Сандра Браун - Thick as Thieves

Ledge had gotten no farther than the doorway leading into the rest of the house when Arden’s words stopped him cold, with the exception of his heartbeat, which spiked.

He took a moment to school his features before turning around. She had remained exactly as she’d been, except that now her hands were on the table, clasped so tightly her knuckles were white. She seemed to have braced herself to hear whatever was coming, no matter how unsavory it might be.

He steeled himself and, without inflection, asked, “What do you want to know?”

“Were you selling marijuana that night?”

“No. I told you, I was framed.”

“By whom?”

He questioned the wisdom of full disclosure, but reasoned that if he was honest on some points, he could hedge on the more consequential ones.

He said, “You got peeved because I was unreachable today, but other than that question about Crystal, which was obvious fishing about my love life—”

“You flatter yourself.”

“—you didn’t ask why I couldn’t be reached.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“If I don’t, it’ll sound worse coming from somebody else.”

“Does it relate to what we’re supposed to be talking about?”

“Roundaboutly.”

“Well?”

“I spent the better part of the day in jail.”

She reacted as though he’d told her that Martians had landed. He returned to the table and resumed his seat across from her. “I was arrested after getting into a scuffle.”

She recovered enough to ask, “With…?”

“The district attorney.” Judging by how flabbergasted she looked, he thought her reaction was genuine.

“Where did this altercation take place?”

“In his office at the courthouse.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Who started it?”

“Me.”

“What in the world were you thinking?”

“I was thinking of beating the crap out of him.”

“Over what?”

“We go way back. Bitter dislike for each other. We’ve had an ongoing grudge since we were kids.”

“What provoked you today?”

“That’s personal and irrelevant.”

“I doubt that.”

He frowned. “Enough to say, he’s a sneaky bastard. He plays dirty pool and pulls dirty tricks. I thought he might be the one in cahoots with you on this house business.”

“I’m not in cahoots with anybody, and I don’t know the district attorney. What’s his name?”

Looking directly into her eyes to test her reaction, he said, “Rusty Dyle.”

“I remember a Sheriff Dyle from when I was little.”

“Mervin. Now deceased. Rusty is his son. Ever run across him?”

“I wouldn’t have had occasion to.”

“Hmm.” He continued to watch her closely. She seemed curious, interested, but didn’t appear to be lying.

“You want to know about that night I was arrested?” he said. “It was Rusty who put the weed in my car. I can’t prove it. I don’t know how he managed to do it without my knowledge, but I’m certain he was behind it.

“I don’t know if he bribed those two deputies who arrested me, or if he tipped them anonymously, but it makes no difference. He saw to it that I got caught with enough evidence to make it look like I was dealing. I wasn’t. God as my witness, Arden.”

Looking startled, she angled back in her chair.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No. I do. It’s just, that’s the first time you’ve called me by name.”

Her name had been constantly pinballing inside his head for the past couple of days, so it surprised him now to realize that he hadn’t addressed her by it. But he didn’t comment on it. What was he supposed to say? That he’d sighed her name, moaned it, in more than a few lurid fantasies?

She indicated his cheekbone. “That looks more serious than a scuffle.”

He drew a breath, let it out. “It was.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It’s a dull roar. The whiskey helped.”

She pushed her glass across the table toward him. “You’re welcome to the rest.”

“No, thanks. I’ve done all the bingeing I’m going to do tonight.”

“Well, you did have a bugger of a day.”

“Jail, you mean?”

She nodded.

“I was left to stew for several hours. Wasn’t that bad.”

“Did you post bail?”

“No, Rusty had a change of heart. Declined to press charges.”

“That was decent of him.”

He scoffed. “Decent, my ass. It was self-serving.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said grimly. “But I’m sure I’ll find out.”

“Dirty pool.”

“Count on it.”

He wondered if now was the time to tell her that he suspected Rusty of being the party surveilling her house every night. If he did, though, she would press him to explain why he would think that. He couldn’t tell her without wading into the deep end. He could get in over his head real fast.

And he would be inviting more trouble for himself and everyone around him if he pointed the finger at Rusty, and the accusation was later proven to be false.

For a while neither of them pursued the topic, then Arden said, “Back to that night before Easter, were you locked up?”

“For the next several nights, in fact. I wasn’t arraigned until Wednesday of the following week. They kept me in a holding cell. Old-fashioned. Off to one side of the squad room. Uncle Henry came as soon as he was notified and tried to bail me out. They gave him the run-around. He was beside himself.

“For my part, I was livid, because I knew Rusty had set me up. I already had one strike against me. Who would believe me over the sheriff’s son? I spent that first night thinking up ways to eviscerate him. Finally I exhausted myself and fell asleep.

“The next morning, I woke up to a lot of chatter and activity. The squad room was buzzing. Human body parts had been discovered by early-morning fishermen in the root system of a grove of cypresses on the lakeshore. The remains were eventually identified as Brian Foster’s.”

“The man my father allegedly killed.”

“Yeah.”

He couldn’t tell her how anguished he’d been to hear about that gruesome discovery. He’d had a discomfiting intuition that the dismembered parts would turn out to belong to one of his accomplices.

That was, one of the two other than Rusty.

“All day Sunday,” he said, “there was a lot of coming and going in the squad room. Sheriff’s deputies. Game wardens. State troopers. Organized chaos. Nobody had been reported missing, so they didn’t know where to start to identify the victim. Had this been a terrible accident? Or a homicide? Easter ended with nothing concrete to report. No clues.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I was fed, let out to use the bathroom, but otherwise ignored.”

“You weren’t questioned?”

“No. I’d already refused to talk without a lawyer. The one my uncle had called to represent me had begged off until Monday because of the holiday. Besides, my little possession charge took a back seat to the grisly discovery at the lake.”

Choosing not to expand on Foster’s fate, he settled an incisive look on Arden. “Your turn. What are your recollections of that Saturday? Was your dad around?”

She nodded. “All day. Lisa and I had shopping to do for Easter dinner. Dad was in the garage tinkering on something when we left for town, and was still puttering when we got back a couple of hours later. She and I dyed Easter eggs, upholding the tradition in honor of our mother. The three of us had an early supper. Dad left soon after.”

“What time was that?”

“Still light, but not for long.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“To the cemetery to tend Mother’s grave. Before he left, he kissed me on the top of my head and patted my shoulder.” She placed a hand on her shoulder to mark the spot. “That was the last time I saw him. That’s it.”