The Senator's Wife (32 page)

She was going to go inside and tell him she wanted a divorce.

Then she was going to call Tom and tell him too.

She left Davis pursuing an intriguing scent that took him bounding around the back of the house, and walked up the steps, through the front door, through the center hallway, and along the hall that led to Lewis’s office. The idea of leaving behind the crystal chandeliers and fine paintings and expensive antiques she passed did not give her so much as a pang.

They were just
things
.

People were what mattered. Or at least one particular person.

With a quick knock she turned the knob and opened the door to Lewis’s office.

He had fallen asleep at his desk. Ronnie frowned. His silvered head and massive shoulders lay heavily against the brightly polished mahogany surface.

“Lewis?” She walked into the room and over to the desk, which was directly opposite the door. It was not
like Lewis to fall asleep at his desk. In fact he had never, to her knowledge, done so before.

“Lewis?” Was he ill? Could he have suffered a heart attack, or a stroke? After all, he was not a young man.…

Reaching the desk, she touched his shoulder, nudging him even as she walked around the side of the desk. Her foot hit something hard on the intricately patterned oriental carpet beneath her feet.

Looking down, she saw that it was a gun. The silver pistol that Lewis usually kept in the desk’s top drawer, to be precise. Or at least one that looked just like it. Bending down, she picked it up and stared at it.

It was heavy and cool in her hand.

Then she looked at Lewis again.

“Lewis!” She dropped the gun, and shoved violently at his shoulder, shaking him.

That was when she saw that his head lay in a dark, sticky-looking pool of blood.

Chapter
37

September 12th
6:00
P.M
.
POPE

“Y
OU MAKE GOOD MEAT LOAF
, Marla.” Replete, Jerry got up from the kitchen table and wandered over to the back door, where he looked out through the screen at the little girl playing in the small, rocky backyard. “Good potatoes too. Good everything.”

“Thanks, Jerry.” Marla started clearing the table, carrying the plates to the counter and then scraping them into the sink. She turned on the water and, with a quick flip of the switch, the garbage disposal. The harsh whirring sound provided accompaniment while she loaded the dishes into the dishwasher.

“Looks like Lissy likes it here,” Jerry said next.

“You’ve been so good to her.” With the dishwasher loaded, Marla gave the counter a quick swipe with the sponge and joined Jerry at the screen door. Lissy was sitting high in a tree in the backyard, having an apparently serious conversation with a kitten who was up in the tree with her. Her long, thin legs were swung sideways over a branch, and her bare feet dangled a good twenty feet above the ground.

“I oughta make her come down,” Marla said with a sigh. “If she falls, she’ll break her neck.”

“Let her alone,” Jerry advised comfortably. “She’s happy.”

Lissy did look happy, Marla thought. Having a house, a yard, and a kitten was good for her. And she liked Jerry. He’d given her the kitten, bringing it home from the grocery store with him two days before. Lissy had been ecstatic—she’d never had a pet before—and had named the kitten
Boo
.

It kind of made up for the fact that she was having a little trouble fitting in with the other girls at school. Jerry had insisted that she be enrolled, though Marla, fearing that somehow the killer might be able to trace her through Lissy’s school records, had resisted. But Jerry had dismissed her fears, Lissy had begged to go—she loved school—and Marla had found herself overruled.

It had been both funny and annoying to have the two of them gang up on her like that.

But the other girls were snubbing Lissy, which made Marla’s blood boil every time she thought about it. They wouldn’t sit with her at lunch, or play with her at recess. Most of the children had been together since kindergarten, and the cliques were already set in concrete. Lissy was the odd girl out.

“I got a surprise for her,” Jerry said.

Marla glanced at him. “What?”

“She’s gonna have dance lessons. Ballet. Starting tomorrow, right after school.”

“
What?
”

“All the other girls take dance lessons. I checked around. This one tomorrow is the class they go to.”

Marla spluttered, so surprised, she was having trouble marshaling her thoughts. “But—but she’ll need special clothes for that, won’t she? And shoes? And—and I don’t know how much dance lessons cost, Jerry, but—”

“You let me worry about that.” He was looking at Lissy again, sitting up in the tree, talking to her cat. “It’ll give her something in common with the other girls, a way to make friends.”

“But, Jerry, we’re not gonna be here that long.”

Jerry looked at her then. “You never know, Marla. You never know.”

Chapter
38

September 12th
7:00
P.M
.
JACKSON

T
HE
S
ENATOR LAY
in state in the ornate, domed chamber of the state capitol building. With Kenny at his heels, Tom battled his way through an army of press to get inside. Fortunately none of the reporters was interested in them. Cameras, mikes, tape recorders, and all, the reporters were focused on the heavy doors, waiting for someone of importance to come out. At the moment only family, close friends and associates, and political bigwigs were being admitted. Tomorrow, for two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon, and two hours in the evening, the public would be permitted to file by the bier and pay their last respects.

A stir went up as one of the phalanx of state troopers guarding the doors recognized Tom and opened them just enough to permit him and Kenny to pass through.

A chorus of “Who was that?” “Did you see?” “Were they members of the family?” went up, only to be silenced as the heavy doors swung shut behind them.

The first thing Tom saw was the coffin, which rested before the speaker’s platform. It brought home as nothing else had done the reality of what had happened: His Honor was dead. The role he had played in Tom’s life was not large, but it was important. His acquaintance, as an impressionable youth, with a real U.S. senator had helped shape his ultimate career choice. He had looked up to the Senator then, and in many ways admired him still. And he was—had been—Ronnie’s husband.

God, what a mess.

The enormous arched ceiling with its stained glass dome and gilded trim soared overhead with grandeur befitting the occasion. Diffused light filtered down through the dome, illuminating the interior of the chamber with an otherworldly ambience. Soberly clad people stood about in small clusters, talking quietly among themselves. Uniformed state troopers were stationed around the room. A funereal hush lay over all.

Tom’s gaze ran over the mourners. There was only one he was interested in at the moment.

“There’s Mrs. Honneker,” Kenny whispered, indicating her location with a discreet nod.

Tom’s head swung in the direction Kenny indicated, but the woman was not the Mrs. Honneker he sought. She was Dorothy, dressed all in black and standing with a pair of equally elderly women close to the bier. Lewis’s mother suddenly looked every one of her eighty-some-odd years, and Tom knew the loss was going to hit her hard. A glance around found Marsden talking with a group on the far side of the room. Losing his father would hit Marsden hard too.

Then a familiar redhead caught his eye. Ronnie sat
with her back to him in the first of a line of folding chairs placed in front of the coffin. Governor Blake was standing before her, patting her hand as he offered his condolences.

“I’m going up there,” he said to Kenny, nodding toward where Ronnie sat.

Without giving the least appearance of haste, Tom moved toward her as swiftly as he could. He’d been in the little town of Rice, California, when Kenny had called him just before eight
A.M
. with the news of Senator Honneker’s death. Getting from there to Jackson, Mississippi, in about ten hours had been no easy task, but he’d managed it. Kenny had said the Senator had been shot once in the head. Suicide or homicide? That was the question.

Either way Tom knew that Ronnie was going to need him. Not just him personally, though there was that, too, but his professional expertise. Given the way the local press had historically treated her, whatever the answer, he was afraid she might be in for a bumpy ride.

There were women with her, he saw as he got closer, and was glad of it. The people who might most logically be expected to support her through this ordeal were the Senator’s family and friends, and ultimately they were not friends of Ronnie’s. Marsden openly hated her. Tom suspected the girls did, too, and probably Dorothy. If push came to shove, most of Mississippi would fall in line with them.

If lines were drawn, there were precious few people who could be counted on to be on Ronnie’s side.

The governor moved on just as Tom came around the end of the line of chairs. Someone else went up to
speak to her; a politician, Ed Hunan, Speaker of the Mississippi House. It took a minute, but Tom finally identified him. Tom waited until the other man had finished paying his respects before approaching.

“Ronnie,” he said quietly, hunkering down in front of her and putting one of his hands over hers, which were clasped in her lap. Her fingers were cold as ice.

“Tom!” It was a thankful cry, uttered as her eyes met his. For a minute there Tom thought she was going to come out of her chair right into his arms. But then she seemed to recollect her surroundings, because she sank back, the fingers of one hand curling tightly around his. “Oh, Tom, I’m glad you came.”

“I’m sorry about Lewis,” he said, mindful of the women watching and listening beside her. “It’s a terrible thing.”

“Yes,” she agreed. Her face was paper white. Her eyes were enormous, with shadows beneath them, as they met his. She was dressed all in black, from the jewel neckline of her long-sleeved dress to her shoes. “Oh, Tom, I—I found him. Lewis. Lewis’s—body.”

She closed her eyes. A delicate shudder shook her from head to toe.

“Christ,” Tom said, tightening his grip on her hand. This was worse than he expected. Ronnie looked as if she could keel over at any second.

The woman seated next to Ronnie, an attractive blonde about Ronnie’s own age, patted her shoulder consolingly, her gaze on Tom all the while. A sweeping glance around told him that the little group of women around Ronnie were all regarding him with interest. The only one he recognized was Thea. He nodded at her. She was giving him that same look too: It was—

speculative, as though they sensed an undercurrent between him and Ronnie and were wondering what was going on.

Was it that obvious that there was something between them? He hoped not. At least not at His Honor’s wake.

“Have you had anything to eat today?” he asked Ronnie in a low voice. She opened her eyes, frowning, and looking vaguely confused.

“I—coffee this morning. A roll. I don’t know.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I …” Ronnie didn’t seem to know.

“Since five,” Thea supplied. She was sitting next to the blonde. The woman beside Ronnie nodded agreement. “I’m Kathy Blount, by the way,” she said.

“Tom Quinlan,” he said.

“How long will this thing go on?” Tom looked at Thea.

“I think it’s supposed to be over at ten,” Thea said.

“You can’t stay here for three more hours,” Tom said to Ronnie. “You need to eat, and lie down. Let me take you home.”

Ronnie gave another small shudder.

Kathy Blount leaned toward Ronnie, touching her arm. “He’s right, Ronnie, you need to go home. If you would rather”—this was said with an appraising look at Tom—“I’ll take you.”

Ronnie smiled at her friend. It was a wan, tremulous effort. “No, thanks, Kathy. I know your children are waiting for you. It was good of you to come. I think I will go home, but Tom can take me.”

“You sure?” Kathy Blount’s look was searching. Ronnie nodded. Tom realized that their hands were
still clasped in her lap. Hell, the
governor
had been holding her hand; there was nothing wrong with that. Under the circumstances it could be construed as offering comfort to a new widow.

Which it absolutely was.

“Thea, you can come with us,” Tom said. For the sheer look of it, it might be best if he and Ronnie didn’t leave alone.

“Sure, Tom.”

Tom got to his feet, tugging gently on Ronnie’s hand. She stood up, and turned even paler. For a moment Tom feared she might faint.

He grasped her elbow to steady her. Putting his arm around her was what he wanted to do, what his instincts urged him to do, but a sense of their audience prevented it.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a moment. She nodded.

He kept a hand on her elbow as they started walking. With Thea close on Ronnie’s other side, they should be able to catch her before she hit the floor if she did collapse. Remembering the mob of press outside, Tom headed toward a side door. Kenny must have seen their progress, because he broke off his conversation and came to join them.

“Leaving?” he asked quietly.

“I’m taking her home,” Tom replied, equally low. “She’s shaky, and as white as a sheet.”

“Shock,” he said. Then, louder, to Ronnie, “I’m sorry about your husband.”

Ronnie nodded her thanks. Kenny fell a couple of paces behind with Thea.

“The police questioned me three times this afternoon,”
Ronnie said after a moment. Her voice was scarcely above a whisper.

“What?” Tom looked at her sharply.

“I don’t think they think it was suicide.”