“Jesus,” he whispered. “This is out of hand.”
chapter 14
“John? Is this John Waters?”
Waters blinked himself awake and found the phone in his hand. Lily was gone, the bed was a wreck, and daylight shone around the edges of the drapes.
“This is Waters,” he mumbled. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Tom Jackson, John.”
He instantly came to full alertness. “What can I do for you, Tom?”
“Sounds like I woke you up.”
Lily’s clock radio read 9:15 A.M. Waters was usually in his office by 8:30. “I had a headache last night. Guess I overslept.”
“Sorry. Look, I have another question for you.”
“Shoot,” said Waters, remembering Penn’s warning: The police have another lead. Caitlin’s source thought he heard your name come up…
“We got a lady says she saw you and Eve Sumner going into the driveway of Bienville two days in a row the week before the murder.”
Waters waited for more details, but Jackson offered none. He swallowed hard.
“That’s right,” he said, as the skin of his face seemed to tighten around his skull. “Is that a problem?”
“Well,” said Jackson, “last time I talked to you, you didn’t seem like a big fan of Ms. Sumner. You went down to her office to give her an earful after she tried to sell your house out from under you. That’s what you said.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’m sort of confused, John. What were you doing with her at Bienville a few days after that? And not once but twice?”
“She was showing me the house. Simple as that.”
Silence. “You in the market for a new house? You already got a pretty nice one.”
“Bienville has a lot of architectural significance.”
“I don’t know too much about that kind of thing. Is Lily interested in it too?”
A flash of the knife. Tom Jackson was quicker than he liked people to think. “Here’s the thing, Tom. I’ve been thinking about buying it as a surprise for Lily. She thinks it’s too expensive. And it is expensive. But I’ve had a good couple of years, even though the oil business as a whole is in the toilet. And I knew if I just went ahead and did it, she’d love it. You know what I mean?”
“I can’t really say I do, John. That’s thirty years of my salary.”
Jackson had already checked the price of the house. “Well, that’s why I kept quiet about it, anyway. I didn’t want anyone knowing I was looking at the place. You know how this town is. People hear I’m looking for an antebellum home, every realtor in town is calling me, and my wife knows about it by dinnertime.”
“Now that I understand,” Jackson said. “But why’d you pick Eve Sumner to show you the place? She’s not the realtor for the Historic Society.”
Waters thought fast. “To be honest, I felt bad about raising hell at her office. She was nice that day, and I felt guilty later. I figured a commission like that would more than make up for it.”
“I see.” The detective covered his phone and said something unintelligible to someone else. “What did you think about Eve as a person?”
“Very professional.”
“People say she could get a little unprofessional with certain male clients.”
“Cole told me something like that. But she was totally professional with me. I did notice she had the equipment for what you’re talking about, though.”
“That’s the damn truth,” Jackson said in an unguarded moment. “In the right outfit, she was something to see.”
Any outfit, Waters thought, recalling how Eve had looked dancing gloriously naked in the parlor of Bienville.
“John,” Tom said in a quieter voice, “this is you and me, right?”
“Right.”
“Did you tap that stuff out on one of those afternoons? I wouldn’t blame you a bit, if you did. I just need to know.”
“Hell no. I’m married, man.”
“So were a lot of guys who spent time with Eve. That doesn’t seem to stop too many people these days, men or women.”
“You’re right. But it does me.”
More silence. “John, I’m going to ask what I asked you the other day. And I want you to think before you answer, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Did you have any other contact with Eve Sumner that I should know about?”
Waters let some time pass, as if he were thinking. “No,” he said at length. “Nothing I can think of.”
“Okay, then. I appreciate your time.”
“Sure. Still no prime suspect?”
“With this gal, it’s more a process of elimination than a search. You know what I mean?”
“I hear you. Good luck, Tom.”
“Yeah.”
Waters hit the disconnect button with a shaking finger. Then he pulled Penn Cage’s phone number from his memory and punched it into the keypad.
Penn gave Waters a cup of coffee and led him out to the backyard. Today he did not pull weeds from his flower beds. He sat on a wrought-iron bench, crossed his legs, and sipped his coffee.
“If the police were going to call you in for questioning over this,” he said, “Tom wouldn’t have questioned you on the phone.”
Waters paced the grass in front of the bench. “I’m not sure he bought my explanation.”
“He may not have. He may think you were screwing her, in which case he won’t let this drop. But unless they find something else to support this, you’ve probably got at least a few days’ grace. I’ll tell you something else encouraging. They must not have found anything in Eve’s house that incriminates you. If they had, they would already have searched your house and office.”
Waters stopped pacing, relief washing over him like a cool balm.
“So,” Penn said. “You told me you needed to talk about something else. Something disturbing.”
“Yes.” Waters sat on an iron chair opposite Penn and set his coffee mug on the ground. “Lily wasn’t herself last night.”
Penn drew back his head as if he sensed where Waters was going. “What do you mean?”
“I mean in bed. She was totally out of character. She was very aggressive, and she did things she’d never done before.”
Penn shrugged. “Sometimes women do that. Didn’t you tell me that Eve’s death had made Lily more aware of your marital problems?”
“Yes. She said she was going to make an effort.”
“There you go. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“You know women don’t go from sexual dysfunction to supreme confidence overnight. But that wasn’t all. When Lily was in the bathroom before we made love, I walked over to look at her. She couldn’t see me. She was looking into the mirror like she hardly recognized herself. And then she twisted a lock of hair tight around one finger and pulled it out into a curl.”
Penn shook his head. “This is nuts. You think because Mallory twisted her hair, and because you saw Eve do it a few times, that Mallory’s soul is now in your wife?”
“I know you’re not open to—”
“I’ve seen Caitlin twist her hair a hundred times.”
Waters waited a moment before continuing, in the hope that Penn would really listen. “I’m sure you have. It’s a basic human gesture, okay? But in Mallory, it was a precursor to her cutting behavior. It’s called trichotillomania. She pulled it very hard. So did Eve. And now Lily.”
“Even in this fantasy universe of yours where the laws of physics are suspended, how could Mallory’s soul be inside Lily?”
“I told you how Eve said it worked. Through sex. Eve died while we were having sex, Penn. Or soon after. And the next day I was totally disoriented. I had blackouts I remember absolutely nothing about.”
“And that’s exactly what I’d expect from a man who believed he’d just committed murder.”
“That same day, I made love with Lily. She climaxed, and after that I was fine. But then she
spent half the next day sleeping, and then started acting like a totally different person.”
Penn got up from the bench and motioned for Waters to follow him along one of the paths through the large garden area formed by his and Caitlin Masters’s yards.
“There’s one other option, John. I hesitated to mention it when we first spoke, but now…”
“This isn’t the time to pull any punches.”
Penn met his eye. “Remember you said that.”
“Tell me.”
“Lily could be involved in this thing. She could have been in it with Cole from the start.”
“What? That’s insane.”
Penn nodded and kept walking. “I’m sure you’re right. I thought I should mention it.”
“Why?”
The lawyer looked almost apologetic. “If you were to be declared incompetent by a court, or sentenced to prison for murder, Cole’s corporate power would be enhanced, but his ability to turn that power into ready cash would be limited.”
“He could sell a lot of equipment on his own.”
“Yes, but the real money in your company is in oil production. Correct? The monthly runs, and the reserves you hold. I assume those are worth millions of dollars?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m sure you’ve held on to a lot more production than Cole has.”
“Yes.”
“You see what I’m getting at?”
Waters did. “It would take Lily’s help for Cole to sell off my existing production.”
“I know this is a painful line of thought, but we have to look at the facts. Last night, Lily acted in a manner that furthered your belief that Mallory Candler has somehow returned to haunt you. What logical explanation could there be for that? Does Lily have any romantic history with Cole?”
“No.”
“She was three years behind Cole and me at St. Stephens?”
“She was a freshman when you guys were seniors.”
“Did she and Cole ever date?”
“Not at St. Stephens.”
“What about Ole Miss?”
Waters felt strangely uncomfortable. “They did have a few dates there. Two or three. We always laugh about it when it comes up. Lily despises Cole.”
“Let’s talk about Ole Miss for a minute.”
“There wasn’t anything to that, Penn. Nothing sexual, anyway.”
The lawyer didn’t look convinced. “Cole doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d spend much time with a girl who didn’t put out in college.”
Waters felt his face coloring.
“I’m not trying to piss you off, John. I’m trying to make you look at things objectively.”
“I hear you. But I really think Lily would have told me if she’d slept with Cole.”
“Women are funny about their sexual pasts. So are men, for that matter. They say that when a man gives you his number of conquests, you should divide by three, and when a woman does, you should multiply by two.”
Waters tried to think about it without emotion. “Okay, what if they did sleep together in college? What you’re suggesting now is that they’ve revived that relationship, and they’re using their knowledge of my past to drive me insane or send me to prison. That’s crazy.”
“It may sound crazy. But you find yourself in extraordinary circumstances. So extraordinary that you’ve attributed them to a supernatural cause rather than face potentially painful facts.”
“We don’t have any facts. Only circumstances.”
“Highly suggestive ones.” Penn stopped beside a complicated wooden play set, reached over his head, and closed his hands around a horizontal ladder. “You have to be strong, John. Your freedom is at stake. Maybe even your life.”
“I know it is. I don’t want to lose my wife and daughter.”
Penn dropped his hands from the ladder, sat in a swing, and looked up at Waters with sadness in his eyes. “You’re still not grasping what I’m telling you. You may already have lost your wife. I want you to drop all your preconceptions and try to answer a truly terrible question.”
“I’ll try.”
“Is it possible that Lily hates you? Secretly, I mean.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Waters was stunned by the anger he felt at his old friend. Penn seemed to be trying to make him suffer as much as he could, and for no good reason. “You’ve got to tell me why you asked that.”
Penn swung slowly back and forth. “I’ve been trying to look at this situation without making any assumptions whatever. Just analyzing what’s happened so far. And I’ve tried to think like a woman. Perhaps a mentally disturbed woman.”
“You mean Lily?”
“Yes. Does Lily know about Mallory’s abortions?”
Waters thought about it. “I told her about the first one. To explain Mallory’s fixation, you know? Why she was a threat.”
“Could she know about the second one as well?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did Cole know about both abortions?”
“Yes. What the hell are you getting at?”
“Your wife lost two children to miscarriages. One was very traumatic. I think it’s possible that Lily blamed you for those miscarriages. Not in some vague subconscious way, but very specifically. That she believed you caused them, and that she hates you for it.”
“Why would she blame me for that?”
“In a state of grief and clinical depression, she might be quite capable of deciding that her miscarriages were some sort of karmic payback for Mallory’s abortions. You basically forced Mallory to kill the children you conceived with her, and Lily might think you were owed some sort of divine punishment for that.”
Waters was outraged by the suggestion. “That’s the most twisted thing I’ve ever heard!”
“But not outside the realm of what a grief-stricken mother might seize on as a reason for her suffering.” Penn stopped swinging, his eyes somber. “Tell me the truth. After Lily lost those babies, did you never feel—even for a moment—that what you had forced Mallory to do was somehow the cause of it?”
Waters stood with his mouth open. Though he wanted to deny it, he could not.
“Guilt is a powerful thing, John. Especially in a man like you, with a highly developed conscience. I know, because I’m the same way.”
Waters walked over and sat in the swing beside Penn. He had to cling to the chains to hold himself steady. “If your goal was to blow my mind, you succeeded. I’m willing to consider your theory. You say Lily and Cole are in this together. Sleeping together. But Lily doesn’t even like sex. After she lost those babies, we basically went without it for four years.”
“Maybe that should tell you something.”
“Like what? That she’s sleeping with my best friend? A guy whose sexual habits she despises?”
“After Lily lost the baby, were you patient with her about resuming sex? Very careful and considerate?”
“Of course!”
“Maybe that wasn’t what she needed. Maybe that made her think about it too much. Maybe she needed someone to just take her and be done with it.”
“No way.” Waters struggled to control his temper. “That’s not Lily. I know my wife.”
Penn reached out and touched his shoulder. “None of us really knows anyone. Not even our own parents or siblings. And last night, Lily showed you that she has a lot more sexual knowledge and skill than you ever suspected.”
“This is bullshit.” Waters got out of the swing and kicked it against a wooden post. “I can’t even remember what it felt like to be normal!”
“The normal man is a fiction,” Penn said. “There is no ‘normal.’ Not for women either. Your life is on the line now, John. You have to face reality, no matter how terrible it might be.”
Waters had heard all he wanted to. He got out his keys and started walking back toward the house.
“Where are you going now?” Penn called.
“The office. I want to talk to Sybil.”
“About Cole and Lily?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Be careful. Call me if you find out anything important. And let’s talk later today in any case.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Don’t forget.”
Waters gave him a dispirited wave and walked around the side of the house to the street.
Sybil Sonnier walked into Waters’s office wearing a Black Watch skirt and a forest-green blouse. He had buzzed her the way he normally would, and she stood waiting as though expecting a request for photocopies. He wasn’t sure how to begin. He’d never gotten to know Sybil very well, and her mood had not been the best for some time. As the silence dragged on, her dark Cajun eyes widened, and she gave him a look like Am I in trouble?
“Is this about my work?” she asked finally, making Waters realize he’d been sitting there like a department store mannequin.
“Not exactly.”
He motioned her to the oxblood chair across from his desk. She folded her skirt over her knees and sat primly on the edge of the seat. Looking at her shapely calves, Waters knew his partner would not have been able to resist at least trying with her. But Sybil was no schoolgirl. She was twenty-eight and divorced, and Waters had seen her angry enough times to know she could handle herself.
“It’s actually a personal matter,” he said. “Do you mind if I ask you a few personal questions?”
Her cheeks pinked, but she shook her head.
“I’m worried about Cole,” he said, and waited for a reaction.
“I am too,” she said.
“May I ask why?”
“I think he’s in trouble. Bad trouble.”
“Do you have any idea what kind?”
“Money trouble.” Sybil looked suddenly self-conscious, or perhaps she was just being cautious. She might think her job was at stake. She was paid much better than most assistants in town, mostly for her discretion in business matters.
“What makes you say that?”
“I spend half my time telling his creditors he’s working lawsuits in Memphis or New Orleans.”