Can’t Never Tell Read online

  “Usually it’s college students who don’t have sense enough not to wade in the creek,” said Mr. Wink with a tut-tut in his voice.

  “What a scary accident,” said Todd, whose pale skin and soft hands hinted that walking from his office to his car was his only outdoor activity.

  “I hope they aren’t too quick in terming it an accident,” said Adrienne. “Though our sheriff usually wants to take the easy way.”

  We all stared at her. She took that as the prompt she wanted.

  “Everyone knows Rinda and Rog were having problems. She was seeing someone.” The emphasis made it clear she knew who but was being discreet. “Wouldn’t be the first time someone found a cheaper solution than divorce.”

  “Oh, my.” Pastor Luke’s tone carried a mild rebuke.

  “Oh, come on.” Adrienne challenged the frowns and raised eyebrows. “Facing reality is better than hiding from it. Always look at the spouse, isn’t that what they say? Of course, given the crack law enforcement we have around here, it must be frightfully easy to get away with murder.”

  No one graced her pronouncement with a response, even though that left her thinking she’d won. Given Adrienne’s self-absorption, rebuttals would’ve been wasted.

  Everyone had somewhere they’d rather be on a bright Saturday morning, especially before the heat set in. At my encouragement, Pastor Luke took the remaining doughnuts to his three children. Mr. Wink and I had eaten our fill.

  As I locked up the basement, I wondered whether other people were as ready as Adrienne to blame Rog Reimann for Rinda’s death. Why hadn’t I stepped to his defense? Because I didn’t know enough to defend him. Rog was in a dangerous spot, especially if Adrienne wasn’t the only one who was ready to accuse him.

  I wasn’t willing yet to admit Rinda was dead. When the facts were in, the myths would be easier to dispel.

  I wasted no time calling Rudy and the Plinys. Given the Plinys’ business, I should have realized they probably weren’t early risers even before I heard the slurry sound of Pinner Pliny’s voice. Despite being awakened at nine o’clock in the morning, she was thrilled to know they could once again entice unsuspecting patrons into their tame but now irresistibly interesting fright house.

  “We can’t thank you enough,” she said over and over. Mr. Pliny offered no commentary. Maybe he was still asleep.

  “I didn’t do much, Miz Pliny.” I’d stop by later and return part of her retainer.

  The rest of the day, I puttered around the house, pulling weeds from the foundation shrubs and watering the impatiens I’d set out around my angel statue. I’d gotten advice on how to check the electrical wiring, to make sure we didn’t have any problems that required expert attention, but I was putting that off until a cool, rainy day. On a day like today, the attic would be sweltering, while spiders and who knew what else would be taking refuge in the basement. That could wait.

  As the sun rose higher, I finished my few outdoor chores and went upstairs to my sitting room. I slit open the tape on one of the packed boxes stacked neatly against the wall. The black dress I found inside just needed to be freshened up and would do fine for dinner and dancing.

  I had to admit—to myself, but to no one else—that I had butter-flies. Why had I agreed to go out? Spence Munn was a nice enough fellow. He was very tall, but not as athletic as I usually prefer. We didn’t know each other, so this fell solidly in the almost-blind-date category, full of pauses and stumbling attempts at conversation and the exploratory examinations that must be both performed and endured.

  Over the years, I’d gotten quite adept at saying no to dates. For much of my adult life, I’d simply been too busy, too focused on the next trial, on making partner, and, since leaving the law firm, on putting my life back together in Dacus. Once you’re out of the habit, it’s just—well, scary.

  Upon analysis, I attributed my moment of weakness to two motives. One, I loved dancing, but I hadn’t done much dancing since college. When he’d suggested it, I’d flashed to those romantic movie musical dance scenes that always popped into my head, even though the reality was usually an awkward lurch and jerk within a proscribed square on a postage-stamp, rough parquet dance floor. Reality never quite measures up to a movie dream sequence.

  The movies never showed the hours of rehearsal—or mentioned the fact that even accomplished dancers didn’t look like the movies if they’re dancing with a new partner. Dancing is truly a well-rehearsed team sport. Maybe I could just focus on the dream and quit fretting over the inevitable reality.

  The other motive for accepting was so I could truthfully say to Todd David that I was busy Saturday night. Of course, today Adrienne hadn’t even bothered trying to fix us up. I could’ve been busy on Saturday night, even without the date, but somehow dinner and dancing would’ve sounded more legitimate than “I’m building my niece a new clubhouse.”

  Despite the reasons for saying yes, my brain now flooded with all the reasons why I should’ve said no.

  Even though the temperature had climbed to a muggy ninety degrees, I went for a long afternoon walk during which I stopped by my parents’ house. Mom and Dad gave me a paper sack full of yellow squash she’d gotten on her morning trip to the farmer’s market. I knew how to cook squash, but the question was, Would I? When was Melvin coming home? Maybe the squash would keep until he got back. He made a killer squash casserole.

  By the time I showered, made an emergency run to the drugstore for panty hose, and fussed with my dress and hair, it was six o’clock.

  My old-fashioned doorbell—the kind that must be twisted to ring—jangled promptly at six. I charged down the stairs, tugging to make sure my dress fell straight. Even through the beveled window glass, I could see that Spence Munn was not wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

  Saturday Night

  Spence Munn’s shirt was starched, so free of wrinkles I wasn’t sure he could bend. His suit, a dark silk blend, flowed as only an expensive fabric can.

  He took my elbow as we went down the stairs, and he opened the car door for me. His actions stirred faint memories of other first dates. I knew the courtliness never lasted, but I could enjoy it while it did.

  He’d parked in the on-street parallel parking in front of my office, right on Main Street. Convenient. Maybe Adrienne or someone would drive by, and word would get out that I’d been on a date. Why my love life—or total lack of one—engendered such interest was a mystery. Judging from the marriages of some of the most active busybodies, misery might love company.

  As I perched on the stiff, beige leather seat in Spence’s BMW, waiting while he circled to the driver’s side, I also had a moment to remember why I avoided dates, especially dates with guys I don’t know well. Number one, how did I know he could drive? He might be a terror. Number two, why had I agreed to go all the way to Greenville? An hour each way, plus dinner and dancing, required a lot of conversation.

  Avery, it’s only an evening. I could’ve been sitting at home reading, or watching a movie with Emma, neither of which sounded like a bad idea.

  Playing the “do you know” game and giving personal history summaries took up most of the drive to the restaurant.

  Spence had mostly grown up in Norfolk, Virginia, had come farther south to attend Appalachian State University and had decided to stay.

  “My family moved around a lot,” he said. “Dad was career Navy. He’d had a stint in Charleston, but they settled in Norfolk, where he’d been stationed early in his career. It felt as much like home to them as anywhere. Even though I finished high school there, I didn’t really feel tied to that place.”

  “Just a rolling stone, huh?”

  “I guess. Got to admit, though, I envy your closeness with your family, having everybody here. Or does it get claustrophobic?”

  I chuckled. “No, my family’s a live-and-let-live bunch. There when you need them, for sure. But not big on messing in your business.”

  “Dacus is awfully small, though. Was it hard to come bac
k?”

  That had a complicated answer. I’d never planned on coming back—but losing my temper with a lying witness and then losing my job had pushed me to reassess what I really wanted. I’d fought moving home and considered my return last November as a personal failure and only temporary. The cases and the lives I’d gotten involved with over the last few months had eroded my resolve. I’d quickly found myself in a new office, a new apartment, with a new and unexpected life, as if the soil itself had set about planting me here.

  I didn’t offer any of that. I simply said, “No.”

  “Is it weird having people who knew you when you were a little girl?”

  “As Aunt Letha—actually, she’s my great-aunt Aletha—says, once you’ve powdered and diapered a baby’s butt in the church nursery, it’s hard to ever imagine them as grown-ups.”

  “There’s a picture.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or bemused by the mental picture.

  “Now you’re back, you can see how some of your high school buddies turned out. Any surprises?”

  Other than the way I turned out? I didn’t say that out loud. “A few.”

  “For some reason, Bill Gates comes to mind. Wasn’t he supposed to have said be nice to the nerd in your class, one day he’ll be your boss?”

  Was he calling me a nerd? Or talking about himself? “Can’t tell how some folks are going to turn out,” I said.

  “Best be careful whose butt you diaper or whose head you dunk in the junior high toilet, huh?”

  His memories had turned the conversation somewhere different. I wondered if he had been the dunker or the dunkee. Spence was at least six foot two, but he might have gotten his height too late to save him in junior high. Unlike with me and now-sheriff L. J. Peters, who had been bigger than everyone in elementary school. Good thing I’d relied on pure anger and not waited for a growth spurt to get her to quit punching me, or I might not have made it to junior high.

  The drive passed quickly. Spence handed his keys to the valet, and we entered the restaurant—once an outsized mansion near downtown, with grounds expanded to park cars and accommodate patrons with a discreet air of red brick and ivy charm.

  The woman in the black mandarin dress didn’t even pause to check for Spence’s name in the reservation book.

  “Hello, Mr. Munn. Your table is ready.”

  We followed her swaying hips up the lush staircase flanked by massive oak railings on one side and flickering gaslight sconces on the other.

  The table nested in its own alcove. The velvet curtains could have pushed it too much toward a Victorian bordello, but the jewel green color and the table lamp avoided the gaudy with touches of elegance.

  “How do you like your steak?” he asked as I studied the menu.

  “Medium plus,” I said.

  “Blue cheese dressing? It’s excellent here.”

  “Sure.”

  “Allow me, then.” The waitress appeared and he rattled off our order—filet, lettuce wedge, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, and some sort of red wine. The name of the wine went too quickly for me to know—or care.

  It had been years since a man had ordered for me. I couldn’t complain about his choices, but I had to admit I was—what? Surprised? Was it the presumed familiarity? The hint of machismo? A gallant memory?

  “You come here a lot,” I said.

  “Good place to take clients. Quiet. Good wait staff.” As if he could read my mind, he said, “Not something a faculty salary would allow on a regular basis.” He chuckled, with a pleasant, self-deprecating grin.

  I’d wondered about the BMW. Added to the expensive wardrobe and his favorite restaurant, his lifestyle quickly exceeded what I knew to be the limits of Lydia’s and Frank’s faculty salary. True, Spence didn’t have a wife and child—at least as far as I knew. But I did know how much it cost to live this life. I’d once lived it myself.

  “I enjoy teaching, and the faculty salary provides a nice base, but the investment work provides the perks.”

  I smiled but didn’t comment. From the looks of things, Melvin Bertram had some competition in the investment-advice neighborhood. Some successful competition. Melvin didn’t spend money like this. He might make it, I didn’t know, but he sure didn’t spend it like this.

  “That dress suits you,” Spence said. His approving gaze lingered to the point I had to look away.

  “Thank you.” Self-conscious about whether the V-neck dress was cut too low, I fought the urge to reach for my necklace—pieces of red art glass arranged in a free-form gold wire by an artist friend.

  “Have you heard anything more about Rinda?” His voice was somber.

  “No, nothing new as far as I know.”

  “Do those search guys know what they’re doing? I mean—I’m sorry, that was rude. It’s just that Dacus is very small, and those guys who came to search for her yesterday . . .”

  “Don’t worry. Their fan club looks scruffy, but the guys doing the work know what they’re doing when it comes to search and rescue. They live for that.”

  “Sorry.” He held up his hands in truce. “It’s arrogant for an outsider to come rolling in like he has all the answers. It’s just—of course I’m concerned.”

  “We all are.”

  “I don’t live in Camden County, so I don’t know all the players. What’s this sheriff like?”

  “L.J.?” I shrugged. “She’s pretty good. Why?”

  L. J. Peters had gone from grammar school bully to county sheriff, an unlikely career trajectory—or maybe not. I grudgingly admitted she’d turned out to be a good sheriff, even though she was still a bully at times.

  “She questioned Rog Reimann, yesterday and today. Seemed a bit—jackbooted. Talking to his friends, asking about his and Rinda’s marriage. Shouldn’t they be trying to find her? Couldn’t she still be alive?”

  I hesitated, choosing my words. I doubted Rinda could have survived, if she’d gone over the falls. I had never heard of anyone who survived it, but I wasn’t sure how close Spence was to Rinda or Rog, and truth might not be what he wanted to hear right now. L.J. was nothing if not thorough, and she was just doing her job, though I could see how it might seem harsh to a friend of Rog’s.

  “They need to cover all the bases,” I said. “If somehow it turned out not to be an accident, people would be upset that the sheriff hadn’t followed that angle more aggressively.”

  “I guess.” He took the sip of wine offered by the sommelier, nodded his approval, and waited for the pouring ritual to be completed.

  When we were alone again, Spence asked, “Does Rog need to get a lawyer, do you think?”

  That question took me by surprise. “Um, I don’t know.” I’ve done only a little criminal defense work and always small-time stuff: breaking and entering, minor drug offenses, always at the procedural level. Setting bond or doing pleas had been the limit of my criminal court experience so far, no full trials or big stakes. With criminal work, I’d started small and didn’t intend to develop much taste or aptitude for it.

  “At the very least,” Spence said, “I told him he didn’t need to be talking to the sheriff if she was threatening him. I had a lawyer friend tell me once that’s where most criminals mess up, they talk to the police. Keep your mouth shut, he said. You like the wine?”

  Did Spence realize he was lumping his friend Rog in with “most criminals”? I reached for my glass. I hadn’t even taken a sip.

  “Which Kennedy was it in that rape trial in Florida?” he asked. “My friend always cited that case. Said the first time the cops heard—William Kennedy Smith, that was his name. First time they heard his story was when he took the witness stand—after the prosecution had rolled out its entire case to the jury. The defendant could then explain it neatly away. The police have to prove their case. He doesn’t have to help them.”

  “That’s true. You think Rog had something to do with Rinda’s fall?” My tone was gentle, but the question startled him.


  “No! No, of course not. It’s just—small-town sheriffs might rush to judgment, especially with an outsider. Somebody said she’s up for reelection this year.”

  “She’s just doing her job. But if Rog is uncomfortable, he should talk to a lawyer, somebody who does criminal work.” Whether that would convince L.J. he had something to hide would be a question for someone with more experience in that arena than I had. I had my guess, though, knowing L.J. as I did. Still, Rog was safer getting good legal advice.

  “Is there any way to get the sheriff to just back off? I mean, the guy’s in torment right now.” He took another sip of wine before he continued. “You know her pretty well, don’t you? Somebody said . . .”

  “We’ve known each other a long time, but I wouldn’t say we’re friends.”

  “Could you talk to her? Find out what’s going on?”

  “Might be best if Rog did that himself, or got a lawyer to represent him and make those inquiries for him.”

  “I don’t mean to be insulting. It’s just that, well, there are all those stereotypes of small-town Southern sheriffs, and she fills most of them.”

  “Except that she’s female.”

  “You sure? No offense, but that’s one bruiser big woman.”

  L.J. was six feet tall to the top of her black bowl-cut hair, without the steel-toed brogans she wore, but I felt an unexpected flash of protectiveness toward her.

  “Spence, old buddy.” The man’s greeting reached us a split second before he ducked into our green velvet cocoon. “How are you?”

  The new arrival studied me as Spence half-rose to shake his hand.

  “Eliot, this is Avery Andrews. She’s a lawyer. Eliot Easton. He owns this place.”

  “I won’t hold that lawyer thing against you. Ha!” Easton’s short bark of a laugh didn’t touch the corners of his eyes. “Keeping this reprobate out of trouble?”

  I just stared at him with what I hoped was a civil smile. He was a perfectly ordinary-looking businessman, average height, with a thinning hairline, somewhere in his late forties, with that soft face and build that usually comes from rich food and no treadmill time. He didn’t speak as though he were from around here, something I increasingly notice in people now that I’m back home in the Upstate. I tried to ignore the lawyer reference, but if he tried to tell any stale lawyer jokes—and they were all stale—all attempts at civility were off.