CHAPTER ELEVEN

Center is the county seat of Shelby County, which lies due southeast of Sequoya bordering Louisiana. On the way we passed through the small village of Timpson. Like dozens of other East Texas towns, it had once been a thriving cotton market, but it was now paused in a timeless autumnal moment over the precipice of its ultimate oblivion. Half the businesses in the old part of town were boarded up, and the rest were struggling. Empty windows stared like sightless eyes out onto the passing years. As we drove down a side street I pointed to the long-defunct Fox Theater. “I saw my first movie there,” I said.

“Really? How come?”

“This is where my mother was born and raised. One Saturday when we were visiting her sister Emma, she and Aunt Emma decided to take me and my cousin to see High Noon with Gary Cooper. I was about five at the time.”

“Good flick.”

“Turn left at the next street,” I said.

“That’s not the way to Center, Bo.”

“I know, but I want to see my aunt’s old place.”

It was a few blocks north of the main highway, down near the end of the street—a big, shady, sprawling white clapboard affair with deep verandas and a world of memories. I pointed it out to Linda.

“Nice,” she said. “I could hunker down in a house like that for the rest of my life. Is your aunt dead?”

“She and Uncle Homer were killed in a car wreck back in 1980.”

I directed her to take a left. After a couple of blocks we passed a huge white-columned house that looked like something out of Gone with the Wind.

“Wow, that place is beautiful,” she said. “I wonder what the story on it is.”

“Rat Turd Blair. That’s the story.”

“What?!”

“His name was R. T. Blair. The kids all called him Rat Turd. He was a prosperous merchant here many years ago. See that screened-in porch on the side? Mr. Blair dropped dead of a heart attack one cold day between his car and the steps. He’d been fishing, and the authorities took his coat off to examine the body. They hung it on that porch, but his wife could never bring herself to move it. It hung there until it rotted.”

“Bo, you know so many interesting stories.”

I laughed. “And I don’t even tell the good ones. I think there’s a prizewinning novel in every country graveyard in this state if you could just get at it.”

Back on the main road and a dozen miles farther on we came to Center. In the middle of the square loomed the massive Irish castle–style courthouse, the last one remaining in the country, now renovated as a community center and museum. Nobel Dennard kept his office on the second floor of a fine old building he owned on the south side of the square opposite the courthouse. I knew the man, but I didn’t know him well. Though his practice was mostly confined to civil matters, over the years he’d had a few minor criminal cases in Caddo County that had brought us in contact with each other, and for a while we’d both been delegates to the East Texas Council of Governments. He was tall and slim, with wavy, prematurely silver hair, a matinee idol’s face, and ruddy skin.

His office was suitably lawyerly with its eighteenth-century-style walnut paneling and English hunting prints and brass-studded wing chairs of burgundy-colored leather. I quickly introduced him to Linda, and he motioned for us to sit and then took his place behind about a half acre of mahogany desk that looked like it might have come from Versailles and gazed at me blandly. “What’s the problem, Bo? You sounded mad as hell on the phone.”

“I’ve got a dead body on my hands, Nobel.”

“Whose?”

“Amanda Twiller.”

“Gosh, I hate to hear that. What happened?”

I ignored his question. “So you admit knowing her?” I asked.

“Sure, but what—”

“Somebody shot her three times.”

He seemed authentically surprised. “You don’t meant it! But why?”

“I thought you might be able to help me out on that, Nobel.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You didn’t know she was dead? It’s been all over the news for two days.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been down at my deer lease trying to get things ready for November.”

“I suppose you can substantiate that?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Two of my buddies were there with me the whole time. We share the lease.”

“Give me their names and phone numbers,” I said.

“Sure.” He quickly scribbled on a notepad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to me. “What I don’t understand is why you came to me.”

I tossed the letter across the desk.

He read it quickly and tossed it back. “So? I don’t even have to talk to you about this, you know.”

“That’s true,” I said amiably.

“So I don’t think I will.”

I gave him a cold smile. “Okay, in that case, I’ll just have to go back home and call a press conference and tell them the investigation is zeroing in on a prominent Shelby County attorney Mrs. Twiller had been romantically involved with. A lot of people might not be able to put it together. But I bet some would. Your wife, for example. Some of your more prosperous clients.”

His face held a sour frown. “I’ve always heard you were mean as hell, Bo.”

“Nah, just playful and fun-loving. Now what’s it going to be? The easy way or the hard way?”

“What do you want to know?”

“For starters, you admit that the two of you had an affair?”

He laughed an insincere little laugh and gave a futile shrug. “Sure. What’s the point in lying when you could dig into the area’s motel registers and whatnot and prove it?”

“How did you meet her?”

“I was a delegate from my church to a regional ecumenical convention in Houston. She and her husband were there.”

“You seduced a woman you met at a religious conference?” Linda asked, a hint of disgust in her voice.

“I suppose that must seem a little ironic to you,” he said. “But I promise you that other people have done it long before me.”

“Let’s have the whole story, Nobel,” I said.

“It’s not much of a story. We met, she gave signals that she might be available, and I responded. The first time we got together in Nacogdoches when her husband was in Dallas. There were a lot of other times too. Here and there. You know how it goes.”

“No, actually I don’t,” I said. “How long did it last?”

“About three months.”

“What ended it?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

He squirmed around a little in his chair. “I hate to talk about a dead woman, Bo. I know that at heart she was a good person. We had a lot of fun together.”

“That letter indicates otherwise, Mr. Dennard,” Linda said.

“I felt like I had to be a little blunt with her. I regretted having to do it.”

“Why did you end it?” I asked again.

“I became aware that she was misusing prescription drugs, and I could see a disaster looming in her near future. I didn’t want to be part of it.”

“I’ve always heard that painkillers reduce people’s sex drive,” Linda said.

“They seemed to have the opposite effect on Amanda,” Dennard said.

I tapped the letter with my fingertip. “Exactly what did you mean when you said she stood to suffer more than you did if the affair was revealed?”

“I was referring to something she and I had talked about earlier. I was pointing out that if she exposed our romance, which she was threatening to do, a lawyer like me with a financially dependent spouse was in a better position to weather such a storm than a minister’s wife. That’s all. I had no intention of doing anything to harm her.”

“So you claim,” I said.

He shrugged. “If you know the two men on that piece of paper, then you know that neither of them are the sort who would lie in a situation like this. Just check them out.”

“I know Johnny Higgins, and what you say about him is true. But that doesn’t clear you completely. This has all the earmarks of a murder for hire.”

“Really?” he asked. “But who do you think would…” He broke off and gave me a twisted smile. “A former lover might have, right?”

“On the money, Nobel,” I said.

“If it comes down to it, I’ll give you access to my finances. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to see an important client in about five minutes.”

We rose to leave and he stuck out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation I took it.

“I’m sorry about blowing up and threatening not to cooperate,” he said. “Alpha male syndrome. But you probably know a little about that.”

“No,” I said with a firm shake of my head. “I’m an omega male myself.”

“Huh?”

“Last letter in the Greek alphabet. You alphas start things and I finish ’em.”

*   *   *

We were a mile or so out of town when Linda finally asked, “So what do you think?”

“About what I expected.”

“He did offer us access to his finances, Bo.”

I gave her a dismissive snort. “Anybody as smart as Nobel has a cash stash somewhere.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“My gut tells me no.”

She grinned. “Does it tell you anything else?”

“Yeah. It says we need to stop and get a cup of coffee and a piece of coconut cream pie at that café in Timpson. My treat.”

“I’m trying to take off a few pounds.”

“Then you can sit and suffer in silence while I indulge.”

“Is the pie really good there?”

I turned and looked at her with mock amazement. “Have you ever heard of bad coconut cream pie?”

“Point taken, as you always say.”

“Then get a move on. All this talk has got me hungry.”