Charlaine Harris - Sweet and Deadly aka Dead Dog

Pouring them out seemed an unnecessary refinement, but she was determined to do everything right.

When Catherine came in with the beer, Randall and Tom were discussing rearrangement of the front page to handle the murder story. The paper only came out on Wednesdays, so there was plenty of time to think about it.

After she had handed the glasses around and resumed her seat, she realized the men were eyeing her with longing-for her story. Randall Gerrard and Tom Mascalco had print in their blood-the only thing they had in common, Catherine thought.

Randall had inherited the Gazette when his elder brother, for whom it had been intended, had shaken that dust of Lowfield off his shoes and headed for the fertile fields of Atlanta. In fact, Randall had abandoned a promising career doing something in Washington (Catherine couldn’t remember exactly what), to come home when his father died.

However deep Randall’s regret over that lost career might be, his raising had implanted in him enough of the newsman’s passion for a story, and enough love for the Delta, to bend his will toward building up the Gazette .

Tom had worked for Randall for three months. He was younger than Catherine. The recent glut of journalism majors had made him glad to accept a job, even at the Gazette .

Tom was possessed, Catherine had observed, by a Woodward-and-Bernstein complex, which had led to some interesting clashes with Randall. Tom was restless with hunger for big stories, scandals. Catherine sometimes felt she had a tiger in her backyard since she had rented Tom her father’s old office to live in.

“I’m all right, if you want to ask questions,” she said with a sigh. After all, she thought, I’m a newspaper person myself. In a rinky-dink kind of way.

“You sure?” Randall had the grace to ask.

“Yes.”

Catherine knew that Tom had only been held in check by Randall’s presence. His pad and pencil had been ready in his hand when he knocked on the door.

In a clear monotone, she went through her story again. She wished it were more exciting, since she had had to tell it so often.

“Galton. Jerry Selforth,” Tom mumbled when she had finished, scribbling a list of people he wanted to interview.

“Who were her friends, Catherine?” he asked, pencil poised to write.

He looked up impatiently when she didn’t reply.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly, surprised. “I don’t think Miss Gaites had friends. She didn’t go to church or to the bridge club, or anything like that. She told my father she saw enough people at the office every day to make her sick of them.”

And Catherine had to admit at that moment that her own attitude was much the same.

The thought of becoming a Leona Gaites frightened her.

“When was the last time you saw Leona?” Randall asked in his slow voice.

“When she helped me go through the things left in Father’s office; things Jerry Selforth didn’t want to buy. They had to be moved out of the house before Tom moved in. We put them up in the attic over there. Some old filing cabinets. I think a few other things.”

“Not since then?” Tom asked. “I thought you had known her for years.”

“Yes, I have-had. But that doesn’t mean I liked her.”

The two men seemed startled by this statement, which Catherine had delivered with bland finality. She returned their look impassively. They had not expected this from her, she saw. She really must have presented a skimmed-milk image.

“Have you talked to Jerry Selforth, Tom?” Randall asked.

“Just for a second. He hasn’t done the autopsy. The pathologist in Morene won’t get here till late this afternoon. From a preliminary examination, he doesn’t think she was raped. She wasn’t killed at the shack, either. She was already dead when she was dumped there. He thinks she’d been dead since early last night.”

“Why?” Randall asked himself.

Catherine’s head swung up. She stared at him blindly.

A reason formed in her head. It caused her such pain that she couldn’t recognize it for a moment. Something thumped and shuddered inside her. An enormous wound, compounded of deep grief and unreleased anger, just beginning to heal, broke open afresh.

“Did she have money?” Tom was asking. He sounded far away.

“Oh no,” Randall said. “If she had, she kept it a secret and lived like a woman who has to be careful.”

Shuddering and screeching, about to be born.

“My parents,” Catherine whispered.

“What, Catherine?”

“My parents.”

“What did she say?” Tom’s voice; an irritating buzz, like a horsefly.

A murmur from Randall.

“I thought they died in a car wreck.” Tom, clearer now.

“They were murdered,” said Catherine.

“And you think Leona’s death ties in with theirs?” Randall asked quietly.

His voice steadied her.

“Oh yes, I think it has to be connected,” she said.

Tom looked bewildered, and angry about his bewilderment. They were talking about something he hadn’t found out yet.

“Their car was tampered with,” she told him. “They were on their way to spend the weekend with me. I was working at a weekly paper in Arkansas, my first job out of college…After they crossed the bridge into Arkansas, their car went out of control. Something-” and here Catherine, incurably machine-stupid, shook her head helplessly-“something was loosened with a wrench, deliberately. The Arkansas police investigated the service station they had stopped at there. Sheriff Galton looked here.”

“They never caught who did it?” Tom was incredulous.

“No,” she said bleakly. “How could they? Anyone could have gotten into our garage, Father didn’t lock it. And it must have been done here. Why would a service-station attendant in Arkansas do anything like that? They were nice people…I met them.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against the couch.

She heard Tom rise, and knew it was because he was too excited to sit. I’ve made one person happy today, she thought.

“I’m going to call Galton,” he said eagerly. Without another word, he stalked out the back door.

She forgot him as soon as he was gone.

I’ve been waiting for this, Catherine realized. Somewhere in this little town he’s been waiting, too, free and alive . Everyone forgot about my parents after a while. But now that he’s killed again, he’s drawn attention to himself. I’ve been waiting…She knew it now and was amazed she had not known it before. She was frightened to discover that this blood lust existed in quiet Catherine Linton.

But it was anger released. It felt good.

She opened her eyes to meet Randall’s. He looked thoughtful.

“Go to bed,” he advised gently, and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

She could hear him let himself out as she went obediently to the soft waiting bed. She didn’t wonder at his sliding into the position of man to her woman, instead of employer to employee. She accepted the transition without question. As she turned over on her stomach and wrapped her arms around the pillow, she was able to forget her parents, forget Leona Gaites, for the moment before sleep swamped her.

CATHERINE SLEPT DREAMLESSLY until morning.

She woke slowly; saw early morning light seeping through the curtains, heard birds twittering faintly outside.

She felt weak but at peace, the way an invalid feels after a long and debilitating illness has passed its crisis. She turned on her side to peer out the gap in the curtains, and when she had absorbed what she could see of the morning, her gaze transferred to the curtains themselves.