Loretta’s little world revolved around Loretta. She could tell me pretty much every detail of her day, when she put on her makeup, what she wore, when her boyfriend Eddie called. Her mother existed as cook, chauffeur, and banker to Loretta’s adolescent needs. Oh well, no help there.
“Loretta, I need to leave you here and go see your daddy.”
She didn’t like that. “I’m comin’, too. He’s my daddy.” And you’re only his girlfriend. She left that part hanging unspoken between us.
“They won’t let minors in,” I said. I grabbed my purse and car keys and headed for the door. “There’s sandwich meat in the fridge. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in an hour.” Loretta was looking like a thundercloud, but I continued on briskly. “If we’re gonna prove that your daddy didn’t kill your mama, we’re gonna have to find out who did. Why don’t you work on that list a bit more and see what you can remember. If your mama was going out last night, where was she going? Was she seein’ anybody in particular?”
I left her sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the pad of paper with her mother’s activities on it. When she didn’t think I was looking, she allowed her grief to show through. Tears slid down her cheeks and hit the paper.
I got a bit nervous on the ride over to see Freddy. I’d never been inside the jail before. Everybody in town knew where it was — a mile outside of town, on State Route 138. It sat back from the road, a small, squat, concrete building with a barbed wire-enclosed exercise yard. Livin’ around here, you drove past it on a regular basis, and like the cemetery, you didn’t pay it much mind until you needed to.
Raydeen was working when I got there. We didn’t know what to say to each other. If everyone thought Freddy was guilty, then what did they think about me? I didn’t want to talk to Raydeen until I’d talked to Freddy and figured out where things were heading.
“I guess you wanna see Freddy, huh?” she asked.
“Well, yeah.” It was all I could do not to scream at her, I was so anxious.
She led me back to the jail proper. Steve Asher, a young deputy just a few years older than Loretta, let me into the visitors’ room. There was a bank of cubicles with brown wooden chairs in front of the counters that held the phones. Just like TV, I thought. I entered a cubicle and sat down. The visitors before me had scratched their initials into the hard Formica: C.R. + J.D. — love forever. T.J. loves M.J. — I will wait forever.
When Freddy was brought in, I realized just how serious our situation was. The man I loved was in jail for murder. Even my loser first husband Roy hadn’t ever been in jail.
Freddy looked scared. We picked up the receivers and pressed them to our ears. “How ya doin’, babe?” he asked with a weak smile.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “Loretta’s okay, too. I got her back at our place. Minnie’s gonna handle the funeral arrangements.” Freddy nodded. “I called Sam Barfield and asked him to represent you. He’s gonna come by tonight or first thing tomorrow.” There was one brief moment when I found myself wondering, Freddy, you didn’t do it, did you? Of course not. I couldn’t doubt Freddy’s innocence.
“Who could’ve killed her?” we both asked at the same instant.
“Patsy, don’t take this wrong,” Freddy began. “I’m sad about Eaudelein. Yesterday I could’ve told you that if her guts was on fire, I wouldn’t a spit on her to put ’em out. But, hell, Patsy, I didn’t want her to die. I keep thinkin’ about when we first met, and when Loretta was little. I used to love her. She was Loretta’s mama for Pete’s sake.” I listened, watching Freddy’s face.
“They say I killed Eaudelein because she was gonna take Loretta away from me. They don’t understand. Eaudelein would’ve come to her senses. I wouldn’t have killed her, no matter what she did.”
“Freddy,” I broke in. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I know you. We just gotta figure out who killed her. Do you have any idea?”
“Eaudelein had a habit of pissin’ people off, but I don’t know of anybody who hated her enough to kill her.”
Freddy was thinking now, not feeling sorry for himself. That was good.
“Was she seein’ anybody?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “she’d been stranger than usual lately. She was real peculiar about when I picked up Loretta. She didn’t want me just stopping by to see Loretta without asking. I figured she was seein’ somebody and didn’t want me to know. When she started talking about not letting me see Loretta, I started worrying that her new guy might live out of town. Maybe she was fixin’ to move away with him or something.”
The deputy, Steve, opened the door and said something to Freddy. “I gotta go now, babe. Hang in there.”
Hang in there. That was my Freddy, worrying about me. I picked up my purse and headed home. At least I had something to go on now. Eaudelein had a new boyfriend. Loretta hadn’t said a word about that.
It was the first thing I asked her about when I got home. She had been on the phone when I got there but hung up quickly as I walked through the front door. She’d been crying again. I sat down next to her on the couch. I wanted to reach over and put my arms around her, but she was such a prickly pear. She didn’t like me, so I wasn’t going to push myself on her.
“I stopped at the Kentucky Fried and grabbed us a bucket of extra crispy. Let’s go eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Honey, you got to eat.” Loretta was no match for me. She might have had the rest of the adults in Barrow scared of her, but I drove a schoolbus. I ate kids like her for lunch, sack and all.
“Sweetie,” I went on, ignoring her attitude, “I know you don’t feel like it, but we’ve got a lot to do. I can’t have you fainting from lack of food. Eat. It’ll make you feel better, and you’ll be able to think better, too.”
She followed me into the kitchen. We polished off the entire bucket between us and made big dents in the coleslaw and potatoes.
“Now,” I said, clearing the plates away, “who was your mother seeing?”
Loretta looked uneasy. “Nobody,” she said.
“Loretta,” I said, daring her to lie again.
“She didn’t want me to tell anybody.” She was working it out. “It was Daddy’s partner, Hank. Mama said Daddy’d freak if he knew. She and Hank wanted to keep it a secret till they figured out what to do.”
Hank? That was so hard to believe. Hank and Freddy were best friends. They owned the Bait and Tackle Shop together. Hank had stuck by Freddy all through the divorce, siding with him, commiserating with him. Hank would never go near Eaudelein.
“Loretta, are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure,” she said earnestly. “If she was going out last night, it would have been with him. She always went out when I was with Daddy or over at a friend’s house.”
“When did she start seeing Hank?”
“About three months ago. I didn’t find out until about a month ago. I came home early from a friend’s house just as he was leavin’. Hank was all freaked about it. Mama just laughed. She told me later that Hank didn’t want Daddy to know and that we’d better keep it quiet, just till everything got sorted out and they could tell Daddy.”
This was just great. Freddy’s ex and his best friend. If Freddy’d been bitter before, he’d swear off matrimony forever now. What this was gonna do to his friendship with Hank, and their business, was beyond me. I’d be really pissed if I were him.
Then I started thinking. Hank didn’t have an alibi for last night. Hank was the last person to see Eaudelein alive. Could he have killed her?
“Loretta, I gotta go see Hank.” I was headed for the door before she could formulate a response.
“Wait,” she yelled as I pushed open the door. “I’m coming, too.”