with the heat until they finished, her foot bottoms damp against the window glass, condensation everywhere.

“Lord,” Joe declared. “Damn.”

“Exactly,” she said, and all of a sudden she snatched his thick canvas jacket and leapt from the car, giggling and shrieking, wiggling her arms into the coat sleeves as she dashed toward the house, almost naked, the cold air slapping her thighs and belly and face.

Joe switched off the engine and jumped out right behind her, all his clothes left behind as well, and he caught her near the brick sidewalk and grabbed her around the waist, then stooped and lifted her off the ground and onto his shoulder, her feet pedaling in front of him, her
head pointed back at the barn, and he carried her to the door and spun so she could reach the knob and let them in, the both of them laughing. “I think we ought to keep this celebration rolling,” he told her.

“Why not?” she said, standing in the foyer shivering.

Joe retrieved a bottle of grocery store chardonnay from the rear of the fridge, Lisa took a patchwork quilt from the blanket chest and moved the bathroom space heater to the den, and they buried themselves underneath the quilt and sat on the sofa in the heater's orange glow and passed the bottle, slowly warming.

“Hey,” Joe said, finishing a swig and wiping his wrist across his lips, “since I'm spoiling you with cheap wine and Lord Byron–quality romance, how about we slay the bottle and then order up some TV jewelry? Should be a hoot with a buzz. I'll spring for a ring or a necklace from the jewelry channel. We'll call the 800 number and buy you a magnificent gift. Random and off the cuff, kind of crazy-love stuff. Not often you get four-wheel sex and then sprint around in the freezing dark with no clothes. We need to memorialize it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Oh yeah. No doubt we'll land a great deal too. You'll be the owner of some gargantuan, freakishly colored, semisemiprecious stone that ends in
ite
and is about a grade away from polished riprap. The envy of your friends. I'll even make the effort to find the remote and bring you the phone.”

“Only after the bottle's gone, okay? I want to make sure I don't squander the purchase by being too sober.”

Forty minutes later, Joe phoned toll-free and bought a “stunning” six-carat tanzanite dinner ring—retail price $3,500—for $415, and soon after they slid longwise on the couch and fell asleep there, awakened by Brownie pawing the door around four in the morning. He'd been forgotten to spend the night in the barn but seemed no worse for it. At sunrise, they dressed and ate eggs and sausage and drank coffee, and Joe had to jump-start the Mercedes because he'd left a door ajar and the battery had drained, but they agreed it was a small price to pay for superior sex and tanzanite glory.

“Thanks for the effort,” she told him. “You're a good husband.”

“Effort? Huh? It was fun. My pleasure. What a weird thing to say.”

The rollicking night buttressed Lisa's spirits for several days, but soon enough her mood dipped and things declined to mediocre and bloodless again, and when Joe brought the TV ring from the post office and stood beside her desk and opened the cardboard packaging, she teared up, simultaneously appreciative and disappointed. She thanked him, and meant every word, and raised slightly from her chair to kiss him, but even before he left her office, she was mad at herself, frustrated, ticked off because she felt selfish and whiny, unable—no matter how hard she tried—to pin down satisfaction for any length of time, less than content despite her excellent husband and damn-lucky circumstances, just another shrew with impossible demands and no cure in sight. “Don't be such a bitch,” she mumbled to herself, the room empty now, the tanzanite blue and aggressive alongside her wedding band.

Traveling to work at the beginning of December, Lisa topped a knoll near several cracker-box brick houses and caught sight of three young girls, probably still in elementary school, prancing through a cheerleaders' routine while they waited for the bus, their spins and struts and hucklebucks and crisp steps and invisible pom-poms remarkably well synchronized, their winter coats in a casual heap alongside a narrow asphalt driveway, their expressions stitched with concentration. She passed a vase of faded plastic flowers next to a bridge where months earlier a teenager had wrecked his car and died on the spot, the concrete patch in the abutment brighter than all the dreary gray that bordered it. A rawboned man with a mechanical voice box was buying lottery tickets when she stopped for gas, and he told the clerk the numbers he wanted to bet, touched a black tube to his throat and spoke in a froggy, metallic monotone. He also had a tin of sardines and a breakfast malt liquor on the counter. The man was short a few cents, and Lisa made up the difference for him, discovered she knew his uncle, a retired bailiff named Garland Kinney.

At the office, she was antsy, easily diverted. She scanned the newspaper, played Bejeweled on her computer, put Brownie through his dog tricks and drank a diet soda. She cracked a window and lit a cigarette, then shoulder-propped against the window frame and watched a crew of city maintenance men as they decorated streetlight poles for Christmas, winding artificial holly from top to bottom. She read phone messages. Dictated a letter. Paid a credit card bill well before it was due. Joe was in neighboring Patrick County for a district court
trial, and when he returned around noon she sat in his office and asked about the case, whether he'd won or lost.

“Not guilty for our defendant,” he said. “I'm pleased to report that I helped bring justice to yet another roadhouse assault-and-battery brouhaha. By my math, I'm now four victories away from receiving my expert certification in redneck bar brawls. We'll have to get our cards reprinted to include my accomplishment.”

“Same old stuff?” she asked.

“It was pretty much what you'd expect,” he noted drily, “from a pair of drunk women in a boyfriend tussle. The usual cursing and spitting and hair pulling and eye scratching, plus the crowd-pleasing, shirt-rippin' topless grand finale. Of course, despite walking away scot-free, my client was pissed because her Sam's Club faux gold chain was broken and Judge Gendron wasn't of a mind to order restitution.” Joe chuckled. “Gotta love this business, huh?” He put his feet on his desk, rubbed and squeezed the base of his neck. “Lunch? You hungry?” His tie was loose, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

“Yeah. Sounds good.”

While they were deciding where to eat, Betty appeared to tell them the sheriff and a state police investigator were in the lobby and needed to speak with them. After almost two decades of practicing law, it was the kind of occurrence that raised their interest but didn't cause any particular alarm, and they continued to discuss diners, restaurants, fast food and blue plates until the cops arrived at the door. Joe and Lisa stood, and Joe gestured for them to come in.

Sheriff Lane Perry was a large, amiable man with close-cropped hair and a physicality that was pronounced and obvious but not threatening. The Stones considered him honest and conscientious, and he and Joe both enjoyed quarter horses and trout fishing, occasionally crossed paths at the saddle club or on the banks of the Smith River. The state police officer, Clay Hatcher, was younger, maybe thirty-five, a brash, noisy, spring-loaded hotshot who was, it seemed, always itching for a high-speed chase or a chance to bust into a house at 3:00 a.m. and scream commands as he brandished his pistol, though it was safe to assume he wouldn't be the first through a dangerous door, or even the second.

“Hey, Joe,” the sheriff said. “I think you know Special Agent Hatcher from the state police.”

“Yeah. Sure. Good to see you both.”

Sheriff Perry then nodded at Lisa and said, “Mrs. Stone.”

Hatcher had his hands on his hips and wore his silver badge on a chain around his neck. His weapon was apparent in a shoulder holster. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Stone,” he said. “And pleased to meet you, ma'am.”

“What brings you gents by?” Lisa asked. “Sit down if you'd like.”

“We're fine,” the sheriff replied. “Thanks just the same.” He hooked a thumb into his patent leather gun belt. “I know you've been good to look after Lettie VanSandt,” he said to Joe, “so I thought I'd tell you that we found her dead this morning. Out at her place.”

“Oh no,” Joe said. Everyone was still standing, and he'd walked back behind his desk and leaned against a credenza. “What—”

“Got fried cookin' meth,” Hatcher interjected, eager to tell what he knew, no pity or concern in his tone. He smirked through the words.

“Meth?” Joe repeated. “Lettie's a lot of things, but she's not a druggie.”

“Facts prove different,” Hatcher remarked. He took his hands off his hips. “She was in a shack next to her house, and the damn place had the whole shebang, from the Coleman fuel to the matches to the boxes of cold medicines. Iodine. Burners. I've seen my share of methamphetamine outfits, and this lady was cooking crank. No doubt.”

“It sure looks that way,” Perry added. “Surprised me too. Lettie was a pain in the butt and as hateful as a striped snake, but I'd have never pegged her for a drug dealer, no sir, not me.”

“So what happened?” Lisa asked.

“Well,” Perry said, “it looks—”

“Meth is volatile,” Hatcher interrupted, “and the fumes can be very flammable, and she screwed up and, boom, there's an explosion and a fire, and it's curtains. End of story. We bring in the feds to take these damn things apart—that's how serious it is. You brew this poison, bad things can happen to the chef.”

“Thanks for the tutorial,” Joe said.

“Poor lady,” Lisa said. She sighed, raked a hank of hair behind her ear. “I never cared for her, but you have to hate it for the old kook.”

“It wasn't pretty,” Perry said. “We didn't find her for several days, and between the fire and all those animals, well, you get the picture.” He peered at the floor for a moment.

“Ouch.” Joe grimaced. “You guys certain it was her?”

“I mean, who else would it be, Joe?” Perry shifted his weight, and the hardwood boards creaked. “She's not around and hasn't been seen for well over a week, the remains—the little bit we can find—are in a shack on her property, the jewelry that didn't completely melt is similar to hers, and it's a female.”

“How about dental?” Joe asked.

“We, well, a lot of her was either burned or destroyed or has gone missing. I'll check. But where would we find her records? She had the gold tooth when she moved here years ago from St. Louis, and I'd wager she's never darkened the door of a dentist's office since.”

“Then you should run DNA.” Joe was firm.

“There's a great idea,” Hatcher said. “Let's waste time and taxpayers' money and clog a lab that's already months behind and can't get us what we need on
important
cases so we can confirm information we already know for certain.” He narrowed his eyes. “The way I figure it, if she's not dead, we'll all know soon enough when she shows up at the grocery store or the Friday night square dance. Right?”

“Or the board of supervisors' meeting or my office or Delegate Armstrong's office or at the phone company to bitch about the static in her line,” Perry cracked. “Joe, what more could there be to it?” he asked. “She was a mean old fruitcake who lived with a bunch of stray animals and could worry the horns off a brass billy goat. Nothing's missing so far as we can tell, nothing's hinky, and maybe a meth habit would explain why she was so contrary.”

“People get killed in drug deals every day,” Joe noted. “It's possible there
is
more to it.”

“Like what?” Lisa asked. She was looking at her husband but noticed Agent Hatcher in the periphery, staring at her.

“I don't know. Maybe Lane's right. It's just a shock.” Joe stood straighter, folded his arms across his chest. “I don't guess DNA would really tell us much, especially in light of the info you guys already have. It's…well…it's hard to believe, but it's hard to believe that
friends you've known for decades are embezzlers or child molesters or wholesale alcoholics, and we see it happen again and again, don't we? The deacon at your church arrested for a DUI, the Rotary Club president in a trailer park buying dope from some skank. Nothing should surprise us in this business.”

Perry nodded. “Right, you never know. But this seems clear to me. And to Agent Hatcher.”

“She got blown up,” Hatcher said curtly. “Fire and animals done the rest.”

“How much does the DNA cost?” Joe asked. “If there's no rush?”

“For heaven's sake, Joe,” Lisa scolded him. “Haven't we wasted enough time and money on Lettie VanSandt already? You especially.”

Perry raised his hands, fingers gaped, palms uncovered. “Okay, Joe, sure, if it'll make you happy, we'll send the remains for an analysis. Whatever. I suppose if we can't make a visual ID, it's technically called for. We'll do it by the book.”

“Appreciate it,” Joe told him.

“I reckon you already know she left you everything and put you in charge of her affairs. You can ride out there with me first chance you have, and we'll collect her hairbrush and toothbrush. That's what they always request at the lab. I'll pull her prints from her concealed weapon application, but from what we saw, there won't be nothing they can do along those lines. I didn't see anything left that looked like fingers.”

Joe glanced at his wife, then at the sheriff. “I'm her executor, but how do you know that?”

“We did a walk-through at her house,” Perry answered, unperturbed. “Found her dead and burned, so it follows we'd investigate. Her will was wrote on a sheet of yellow legal paper. It was on a bedroom table. Left you everything and put you in charge.” He smiled. “Quite a gift, huh? A pack of cur dogs and a bunch of starvin' cats. All yours now, Joe.” The sheriff chuckled. “Plus her three or four acres and her run-down trailer. I don't envy you trying to administer that mess.”

“Man, the place is just lousy with animals,” Hatcher noted. He shook his head, amused. “I was expecting that Sarah McLachlan chick from the TV commercials to show up and start singing. That's how bad it is.”

“You must've found an old will,” Joe said, ignoring Hatcher. “We just did the paperwork here a couple weeks ago, and she left her estate to her son and the SPCA, not me.”

“Well, this was all in her handwriting, and it…I took it with me, so you can have the original. Maybe it is old. I'll leave that to you folks with the legal degrees to solve.”

“Was it dated?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” the sheriff answered. “But I don't recall the details. It was right recent, that much I remember.”

Joe sawed his teeth across his bottom lip. He touched his temple with his index finger. “Odd.”

“Why's it odd, Joe?” Lisa pressed him, clearly irritated. “Lettie was crazy as a loon, okay? She changed her will and rewrote all of her nonsensical corporate bylaws and tinkered with all the other assorted rubbish you drafted for her
every week
, like she was J. Paul Getty or Melinda Gates. Her life was
entirely
about signing meaningless documents and filing her own spite suits and harassing bag boys who didn't put her frozen hamburger and cans of white beans in the right sack. She was a legal hypochondriac. Jeez.”

Hatcher grinned.

“You're probably right,” Joe calmly said, but he didn't direct his answer to her or either of the men. His gaze was elsewhere, skipped everyone in the room. “But it is curious she'd suddenly do her own will when she loved to come in here and waste my time and thrived on the attention and the ceremony.”