Читать книгу Dead Right - Brenda Novak - Страница 13

Hunter sat in the passenger seat of Madeline Barker’s economy car, watching the windshield wipers jerk across the glass and thinking that a woman driving a 1992 Toyota Corolla probably couldn’t afford him. “Your windshield wipers might actually work if you’d replace the blades,” he said.

She sent him an irritated look. “Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re welcome.” Drumming his fingers on his knee, he cursed the moment he’d decided to come to the South. What was he doing here? He should be in Hawaii, sitting on the beach. But despite the rain in Tennessee and an unusual and slightly worrisome reception by his new client, Hawaii didn’t sound as appealing as it should have. He’d spent most of the last month on Oahu, taking pictures of an elected public official who’d flown his children’s babysitter there for a torrid affair. Without Maria, Hunter had no desire to go back so soon. What was the point? He wasn’t the type to lounge on the beach all day—not unless he was doing it for a reason, as with his last job, or he had someone with whom to share the sun and sand.

Someone…He grimaced. Not only had he lost Maria’s love and respect, he’d managed to estrange most of his family. He’d been too hurt and angry to be civil to anyone. And he hadn’t allowed himself a romantic liaison—a romantic anything—since he’d gotten drunk two years ago and let Selena, the divorcee next door, coax him into bed.

“So…are we going to drive the whole way without speaking?” he asked, eager to interrupt his own thoughts. He berated himself over that mistake often enough without starting in well before the usual sleepless night.

“I’m thinking,” she said.

“I hope you’re thinking about telling me what you know of the day your father disappeared. Or is that part of the test to see if I’m any good?”

“Funny.” She came up on a van, slowed, then switched lanes.

He knew they’d gotten off on the wrong foot, that he should do what he could to relieve the tension that had sprung up the moment they’d met, but he was tired and cranky after the long flight and already regretting the trip. “You know how irreverent some of us young Californians can be.”

“At least you haven’t ended any of your sentences with dude or awesome,” she retorted.

His irritation level spiked. “I didn’t want to come here in the first place. This was your idea.”

She immediately backed off. “I know. I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you. But…I was desperate.”

And now she was disappointed. He could hear it in her voice.

Hunter didn’t want to care—some of what she’d said made him angry—but the slump of her shoulders bothered him. Cursing silently, he dragged his eyes away from her and watched the wet pavement rush under their tires. “Don’t give up on me too soon, okay?” he said. “I can’t promise that I’ll solve your father’s murder. If it was a murder. Maybe no one can. But I’ll make every attempt.”

“In between working on your tan?” She’d mumbled the words, but he could still decipher them.

“You’re just mad that I said I wasn’t attracted to you,” he snapped.

“Why should that bother me? You’re not attracted to anyone, remember?”

“I remember,” he said. But he had to admit she was pretty. Tall, though maybe a bit too thin, she had very distinguished features—wide green eyes that tilted up at the edges, thick dark lashes, high cheekbones and a full, sensual mouth. She had a few freckles across her nose, but the rest of her skin was as smooth and unblemished as porcelain, and she seemed confident yet vulnerable. It was an odd mix, but it definitely worked.

“I wanted someone I could take seriously,” she explained.

He shook his head. “You wanted a savior, and you got a carpenter. As history suggests, they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

Her gaze slid his way. “Now you’re telling me you have a Christ complex?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m done talking to you. I hope you feel like an idiot when you’re finished with this tantrum.”

“Tantrum? I’ve never thrown a tantrum in my life.”

Hunter told himself to ignore her until she could come to grips with her roiling emotions. He’d been where she was—pushed beyond his normal ability to cope, desperately searching for a way to avoid the pain of his situation. He’d created his own problems while, as far as he could tell, she’d done little to deserve hers. But these days his own temper lurked too close to the surface.

“What do you call this?” he asked. “Good old-fashioned Southern hospitality?”

“Try abject despair,” she replied. “Do you know how many people think I’m foolish for bringing you to town? Only my cousins approve, which is reason enough for concern. When Clay and Grace see you—” She threw up one hand while keeping the other on the wheel.

“Maybe those who are least happy about my involvement are the very people who have something to hide,” he retorted. He was taking a big leap. But he wanted to provoke her, to find or create reasons to dislike her so he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping an appropriate distance between them. He’d already found one reason: he’d expected her to be grateful he’d relented and taken her on as a client. Instead, she acted as if she’d made a big mistake in hiring him.

“Whose side are you on?” she asked.

“My own,” he said. “That’s the way it has to be.”

She didn’t say anything for nearly twenty minutes, wouldn’t even look at him. Finally, he broke the silence. “Is this going to continue, or are you ready to tell me what you know about how and why your father disappeared?”

She lowered the volume on the radio. “I owe you an apology,” she said stiffly. “I’ve been trying to formulate it for the past fifteen miles, but I’m not really myself right now. And I have no explanation for my poor behavior except—there’s a lot riding on this for me, you know?”

He didn’t want her to apologize. Then he couldn’t hold her comments against her. “Not the best apology I’ve ever received,” he said, although it’d sounded sincere.

“So you won’t forgive me?”

The entreaty in her voice made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time—genuine compassion. She was so exhausted. He could hear it in the way she talked, see it in the way she moved. Still, he didn’t want to experience her pain; he had enough of his own.

“Give me some background on your father,” he said instead of addressing the question.

“Where should I start?”

“What was his name?”

“Lee Barker.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“He was a pastor, very devout, but also popular.”

“When and where was he last seen?”

Lightning flashed, illuminating the silvery glow of the rain-slicked hood as well as Madeline’s classic profile. “It’ll be twenty years on October fourth. He went to church to meet with a couple of ladies who were planning a youth activity, and he never came home.”

He refused to consider the emotional consequences of what she’d been through. Distance—that was his first priority. Solving this case came second. “Has someone checked out these ladies?” He knew it was probably a stupid question, but he had to begin at the beginning. Being methodical kept his focus where he wanted it to be—on the facts.

“Of course. Nora Young and Rachel Cook would never hurt anyone, least of all my father. They idolized him. Imagine Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show and you’ll have some idea of what these ladies are like.”

“You mentioned a stepmother on the phone. Where was your real mother when this occurred?” he asked. When one spouse went missing, the other, or an ex, was frequently to blame. Before he started investigating the stepmom, he needed to rule out the first Mrs. Barker.

But that was easier than he’d expected.

“Dead,” Madeline said.

He watched her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She didn’t respond.

“What happened?”

“She shot herself with my father’s gun.”

“When?”

“I was ten.”

He flinched in spite of himself. “Who found her?”

Madeline’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I did.”

Shit…He didn’t know what to say. She’d been through so much.

But sad as her story was, her pain didn’t have to be his pain, he reminded himself. She didn’t need him to save her. She was just a client—a beautiful client, but a client nonetheless.

“I’d come home from school and wanted to show her my report card,” she went on in a monotone. “My father sent me in to wake her from a nap and—” her voice quavered “—and there she was.”

Distance, remember? “Your father hadn’t heard the shot?” he prompted softly. Maybe it was insensitive to ask, but he had to learn all he could about Madeline Barker and her history. It was the best way to solve her father’s murder, which he intended to do as quickly as possible—before he could find too many things to like about her. Besides her looks, of course.

“No. She did it while he was out working on the farm. He saw me get off the bus and followed me to the house.”

“How long after your mother’s death did your father go missing?” he asked.

“Six years. We managed on our own for three. Then my father met a woman named Irene Montgomery.”

“You didn’t know her?”

The rain pounded harder, but Madeline didn’t slow down. “No. They met at a regional singles dance. She was living in Booneville, which isn’t too far from Stillwater. He was forty-three and she was only thirty-two, but she needed an older man in her life.”

Was it possible she’d needed a few other things, as well? Some creature comforts she could better enjoy without him? “Why older?” he asked.

“She’d dropped out of school, pregnant at sixteen. She married the father of her baby, but after they’d had two more children, he abandoned her. She didn’t have a lot of options, and was looking for some stability.”

“And your father offered that.”

She turned the knob for the windshield wipers until they were swishing back and forth at a frenetic pace. He guessed they were keeping time with her heart. But outwardly she remained calm. “Sure. He had the farm my stepbrother now owns, a good job, modest savings. And he was well-respected in the community.”

Hunter leaned forward to see around the silky fall of her hair. “I thought your stepmother inherited the farm.” He’d made a note of it when they talked on the phone the first time she’d called because the farm might’ve provided the stepmother with a motive for murder.

“She did. But when Molly, my youngest sister, graduated from high school, my stepmother moved to town and my brother took over.”

“Is it a nice piece of property?”

The look she shot him said she’d heard the suspicion in his voice. “Don’t jump to that conclusion.”

“What conclusion? It’s a logical question.”

“I told you on the phone, my stepmother didn’t kill my father.”

“You were with her when your father went missing?”

Her expression grew haunted. “No, I wasn’t home that night. I was staying at a friend’s.”

“Who was at home?”

“Grace and Molly and later, Clay. My mother was there part of the time, but she certainly wouldn’t kill the one person who was putting food on the table for her children. We almost starved after my father went missing. If it wasn’t for my stepbrother, we would’ve gone hungry—or been separated and taken into foster care.”

“What’d he do to save the day?”

“Ran the farm, worked odd jobs in town, anything he had to do, really. That’s why my stepmother turned the farm over to him.”

“Sounds like he was the best-equipped to run it.”

“He was. And five years ago, he paid each of us our portion of what it was worth at the time my father went missing,” she added. “Which was very generous of him,” she added. “I wasn’t expecting any payment. We would’ve faced foreclosure without him.”

“So he’s done well?”

“Well enough that he could lend me a significant amount of money last year when I needed to buy a new printing press.”

Madeline’s reference to a recent loan hardly put Hunter at ease. Would she be able to pay him? There were a lot of things about this case that were making him uneasy. Beginning with the woman behind the wheel. “So Clay’s older?” he asked.

“We were both sixteen when everything fell apart.”

“He took responsibility for the family at sixteen?”

She smiled faintly. “He’s always been very capable.”

Capable of murder? Sixteen was pretty young to kill, but it wouldn’t be the first time a teenager had resorted to deadly violence. Madeline readily admitted that Clay’s abilities had outdistanced his age. And she’d mentioned that there was a gun in the house. “How big is your brother?”

“Well over six feet. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Her lips formed a grim line.

Hunter leaned forward once again, to see her face more clearly. “What’s wrong?”

“He didn’t kill my father, either.”

“And you know that because he has a foolproof alibi?”

“I know him.” The loyalty and conviction in her voice sounded resolute. But the fact that she hadn’t volunteered any solid proof concerned Hunter. Obviously, there was some question here.

Hunter rubbed his chin while he considered her reaction. “Where was he the night it happened?”

“Out with friends. But then he came home.”

“And from that point he’s only got his mother and sisters to vouch for him?”

“More or less.”

Hunter’s discomfort increased. Was she really sure about Clay—or just blind to the possibility? “What about your stepmother’s first husband?”

“What about him?”

“He never called or came to visit? Never paid child support? Never sent a Christmas card?”

“Growing up, we never heard from him. Didn’t even know where he was. But he showed up last summer. Turns out he’s been living in Alaska all these years. He flies fishermen to remote lakes and streams, that sort of thing.”

Hunter tucked that piece of information away to examine later. A boy abandoned by his father could easily harbor a deep resentment of adult males. “Tell me a little more about Irene.”

“After my father met her, they got married and she brought her children to live with us. Clay and I were thirteen. Grace was ten; Molly was eight.”

“Did you get along with your stepsiblings?”

“Very well.”

“You never fought?” He didn’t bother hiding his skepticism.

“We had the usual squabbles. But to be honest, those years were some of the best of my life. In the summer, after we finished our work, Clay would give us rides on the tractor. Sometimes Grace and I would dress up in Irene’s old clothes and pretend we were getting married. Molly would beg us to put makeup on her, and we’d weave dandelion wreaths to wear in our hair.”

He found the images her words created oddly appealing, like something out of a book. “What about your stepmother?”

Her turn signal clicked as Madeline passed the car in front of them. “Mom would make lemonade and bake cookies and we’d go out on the porch to read the Bible. I can still hear the creak of her rocking chair, the insects buzzing, feel the heat of late afternoon…”

“So your stepmother was as religious as your father.”

The hesitation in her manner told him she wasn’t as sure of her next answer. “No…he was the one who insisted on daily Bible study. But she made a party out of it. She knew how to make the most mundane tasks fun.”

Hunter sensed Madeline’s desire to steer his interest away from the Montgomerys. But if she wanted him to solve this disappearance—this probable murder—he had to investigate all possibilities and eliminate them one by one. “Did your father and your stepmother ever fight?”

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip and, for some reason, Hunter thought of the condom a client had recently handed him as a promotional piece for his strip joint. He’d shoved it in his wallet, but he had no plans to use it, at least in Mississippi. Fortunately, he wouldn’t be tempted—not by Madeline Barker, anyway. She had a boyfriend.

“They had occasional disagreements,” she was saying. “But they didn’t get violent. My father never raised his voice. And my Mom—Irene,” she clarified, “wasn’t the type to fight. If Dad asked her to join the church choir, she joined the choir. If he asked her to host a funeral luncheon, she hosted a luncheon. She wanted nothing more than to be a good wife, to please him.”

“She wanted nothing more than that? You don’t think she was too servile? That she might’ve resented her lack of power in the relationship?”

“This is the South, remember?”

“I understand that Mississippi might not be a hotbed of feminist activism, but that doesn’t mean she liked it.”

“I would’ve known if she resented him. She didn’t.”

Possibly. “Did your father expect to be obeyed?” he asked.

“He did,” she admitted without reservation. “Like I told you, it’s fairly normal where I live, and was even more so twenty-five years ago.”

Hunter had been raised by a strong, very opinionated mother who’d endowed him with a great deal of respect for the opposite sex. He found this take on women very old-fashioned, as if he’d slipped into the fifties—or earlier. “Do you fit the Southern mold?”

“I believe in equal jobs for equal pay, but I like it when a man is nice enough to open the door for me or pump my gas,” she said.

His smile was slightly mocking. “The best of both worlds?”

“I don’t see why those things have to be mutually exclusive. I want what’s right, but I’m still a woman and I enjoy being treated like one.”

“Does your boyfriend perform those little courtesies?”

She blinked at him. “What boyfriend?”

The boyfriend who meant Hunter didn’t have to worry about whether or not he was attracted to her. “At the airport, you said you were involved with someone.”

She looked away. “Oh, right.”

He didn’t think it said much for the relationship that she could forget this boyfriend so easily. But that was her problem. “Are you two planning on getting married someday?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

What was so invasive about that question? He’d asked her much worse. But she had a point. He was wandering off topic. “Fine. If you had to name your father’s greatest fault, what would it be?” he asked, forcing his attention back where it belonged.

She answered without even having to think about it. “He was too preoccupied with his work. His church and the people in it were everything to him. But he was good to us.”

Hunter wondered if Irene would tell him the same thing. “Was there any life insurance?”

“My father had a small policy, but my mother’s never tried to collect on it.”

“Why not?”

“We were hoping he wasn’t…gone forever, of course.”

We…That was interesting. It’d been difficult to pay the mortgage, yet Irene hadn’t tried to prove that her missing husband was dead so she could collect on his life insurance. Had she truly been hoping for his return? Or did she fear that going after the money would spark an investigation by the insurance company?

If wife number two was to blame, money wasn’t the motive or she would’ve applied for the insurance. And he doubted she would’ve kept Barker’s daughter.

So maybe Barker’s death had been triggered by anger or jealousy…“Any chance that either your father or Irene could’ve been having an affair?”

“No.”

That was it. No hesitation. Only one word. “How do you know?”

“Irene turned a few heads. She still does. She tried to be the perfect pastor’s wife, but simple and demure isn’t part of her personality. Wait till you meet her—you’ll understand. Ever since I’ve known her, she’s styled her hair big, worn lots of makeup, loved tight-fitting, brightly colored clothing and shown too much cleavage.” She smiled affectionately. “When we were growing up, she wasn’t close to anyone except us. She was new, and we lived away from town, on a farm.”

“No one in particular singled her out?”

“Just the ladies who’d hoped to marry my dad. They found fault with her constantly.”

“What about neighbors?” he asked. “Could your mother have had a relationship with someone who lived nearby?”

“If you’d met the neighbors you wouldn’t even ask,” she said with a laugh. “Besides, they mostly socialized with my father. They’d known him for years. And, as I mentioned, they didn’t really approve of Irene.” Madeline twisted a lock of her hair. “I don’t remember her having even one close girlfriend, to be honest with you.”

Even when she wasn’t nibbling on her lip, something about her fascinated Hunter. But acknowledging that made him feel as if he was flirting with disaster, so he looked away. “Sounds like she was pretty isolated.”

“I think she was just relieved to be able to feed and clothe her children. Chances were she would’ve lost them to the state if my father hadn’t come along.”

A thirty-two-year-old woman struggling to hold her family together would probably marry almost anyone who could provide some security. Obviously, Irene Montgomery needed Barker—but did she love him? “What about your father?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Could he have been having an affair?”

“My father was a pastor,” she replied.

“He wouldn’t be the first to fall.”

She shook her head. “He abhorred promiscuity, especially adultery. He called it the greatest of all sins.”

Hunter felt as if she’d just pressed a hot branding iron—a large A—into his chest. He believed that marriage was sacred, too. Which was why he couldn’t forgive himself. Maybe he and Antoinette wouldn’t have made it, anyway. Lord knows they’d been having their share of problems. He’d moved into the guest bedroom months before The Incident. But that was no excuse for what he’d done. He should’ve ended his marriage first. He just hadn’t recognized his own limitations.

“He taught that chastity was worth the sacrifice of all else,” Madeline added.

“It had to be tough, growing up in the shadow of such a strict father.”

“Why?” she asked.

“You never made a mistake? You weren’t ever…tempted?”

“Sure.” She shrugged. “But I managed to wait…quite a while.”

Madeline’s sex life had little or nothing to do with the case he was investigating, but it beat the hell out of thinking about his own. And the interior of the small car, along with the darkness and the steady pounding of the rain, created a sense of intimacy that made it all too easy to ask. “How long is quite a while?”

“Until I started dating Kirk.”

“Your current boyfriend?” he asked in amazement.

“Sort of.” She mumbled the words.

“So you were…what? Thirty-four when you lost your virginity?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Wow.” He almost couldn’t believe it. Obviously, the reverend’s teachings had been very effective.

“I know. I was kind of old,” she admitted.

“Kind of?” he echoed.

“Stillwater isn’t like L.A.” She sounded slightly offended. “We’re…conservative.”

“You’ve mentioned that, but—” he released his breath in a soft whistle “—what made you wait that long?”

“I was hoping to meet the right guy.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No. I think I realized it even at the time. I just got tired of waiting, tried to settle.”

Hunter couldn’t help asking, “Did you like it?”

Her lips curved into a sexy smile. “Like what?” she asked with false innocence.

“You know what.”