Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree (15 page)

The truth is that I like to shower both before bed and when I wake each morning, but I answered, “In the morning is fine. I had a shower at my brother’s before he brought me to Safe Sister. You go ahead. I’ll brush my teeth after you finish.”

“Okay. Will you call me if Betsy cries? I don’t always hear her when I’m in the shower.”

“Sure.”

That gave me the perfect opportunity to get into my gown while Naomi was out of the room so I wouldn’t risk her seeing me move my arm the wrong way for the sling or catch a glimpse of the device the sheriff had attached to the back of my arm. He hadn’t said anything about how long the “wire” would work without recharging, and I hadn’t gotten any real information about anything.

Standing in front of the dresser mirror checking to see if I’d smudged any of my artificial bruises and injuries, I heard a whimper that turned into a soft cry. I turned and looked at the portable crib. Betsy was sitting up, looking around her, and her face crumpled into tears.

I’m not totally ignorant about babies. After all, I baby-sat John’s children when his family came up from Atlanta while Megan and Johnny were little. I picked Betsy up and snuggled her against my shoulder. I’d forgotten how wonderful it feels to hold a soft, sweet-smelling tiny one hugged close. I began to sway back and forth a little, trying to create a rocking feeling for the baby.

She cooed! It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

Betsy lifted her head away from my shoulder, looked me in the face, and smiled a big, gorgeous smile. I was hooked! Betsy had to be the most lovable baby in the world. That’s when I saw it—the slightly yellow remains of a healing bruise on her neck. I only caught a glimpse of it because she snuggled her head back against my shoulder.

I rocked Betsy back and forth until her breathing became the regular sound of a sleeping child, and I was gently placing her in the crib when her mom came back into the room.

“She woke up for a few minutes,” I said. “I think she’s asleep again now.”

“Thanks,” Naomi answered, but she eyed me with a questioning expression, stepped over to the crib, and tenderly touched the curls on Betsy’s forehead. I guess when your baby has bruises on her neck, a mother is cautious about strangers touching the child. “The bathroom’s all yours. I’m going to try to snooze now. Betsy doesn’t always sleep through the night since we moved here. I hope she doesn’t wake you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m used to Big Boy waking me sometimes.”

“Is Big Boy your husband?” Naomi’s expression changed to curiosity. She tucked Betsy’s blanket around the baby and then slipped into her own bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.

“No, he’s my puppy.” I laughed. “Not really a puppy anymore. He’s a Great Dane, and he weighs more than I do, but I’m worried about him. I took him to the vet to be neutered. She found a tumor in his abdomen and had to operate.”

“Where is he now? Does your husband have him?”

“I’m not married, but my brother has my dog while I’m here.” That wasn’t a real lie, only a slight distortion. So far as Safe Sister knew, Detective Dean Robinson was my brother, but actually, Wayne had promised to take Big Boy to Daddy’s that evening, where both brothers who lived there—Mike and Frankie—would care for him and spoil him even more than I already had.

“I don’t want to pry,” Naomi apologized with one of those things we say when we know we’re about to cross a line. “But,” she continued, “who hurt you?”

She’d just given me a perfect opportunity to lie. I was a deputized representative of the law of Jade County, and I’d come here to gather information for them, so I could make up a story and lie, lie, lie without feeling guilty. I’d be doing something bad to accomplish something good.

“I have a new boyfriend, or at least, I thought I did until this happened.” I used my right hand to point at the sling and then my face. “He seemed perfect, and our relationship was going fine until I made him mad and he beat me up. My brother thinks I should stay here for a while until things cool down.”

“Cool down?” Naomi laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I used to think that if you let him cool down and think everything’s going to be all right, it would be okay, but the other women here say that you’ll wind up back in here more than once, and sooner or later, he’ll kill you.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’s that bad.”

“They tell me it will get worse,” Naomi assured me. “But I don’t know what to believe.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it. For right now, I like it here at Safe Sister. It’s kind of like Girl Scout camp with all the women around helping each other and sharing the chores.” She turned to face the wall. “Let’s go to sleep.”

“Sure,” I answered. “Good night.”

Betsy cooed, but Naomi snored, and either she was faking it or she dozed off instantly.

I lay there thinking how lucky I am.

My ex-husband, Donnie, is a cardiologist in Columbia. Our marriage ended badly, but he never threatened to hit me or hurt me physically. Don’t confuse Donnie with Dr. Donald here in St. Mary. I’ve dated the local physician Dr. Donald off and on for a while, but the truth is the man is a womanizer as well as being what he calls “commitment-shy,” which means that no matter how handsome and charming he is, Dr. Donald isn’t a good candidate for a long-term relationship.

The men in my life haven’t been great romantic success stories yet, but the only males who have ever hit me were when my brothers and I occasionally got into arguments and fights when I was little. That came to a screeching halt long before I matured into a woman. My daddy had “the talk” with my brothers, which meant that no matter how obnoxious I was as a sister, none of them laid a hand on me once there was the first sign that my boobs were developing. To Daddy, those ta tas meant I was becoming a woman, and “you
don’t
hit women!”

Give me a license, and I’ll use it. I lied when I said no man has ever hit me. Well, it wasn’t really a lie. I’d forgotten about Eddie. I dated him when I was sixteen, and he slapped me one time. Note I said
one
time. When my brothers heard about it, the four of them living in St. Mary at the time confronted him and taught him a lesson about “messing” with their sister. It was a hard lesson, delivered in the woods behind St. Mary High School, but Eddie recovered with no permanent injuries and a definite knowledge that our dating was over and that he’d better be polite to me at all times.

I don’t know if I developed better taste in males after that or word got around town that Callie’s brothers didn’t take kindly to anyone hurting her. Come to think of it, during high school and college, I did date a few guys who may have turned out to warrant those “wife-beater” shirts they wore, but there were red flags about those types, and I generally didn’t date them more than once or twice.

For anyone who’s not familiar with what a “wife-beater” shirt is, it’s a shirt with the sleeves torn or cut off, generally a white T-shirt with the sleeves removed. I don’t know why they call them “wife-beaters” unless it’s because they look so redneck and in the past, some men who earned the name redneck thought their genitalia entitled them to knock their women around. Thank heavens times are changing about things like that. I’m proud that though my five brothers have all acted redneck at times and their marital track records aren’t the greatest, none of them has ever physically mistreated a female. I say “physically” because a couple of them aren’t known for their faithfulness, and I consider infidelity a form of mental abuse.

I lay in bed thinking about men and women and why relationships can sometimes be so painful. The sounds Betsy and Naomi made in their slumber kept me conscious of where I was and how grateful I was not to have ever needed to escape to a place like Safe Sister in real life.

My mind was too busy with memories and speculation to let me go to sleep. The closest I probably ever came to getting involved with someone who could have been a disaster was right after my divorce in Columbia. Lying there in a refuge for battered and abused women, I relived that date.

When the divorce was final, I was miserable in a lot of ways. Sometimes I felt that I should have been able to save my marriage. Other times, I felt stupid for having married someone who could do what Donnie did that made me divorce him. Anyway, this was before Internet sites to match people became so popular. I joined several singles groups which were supposed to be places to meet nice people to date. Some of my friends married guys they met at those groups.

One night, a pleasant man asked me to dance several times and by the end of the party, I’d given him my telephone number.

“Hello, is this Callie Parrish, that fantastic lady I met last night at the group dance?”

I was thrilled to hear his voice the next evening.

“Sure is,” I answered.

We talked for a while and he ended the conversation with, “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow night. Where do you live?”

“I’d love to have dinner with you, but I have a policy about new dates. I’d rather meet you somewhere the first time we go out together.”

“That’s both fine and smart. How about The Stone Pit?”

The Stone Pit was a fancy restaurant not too far from my house. I agreed to meet him there at eight the next night.

This man was so smooth and charming. He was waiting for me at the door to The Stone Pit and escorted me to the table he’d reserved. When the waitress came to the table, he ordered for us—shrimp cocktails, Caesar salad, and filet mignon with garlic potatoes. Champagne to drink. Strange how I can remember everything we had to eat that night when there are days I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast that morning.

The meal was great and the conversation was good, but he seemed to mention his ex-wife a little too often for me.
Probably recently divorced,
I thought. I knew that the first few dates I’d had after Donnie, I’d seemed compelled to talk about him.

He ordered dessert—cheesecake with blueberries on top—even though I would have asked for cherry topping if he’d given me a choice. “Would you like to go somewhere to dance?” he asked before the server arrived with the desserts.

“That would be nice, but I’m kind of tired, and I have work tomorrow. Maybe we could go dancing one weekend.”

“I’d planned for us to go out to dance after dinner.” He sounded offended.

“Another time,” I answered, not liking the sound of his voice.

He leaned across the table. “I don’t like it when women disagree with me.” The words were whispered, but they were sharp and threatening.

“You remind me of my wife.” He almost spat the words. “Do you know what I used to do when she wouldn’t do what I wanted?” He laughed. “I tied her to a tree and shot my rifle over her head. It never took much of that to convince her to see things my way.”

My eyes must have almost popped out of my head.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like my methods? You’ll learn to because I like you and plan to spend a lot of time with you. Now let’s enjoy our dessert when it comes and then go dance the night away.”

I almost choked. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

He reached across the table and wrapped his hand around my wrist—tight. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To the ladies’ room.” I said and, as difficult as it was, I smiled.

On the way to the restroom, I stopped our waitress and asked her, “Will you page Callie Parrish and tell me that I need to call my father because my mother is sick?”

“I sure will. I’ve seen that man you’re with lots of times in here, hardly ever with the same woman more than once though. He gives me the creeps. I’ll have our doorman walk you out if you like.”

“Please do”

I was hardly reseated before the server went around the room asking if anyone was Callie Parrish. When I replied, she told me that my father had called and my mother was being rushed to the hospital with a major heart attack.

“Your father said to meet him at Palmetto Hospital,” she said and pulled my chair out for me.

“I’m sorry,” I told the man who tied a woman to a tree and shot at her, “I have to leave.”

“I’ll drive you there,” he insisted.

“No, stay here and enjoy the cheesecake.” I grabbed my purse and went out with a big man behind me. When I reached my car, the man said, “I don’t know what the problem was, but lock your doors.”

I hadn’t thought of that incident in years, but it had been why I quit going to singles dances and rarely considered Internet matching. It was proof to me that a woman can’t be too cautious, and not only was I glad that my address wasn’t in the phone book, I’d also changed my telephone number and became much more guarded about giving it out.

When I finally went to sleep, I dreamed about that awful man tying his wife to a tree.