Catherine Coulter - The Edge

"You're right, my jaw could use a rest."

She just smiled at me.

Whatever. I knew she was right. It was just that there was so much Jilly had to tell me. It could wait. It would be stupid if I got myself laid flat again. The people I called friends would never let me live it down.

I could hear Quinlan, another FBI agent, calling me a wimp in that easy dark voice of his. I drove into Paul and Jilly's driveway twenty minutes later. I shucked off my clothes, down to my boxer shorts, and was in bed only five minutes after that.

I dreamed I was a waiter in a nightclub, with a white towel over my arm, carrying a tray of drinks, but I couldn't remember who had ordered them. I just kept walking around this huge room, looking and looking, not knowing, and I was getting frantic. There were dozens of customer drink-tables, all of them circular, people crowded around them. There was Jilly, tap-dancing from one table to the next. She was dancing like a pro. People were whistling and clapping. She was also stark naked except for her black tap shoes. A man whose face I couldn't see clearly was running after her, holding a long cloak toward her, waving it at her actually.

When I woke up it was nearly nine o'clock the next morning. I hadn't slept so soundly since before I'd been blasted in Tunisia. For the first time I felt nearly back to normal. I stretched, flexed my muscles, even smiled at myself while I shaved. I didn't look like oatmeal anymore, thank God.

Paul wasn't home. I imagined he'd gone to the hospital to be with Jilly. I could speak to him there.

I was at the hospital a half hour later.

As I was turning the corner to the third-floor waiting room, I heard Maggie Sheffield's voice. "I can only tell you, Cotter, that someone hit Charlie Duck over the head and he died shortly after he managed to crawl over to Doc Lambert's house."

"You've got no clues? Nothing?"

"I'll just tell you that it's the damnedest thing, this murder of a harmless old man. It's not like this is Salem or Portland, for God's sake. This is Edgerton, small-town USA. I don't know if a murder has ever happened here before, but someone killed Charlie Duck and then ransacked his house."

I came into the waiting room to see the sheriff speaking to a young man I'd never seen before. He was about my age, on the short side, built like a bull-obviously a weightlifter-with a manner and look that were dangerous. Strange that a guy would think that, but it was true. I disliked him on sight.

"Cotter Tarcher," the man said and nodded to me. "You're Jilly's brother?"

"That's right. Ford MacDougal. And you're Cal's brother?"

"Yes. I forgot you met Cal. She went over to Paul's house and caught all of you there. You're coming to the party tonight? It's Miss Geraldine's birthday and we always celebrate every year. My folks decided that we'd go ahead, despite Charlie Duck's death."

"It was murder, Cotter," Maggie said.

"To be honest, I forgot all about it," I said. "Jilly's awake. I've been thinking about her." Cotter Tarcher looked dark from his dirt-black hair to the heavy growth of beard on his cheeks. I bet that women sensed danger in him and were drawn to it. At the same time they'd be wary, if they had half a brain. Cal had said that he let the women he dated do the driving, to make them feel like they had the power. It was a smart move on his part, the prick. He would need to mellow them out. I remembered that Jilly didn't like him either.

"Of course," Cotter said easily. "I saw Jilly just a little while ago. She's looking really good. She got one of the nurse's aides to wash her hair. She looks normal. It's amazing."

I said to Maggie, "I heard you talking about Charlie Duck. It really is a shock for a little town like Edgerton. Did you bring in the crime-lab people from Portland? They're top-notch. The medical examiner-Ted Leppra-is one of the best M.E.s on the West Coast."

She shook her head. "I know how he died. He got bashed on the head, his brain filled up with blood and smashed bone, and that was the end of him. I don't see any need for an M.E. to translate that for me in medicalese-it's a waste of time.

"Poor old Charlie. He's been here for at least fifteen years. The funeral's on Tuesday. Everyone will be there at the League's Christian church."

"The League?" I asked.

Maggie said, "The BITEASS League, remember? Since everyone in town is a member, the League keeps up one central place of worship. Different religions can have the building at different times. In the case of funerals, it's an interdenominational service. Representatives from all the religious groups will take a few moments to speak. Since old Charlie was an agnostic, everyone will get equal time. If he'd been a Baptist, say, they'd get the lion's share of the time. Come if you can, Mac. You can meet the rest of the folk in town.

"Or are you heading back to Washington? Since Jilly's awake again, there's no reason for you to stay, is there? Has she told you about what happened Tuesday night? Does it match your dream?"

"I'm going to speak to her about it right now," I said, wishing Maggie hadn't said anything about it in front of Cotter Tarcher. But in the long run I couldn't see that it would make any difference. Who cared if anybody thought I was nuts? As for Tarcher, he hadn't acted like an ass, at least not yet.

"I hope she'll talk to you," Maggie said to me. "When I was in there this morning, she claimed she didn't remember a thing. She acted shocked when I told her we were worried because it looked to Rob like she'd driven over the cliff on purpose. She didn't say another word. If there's something more, maybe she'll tell you, Mac."

I said, "Maybe nothing's going on, Maggie."

"I hope you're right. I'm just worried she might try to hurt herself again."

Cotter looked back and forth at each of us. "Try to drop by tonight, Mac. My parents would like to meet you." He shook my hand, harder than necessary, nodded to Maggie, gave me a look that said he could whip my ass anytime, and left. He was easy to dislike, on spec.

"Maggie," I said. "Were you invited over to Paul and Jilly's house on Tuesday night?"

"No. Why?"

"Laura Scott told me Paul and Jilly were expecting other people. She had to leave early, so she didn't know how many people or who they were."

Why did I have to know? It didn't matter. What mattered was speaking to Jilly, making sure that she was okay now, that she wasn't depressed or bent on trying to kill herself again.

I thought about Laura, about how I'd never before met a woman who drew me instantly as she had. No, I wasn't going back to Washington just yet. There was the Tarcher party tonight. It should prove interesting.

"Mac, before you go see Jilly, there's something else about Charlie Duck's murder, something that's really weird. I didn't want to say anything about it in front of Cotter, but hey, you're a cop too."

"You know something?"

"Yeah, but I don't know if it means anything. Someone killed Charlie, then ransacked his house. I've had my guy dust for fingerprints. I've made a search myself. I didn't find anything, nothing that might have been of interest to anyone. Whatever the murderer was looking for, he probably found it. He took the murder weapon with him."

She drew a deep breath. "Maybe you can help me figure this out. After Doc Lambert called me, he said that Charlie regained consciousness just a moment before he died."

My heart speeded up, I don't know why. I waited. "Doc Lambert said Charlie was real frantic, mumbled a whole lot of stuff, but the only thing he could really make out was 'a big wallop, too much, then they got me.' Doc Lambert said he died then. Does that make any sense to you?"

"Have the M.E. in Portland do an autopsy," I said. "Do it right now."