Money To Burn (18 page)

“So you knew about the harassment?” I asked.

“I was the first person he told,” Burly said, his gaze lingering on my knees. “I was against his dropping the lawsuit against that jerk Talbot, but you know what they say. Love is blind.”

“You knew he was in the middle of a relationship?” I asked evasively.

“I knew he was going to marry Lydia Talbot,” he said. “I was going to be his best man.”

eight=“0” width=“24”>
“For a secret relationship, a lot of people knew about it,” I pointed out.

“I think she was the one who wanted to keep it quiet,” he said. “And out of the newspapers, unlike her last couple of attempts. Tom told me, but my parents didn’t know. Still don’t. Which isn’t all that surprising. They didn’t keep in contact with Tom very much, not since college.”

“Did your brother get along with your parents?” I asked, thinking of the will that had omitted them.

Burly shrugged. “Barely. My parents are extremely religious, fundamentalist, actually. Tom made it clear every chance he got that he was agnostic, and that really drove them nuts. Plus, my father wanted Tom to take over the family farm and that was the last thing that was going to happen. Dad ended up selling out to an uncle when he retired. It didn’t make him very happy. My mother follows my father’s lead in everything, so both of them kept their distance from Tom after that, as punishment.”

“For decades?” I asked. “That’s a long time for such a small reason.”

“Believe me, my father hated it whenever we disobeyed him. He was not used to being challenged and could be a cold son-of-a-bitch when we bucked him. Tom stood up to him and Dad found that unforgivable.”

“Why didn’t you take over the family farm?” I asked, wondering what his own background was. He was an articulate man, well-educated and well spoken. What had been his goal in leaving the biker life behind?

Burly’s dark eyes flickered at me, and I was once again unsettled by the unspoken questions that seemed to lurk in his gaze. “I guess I’m just not the farming type,” he finally said. “Pottery is more my speed.”

“Did you know your brother is leaving everything to you?” I said.

He shrugged. “I figured. He always said I’d never have to worry, that he’d take good care of me.”

What was this? Maybe Burly Nash had schizophrenia or some other sort of illness that only showed itself intermittently. How could I ask him about it without being offensive? And since when had I worried about being offensive?

“Your brother sure seemed concerned about you,” I said.

“He was.” Burly stared at me oddly, but I ignored his gaze.

“Did he tell you much about his work?” I asked.

< wodiv height=“0”>

“Everything. Tom shared his whole life with me, just about every night.”

This was getting stranger and stranger. “Even the Hargett case?”

“Especially the Hargett case.” He nodded toward one of the windows. “I drove Tom up to the mountains about a week before he died, to visit the Hargetts.” His voice faltered. “You’ve never seen anything like it. A crummy tarpaper house falling off the side of a rocky mountain. I couldn’t go in the house, but Tom told me about it. The father and son, both in bed, draped in oxygen tents and sounding like they were sucking down every problem the world had to offer. The mother with her dress hanging off her because she couldn’t stop to eat. Grandchildren crying for food they couldn’t afford. I saw the rest for myself. Mangy dogs running around under foot everywhere. Crops rotting in the fields.” He took a deep breath. “It was no way to live in the first place, and it was damn sure no way to die. Tom gave the Hargetts all the money he had on him, and on the way home he talked for an hour about how he had to do something. Which he did.”

“You mean settling all his other lawsuits against T&T if Talbot would throw the Hargetts some money?”

Burly nodded. “That was all Tom cared about. He wanted the old man and son not to feel any pain, and he wanted those kids to eat.”

God, but there is enough suffering in this world to go around and then give us all second helpings.

“Any idea where your parents might be?” I asked. “I want to talk to them, but when I went by their house today, they weren’t there.”

“Mom is pretty broken up,” Burly told me. “Last time she talked to Tom, they got in a fight over the phone and she never got a chance to apologize. They might be at my Aunt Margaret’s in Alamance County, or…” His voice trailed off as he thought better of what he was about to say.

“What?” I demanded. “Tell me.”

He shrugged. “I thought I heard some talk about a lawyer. Maybe they’re seeing one.”

“Oh, no,” I groaned. “More lawsuits. What good will that do them?”

He picked up a vase and made a few tiny scratches in it while he thought his answer over. “Maybe they feel guilty?” he suggested. “About giving Tom such a hard time when he was alive. Maybe they want to fix things now that he’s dead.”

“You don’t sound like you agree,” I told him.

“Life is for the living,” he said abruptly. He slammed the vase back on the table so hard that the soft clay bottom crumpled up in accordion folds.

“Your vase,” I protested, staring at the mess.

“Do you want to go out with me?” he asked suddenly, the words sounding like a dare. “Maybe for dinner? Tonight?”

I was shocked at the anger in his voice. The silence after his announcement was abrupt. He stared and waited for my answer. I felt like his dark eyes could see right through my skin and clear down to the muscle that made my heart beat. I sat there mute, not knowing how to respond to his sudden change in mood.

He stared back at me, waiting. I didn’t know what to say. I’d told myself time and again that it was a bad idea to go out with anyone involved in a case, but I had broken my own rule before and probably would again. This guy was different. He scared me a little bit, and thrilled me at the same time. I wanted to say yes, but his sudden anger put me off.

“I knew it,” he said, pushing himself back from the table before I could answer. “Don’t bother answering, I get the message.” His voice was a cold challenge. “If you won’t go out with me, then at least have a beer with me. Think you could handle that? I’ll get you a cold one.”

He started toward me.

I stared, mouth open.

“Well, fuck me,” I blurted out in astonishment. “You’re in a wheelchair.”

“I am,” he said. “And believe me, I would fuck you if I could.”

He wheeled past smoothly, his powerful arms maneuvering him easily through the cleared path.

“I didn’t know,” I said quickly. “I was just hesitating because I don’t usually go out with anyone involved in a case.”

“Sure,” he said abruptly. He wheeled through an open door that led to a small kitchen and reached a half-refrigerator against one wall. He opened it, revealing a bottom shelf full of food and beer and a top shelf that held a single can of Budweiser, surrounded by a ring of dead flowers.

I followed him and stared over his shoulder. “What’s that?” I asked. “It looks like a shrine.”

“It is a shrine,” he said, slamming the door ande.

“It’s the last can from the six-pack I drank right before I crashed my bike into a tree and managed to paralyze myself from the T-eleven vertebrae on down.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It means another half inch and I’d have been able to take you up on your generous offer.” He popped open the can and held it up in salute. “Here’s to my dead dick.”

I was silent. What was I supposed to answer to that?

“What?” he asked defensively. “You think it’s sick to keep the can of beer?”

“It is sort of an unusual memento.”

“Well, some things should be remembered. Like a moment of stupidity that changes a life forever.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone’s sorry.” He threw back a few quick gulps. “Everyone’s always sorry. I must be the most apologized-to man in the Western Hemisphere. People see the wheelchair and the ‘I’m sorry’s’ just seem to spill out of their mouths like slobber from Zee Zee’s jaws.”

“Zee Zee?” I asked. “Is that the hound dog outside?”

“Hound dog, girlfriend, best friend, faithful companion.” His tone was sarcastic. He fiddled his fingers nervously against the side of the aluminum can. “Like I said, we don’t get a lot of company.”

I felt lower than the teats on a mama possum but, clearly, the last thing that would help would be for me to continue apologizing.

“I would never have said the things I said if I’d known you couldn’t walk,” I explained, remembering my opening shot about him not bothering to get up on my account.

“Forget it,” he said. “I should have known when you started responding to me that you’d missed the wheelchair thing. What counts is that you don’t want to go out with me now that you’ve figured it out.” He was close to belligerent.

That made me mad. Real mad. “I guess you took a course in mind reading at the hospital after your wreck,” I said.

“No. Mostly I concentrated on catheter insertion and two thousand ways to get off using your eyelids only.”

“You can use your arms,” I pointed out inanely.

“Great!” he said. “Want to arm wrestle?”

I let his sarcasm settle. “Okay,” I conceded. “I don’t know what to say and every time I start to say something, ‘I’m sorry’ does seem to come out. So I’d shut up, except that shutting up really isn’t my style. Couldn’t we just start over? I think you knew I didn’t see your wheelchair. I think you were deliberately trying to trick me into saying ‘yes,’ so that you could make it even harder for me to say no later on because then I’d feel sorry for you.”

He surprised me by laughing. “You lost me on that one, but, okay, maybe you’re right. Sure, we can start over.” He adopted a formal tone of voice. “You wanted to ask me questions about my brother?”

“You’re being a jerk,” I said. “I meant, could
we
start over.”

“Because I’m no longer a suspect?” he asked. “Given those twenty or thirty steps down to his basement lab?”

“Partly,” I admitted. “But you could easily have hired someone to kill him.” I only wanted to see his reaction. Maynard Pope had said it was an amateur and I believed him.

“I guess I could have hired someone,” he said. “But I didn’t. My brother was my link to the outside world and I loved him. I’d kill myself first.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I get around okay. I have a special van outfitted, thanks to Tom. I have the same friends I had before my accident. Most of them, anyway. I go places sometimes, especially when I’m drunk enough not to mind the staring or the constant talking over my head. Though, to be honest, my favorite is when people shout at me, like I was deaf or didn’t speak English. I spend my days with my pottery and I’m good at it. Sometimes I even manage to convince a pretty woman to look me in the eye. But Tom, he was out there for me. He was getting out there and building something real, meeting people, fighting the good fight and calling me every night to tell me about it. Because he knew that all the crap I was filling my days with was just that, filler. So, yeah, I could have killed my brother, but believe me when I say that I would much rather have killed myself first.”

He drank down the rest of his beer and crumpled the can into a ball, then gracefully arched it toward a far waste can. It clanked inside easily. “Two points,” he said as I jumped at the sound. “Relax, I won’t ask you out again.”

“What am I supposed to say to that?” I said. “I come in here. I meet you and I like you. Okay, I admit it—I even think you’re really good-looking and maybe the thought of us getting together is crossing my mind a little. But then you jump all over my shit and make me feel like a piece of insensitive scum.” Now I had him. His nervousness was gone. He was starting to get pissed and I was glad.

“So is that your big technique with women?” I asked. “Trick them or insult them? Make them feel sorry for you or make them hate you?” I really wanted to get this guy back. He’d stirred up my feelings and then hurt them. “Stupid me,” I continued. “I thought you really did like the way I look or, God forbid, like me. But I was just the first woman under the age of sixty to come inside your house and sit still long enough to be propositioned. It didn’t matter who I was, did it?”

He whistled in admiration. “You’re a real hot head, aren’t you? I like that in a woman.”

We stared at each other and a softer challenge came into his eyes, his anger giving way to a plea. I felt confused and slightly pissed at myself because the more we fought, the more my body reacted to his intense gaze as if he had all his parts in working order.

I think he could read my mind. “See that?” he said, nodding toward a shelf that held a large television and stacks of videotapes.

“Yeah. So you watch T.V.,” I said. “I didn’t think you were blind, too.”

“Take a look at my video collection.” He crossed his arms and smiled as he waited for me to obey.

I approached the T.V. cautiously, wondering what he was up to. There were three stacks of videos on top of the television set, each containing five tapes. I read the titles in amazement.

“You have fifteen copies of ‘Coming Home’?” I asked, perplexed. “That’s a little weird, don’t you think?”