Dead Right (10 page)

She lowered the volume on the radio. “I owe you an apology,” she said stiffly. “I’ve been trying to formulate it for the past fifteen miles, but I’m not real y myself right now.

And I have no explanation for my poor behavior except—

there’s a lot riding on this for me, you know?”

He didn’t want her to apologize. Then he couldn’t hold her comments against her. “Not the best apology I’ve ever received,” he said, although it’d sounded sincere.

“So you won’t forgive me?”

The entreaty in her voice made him feel something he hadn’t felt in a long time—genuine compassion. She was so exhausted. He could hear it in the way she talked, see it in the way she moved. Stil , he didn’t want to experience
her
pain; he had enough of his own.

“Give me some background on your father,” he said instead of addressing the question.

“Where should I start?”

“What was his name?”

“Lee Barker.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“He was a pastor, very devout, but also popular.”

“When and where was he last seen?”

Lightning flashed, il uminating the silvery glow of the rain-slicked hood as wel as Madeline’s classic profile. “It’l be twenty years on October fourth. He went to church to meet with a couple of ladies who were planning a youth activity, and he never came home.”

He refused to consider the emotional consequences of what she’d been through. Distance—that was his first priority. Solving this case came second. “Has someone checked out these ladies?” He knew it was probably a stupid question, but he had to begin at the beginning. Being methodical kept his focus where he wanted it to be—on the facts.

“Of course. Nora Young and Rachel Cook would never hurt anyone, least of al my father. They idolized him.

Imagine Aunt Bea on the
Andy Griffith Show
and you’l have some idea of what these ladies are like.”

“You mentioned a stepmother on the phone. Where was your real mother when this occurred?” he asked. When one spouse went missing, the other, or an ex, was frequently to blame. Before he started investigating the stepmom, he needed to rule out the first Mrs. Barker.

But that was easier than he’d expected.

“Dead,” Madeline said.

He watched her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

She didn’t respond.

“What happened?”

“She shot herself with my father’s gun.”

“When?”

“I was ten.”

He flinched in spite of himself. “Who found her?”

Madeline’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “I did.”

Shit…
He didn’t know what to say. She’d been through so much.

But sad as her story was, her pain didn’t have to be his pain, he reminded himself. She didn’t need him to save her.

She was just a client—a beautiful client, but a client nonetheless.

“I’d come home from school and wanted to show her my report card,” she went on in a monotone. “My father sent me in to wake her from a nap and—” her voice quavered “—

and there she was.”

Distance, remember?
“Your father hadn’t heard the shot?” he prompted softly. Maybe it was insensitive to ask, but he had to learn al he could about Madeline Barker and her history. It was the best way to solve her father’s murder, which he intended to do as quickly as possible—before he could find too many things to like about her. Besides her looks, of course.

“No. She did it while he was out working on the farm. He saw me get off the bus and fol owed me to the house.”

“How long after your mother’s death did your father go missing?” he asked.

“Six years. We managed on our own for three. Then my father met a woman named Irene Montgomery.”

“You didn’t know her?”

The rain pounded harder, but Madeline didn’t slow down. “No. They met at a regional singles dance. She was living in Boonevil e, which isn’t too far from Stil water. He was forty-three and she was only thirty-two, but she needed an older man in her life.”

Was it possible she’d needed a few other things, as wel ? Some creature comforts she could better enjoy without him? “Why older?” he asked.

“She’d dropped out of school, pregnant at sixteen. She married the father of her baby, but after they’d had two more children, he abandoned her. She didn’t have a lot of options, and was looking for some stability.”

“And your father offered that.”

She turned the knob for the windshield wipers until they were swishing back and forth at a frenetic pace. He guessed they were keeping time with her heart. But outwardly she remained calm. “Sure. He had the farm my stepbrother now owns, a good job, modest savings. And he was wel -respected in the community.”

Hunter leaned forward to see around the silky fal of her hair. “I thought your stepmother inherited the farm.” He’d made a note of it when they talked on the phone the first time she’d cal ed because the farm might’ve provided the stepmother with a motive for murder.

“She did. But when Mol y, my youngest sister, graduated from high school, my stepmother moved to town and my brother took over.”

“Is it a nice piece of property?”

The look she shot him said she’d heard the suspicion in his voice. “Don’t jump to that conclusion.”

“What conclusion? It’s a logical question.”

“I told you on the phone, my stepmother didn’t kil my father.”

“You were with her when your father went missing?”

Her expression grew haunted. “No, I wasn’t home that night. I was staying at a friend’s.”

“Who was at home?”

“Grace and Mol y and later, Clay. My mother was there part of the time, but she certainly wouldn’t kil the one person who was putting food on the table for her children.

We almost starved after my father went missing. If it wasn’t for my stepbrother, we would’ve gone hungry—or been separated and taken into foster care.”

“What’d he do to save the day?”

“Ran the farm, worked odd jobs in town, anything he had to do, real y. That’s why my stepmother turned the farm over to him.”

“Sounds like he was the best-equipped to run it.”

“He was. And five years ago, he paid each of us our portion of what it was worth at the time my father went missing,” she added. “Which was very generous of him,”

she added. “I wasn’t expecting any payment. We would’ve faced foreclosure without him.”

“So he’s done wel ?”

“Wel enough that he could lend me a significant amount of money last year when I needed to buy a new printing press.”

Madeline’s reference to a recent loan hardly put Hunter at ease. Would she be able to pay him? There were a
lot
of things about this case that were making him uneasy.

Beginning with the woman behind the wheel. “So Clay’s older?” he asked.

“We were both sixteen when everything fel apart.”

“He took responsibility for the family at
sixteen?
”

She smiled faintly. “He’s always been very capable.”

Capable of murder? Sixteen was pretty young to kil , but it wouldn’t be the first time a teenager had resorted to deadly violence. Madeline readily admitted that Clay’s abilities had outdistanced his age. And she’d mentioned that there was a gun in the house. “How big is your brother?”

“Wel over six feet. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Her lips formed a grim line.

Hunter leaned forward once again, to see her face more clearly. “What’s wrong?”

“He didn’t kil my father, either.”

“And you know that because he has a foolproof alibi?”

“I know
him.
” The loyalty and conviction in her voice sounded resolute. But the fact that she hadn’t volunteered any solid proof concerned Hunter. Obviously, there was some question here.

Hunter rubbed his chin while he considered her reaction.

“Where was he the night it happened?”

“Out with friends. But then he came home.”

“And from that point he’s only got his mother and sisters to vouch for him?”

“More or less.”

Hunter’s discomfort increased. Was she
really
sure about Clay—or just blind to the possibility? “What about your stepmother’s first husband?”

“What about him?”

“He never cal ed or came to visit? Never paid child support? Never sent a Christmas card?”

“Growing up, we never heard from him. Didn’t even know where he was. But he showed up last summer. Turns out he’s been living in Alaska al these years. He flies fishermen to remote lakes and streams, that sort of thing.”

Hunter tucked that piece of information away to examine later. A boy abandoned by his father could easily harbor a deep resentment of adult males. “Tel me a little more about Irene.”

“After my father met her, they got married and she brought her children to live with us. Clay and I were thirteen.

Grace was ten; Mol y was eight.”

“Did you get along with your stepsiblings?”

“Very wel .”

“You never fought?” He didn’t bother hiding his skepticism.

“We had the usual squabbles. But to be honest, those years were some of the best of my life. In the summer, after we finished our work, Clay would give us rides on the tractor. Sometimes Grace and I would dress up in Irene’s old clothes and pretend we were getting married. Mol y would beg us to put makeup on her, and we’d weave dandelion wreaths to wear in our hair.”

He found the images her words created oddly appealing, like something out of a book. “What about your stepmother?”

Her turn signal clicked as Madeline passed the car in front of them. “Mom would make lemonade and bake cookies and we’d go out on the porch to read the Bible. I can stil hear the creak of her rocking chair, the insects buzzing, feel the heat of late afternoon…”

“So your stepmother was as religious as your father.”

The hesitation in her manner told him she wasn’t as sure of her next answer. “No…he was the one who insisted on daily Bible study. But she made a party out of it. She knew how to make the most mundane tasks fun.”

Hunter sensed Madeline’s desire to steer his interest away from the Montgomerys. But if she wanted him to solve this disappearance—this probable murder—he had to investigate al possibilities and eliminate them one by one.

“Did your father and your stepmother ever fight?”

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip and, for some reason, Hunter thought of the condom a client had recently handed him as a promotional piece for his strip joint. He’d shoved it in his wal et, but he had no plans to use it, at least in Mississippi. Fortunately, he wouldn’t be tempted—not by Madeline Barker, anyway. She had a boyfriend.

“They had occasional disagreements,” she was saying.

“But they didn’t get violent. My father never raised his voice.

And my Mom—
Irene,
” she clarified, “wasn’t the type to fight. If Dad asked her to join the church choir, she joined the choir. If he asked her to host a funeral luncheon, she hosted a luncheon. She wanted nothing more than to be a good wife, to please him.”

“She wanted
nothing
more than that? You don’t think she was too servile? That she might’ve resented her lack of power in the relationship?”

“This is the South, remember?”

“I understand that Mississippi might not be a hotbed of feminist activism, but that doesn’t mean she liked it.”

“I would’ve known if she resented him. She didn’t.”

Possibly. “Did your father
expect
to be obeyed?” he asked.

“He did,” she admitted without reservation. “Like I told you, it’s fairly normal where I live, and was even more so twenty-five years ago.”

Hunter had been raised by a strong, very opinionated mother who’d endowed him with a great deal of respect for the opposite sex. He found this take on women
very
old-fashioned, as if he’d slipped into the fifties—or earlier. “Do fashioned, as if he’d slipped into the fifties—or earlier. “Do you fit the Southern mold?”

“I believe in equal jobs for equal pay, but I like it when a man is nice enough to open the door for me or pump my gas,” she said.

His smile was slightly mocking. “The best of both worlds?”

“I don’t see why those things have to be mutual y exclusive. I want what’s right, but I’m stil a woman and I enjoy being treated like one.”

“Does your boyfriend perform those little courtesies?”

She blinked at him. “What boyfriend?”

The boyfriend who meant Hunter didn’t have to worry about whether or not he was attracted to her. “At the airport, you said you were involved with someone.”

She looked away. “Oh, right.”

He didn’t think it said much for the relationship that she could forget this boyfriend so easily. But that was her problem. “Are you two planning on getting married someday?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

What was so invasive about that question? He’d asked her much worse. But she had a point. He was wandering off topic. “Fine. If you had to name your father’s greatest fault, what would it be?” he asked, forcing his attention back where it belonged.

She answered without even having to think about it. “He was too preoccupied with his work. His church and the people in it were everything to him. But he was good to us.”

Hunter wondered if Irene would tel him the same thing.

“Was there any life insurance?”

“My father had a smal policy, but my mother’s never tried to col ect on it.”

“Why not?”

“We were hoping he wasn’t…gone forever, of course.”

We…
That was interesting. It’d been difficult to pay the mortgage, yet Irene hadn’t tried to prove that her missing husband was dead so she could col ect on his life insurance. Had she truly been hoping for his return? Or did she fear that going after the money would spark an investigation by the insurance company?

If wife number two was to blame, money wasn’t the motive or she would’ve applied for the insurance. And he doubted she would’ve kept Barker’s daughter.

So maybe Barker’s death had been triggered by anger or jealousy…. “Any chance that either your father or Irene could’ve been having an affair?”

“No.”

That was it. No hesitation. Only one word. “How do you know?”