Nancy Bartholomew - Your Cheatin Heart

"Come on, let's get us a hot dog," he said. He didn't answer the question.

"Must've been personal," I murmured to myself, not that there was any logic involved in that deduction. Just call it woman's intuition. I wondered who the "she" was that he'd said would understand "no."

I wondered about it the whole way up to the counter. I placed my order, almost without having to think, and went back to speculating about Weathers. I knew what I was doing. I was putting off the inevitable. I was going to have to talk about Sheila. I could feel it building up in me like a storm. My mother's intuition told me that the voice on the other end of the phone had meant to scare me, and also to threaten my daughter.

If Weathers knew what I was doing, he didn't comment. He seemed lost in his own thoughts. We took our hot dogs and walked to a booth across the room, under a chart showing a World War II aircraft carrier. He carefully unwrapped his hot dog, grabbed a couple of napkins out of the dispenser and handed me one. Then he focused on eating.

We sat for a couple of minutes in complete silence, until I couldn't stand it any longer. There was no one in the booths nearby, no other conversation to listen in on, and no distractions to keep me from talking.

"So, how'd you come to be at the Golden Stallion the night I auditioned?" I asked. A harmless question.

"Is that what you called me to ask?" He quit eating and sat perfectly still, waiting.

I felt myself turn red. "No, I'm just making polite conversation, that's all." He still didn't say anything. "I mean, you haven't been in since that night, that I'm aware of. I just wondered."

"Keep careful track of the Golden Stallion patrons, do you?"

I gave up. Shook my head in disgust and took a sip of my soda, only to have it misfire and go up my nose. I choked and coughed, my eyes watering with the effort to regain control of my windpipe. He laughed. Laughed so hard, I finally had to join in, and we laughed until I realized I was losing control and on the verge of tears.

"Okay," he said, suddenly reaching across the table, his fingers stretching to cover mine, "why did you call?"

"Someone threatened my daughter. I know you may not believe that, that's why I hung up. I just didn't know who else to call and I had to talk to someone."

He straightened up, his fingers edging back into his lap. It was business now;

"What do you mean?" he asked.

I looked back at him, right into his eyes. He was really listening, and so I told him about the phone call. My voice shook, my hands trembled, and I felt cold, even though the steam from hundreds of hot dogs filled the tiny restaurant. I was so afraid.

He leaned back against the booth, his head cocked slightly to the left, listening as I went through the details of the phone call. He didn't laugh at me or make light of the threat. He just nodded, as if he was all too familiar with threatening phone calls.

"So, do you think this is something I should take seriously, or was it a crank call?"

"I don't know," he said. "Could be either. I don't think you oughta go getting totally paranoid, but I don't think you can just dismiss it, either." He smiled slightly. "You tick anybody off lately?"

I almost came up off of my seat. "Of course I ticked someone off, Weathers," I said. "Someone's so ticked at me that they're trying to make me out to be a murderer! And if that fails, they're gonna flat out kill me! I know that's not exactly what you want to hear, but it's God's honest truth." I didn't give him the opportunity to deny it.

"The whole Spivey clan must be angry with me. The grieving widow is especially angry, on account of Jimmy left his share of the business to me. Vernell can't be too pleased, although he sure is putting on a good show of it. He thought he was rid of me. Now I'm his business partner and maybe, he thinks, his brother's killer. So, I'd say, in answer to your question, yeah, I got a whole slew of people ticked off at me." I leaned back against the booth, breathless.

"All right," he said. "Let's set the record straight, again. I am only interested in finding out who killed Jimmy Spivey. I have no personal vendetta against you. I am working just as hard to find the innocent parties in this investigation as I am to find the guilty ones. You need to quit looking at me as if I'm your enemy, Maggie. We'll get a lot further if you start trusting me."

I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to trust this man. "Well, it just seems as if I'm the only person you're investigating."

"We've covered that, Maggie. I'm not 'investigating' you. I'm asking questions."

A crowd of teenagers came through the door, out of school and hungry, laughing and talking as if they hadn't a care in the world. For a moment, Weathers allowed himself to be distracted, but then he was right back at it.

"How's Vernell get along with Sheila?" he asked.

"Fine. Why?"

"Well, you said the voice on the phone was male. You mentioned Vernell was probably plenty angry at you. I'm just asking questions, Maggie."

"Oh, Vernell's harmless," I said. "He wasn't a nice husband. He treated me like a dog, but he's a good daddy. He wouldn't harm a hair on Sheila's head."

"Maybe not, but you're the one brought his name up."

So I had, but I was only trying to make a point. Vernell wouldn't harm a fly, would he?

"Have you talked to Vernell?" I asked.

"Sure." Nothing more. The professional mask was back in place.

"Where was he when Jimmy died? Could he have done it?"

Weathers studied me for a moment, making up his mind. "Vernell says he was on his way back into town from Stokesdale. We haven't been able to confirm or deny that yet."

Vernell didn't have an alibi. But that didn't mean a thing. I flashed on Vernell in the Golden Stallion, the night after Jimmy's death, drunk and decked out in his blue polyester leisure suit. Sure was a funny way to show grief for the loss of your only brother.

"But Vernell would never hurt Sheila," I said.

"Nobody's hurt Sheila," he answered.

"It's gotta be somebody else."

"Probably is," he said. His face was closed and I couldn't read him.

"Well, we've got to make sure she's safe," I said. "Shouldn't you have somebody watch her?"

Weathers shook his head. "That's TV, Maggie. We don't have enough manpower to put an officer on everybody who receives a threatening phone call. I don't know any police department that does. Unless someone actually tries to hurt Sheila, our hands are tied. But," he said, before I could start in, "that doesn't mean that I'm not taking this seriously."

"Then what are you going to do about it?"

"We, Maggie," he said. "What are we going to do about it. You've got to talk to Sheila, get her to be cautious. Then you've got to try and help me figure out who would want to scare you. Because that's what I think this is, an attempt to frighten you. We just need to know why."

There was something about Marshall Weathers that made me believe what he was saying. Not just believe him, but feel comforted and reassured by his words. He knew we could figure this all out. He seemed so sure of himself. He didn't seem upset or even very worried. It was as if he dealt with this kind of thing every day, and of course, he did. This wasn't the worst thing he'd ever heard of, but he wasn't dismissing it, either. He was making me feel like I had some control over what happened. The voice on the phone had been trying to scare me. In reality, no one had hurt Sheila, and I could help make sure that no one did.

"Okay," I said. "Fair enough. I'll talk to Sheila and I'll keep talking to you."

Weathers nodded, satisfied.

"I still don't think Vernell has anything to do with this," I said. "He's my ex, and by rights I could hate him, but he's harmless."