Charlaine Harris - Sweet and Deadly aka Dead Dog

“Save that for Leila,” she said callously.

“Leila?” Tom asked. “What is this about Leila?”

His vanity, so badly bruised by his fiancée, was fully aroused. Catherine could tell she wasn’t going to get out of answering his question.

“Oh, she likes you,” she said reluctantly, regretting she had introduced the subject. “I can’t believe you haven’t noticed it.” But he hadn’t, that was plain. He stroked his villainous mustache in a pleased way.

“She’s a pretty girl,” he said thoughtfully.

“And just out of high school, and never been out of Lowfield,” Catherine said warningly. Now shut up, she told herself. You’ve already made one mistake.

She didn’t want to compound it by being fosterer and confidant to a relationship she thought would surely end in trouble. Tom was vain and immature; and Leila was too far gone on him before any relationship had even begun, and so very young.

Who am I, God? Catherine asked herself harshly. Quit predicting. You’re not exactly the world’s authority on men and women. How many dates have you had lately?

“Didn’t you go out on Friday?” she asked Tom, changing the subject so she could stop feeling guilty. “Have a date?”

“No,” he said sharply.

“I wasn’t spying,” she said indignantly. “I heard your car, and you know how hard it is to mistake any other car for yours.” (A defensive jab; Tom’s Volkswagen was notably noisy.) “I noticed it because I was trying to go to sleep.”

Tom relaxed in a cloud of pungent smoke. “Sure you won’t have some of this?”

“No,” she said impatiently.

“It’s pretty good stuff for homegrown,” he said. “No, I didn’t have a date. I went out to buy this. It’s not easy to set up when you don’t know anybody. Took me forever.”

“Did you see-anything?” Leona had been killed Friday night, the doctors said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, Tom. Anything?”

“You know what Lowfield is like on Friday night. I saw the high school kids riding around and around over the same streets. I saw the blacks who live out in the country coming into town to drink. I barely saw Cracker Thompson” (who was something in the position of the village idiot) “riding around on his bicycle without any reflectors, wearing dark clothes. If that’s what you mean by ‘anything.’ I presume,” said Tom, drawing out the words lovingly, “you mean, did I see Leona Gaites dragged out of her house screaming, by a huge man with a two-by-four.”

Catherine shuddered. Though Sheriff Galton had told her that Leona was beaten to death, the reminder conjured up the same horrible pictures: Leona’s outstretched hand; the flies.

Tom observed her shudder with bright eyes. “Jerry told me that something heavy and wooden was probably the weapon, a baseball bat or something like that-the traditional blunt instrument. Anyway”-and Tom hunted around for his point-“no, I didn’t see ‘anything.’”

Foolish, Catherine said to herself. I was foolish to ask. That must be good dope. Maybe I should have taken it. I could have had hours of entertainment just sitting and laughing to myself.

“But I might have,” Tom said suddenly. “Maybe I can use that.”

“What do you mean?”

But Tom waved a hand extravagantly and laughed. Catherine eyed him as he slid lower in his seat. His spider legs were sprawled out in front of him. If he relaxes any more he’ll pour off that couch, she thought.

“Tom,” she said uneasily.

“My lady speaks?”

“Don’t…” she hesitated. She was not exactly sure of how to put it. “Don’t let anyone think you know more than you do.”

“Little Catherine!” He grinned at her impishly.

“I’m not kidding, Tom. Look at what happened to my parents. Look what happened to Leona…though the sheriff doesn’t seem to think it’s related.” She frowned, still not satisfied that the sheriff was right; though from his mysterious hints she knew there was something about Leona’s activities that Galton felt had led directly to her death.

“I know more than James Galton, that’s for sure,” Tom said, with a whisker-licking effect. “Guess who’s selling dope in Lowfield?”

Catherine raised her eyebrows interrogatively.

“Jimmy Galton, Junior!” Tom laughed.

“Oh no,” Catherine murmured in real distress. If Tom knew that, who else did? All the kids in Lowfield, of course. Poor Sheriff Galton. Did he know? In his job, how could he avoid knowing? She wondered if Leona had known James Junior’s occupation, too. And whether the wads of cash found in Leona’s house were hush money paid by one of the Galtons to ensure she kept quiet. Money that was now coming to her, Catherine remembered, sickened.

“I wish you hadn’t told me that, Tom,” she said bitterly.

“I’ll comfort you, little Catherine.”

“The hell you will. I’m going home.”

“Oh, stay and have another beer.” And he gave her his charming grin. “We can pool our resources.” His eyebrows waggled suggestively.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, laughing in spite of herself. “Right now I don’t feel like I have any resources to pool. Thanks for the beer.”

Tom made a gentlemanly attempt to rise.

“No, don’t get up, you look like you’ll fall down if you do. I know where the door is. See you tomorrow.”

“Yes,” Tom said cheerfully. “I’ve got to write Leona’s obit.”

On that happy note, Catherine shut the screen door behind her.

She had to lengthen her stride to hit the stepping-stones that linked their back doors. The hedges between the houses joined the hedges running down the sides of the yard, making an H of greenery. Her parents had planted it for privacy from the street on one side and from neighbors on the other; and to separate the office and home backyards. It had gotten out of hand, and Catherine reminded herself, as she went through the gap planned for her father’s passage, that she needed to take care of it.

I ought to do it myself, she thought. Then she looked down at her arms, too pink and tender from exposure to the sun the day before, and decided to hire someone.

What are these bushes, anyway? she wondered. She rubbed some leaves between her fingers, which of course told her nothing. She was trying to avoid thinking about the Galtons, Senior and Junior. Catherine stared at the growth blankly. I hate this damn hedge, she thought. I’ll cut the whole thing down. Both yards are open anyway, and what do I do in the backyard that anyone shouldn’t see?

The hedge was added to her mental list of things to change, which already numbered curtains, bedspread, clothes, and shoes.

It made her feel a little better, planning for the future.

When all this is over, she thought vaguely.

As she entered her back door, she heard the front doorbell ringing. No rest for the wicked, she told herself grumpily. What’ll I get this time? An interrogation? A chicken casserole?

In this disagreeable frame of mind, she swung open the front door. Finally, her caller was Randall.

“ WANT TO GO out to the levee with me?”

“Okay,” Catherine said smoothly, dancing a little jig inside. “Come in while I straighten myself up.”

She had only seen him in the conservative suits he wore at the Gazette . He was wearing khakis and a T-shirt. He looked incredibly muscular for a newspaper editor. He looked wonderful.

I am smitten, Catherine said silently as she gave her hair a hasty brushing in the bedroom. How long has it been since I was smitten?

She remembered as she touched up her makeup.

She had overheard the young man through her dorm window. He had been talking to a fraternity brother after he had deposited Catherine at the door.