Tell Me Lies (38 page)

“Let’s take this again,” C.L. said, and Bailey sighed loudly.

“She walked up to the Point and she saw Brent sleeping and she shot him,” Bailey said, singsong from long practice.

“He slept at the Point a lot, did he?” C.L. asked.

“Sometimes he’d come up there just to get away. I didn’t ask. Things weren’t good at home.” He glanced slyly at C.L. “But I guess you know that.”

“That reminds me,” C.L. said. “You try to blackmail Maddie again and you’ll be picking your teeth up off the street. What the hell was that about?”

“It wasn’t blackmail,” Bailey said in outraged honesty. “I just thought since she had some money, she could give me some since I was doing her such a good turn.”

C.L. looked at him, at first in disgust and then in renewed interest. Bailey was telling the God’s honest truth. Or in this case, Bailey’s honest truth. C.L. glanced over at Henry and saw him narrow his eyes.

“Tell me again what you saw at the Point,” C.L. said, and Bailey shifted a little, but then he answered, honest as a judge.

“Maddie walked up the hill—”

“You see her walk up the hill, Bailey?” Henry’s voice was deceptively mild.

“No, I seen her footprints. Then she walked over to the car and shot him.” Bailey nodded, virtuous.

“You saw her do it,” C.L. said.

“Yep,” Bailey said, and his eyes shifted and he moved his feet and C.L. said, “Bailey, you shit-for-brains moron, you are lying in your yellow teeth.”

Bailey shifted his eyes to Henry. “He can’t talk that way, can he?”

“Normally, no,” Henry said. “But it appears he has a point. Let’s try this again. Tell us what you saw, Bailey.”

“She did it,” Bailey said. “I didn’t see, but she did it.”

“Who told you that?” Henry said.

Bailey shifted in his chair again.

“Bailey,” C.L. said, leaning over him. “You are slandering the woman I love. Have you any idea how annoyed that makes me?”

“Police brutality,” Bailey said.

“I’m not the police,” C.L. said. “It’ll be private-citizen brutality, and I’m damn good at it.”

“Henry,” Bailey said nervously.

“He won’t touch you here,” Henry said. “You know I don’t work like that. Problem is, I can’t protect you after you leave here. Now, once he puts you in the hospital, I’ll put him in jail. You can count on that.”

Bailey looked from Henry to C.L. and back again. “She can’t tell you about it herself because there’d be this big scandal. You know how this town is.”

C.L. started to cut in, but he caught Henry’s glare and shut up. Whoever had done a snow job on Bailey had done a good one. Might as well sit and listen.

“This town’s a real bitch,” C.L. said instead. “Tell me about it.”

She was carrying a suitcase in the other.

“Hey, Candace,” Maddie yelled from the convertible. “Wait a minute.”

Candace turned and saw her, waved the hand with the bag, and kept on going. “Candace,” Maddie bellowed again, as the light stayed stubbornly red.
“Candace.”

Candace kept on walking, the light smooth step of the professional woman without a care in the world but with a sudden case of deafness.

“The hell with it,” Maddie said, and got out of the car, leaving it parked in the middle of the intersection. The light turned green as she reached the sidewalk, and cars began to honk.

The hell with them.

“Candace!” Maddie called again, and ran to catch her.

Candace stopped then; she had to. “I’m in a hurry, Maddie,” she called. “Labor Day weekend. Three-day vacation. Plane to catch.” She turned to go. “I’ll talk to you Tuesday.”

“No, that’ll be too late.” Maddie lunged and caught hold of the handle of her suitcase. “I need to talk to you now.”

Several people turned and took an avid interest in Revco’s mirrorlike window.

“Really, Maddie.” Candace tried to tug her case back.

“We need to talk.” Maddie held on for dear life as Candace pulled.

“Maddie, I know you’ve had a hard time lately,” Candace began soothingly, “but I really have to catch that plane.”

“With all this money?” Maddie said, and unzipped the bag with one vengeful motion.

Some really beautiful silky underwear slithered from the bag, followed by a lot of very expensive-looking beige and gold clothing that Candace tried and failed to catch before it fell to the pavement.

No money.

Candace dropped the suitcase and looked at Maddie as if she were insane. Several people came to help, one a friend of Maddie’s mother’s.

“Maddie, dear,” she said. “Maybe you need to go home and lie down.”

“Oh, hell.” Maddie ignored her to concentrate on Candace. “Where did you put it all? In your garter?”

“Maddie, what is wrong with you?” Candace went down on one knee to stuff her clothing back in her bag while people around her made sympathetic sounds and glared at Maddie, and a red-faced man came up and said, “Lady, move your goddamned car.”

“I’m a little upset about my checking account,” Maddie said to Candace.

“You’re joking.” Candace zipped her bag shut and stood up. “This is about a checking account? Maddie, you’ve been under a strain. Go home and we’ll figure this out when the bank opens up on Tuesday.”

“Lady,
your car,”
the man said.

“It’s not overdrawn,” Maddie said, and Candace’s eyes flickered. Just for a moment, but it was there. “You did it, didn’t you?” Maddie said.

“
Lady
,” the man said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Candace brushed off her skirt, avoiding Maddie’s eyes. “And I don’t have time to humor you. Get help. You need it.” She picked up her suitcase and bag and turned to go, so sure of herself that Maddie almost let her go.

“No, you don’t.” Maddie grabbed her arm again. “I don’t know where you’re going, but I bet it’s someplace we can’t get you back from, and you are not going to leave me in this mess.”

Candace jerked her arm and tried to walk away, but Maddie held on for dear life, and they tugged at each other, Maddie determined, Candace with as much dignity as possible. People had given up the Revco window and were frankly staring now, and even the guy with the car had shut up to watch.

“You’re making a scene,” Candace whispered to her savagely as she tried to tug away. “You’re making a
fool
of yourself. My God, think of your mother.”

“The hell with my mother,” Maddie whispered back. “And if you think this is a scene, just wait. You come with me to see Henry or I’ll stage a complete production.”

Candace wrenched her arm out of Maddie’s hands and took one long stride before Maddie lunged and caught up with her, knocking her a few steps ahead with her momentum.

“This woman has gone crazy,” Candace said to any and all, dragging Maddie with her as she struggled along. “Somebody get her off me.”

It wasn’t like this in the movies, Maddie reflected as Candace dragged her another couple of feet. Physical stuff was quick in the movies; there weren’t these moments of contemplation that made you think you were a moron. No wonder so many fights were over so fast.

“Help me,” Candace said, with more irritation than panic, and Harold Whitehead came forward, tentatively.

“Don’t do it, Harold,” Maddie said, holding on for dear life. “You’ll be aiding and abetting a murderer.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Harold said. “Candace is a loan manager.”

“She killed my car, shot my husband, and threatened my kid,” Maddie said, loudly enough for everybody to hear, and people looked at Candace with new interest. “That’s who you hired, Harold.”

Candace wrenched free, and Maddie went after her and gave it her last shot. She caught her arm and said, “Of course, that’s what you’d expect from a
Lowery.”

Candace swung around with murder in her eye. “You
bitch,”
she said. “You complacent, moronic
bitch.”

She tried to tug her arm away, and when that didn’t work, she kicked Maddie on the knee. Maddie yelped in pain and said,
“Listen,
you,” and that’s when Henry pulled up.

“We got a report of a disturbance,” Henry called to them, getting out of the car. “I imagine that would be you, Maddie. What’ll people think?”

“I’ve had it with people, Henry,” Maddie said savagely around the pain in her knee, but not letting go. “Fuck the neighbors, I don’t care anymore. I am not going to jail, because I didn’t kill my husband. Now, will you please arrest this woman?”

“She’s gone crazy,” Candace announced to the general crowd. “She killed her husband and now she’s blaming me. She’s nuts. Make her let go of me, Henry. She’s hurting me.”

“Let go, Maddie,” Henry said.

“Henry, that’s not—”

“Let go,
Maddie,” Henry said, and Maddie understood why C.L. felt the way he did about his uncle. She let go and rubbed her knee instead.

“I think you’re right, Candace,” Henry said soothingly. “Maddie has some problems—”

“Hey,” Maddie said.

“—so why don’t we all go down to the station and you can press charges.”

Maddie shut up. Anything that got Candace to the station was a step in the right direction.

“Because I don’t have the time.” Candace straightened her suit jacket. “I have a plane to catch.” She picked up her bag and turned to go, and Maddie grabbed the handle of her bag again, just as Henry stepped forward.

“You are
not
getting out of Frog Point,” Maddie said, and Candace turned to her, her face a mix of horror and rage, and swung her free hand with her purse into the side of Maddie’s head. The last thing Maddie saw as she folded into darkness was a lot of hundred-dollar bills floating through the air.

She was in a hospital bed, and the first thing she said was, “Where’s Candace?”

“In jail,” C.L. said. “Henry was coming to take her quietly when you threw your fit. Of course, I can’t marry you now. You’re such a screwup my family would never live it down.”

“What’s she in jail for?” Maddie struggled to sit up and he pushed her down again.

“Lie still. The doctor is coming to see if you have a concussion. Then I’m going to make them X-ray you to see if you have any brains. Why the hell did you attack that woman?”

“She was leaving.” Maddie gave up fighting because her head hurt and lay back. “She killed Brent. I figured it out, but she was going away. Labor Day vacation, my ass. She was skipping town.”

“Right,” C.L. said.

Maddie glared up at him. “Do not tell me you already knew.”

C.L. shook his head. “We only got it a little while before you did. The safe-deposit box made Henry suspicious from the beginning because if you weren’t lying, which he was pretty sure you were, then it had to be somebody at the bank. He’d already tracked the prowler rumor back to Candace, but he couldn’t figure out why she’d started it.”

“So Brent would bring her a gun,” Maddie said, remembering the phone call. “That’s premeditated.”

“I don’t think Candace ever did anything in her life that wasn’t,” C.L. said. “That’s one determined wench. But you were still chief suspect until we broke Bailey, who admitted Candace had come down the drive that night and said you’d killed Brent, so of course he believed it, especially when she started going to dinner with him.” He grinned at her. “Boy, is she pissed at you. Once she started confessing, the thing she wanted to talk about the most was how you’d screwed everything up. She used Brent’s house key to leave the safe-deposit key in the desk drawer on Friday after she killed Brent so you’d open the box the next morning and take the money. But you left it there, you dummy, because you’re honest, so she had to come back and steal the key again while you were at the farm so
she
could get the money.”

“So the Websters were never in it at all?” Maddie felt guilty. “And I’ve been thinking horrible things about them.”

“Well, the youngest one was. Candace mailed him half a hundred-dollar bill anonymously with instructions to total your car if he wanted the other half. She assumed he’d hit it parked somewhere, but the dumb-ass rear-ended it with you in it, instead. He was so terrified he never talked, but Candace had a fit about how damn dumb he was. He’s second only to you on her list of people who don’t know how to act right.” C.L. shook his head. “She said she couldn’t understand why you weren’t just letting the town take care of you since it always had. She never expected you to fight back.”

“I never expected her to confess,” Maddie said. “I figured she’d just sit there and blonde it out.”

“The lab found her fingerprint on the gun clip. Henry had to get Candace’s prints to check, and he was trying to ease her on down to the station when you decided to become the Talk of the Town.”

“But I wiped the gun off,” Maddie said.

“That was helpful of you,” C.L. said. “The clip was inside. She checked the clip and then fired into Brent’s head.”

“Oh.” Maddie swallowed. “Tough woman.”

“Not as tough as you. Do you realize you mugged somebody in broad daylight
and
said ‘fuck’ in front of about forty people including my uncle?”

“I was overwrought,” Maddie said. “I couldn’t let her leave, but at the same time I couldn’t believe she’d done it, so things were tense. I still can’t believe it. I know Candace. I went to high school with her. She’s lived in this town all her life.”

“I think that’s why she did it,” C.L. said. “She got tired of killing herself with work to get out and decided to kill somebody else instead.”

“That can’t be it.” Maddie shifted carefully on the bed. Her head didn’t come off, so she relaxed. “Candace could have left any time she wanted. She had a degree and experience. She must have wanted something else. She left the pants in Brent’s car. She must have wanted him.”

“She should have asked for him. You’d have handed him over. Hell, I’d have gift-wrapped him for her.”

“Wait a minute.” Maddie sat up slowly. “Em’s safe now. I’m safe now. Right?”

“Well, not exactly,” C.L. said. “I’m still here.” He gazed deeply into her eyes. “Your pupils look all right. If you don’t have a concussion, you want to go back to Drake’s farm later? Your reputation is shot to hell anyway.”

“Thank God,” Maddie said. “My life is going to be so much simpler from now on.”

“Don’t count on it,” C.L. said. “I’m in it now.”