Charlaine Harris - Poppy Done to Death

“I sure will be glad to see you,” I said. “But you keep up with your signing schedule.” I was flattered and delighted that Robin would offer to do that, but at the same time, it scared me. Had we rushed into this comfortable intimacy? I had just adjusted to being alone in my widowhood when Robin had unexpectedly returned to Lawrenceton. It hadn’t taken long to resume our relationship of a few years ago. Though I hadn’t yet brought myself to discuss my doubts with Robin, I had been thinking the past couple of weeks that we might have hurried things too much. But the minute Robin had left for his convention, I’d missed him. Now I found myself looking forward to his return, not only for the pleasure of his physical presence but because I’d be glad to have his support and his insight- especially in matters regarding Phillip. After all, Robin had been a teenage boy once upon a time.

“I have to go sign some books,” Robin said gently.

The doorbell chimed. “And I have to go answer the door,” I told him. “Just let me know when you’re coming in, and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

“I left my car there so I could bring my mother back with me,” he reminded me. “Her plane gets in right after mine. I’ll call you when I’m back.”

When I remembered that Robin would not exactly be at my disposal when he returned, I was so distracted by my disappointment that I answered the door without looking through the peephole. That was a bad habit, and one I’d have to break. When I’d lived out in the country, I’d heard every visitor before they’d gotten to the door, and I’d had time to look out the window to find out who it was. Town living was different.

Bubba Sewell, my lawyer (and possibly my next state representative), was looming in my doorway. Cartland Sewell was a big man anyway, and he’d put on the pounds since he’d married my beautiful friend Lizanne.

“Is it true?” he asked.

“Hello. Glad to see you. Why don’t you come in,” I said, waving my hand down the hall. I knew I sounded pissed off, and I was.

“I’m a little too upset for the amenities, Aurora,” he said. When he was in the house, I got a better look at him. Bubba had been crying. I reminded myself to call him Cartland; since he’d gotten into politics, Cartland had been the name of choice.

“What’s put a bee in your bonnet?”

“Poppy,” he said. He seemed to have trouble getting the name out.

I looked at him for a long moment. “So the rumor is true.”

“Yeah, it’s true. I was actually thinking of…”

“You weren’t going to leave Lizanne?” I sounded every bit as horrified as I felt. “You idiot!”

Cartland looked as though he was thinking of slapping me. And I would almost have deserved it if he had; not that I think hitting is ever excusable, but I’d been unbearably tactless.

“Poppy was so wonderful,” he said. “She was so beautiful, and she was… in intimate moments… she, ah…”

“Don’t want to know,” I said. “Too much information!”

He looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry. But you just don’t know,” he said. “She was everything to me. I wanted her to run off with me.”

“Meaning an end to your political ambitions, your marriage, and your relationship with your children?”

“I could have patched things up politically, eventually,” he said, sounding as if he really believed it. “Lizanne and I don’t get along anyway. And how could she stop me from having a relationship with my own sons?”

“There’s still a lot you don’t know about Lizanne, if you believe that.”

“Roe, Lizanne is a great woman, and she’s beautiful and peaceful and she’s a good mother to the boys, but…” He waved his hands in frustration.

“But what?” I snapped.

“But Lizanne’s so dumb!” he said. It was as if the words had been ripped out of him.

I opened my mouth to rebut his blunt assessment, but I made myself think over what he’d said. Poppy hadn’t exactly been a rocket scientist, but she was shrewd, and practical, and a follower of world and local events. And she was articulate in voicing her ideas and opinions. That’s why she’d been tapped to be an Uppity Woman. Poppy was-had been-a very different animal than Lizanne, who admittedly had very limited interests. Lizanne’s intellectual boundaries had never seemed to bother any man before, as I reminded Cartland now.

“You know as well as I know, Roe, that being attracted to someone physically is not the same as being her constant companion.”

“But you’re not Lizanne’s constant companion. You go out almost every night to this or that meeting, and everyone knows you’re counting on a political future.”

“And the reason I did all that was at least partly to get away from Lizanne.”

“I’ve never heard of anyone running for office to avoid a spouse.” Cartland wanted to be our next state representative.

“I’ve done a lot of things lately I never thought I’d do.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I took a step away from him. “When did you last see Poppy?”

“I saw her last night. John David was going to be at some meeting, so I stopped by.”

“How’d you get in?”

“Went to the front door. I figured it might as well be an open visit, since it wasn’t going to last that long, not with John David due back within the hour. I helped her bathe Chase,” he said tenderly.

I could have beaten him on the head with a baseball bat. I was willing to bet Lizanne could have used some help bathing Brandon and Davis. Why did this man think he was any smarter than his wife? And I’d been considering voting for this jerk!

“When did you leave?” I asked after an appreciable pause to regain control.

“I guess about… eight-thirty. She was wearing a bathrobe, since she’d gotten wet bathing Chase,” he said dreamily. “Her hair was all curly from the humidity in the bathroom. She told me she’d think about divorcing John David. I think she would have done it.”

“And who do you think killed her?” I asked, conversationally throwing cold water on his fantasies.

“Her husband,” Cartland said, and he didn’t look like an overweight lawyer anymore. He looked dangerous. “I know it was John David.”

“And how do you know that?”

“She must have told him,” Cartland said reasonably. “She must have told him she was going to leave him for me, and he killed her for it.”

“Where were you all morning?”

“Oh for God’s sake, Roe! I went to my office and worked until about eleven, when I left to speak at the Rotary Club in Mecklinburg.” Mecklinburg was about fifteen miles away. “I was there, in front of about forty people, for the next hour and a half.”

I was going to have to talk to Lizanne soon, and I dreaded it. Those embroidered straps were still stuffed into my purse, and if Lizanne hadn’t gone to Poppy’s house and thrown them down in the driveway to let Poppy know she knew the situation, I was a Jersey girl.

“Okay, get out.”

“What?”

“Get out. I’ve listened to as much as I’m going to.”

Cartland looked stunned. “But Roe, I was trying to explain-”

“Go to hell. You’ve just told me you’ve been cheating on your wife, who is a good friend of mine, with the wife of my brother-in-law; and you are evidently assuming that your wife would be happy to raise two sons of yours on her own, while you raise John David’s boy! You actually think Poppy would have left John David? You’re a moron! Get out! And keep your grief to yourself!”

I had herded Cartland to the front door, snapping at his heels like a sheepdog, and now he left in something of a hurry. I slammed the door shut and glowered at it.