“How bad is it?” Charli asked as soon as Mom returned to the family room. Mom and Dad had just spent thirty minutes talking with the detective in charge of the investigation.
After I told the police officer who’d nabbed me my story, and then repeated it to the detective, they let me go, but told me not to leave town, that they’d have more questions for me about the murder of Frank Billingham. I wasn’t real thrilled that they kept Dicey’s necklace, calling it evidence, but at least they hadn’t tossed me in jail.
After lots of hugs, kisses, and reassurances that everything was going to be ‘just fine’ from Mom, Dad, and Charli, I took a long, hot shower and scrubbed all of the blood away. Since then, I’d pretty much just been curled up in a fetal position on Charli’s family room sofa.
Mom eased down onto the other end of the couch that was no longer pulled out into a bed. “Bad,” she said. “As bad as you can imagine.”
I tugged the patchwork quilt our Grandma had made for Charli and John when they got married up to my chin and curled into the tightest ball I could manage. Mom massaged her scalp and I noticed a couple of lines on her forehead that I didn’t remember seeing before. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for them.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “Any suggestions?”
Charli handed Mom a steaming cup of coffee. “An attorney, maybe?”
Mom warmed her hands on the mug, inhaled the rich aroma, and took a cautious sip. “Your dad has already spoken to Dicey. And we thought that maybe Timothy could help. I tried to phone him but he didn’t answer. Don finally decided that the best thing to do is just go get him.”
“Marty, honey, are you sleeping?” Mom shook my legs. “Wake up. I need to talk to you about this.”
I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, trying to ignore her, thinking maybe if I did so I’d wake up from what was surely just a bad dream.
Mom jarred my legs again, harder this time. “Marty, wake up.”
I sighed one of Mom’s ‘why me’ sighs. “I’m awake,” I mumbled. But I didn’t sit up.
She filled me in on her conversation with the detective. She was right: it was bad. I was now an official suspect. Giselle gave them the tape she’d taken Friday of the mulch war. Since it had a shot of me screaming at Frank Billingham, yelling that I could kill him, it wasn’t being taken lightly. Especially since not even forty-eight hours later Frank was dead.
They also wondered why I was the first person on the scene and how come no one else had seen Frank talking to this mysterious shadow man who I said ran off. The other thing that interested them was my mental state. Giselle had not only given them the tape, but had also told them that I had attacked her at the country club party, shoving her into the pool for no reason at all.
Sam English, Sue Parnell, and a couple of other people backed up her story. I guess that to them it must have looked like I’d assaulted Giselle. Dicey and Kyle had taken my side, saying that they were sure that it was an accident, but they were outnumbered. All of that, combined with the fact that I was caught holding the probable murder weapon sure looked suspicious, the detective told my folks.
“But I didn’t do it!” I choked back tears, determined not to lose control. “I didn’t push Giselle. My shoe got stuck and I was trying to keep from falling. If anything it was her fault we went into the pool. She’s the one that started the whole thing. And when I said to Frank that I could kill him it was just a figure of speech. That other person, the shadow person, shot him. I just found the gun under the bush. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t do it!”
“We know that, sweetie. We know,” Charli said in a soothing, motherly voice on her way out of the family room door. She’d heard one of her kids call out for her and was on her way to check on them. “Of course you didn’t do it.”
Mom nodded her agreement. “Charli’s right, we know you’re innocent. But we’re family. We know you. The detective doesn’t. Even if he did, you can’t blame him for being suspicious. He’s just doing his job.”
“Well, he’s an idiot. I don’t care how suspicious it all looks, everybody in town knows I’m a good person, not a cold-blooded killer.”
Mom started to say something else but I buried my head under the quilt and plugged my ears with my fingers. I didn’t want to hear any more, couldn’t stand to hear any more. Mom stopped in the middle of her sentence and just sat quietly, sipping her coffee.
Charli returned from checking on the kids. “Bad dream,” she said. “He went back to sleep but they’ll be up soon. I need to call John’s folks, and then I think I’m going to go ahead and make breakfast. I’m starving.” She went in the kitchen and after a few minutes began clattering around, pulling out pans and ingredients.
Mom patted my legs again. “Marty, honey, don’t be like this. You can’t hide under that blanket forever.”
I pretended to be asleep. She kept talking, but finally gave up and went in the kitchen to help Charli.
A few minutes later Charli flipped the quilt off of me. I half opened my eyes and scowled at her.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I’ve got sausage gravy and biscuits, your favorite.”
“It smells great, but if I try to eat anything I’m afraid I’d get sick.”
“Well, if you’re sure.” She went back in the kitchen. I covered myself again and closed my eyes. The children clambered down the hall and burst into the kitchen, filling the house with kid noises and energy. Normally I loved being at Charli’s house when it was like that, all warm and cozy, full of good smells and laughter. But not that day. That day I just wanted to be in my own bed, snug and alone.
Charli and Mom fed and dressed the kids then Mom piled them into her car and drove them over to Charli’s in-law’s. There had been a big phone pow-wow and it was decided that the best thing for the kids was to be away during all of the commotion. John’s folks and younger sister were about to go to Myrtle Beach for a week, so they volunteered to take the kids with them.
Dad and Tim rolled in during that particular bit of chaos and chowed down on an enormous amount of sausage gravy, biscuits, and eggs. A few minutes later Dicey showed up and Mom returned. They gathered around me in the family room, all talking at once, all throwing out suggestions, and all ignoring me.
Figuring that five heads were better than six, I wandered off to Charli’s boy’s bedroom and lay down on Kevin’s bed. I let my mind drift off, thinking about how I’d fix up a house if I had one. I swear that it was just a coincidence that my imaginary house happened to be exactly like Kyle Zagle’s. I’d just installed a whirlpool tub in the master bedroom and was about to dose off when Dicey knocked on the doorjamb.
“Mind if I join you?” Her face was pale and I couldn’t help but think that, in spite of the face-lift and the great figure, without her heavy makeup and sexy clothes Dicey almost looked her age.
“Sure. Come on in.” I rolled over on my side and propped my head up with my hand.
Dicey is a little ‘out there’, but from what I hear, there isn’t a better, tougher lawyer in Southwest Virginia. She sat down on the edge of Adam’s bed and smoothed her skirt. It was a soft blue that matched her eyes and was very conservative. Very lawyerly.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
Her response was slow and deliberate. “It’s not good, Marty. You can’t hide from this. You have to participate. We can’t help you if you aren’t willing to help yourself. Tell me the truth, are you up to talking to the police right now? The detective has a lot of questions, hard questions, and if you aren’t feeling strong enough, I’d like to put it off until tomorrow.”
I shook my head and then nodded. “I don’t know, Dicey. I’m feeling all mixed up inside. One minute I think it’s all just a bad dream and that I’ll wake up soon. Then, the next, I think I’m losing my mind, that maybe I’m having some sort of mental breakdown. Don’t get me wrong. Intellectually, I know that Frank is dead. I just can’t seem to make emotional sense of it, though.”
Dicey wrinkled her brow. “That’s certainly understandable. You’ve had a great shock. We all have. Unfortunately, the police don’t care if you can make sense of it or not. They just want to solve their case. And right now, they’ve got their sights set on you.”
I clenched my teeth together. “But I didn’t kill Frank. Anybody that knows me knows that. Why can’t that stupid detective get it through his thick skull? Tell me the truth, do I look like a murderer? God, I wish this would all go away. It’s just not fair!”
Dicey’s eyes flashed. “Of course it’s not fair. But fair or not, it’s real. And it’s not going to just fade away. Look, Marty, I’ve been an attorney for quite a while now. I pride myself on being a good one. I’m honest, capable, and passionate. I don’t believe for a minute that you killed Frank Billingham. And I’m going to see to it that the truth comes out.
“But if you go around with a defeatist attitude whining and wishing,” she continued, “you aren’t going to be much help. You’ve got to give yourself a kick in the pants, got to dig deep inside, and let that feistiness you’ve got come out. This is the biggest fight you’ve ever had in your life. Don’t throw in the towel before it even gets started. Get in there and win!”
I knew she was right, but it just all seemed to be too much. Too hard. And I was so, so very tired. “Maybe, but what happens if they still don’t believe me? What if they try and railroad me?”
Dicey launched a look my way that could have fried an egg. “That won’t happen. The police don’t operate like that. They don’t railroad people, they solve crimes. Besides, I told you I’m good. I’m better than good. I’m the best defense attorney around. If you fight for yourself, get in there and tell the truth, we’ll win. I promise to give it all I’ve got. And believe me, that’s a lot.”
I liked her spirit. Her energy. I imagined some of it flowing into me. I felt a little better. I pushed up so that I was sitting on the bed. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll fight. But what do we do?”
She popped to her feet. “That’s my girl! I knew you’d come around. You’re just like your Mom. Nobody is going to keep you Sheffields down, are they? What I want you to do is to grab a shower. Have something to eat, get your head clear. I’ll arrange for the interview to take place tomorrow. We’ll get back together in a little while to talk strategy. Deal?”
I took a deep breath and blew it out hard. I managed a half-smile/half-grimace. “Deal,” I said.
She patted me on the back and herded me into the bathroom. “Remember, we’ve got the truth on our side,” she said. “And, Marty, the truth is a very powerful weapon.”
God, I sure hoped so. I watched her scurry into Charli’s family room then closed the bathroom door. The face staring back from the mirror looked strong and determined. She was right. As much as I sometimes hate to admit it, I am a lot like my mom. No one, and I mean no one, was going to beat me. Especially when I was right. All I had to do was keep telling the truth and the whole fiasco would be over. Well, that was my plan, anyway. Lady Luck and those other Devilish Darlings of Disaster, being in their usual fun-loving mood, of course had other ideas.