Рон Гуларт - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

When Freddy was brought in, I realized just how serious our situation was. The man I loved was in jail for murder. Even my loser first husband Roy hadn’t ever been in jail.

Freddy looked scared. We picked up the receivers and pressed them to our ears. “How ya doin’, babe?” he asked with a weak smile.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Loretta’s okay, too. I got her back at our place. Minnie’s gonna handle the funeral arrangements.” Freddy nodded. “I called Sam Barfield and asked him to represent you. He’s gonna come by tonight or first thing tomorrow.” There was one brief moment when I found myself wondering, Freddy, you didn’t do it, did you? Of course not. I couldn’t doubt Freddy’s innocence.

“Who could’ve killed her?” we both asked at the same instant.

“Patsy, don’t take this wrong,” Freddy began. “I’m sad about Eaudelein. Yesterday I could’ve told you that if her guts was on fire, I wouldn’t a spit on her to put ’em out. But, hell, Patsy, I didn’t want her to die. I keep thinkin’ about when we first met, and when Loretta was little. I used to love her. She was Loretta’s mama for Pete’s sake.” I listened, watching Freddy’s face.

“They say I killed Eaudelein because she was gonna take Loretta away from me. They don’t understand. Eaudelein would’ve come to her senses. I wouldn’t have killed her, no matter what she did.”

“Freddy,” I broke in. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I know you. We just gotta figure out who killed her. Do you have any idea?”

“Eaudelein had a habit of pissin’ people off, but I don’t know of anybody who hated her enough to kill her.”

Freddy was thinking now, not feeling sorry for himself. That was good.

“Was she seein’ anybody?”

“Well,” he said slowly, “she’d been stranger than usual lately. She was real peculiar about when I picked up Loretta. She didn’t want me just stopping by to see Loretta without asking. I figured she was seein’ somebody and didn’t want me to know. When she started talking about not letting me see Loretta, I started worrying that her new guy might live out of town. Maybe she was fixin’ to move away with him or something.”

The deputy, Steve, opened the door and said something to Freddy. “I gotta go now, babe. Hang in there.”

Hang in there. That was my Freddy, worrying about me. I picked up my purse and headed home. At least I had something to go on now. Eaudelein had a new boyfriend. Loretta hadn’t said a word about that.

It was the first thing I asked her about when I got home. She had been on the phone when I got there but hung up quickly as I walked through the front door. She’d been crying again. I sat down next to her on the couch. I wanted to reach over and put my arms around her, but she was such a prickly pear. She didn’t like me, so I wasn’t going to push myself on her.

“I stopped at the Kentucky Fried and grabbed us a bucket of extra crispy. Let’s go eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Honey, you got to eat.” Loretta was no match for me. She might have had the rest of the adults in Barrow scared of her, but I drove a schoolbus. I ate kids like her for lunch, sack and all.

“Sweetie,” I went on, ignoring her attitude, “I know you don’t feel like it, but we’ve got a lot to do. I can’t have you fainting from lack of food. Eat. It’ll make you feel better, and you’ll be able to think better, too.”

She followed me into the kitchen. We polished off the entire bucket between us and made big dents in the coleslaw and potatoes.

“Now,” I said, clearing the plates away, “who was your mother seeing?”

Loretta looked uneasy. “Nobody,” she said.

“Loretta,” I said, daring her to lie again.

“She didn’t want me to tell anybody.” She was working it out. “It was Daddy’s partner, Hank. Mama said Daddy’d freak if he knew. She and Hank wanted to keep it a secret till they figured out what to do.”

Hank? That was so hard to believe. Hank and Freddy were best friends. They owned the Bait and Tackle Shop together. Hank had stuck by Freddy all through the divorce, siding with him, commiserating with him. Hank would never go near Eaudelein.

“Loretta, are you sure?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” she said earnestly. “If she was going out last night, it would have been with him. She always went out when I was with Daddy or over at a friend’s house.”

“When did she start seeing Hank?”

“About three months ago. I didn’t find out until about a month ago. I came home early from a friend’s house just as he was leavin’. Hank was all freaked about it. Mama just laughed. She told me later that Hank didn’t want Daddy to know and that we’d better keep it quiet, just till everything got sorted out and they could tell Daddy.”

This was just great. Freddy’s ex and his best friend. If Freddy’d been bitter before, he’d swear off matrimony forever now. What this was gonna do to his friendship with Hank, and their business, was beyond me. I’d be really pissed if I were him.

Then I started thinking. Hank didn’t have an alibi for last night. Hank was the last person to see Eaudelein alive. Could he have killed her?

“Loretta, I gotta go see Hank.” I was headed for the door before she could formulate a response.

“Wait,” she yelled as I pushed open the door. “I’m coming, too.”

“No, Loretta. You stay here by the phone. If your daddy calls, don’t tell him where I am.” Oh good, I thought, now I’m a liar, too.

Hank wasn’t at the bait shop. The door had a sign, hastily scrawled, that read: “Closed due to death.”

I headed on down to the lake where Hank had a double-wide. Hank was thirty-five and had never been married. He lived alone on the lake, where he kept his Ranger bass boat lovingly housed in a covered boat dock. The boathouse and bass boat had cost Hank more than his lake property and the double-wide. Hank lived to fish. He was a tall, quiet man who had always seemed a bit awkward around women. I’d seen him many a time, chatting it up with a male customer about fish, or what bait to use. As soon as a woman so much as pulled up to the gas pumps outside, he’d clam up. He was only a little less bashful around me.

He was walking up the hill from the dock when I got out of my car. His head was down, and he carried his tackle box with him. I waited till he got closer, then called out, “What’s the matter, fish not bitin’?” Hank was startled and turned a bright red.

“Aw, I just thought fishing might take my mind off things. You know how that goes, I guess.”

“No, Hank, I don’t. I’ve been forced to stay right here dealin’ with Loretta and gettin’ your buddy Freddy a lawyer.”

Hank’s blush crept down his neck, below his bushy black beard. His ears were burning, too. I was angry, but I didn’t want to blow any chance of getting information from him by losing it.

“Loretta told me you’ve been seein’ Eaudelein. She said you saw her last night.” I just laid it there between us and waited.

“Oh, Patsy. Gawd dawg.” Hank sighed and wiped his hand over his face. “Yeah, it’s true. Gawd, I feel like such a heel. I didn’t mean nobody any pain. Eaudelein, she just kept comin’ around and comin’ around, talkin’ and flirtin’ with me.” He paused and fiddled with the latch on his tackle box.

“She told me she liked me. She wanted us to go out. I told her no at first, but she had such a way about her.” When Eaudelein wanted something, she got it all right. Hank, with his lack of experience with women, would have been no match for Eaudelein. I waited for him to go on.

“I never had a woman do that to me before.” He looked like a stupid schoolboy. He’d fallen in love. “I didn’t know what to do about it. It was killin’ me. I felt like dirt every time I was around Freddy. I wanted to tell him, but I never could find the right time.”