He managed a nod, but he was looking at the door.
‘Now, we only had the one phone,’ she prattled on, ‘and it was in the kitchen, so it wasn’t like I could pick up an extension to listen. But there was a spot in the dining room where, if I pressed my ear just right, I could hear through the wall.
‘The night before she died, she was talking on the phone. She was speaking low, so I couldn’t hear all of it. She must have assumed I’d overheard something, though, because when she came through the dining room and saw me standing there, she said, “My, my, another red-faced creature,” making a joke of it, you see. “Everywhere I look, I see red-faced people.”’
She raised what she hoped was a knowing eyebrow. ‘Do you understand what I’m talking about, Luther?’
He shook his head, but that was to be expected.
‘Your red powders, Luther, though I did not understand what Laurel was talking about at the time, me being so young. But here’s something I have been sure of, all these years. That evening, in the dining room, Laurel was real excited, almost giddy, and she was carrying a little notebook, one of those narrow ones that reporters use. She hadn’t been talking to just some boy there in the kitchen. She’d been talking to a source about something that required her to take notes, or at least refer to them, possibly for confirmation – something that had to do with Betty Jo Dean, since that was what she was working on. I’m thinking now that source developed second thoughts about what he’d passed on to Laurel and reported his indiscretion to someone else, a killer.
‘A week after Laurel was buried, I snooped through her things, including her purse, crazy with grief. The only thing that was missing was that precious notebook. It was gone.’
Luther Wiley checked his watch. ‘I’m sorry about your sister, but I’ve got to get going. I’m up on the dais at the courthouse this afternoon.’
‘It’s raining like crazy,’ she said.
‘I’ve still got to be there-’
‘I’ve always wondered who that source was,’ she interrupted. ‘Randy White was young enough, back then, to be subject to the charms of a beautiful college girl. Jimmy Bales was a high-school kid, too young to know much about what was going on. But then I got to thinking about you, Luther. You were the right age and were in a position to have witnessed, even done, all sorts of hasty things that would have interested my sister.’ She made a chopping motion with the edge of her hand.
He popped to his feet like he was on springs, a red-faced jack-in-the-box man.
She reached in her purse and came out with her own narrow reporter’s notebook. ‘See? Just like Laurel’s,’ she said.
‘I must leave,’ he said.
She took out her tiny voice recorder. ‘To make sure I get things right.’
He started to move around the desk.
She took out a revolver. ‘Sit the hell down, Luther.’
SEVENTY-SEVEN
‘You should be putting on a hospital gown instead,’ April said, holding up the short-sleeved white shirt so Mac could slip an arm in.
The backs of his hands had been burned the worst, thrown up reflexively the instant he’d felt the first blast of the fireball. The aloe April slathered on them took away some of the pain, but the thick gauze bandages she’d then wound on made his skin hurt every time he moved his fingers.
‘I was healthy enough to have walked the mile here last night.’ He winced as he eased in his arm.
‘With burned-off pants,’ Maggie said, laughing.
‘And a cunning-enough brain to want people to think you’re dead,’ April said, holding up the other shirtsleeve.
‘It’s cowardice,’ he said. ‘I won’t be safe until I speak at the courthouse.’
‘Might be that nobody will come,’ April said. ‘The river’s so swollen you can’t get a boat under the bridge, and it’s still raining. Hell, they might even cancel it.’
‘Nonsense,’ Maggie said. ‘Hundreds will come to hear about their crazy mayor getting incinerated, even if they get soaked to the skin.’ She turned to Mac. ‘All you need is a few folks to spread the word. Sooner you say your piece, the sooner you’ll be safe, so talk real fast.’
‘I don’t care how frickin’ fast he talks,’ April said, ‘Clamp Reems will come at you again, no matter how big a crowd the happy news of your death summons.’
‘I don’t think Clamp was behind the fire,’ Mac said.
April gave the front of the shirt an unnecessary tug.
‘Damn it, April.’
‘If not Clamp, then who? How many other murderous enemies have you got?’ April asked, starting to button the shirt.
‘Clamp’s not stupid; he wouldn’t risk another fire,’ he said. ‘I see him scorching the siding to warn me off Betty Jo Dean. And I see him torching Horace Wiggins’s garage, to eliminate him and whatever pictures he might still have.’
‘But killing you is difficult to figure, because you’re so sweet?’ April reached under his chin to do the last button.
‘My dying in a fire, exactly like Horace, draws too much attention to Clamp because of the accusations I’ve been hinting at.’
‘Unless Clamp has gone plum crazy,’ Maggie said, ‘and thought he had nothing to lose by setting fire to you.’
‘Maybe someone wants it to look that way,’ he said. ‘April, you’re sure there was no car left on that wide patch down Big Pine Road, west of the Bird’s Nest?’
‘For the tenth time: no car was left on either side of the road down there.’ She reached for his necktie. ‘Your fire-starting friend had an accomplice, either someone who waited in the car then drove away when things went wrong with the explosion, or someone who knew to come later, to fetch the car when the arsonist didn’t return.’ April looped the tie around his neck and quickly tied an expert knot.
Maggie’s landline rang. She picked it up. ‘Slow down!’ she said, then asked, ‘Miss Jessup?’ She turned to look at Mac. ‘Should I tell her?’ she mouthed silently.
He shook his head.
Confusion took Maggie’s face. ‘You’re laughing too hard, Miss Jessup. I can’t understand-’ There was more silence, then: ‘What the hell do you mean? Didn’t you hear about the fire?’
Thunder boomed outside, and a sudden sheet of rain slapped against the curtained window.
Maggie listened another minute. Then, not bothering to cover up the mouthpiece, she held out the phone to Mac. ‘She’s hysterical, talking gibberish, but she knows,’ she said.
‘Ah, hell.’ Mac took the phone with both bandaged hands. ‘Jen?’
‘Mac? Oh, Mac. Here.’
‘Mac?’ A different voice, weaker, came on the line.
‘Tell him, damn it,’ Jen said in the background.
‘Mac?’ the weak voice said. ‘Luther Wiley here. I hired someone to set your fire. I…’ He paused.
‘Say it all now, Luther,’ Jen said.
‘He never came back to his car,’ Luther said.
‘You got that?’ Jen asked, coming on the line.
‘What’s going on?’ Mac said.
‘I’m interviewing Luther, of a fashion. I might be overstepping it. I have a gun.’
‘Jen!’
‘Luther overheard his uncle and Doc yelling at Clamp, telling him he couldn’t do that, or take that.’
‘Her head?’
‘That’s Luther’s guess,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that right, Luther?’ Someone, presumably a petrified Luther, murmured a response in the background. ‘Listen, Mac,’ Jen went on, ‘Clamp held a press briefing this morning, of sorts, down by your… land. He was entirely too vague about the burned corpse they found, so I think he’s guessed you’re still alive. But he’s acting crazy. After his little talk, Clamp tore down to those cabins by the river. I followed him. He was kneeling by a tree on the riverbank. I think he’s lost his mind. You need to stay away from the dais this afternoon.’
‘Where was he by the river, exactly?’
‘No place special, just at the base of some old dead tree.’