She almost smiled. “No need to become maudlin just because I allowed you to put out my trash.”
A little research showed the Luger had been brought back from the ETO by Marji’s grandfather, not Mrs. Guidron’s husband. The sweater and skirt had indeed come out of Maison de Jeanine on Marji’s charge card. The blood and gunpowder stains proved whoever had been wearing them had pulled the trigger on Alfie, and the pH factor or hair or face powder or perfume or Lord knows what, said it had definitely been Marji.
Woody had asked why I hadn’t bought Mrs. Guidron’s confession.
Because, I said, Marvelous Mary reminded me not to leap to conclusions and to give some thought to the kind of people we were dealing with. Marji was a mixed up, volatile kid, but Mrs. Guidron’s life had been honesty, honor, and all the good things. Years ago she’d have horsewhipped Alfie, but she’d never kill him. To protect Marji, however, she’d say she did and never blink an eye. Simple.
It was apparent that the D.A. would make some sort of deal. Finding twelve unbiased car buyers wouldn’t be easy, and one of those big, expensive names attached to long hair and courtroom histrionics had been imported for Marji’s defense. He’d already linked the case to wife beating, abandonment, deadbeat dads, comparative pay scales for men and women, and gender-based corporate promotion policies. By the time he was through, Alfie would no longer be just your everyday, run-of-the-mill sleaze, of whom we’ve always had an abundance, but a monster of inhuman proportions. Brushing the long gray hair away from his metal rims, he’d solemnly announced the case had Great Social Significance.
“Crap,” said Marvelous Mary, succinctly and surprisingly. “If she’d popped him in a fit of anger, I could buy it, but she planned it like a shopping trip to Philadelphia. She’s a disgrace, not a heroine.”
Not everyone felt the same.
Norma stopped at my table as I was having lunch. “I understand you were responsible for the arrest of that poor Sutter woman.”
I almost choked at the sharp, accusatory tone.
“Poor Sutter woman? She murdered a man to salve her wounded ego.”
Silence, except for the sound of thirty pairs of lunchtime jaws munching away. Must have been the wrong thing to say. I tried again.
“If you’re feeling sorry for her, don’t. She not only killed him but was very willing to let an elderly family friend go to prison.”
Her face was frozen. “Nevertheless.”
Nevertheless? Mentally, I threw up my hands. I was guilty and Marji only an innocent victim and I had no idea why.
“See you tomorrow,” I said when I paid my bill.
“I’ll be here.” Her tone said she wasn’t looking forward to it.
I went out remembering how lifeless Mrs. Guidron’s voice had been as she poured the tea. “I told her she should have come to me. We could have ruined him financially. Not punishment enough, she said.”
Alfie hadn’t been the only one Marji had destroyed. Why in the world would Norma defend her? And condemn me? Stretching sisterhood under the skin to the nth degree? There was a great deal of that going around.
When in doubt, ask an expert. In the office, I sat on her desk and asked Marvelous Mary, who’d carry a sign in any parade anywhere at any time, to explain it.
Fingertips tented, she considered what I’d told her.
“Did she ever tell you how her husband died?”
“No, and to my knowledge, she’s never told anyone else, either.”
The palms went together and the fingers pressed to her lips as though she was praying.
“It’s only a guess, but—” she said softly.
Outside, the brilliant spring day suddenly dulled; nothing to do with nature at all but caused by the gray pall that sometimes descends on the human soul when something or someone dies.
Only a guess. For her. Not me.
I was never more sure of anything in my life.
Hot Wheels
by Steve Corwin
Robbie Sutton’s puzzled look slid off the adults’ faces, then returned to his fingers, twisting in his lap. His round face crinkled. “I didn’t do it. I don’t think I did it.”
Mercy Archer snickered. “Of course he did it, that’s why we’re here.” Her left hand, dwarfed by a diamond and ruby ring, rested on the tanned flesh above her plunging neckline. Her right hand caressed a platinum watch, and her grey eyes sliced through the boy on their way to his father beside him, who picked nervously at grease-stained fingernails and slouched deeper into his chair.
Sarah Shallott, every inch the conservative lawyer, tapped the collar of her blouse, buttoned to the neck. “We’re here to sort this tragedy out, Mrs. Archer, not lay blame.” Sarah’s gaze softened as it moved to Carl Sutton, who spread his hands helplessly.
“Lord, I don’t know. I just don’t know. Sometimes Robbie gets things mixed up, you see, but it’s not like him to mess up twice. If I ask him not to do something, he don’t do it.” Sutton tugged at his tie. “It ain’t fair to blame Robbie. It ain’t fair to make my boy go through life thinkin’ he’s killed a man. Even if it was an accident, like they says.” He nodded toward Mercy and her stepson, Trent Archer.
Robbie twisted his head toward the corner of Sarah’s office, his brown eyes pleading for help. P. J. McLean winked reassuringly. The air conditioner rattled in the background, straining to overcome the room’s rising temperature.
Mercy stared defiantly at the five other people jammed into an elegant office better suited for one-on-one frays. The cunning intelligence burning behind her eyes overpowered the beauty of her high cheekbones and sensuous mouth, which twitched with something like contempt. “I’ll let my stepson the lawyer do the talking. It’s why he’s here.”
Trent Archer’s ears turned scarlet, and his muddy eyes roamed Shallott’s Oriental carpet before settling on a vacant spot between Carl and Robbie Sutton. “But there was a similar problem. When the boy damaged my car.”
“I promised you that Robbie wouldn’t touch customers’ cars again, but—” Sutton twisted his shoulders “—my boy likes to help around the garage and I can’t watch him all the time.”
Archer’s fingers twitched across his thin mustache. “Did your boy touch my father’s car?”
“No!” The denial exploded from Robbie, who looked around panic-stricken before pulling his head back in, turtlelike.
McLean, sickened by the boy’s terror, said gently, “Then you did not put power steering fluid in Mr. Rex Archer’s brakes?”
Robbie shook his head violently.
McLean stared out Sarah’s window at the distant Siskiyou Mountains, etched against the Southern Oregon skyline, before letting his gaze settle on Trent Archer. “Well, somebody did.”
“Look, we all know the boy has, ahh, problems,” Archer said. “We know without doubt that he put the wrong fluid in my car six months ago. I’m willing to believe it was an accident. We know my father left his Blazer with Sutton to have the brakes worked on, and we know power steering fluid was found in his brake cylinder by the sheriff’s lab.”
Sarah leaned forward. “Examined at your suggestion?”
“Yes, well, under the circumstances.” Archer sounded defiant.
McLean toyed with a pencil as a conversation he’d had two days before gnawed at him. A mail truck driver he knew had made the same mistake and spent a harrowing two hours limping out of the mountains in first gear. The power steering fluid froze his brakes so badly that he had to replace the entire hydraulic system.
He was a fire investigator, not a mechanic, but this case looked like a loser, something Sarah didn’t want to hear, ever. The boy’s manful efforts to keep from crying jerked McLean back to his own childhood, and the day he learned his father would never come home from the VA hospital. His fist contracted, and the pencil snapped. He scanned the room, more in annoyance than embarrassment, and decided that no matter what the odds, Robbie deserved a chance for a defense.