Trinity Harbor 3 - Along Came Trouble (4 page)

“That’s one interpretation,” he agreed. “But your explanation is just as logical. The man had just given you a taste of how vengeful he could be. It’s little wonder you wanted to get away from him as fast as possible.”

“Wil people believe that?”

He met her gaze. “I do.”

“Thank you. It’s more than I deserve.”

“Look, let’s get one thing straight,” he said bluntly. “I might hate what you did to me, but I don’t think you’re capable of murder.”

Relief spread across her face, only to fade in an instant. “Tucker, what should I do?”

Because he knew exactly how fast things would spin out of control once word of Chandler’s death started to spread, he said, “You need to hire a criminal attorney, someone from Richmond, I think. Do you know any good lawyers down there?”

“The city is crawling with them, though most of the ones I know don’t like to get their hands dirty with anything as messy as murder.”

Tucker nodded. “Then we should cal Powel Knight. If he won’t take the case, he’l recommend someone who wil .”

“Powel Knight who bloodied your nose over me in the fifth grade?” she asked incredulously. “He’s a lawyer?”

Tucker chuckled. “He stopped the assaults before law school. He’s been walking the straight and narrow for years now. And he owes me. My nose is stil crooked.”

Liz smiled for the first time since she’d begun talking. “It is not. It just has a little character.” She lifted her hand as if to touch it, then drew back with a sigh.

“Why does life have to be so damn complicated?” she asked wistful y.

“Keeps it interesting,” Tucker said. He might have said more, but common sense and practicalities kicked in. “Do you have a cel phone with you?

Why don’t you make that cal to Powel ? I’l see if I can’t rustle up some clothes for you to wear, then I’l cal the station and have a deputy meet us at Swan Ridge.”

“Do you have a stash of women’s clothes around here?” she asked, regarding him with curiosity.

“No. I’l cal my sister.”

“No,” Liz said at once, looking panic-stricken. “Tucker, you can’t cal Daisy. She already hates my guts for what I did to you. She’l be furious that I dragged you into the middle of this mess.”

“I would have been dragged into it one way or another,” he said, shrugging off her fears. “It happened in my jurisdiction. If you don’t want me to cal Daisy, do you have any better ideas?”

She hesitated, her shoulders slumping. It was tantamount to an admission that she’d maintained few real friendships in Trinity Harbor. He almost felt sorry for her, but he steeled himself against the reaction. She’d made her choices. Her grandfather had been an important man in Trinity Harbor. She would have basked in the same respect shown him if she hadn’t hurt a Spencer.

“I’l cal Daisy, then. You don’t even have to see her. And she doesn’t need to know what’s going on, or even who the clothes are for.”

“You shouldn’t have to lie to your own sister on my account.”

“It’s an omission, not a lie.”

“I doubt she’l see the distinction once she hears the whole story.”

“Let me worry about Daisy. You cal Powel .”

As soon as she’d gone looking for her cel phone, he cal ed the station and asked for Walker. His brother-in-law had been a homicide detective in Washington before he’d hooked up with Daisy and moved to Trinity Harbor. He was the best deputy Tucker had, and the only one he wanted on the scene this morning.

“I need you to get over to Swan Ridge,” he told Walker. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What kind of problem? That’s Larry Chandler’s place, isn’t it?”

“There’s a report that he’s dead. I’ve got his wife here with me. Keep this under your hat until you see what’s going on over there. I’l be there right behind you.”

“Didn’t I hear that you once had a relationship with Liz Chandler?” Walker asked. “Are you sure you ought to be anywhere near the scene?”

“Dammit, Walker, I know better than to take on the case myself. That’s why I cal ed you, but I’m not keeping my nose out of it. I want to know everything you find the minute you come up with it. And I want you to do it al by the book, no matter how bad it looks for Mary Elizabeth.”

“Do you think she did it?”

“What I think doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the truth.”

“Noble words,” Walker said. “But what’s your gut tel ing you?”

“It’s your gut that matters. Do your job.”

“I’m on my way.”

“And try to keep the media from finding out anything, at least until we have a fix on what went on over there.”

“Done,” Walker promised.

Tucker placed his next cal to his sister. “I need some clothes over here—a pair of your jeans, a T-shirt, some underwear, some shoes. And I need it without a lot of questions.”

“But—”

“No questions, Daisy. Please, just this once, help me out without giving me the third degree.”

“Third degrees are your business,” she said with an indignant huff. “Okay, I’l bring everything over there. Want me to leave it in a plain brown bag on the front porch and slink away?”

“Actual y that’s not a bad idea.”

“Fat chance.”

“Daisy,” he warned.

“Okay, okay, I’ve got it. Bring the clothes, leave the questions back home.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’l owe me,” she told him.

“I usual y do.”

As soon as he got off the phone, he retrieved a clean garbage bag and went looking in his trash for Mary Elizabeth’s bloodied clothes. She hadn’t exactly tried to conceal them. They were right on top, in plain view. He took that as a good sign. Less positive was the fact that there was a lot of blood, more than a person would get checking a man’s pulse. Was there as much as if she’d shot her husband at close range, maybe even struggled with him as he bled? Tucker didn’t even want to speculate on that. He’d leave it to the experts.

He turned and saw Mary Elizabeth regarding him uneasily. Her gaze shifted to the trash bag, then back to his face.

“Tucker?”

He met her gaze. “What?”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“I won’t even be involved in the decision,” he told her.

Something that looked like panic flickered in her eyes. “Why not?”

“Because by coming here, and because we have a past history, you’ve made sure I have to take myself off the case.”

“But—”

He cut her off. “That’s the way it has to be, Mary Elizabeth. You know that. I’ve got my best deputy heading over to Swan Ridge right now.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “What have I done?”

Tucker’s blood ran cold. “Why do you say that?”

“I wanted you to handle this.”

The icy fist kept a firm grip on his insides. “Because you thought I’d protect you?”

“No. Because I trust you.”

Tucker wanted desperately to believe that’s al it was, that she hadn’t come here hoping to use their past to keep him from delving too deeply into the circumstances surrounding Chandler’s death.

“I hope you’re tel ing me the truth.”

There was genuine hurt in her eyes when she met his gaze. “I’ve never lied to you.
Never.
”

“I think maybe that’s open to interpretation,” he said quietly. “But what’s done is done. Al I care about is whether you’re being honest now.”

“I am. I swear it.”

He nodded. “Then we’l deal with the rest as it comes.”

“Together?”

He thought of the sensible reply and the one that came from his heart. “Together,” he agreed.

Al he could do was pray that he wouldn’t live to regret it.

3

T
ucker had made one serious miscalculation when he’d caled Daisy. He’d forgotten that Mary Elizabeth’s very distinctive car—a Jaguar with vanity plates he’d sometimes spotted driving too fast on the county’s back roads—had to be parked somewhere in the vicinity. He hadn’t noticed it the night before, but it was a sure bet she hadn’t walked to his house from Swan Ridge.

He realized his mistake when his sister came barreling into the kitchen like an avenging angel and tossed a bagful of clothes straight at him. The heavy bag caught him right in the gut. She always had had a great arm, to say nothing of an amazing protective streak when it came to him and Bobby.

“I sincerely hope those clothes are not for Mary Elizabeth,” she said, staring him down.

“What makes you think they are?” he replied defensively.

“Because that’s her fancy car sitting in plain view in front of your house. I’m not stupid, Tucker. Neither is anyone else in this town.” She regarded him with a worried frown. “I hope to heaven you know what you’re doing.”

“I do,” he said, tucking a hand under her elbow and steering her straight toward the door without wasting time on the explanation she was so obviously hoping for. “Thanks for coming over here so quickly.”

“Why does a woman with a designer wardrobe need my clothes?” Daisy inquired testily. “You two going somewhere incognito? I hate to tel you this, but it wil take more than a change of clothes to pul that off.”

Tucker sighed. “No questions, remember?”

“The woman broke your heart,” his sister said fiercely. “Have you forgotten that?”

“Not for a minute.”

“If you say so,” she said, her doubt plain. “In my experience, men can push an amazing amount of past history out of their heads when they start thinking with another part of their anatomy.”

He scowled at her. “Don’t make me sorry that I turned to you for help this morning.”

After an instant’s hesitation, she reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “And don’t make me sorry I gave it. I love you.”

“You, too, kid.”

He watched as she walked to her car, shot a disparaging look toward Mary Elizabeth’s sports car, then drove off with a distracted wave in his direction.

“Wil she go straight to your father?” Mary Elizabeth asked, coming up behind him.

“No,” he said with confidence. “Daisy never tattles.”

Mary Elizabeth looked skeptical. “That’s not the way I remember it. She was the first one to run to King when she realized you and I were having secret meetings out behind the barn.”

“Don’t go there. That was a lifetime ago.” And he didn’t want to be dragged down memory lane. The present was complicated enough without it.

Tucker handed her the clothes. “We need to get moving.”

“I’l hurry,” she said at once.

True to her word, she was back in minutes. Without makeup and with her hair swept into a loose ponytail held up by what looked like one of his handkerchiefs, she looked a whole lot more like the girl he remembered than the sophisticated woman she’d become. The jeans hung loosely on her, and she’d had to rol up the cuffs. She’d tucked in the bright yel ow T-shirt, then added one of his belts around her narrow waist. Somehow she managed to make the il -fitting outfit look stylish.

He studied her pale complexion and worried eyes. “This is going to get rough. Wil you be okay?”

“I’l manage,” she said stoical y. “Let’s get this over with.”

The drive to Swan Ridge took less than twenty minutes. Mary Elizabeth grew noticeably more tense as he turned through the open wrought-iron gate and onto the cedar-lined drive. Bright green soybean fields spread east and west as far as the eye could see. Up ahead, just around the first curve in the drive, Tucker knew he would catch his first glimpse of the three-story brick house with its jutting wings and majestic sweep of steps. It always reminded him of Stratford Hal , the historic home of the Lees not too far up the road. Same period, same style, only on a slightly smal er scale.

The landscaped grounds were fil ed with hol y trees, azaleas, towering oaks, magnolias and the sweet, lingering scent of honeysuckle that had apparently escaped the notice of the gardener. The pink, purple and deep red crepe myrtles were just coming into bloom as July edged toward August. In the back, he knew, there was a formal boxwood maze, where he and Mary Elizabeth had stolen many a kiss far from her grandfather’s watchful eye.

“It hasn’t changed much,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

Her hands were clutched tightly together in her lap. She jerked her gaze from the sight of the sheriff’s cruiser in front of the house and looked at him.

“Larry loved this house as much as my grandfather did. He insisted we do nothing to change it. He even hired someone to run the soybean operation. When one of the trees got hit by lightning, he brought in a ful -grown tree to replace it. It cost a fortune, but he said it was worth every penny.”

She sighed heavily. “Sometimes I wonder if he cared more about losing al this than he did about losing me.”

Since that very same thought had crossed Tucker’s mind, he couldn’t bring himself to argue with her. He caught the flicker of hurt in her eyes when he didn’t utter some platitude denying her speculation.

“You didn’t know him,” she said stiffly, defending her husband despite Tucker’s silence.

“No, but you did, and you’re the one who said it, Mary Elizabeth,” he reminded her, hitting the brakes too hard and jerking the car to a stop in front of the house. “I knew nothing about Chandler or your marriage. I made it a point to keep it that way.”

“And now I’ve dragged you into the middle of it,” she said with regret. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not in the middle. From this moment on, I’m on the sidelines.”

She winced at the reminder. “Tel me about the deputy who wil handle it.”

“His name’s Walker Ames. He’s good. He was a homicide detective in Washington up until a couple of years ago. He won’t miss anything.”

“But…” She regarded him with dismay. “Isn’t he Daisy’s husband?”

“That won’t matter,” Tucker said with conviction even as she turned to stare out the window. He tucked a hand under her chin and forced her to face him. “It wil be okay. I promise. You want the best person available on this, and that’s Walker. If there’s so much as a hint that he’s not being scrupulously impartial, whatever the reason for it, I can cal in the state police and turn the whole investigation over to them. I can do that now, if you’d prefer, if you think my department can’t give you a fair shake.”

“I want to believe you know what you’re doing, but I’m scared,” she admitted.