I looked at the pad of numbers Vernell kept beside the phone, mounted on a tacky little floral pad that had to be a Jolene leftover. Bess King's number was sitting right there.
"Why not?" I murmured. "Maybe two heads would be better than one."
I dialed the number and waited. After three rings I heard her voice, tired but not sleepy.
"Hello?" she said.
"Bess, it's Maggie. Listen, you want to help me get Vernell out of this mess?"
"What do you mean?" She sounded suspicious.
"I'm about half out of my mind trying to figure out what all's going on here. Maybe, since you've been with him lately, you can puzzle out some of the pieces that I can't figure. Maybe we'll get to this quicker if we both work on it."
She was thinking about it. She was quiet for a minute and then strong. "All right, let's do it."
I made it from Vernell's house to hers in fifteen minutes. She was waiting at the foot of the driveway, dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket, a female version of Tony Carlucci.
"I'm thinking we should drop in on Pauline Conrad," I said. "I'm thinking seeing you might shake her up a little."
Bess smiled softly and looked out the window. "Now that's a conversation I might enjoy having. The widow and the girlfriend, together at last."
"Precisely," I said. "What do you know about the Promised Land?"
Bess looked startled, glanced at me then away. She knew everything.
"The Promised Land? Why, I guess I know no more than the next person," she said, but her voice cracked.
"Look," I said, speeding up and flying down the back road into town, "if you're with me on this, you've gotta be honest, no matter what you think Vernell would want you to do. I'm his ex-wife, Bess, not his enemy. I don't want him back, I just want him out of jail."
Bess sat with that for a minute, thinking and mulling it over.
"You know, I've been jealous of you a long time, Maggie. Vernell just can't seem to turn loose of trying to do it right for you." Her voice had a bitter edge to it. "He's got you up on some pedestal, just like he does his mother. You're the saint, the one who can never do any wrong, and he's your bad boy."
I started to say something and stopped. Let her say her piece.
"He's spent most of his life trying to fit in and be successful. He's been so busy impressing others, he's forgotten about living right. He wants everybody to think he's Mr. Greensboro, and to do that, he created a castle and married a trophy wife, and built up a mountain of debt."
She turned in her seat and I could feel her staring at me. "You didn't even know that, did you?"
"Bess, Vernell's money was of no consequence to me. All I wanted was for Sheila to be able to go to college. When her Uncle Jimmy died, I figured she was set on the half of the Mobile Home Kingdom he left her. I let Vernell do his thing and I tried to stay out of it, until he made it to where I had to become involved."
Bess sighed. "Vernell's been fighting the banks and just about everybody else trying to stay afloat long enough to make the businesses pay off. He was fighting a hostile takeover by VanScoy Mobile Homes on account of they smelled blood and were looking to clean him out. The Promised Land is Vernell's only hope."
I was back in town, rolling down Elm Street, two blocks away from Pauline Conrad's condominium.
"So, he was looking to borrow the money to finance the Promised Land from Nosmo?"
Bess shook her head. "No, not at first. When I met him, all he was looking to do was buy out Archer VanScoy, kind of a reverse takeover. But he didn't want to lose anything to do it. He wanted his image and the power of being the mobile home king. Do you know what a stupid thing it would've been to borrow three million from Nosmo? Twenty percent interest rate, impossible terms, and Nosmo just waiting to repo the whole deal."
"Why didn't he go through with it?" I pulled up into the condominium parking lot, killed the engine, and turned to face Bess.
She looked me right in the eye. "Because we fell in love," she said simply. "And Vernell decided to walk in the path of righteousness."
"But he was still drinking!"
Bess shrugged. "I didn't say he was walking in the path of perfection. Vernell was new to doing things the right way. Every now and then, he fell back. But Maggie, he kept trying. That's what was new about Vernell."
Part of me wanted to set her straight, and part of me wanted to believe her. Was it possible that Vernell Spivey had found what I hadn't been able to provide? Was it true that he was growing up at last? I looked up at the tenth floor of the condo building and shuddered. Maybe Pauline Conrad had taken it all away from him. And if she hadn't, maybe she held the key to figuring it all out.
"Okay," I said, "let's go. There's the small matter of the doorman, and then we're in and up the elevator."
Bess stepped out of the car, her lips tightened into a firm, straight line. "Don't worry about him," she said. "I can get us inside."
Bess squared her shoulders and walked across the parking lot. I followed her, doing my best to match her long strides to my own shorter ones. When she reached the front door, Bess fumbled in her purse, produced a flat, plastic card, and stuck it into a slot by the doorway.
When she saw my mouth gape open, she smiled. "I hired a private detective to find out all about Nosmo. Like I said, I've known about his little love nest for years. He kept his passkey right out on his dresser. I guess he thought I was stupid."
She breezed inside, walked right up to the elevator and punched the button.
"Excuse me," the doorman said, "I don't believe I know you."
Bess favored him with a regal glare. "No, I don't believe you do," she said, and sailed into the open elevator. I stepped in behind her, my heart pounding, and watched as she hit the button for the tenth floor and then the button to close the doors.
"All you do," she said, "is act as if you belong and they don't. Another little trick my husband taught me. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying I learned it from him."
We rode up in silence. I had no idea what she was thinking, but I was trying to figure out the best way to get to Pauline Conrad. When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Bess King was across the hall and ringing the doorbell without me having to direct her. Her eyes were hard and her entire manner had changed. Gone was the country girl, and in her place, a hard-nosed, all-business woman.
Footsteps scuffed across the foyer on the other side of the door. Someone peered out through the peephole, and then the door swung open on its chain.
Pauline Conrad wore bunny slippers and flannel pajamas. Her hair was pulled back from her face by a soft pink headband, and all the makeup had been carefully scrubbed away. She looked ten years old, with an early onset case of acne.
"Bess," she said, stuttering slightly and obviously startled.
"Hello, Pauline. Mind if we come in? I need to talk to you." Bess spoke softly, but like my old school principal, with authority and strength that simmered just below the genuine warmth and kindness. I didn't know how she was pulling it off. This was the latest in a string of women who'd slept with her husband on a regular basis, eroding her marriage into the sham it had become when she met Vernell.
Pauline closed the door, removed the chain and then swung it wide to admit her late-night visitors. As Bess stepped through the door, Pauline started offering her tea and coffee and all manner of drinks and hospitality, but Bess shook her head and waved her away.