T's Trial: A Bone Cold--Alive Novel (4 page)

“Sam.” She finished the braid and sat with her hands in her lap.

“Sam. Fine. Sam comes out and you know what he does?”

“No, I don’t know what he does,” she sing-song'ed back to him. But I wouldn’t be surprised, she thought.

“Puts his arm around what’s-his-name.”

“Fletcher.”

“Puts his arm around Fletcher.”

“You mean like football players slapping each other on the butt, Tib?”

“Lyla, you are so closed-minded on this.”

“Tib, their money is already in the bank. It’s good as gold.”

“You don’t need it, sugar.” His voice became an appeal. “You’ve got this store. Talk about good as gold. Hell, there’s Dub. Think he and Red are going to let you and Harrison do without?”

“That is hardly the point. Renting the house a couple of months a year is my money for Harrison’s education. It’s what I do for him. It’s my piece of independence.” She clutched her hands together even tighter.

“Stubbornness. It’s your piece of stubbornness.”

“MYOB, Tib. My houseguests want privacy and between you and Dub that’s going to be next to impossible.”

“I just don’t understand, Lyla.”

“Then stop trying to. You can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m surprised you ever got married in the first place.”

She smiled at him. “You grew up with Wes. You shouldn’t have to wonder.”

“I grew up with you, too.” They were silent, a half-lifetime of memories rising between them. His cell phone beeped and the mood broke.

Tib answered the call, then stood at the glass doors. “I got to go. Why I put up with this I’ll never know.” He left.

Lyla shook her head as she watched the patrol vehicle leave the parking lot. I don’t know why you put up with this either, she thought. I don’t know why either of us does.

***

Lyla looked out the second floor kitchen sink window in her temporary quarters. Her father-in-law’s pickup made an abrupt turn into the Quik-Lee’s back drive. Wesley Walker Lee—known as Dub for as long as he could remember or so he’d told her—screeched the two-ton dually to a halt beside the evening shift’s foreign truck. Murph, a college boy of uncertain ambition, generally ignored Dub so Lyla knew there’d be no conversation to thwart his arrival. He one-armed Harrison’s bike out of the pickup bed, and she continued to watch him watch the boy ride it off for a spin around the building. Lyle knew he’d promised his only grandchild a pickup just like his when the boy turned sixteen. She shuddered at the thought.

Heavy footsteps on the stairs announced their arrival, Harrison now slung over his Grandpa’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Hey, lady, got a delivery!” Dub knocked on the open door and dumped Harrison on the couch near the center of the large room that was both den and dining room. The boy giggled and jumped up for more. “Later,” his Grandpa answered.

She shook her head at the antics she watched almost every evening. Dub's affection for the boy went as deep as Grandpa-love could. As the youngest of six boys, he’d had to scrap for every piece of attention he ever received. Therefore he had lavished it on his only child Wes and then on Harrison. Red’s affection for her was as mother to daughter. She was indeed blessed by these in-laws. But she was going to have to make herself remember this. Say it as a mantra. Be determined, because she knew what Dub was going to be up to before the evening was over. He had an agenda, and remembering how much he loved and cared for them was going to be the only thing that would keep her from throwing out the bigoted old redneck.

She balanced on one foot and leaned on the counter as she sliced mushrooms on a cutting board. Ground beef simmered in the skillet and a jar of ready-made spaghetti sauce sat already opened.

Dub perched on a dinette chair and Lyla decided to avoid the issue for as long as possible. “Staying to dinner? I need to know how much spaghetti to fix.”

“Fine with me. Anything not to eat Grandma’s cooking.” He winked at Harrison.

“I heard that.” Isabel Rieves Lee shut the door behind her. Lyla watched Harrison bestow a quick hug on her, the reds of their hair color deepening from his grandma’s carrot hue to Harrison’s dark rich red. He had her brown eyes, too. “Sure, we’ll stay to supper. Tomorrow you come to our place.”

“Deal.”

Red tossed her keys on the counter and reached for the silverware. It was an established routine broken only by Dub. He had yet to reach for the remote control. Lyla popped a mushroom in her mouth as she awaited the end-around play.

“Harrison, where’d you put your bike?”

“By the back door, Grandpa.”

“Go move it into the store room.”

“After supper.”

“Now.”

Harrison started to protest further, but Lyla merely raised her eyebrows at him. He slumped his shoulders and marched downstairs, disappointment at being evicted evident in each plodding step.

“Well, are they?” The door barely closed behind Harrison when Dub started in.

“Are they what?”

He glowered with his eyes. “You know. How artsy-fartsy are they?”

She set the sauté pan back on the burner and settled her hands on her hips. “Honestly, Dub. I thought you were going to keep your suspicions to yourself. I was really proud of you!” She added the sauce to the pan. “I didn’t even get through the house tour before Tib shows up with some flimsy excuse and then he tells me you’re telling everybody.”

“I didn’t tell everybody.”

Red looked at him over the top of her bifocals. He ignored her.

“I told him so’s he could look after you. Imagine what he thought when he drove by and poor little Harrison’s outside all by himself!”

Red rolled her eyes, but it was Lyla who continued to speak. “You are so full of it! Tib run to you complaining about me?”

“Lyla, that is not the point at all!”

“What is the point then?” Red stopped filling the tea glasses with ice. “Tib come see you after he saw Lyla?”

“You on her side now?”

“There are sides to this?”

“No.” Dub seemed slightly flustered. “Red, you didn’t care for these renters any more than I did when Lyla told us.”

“Well, there was my first mistake. I shouldn’t ever have told you.” Lyla added the meat back to the pan, stirred it vigorously. “And you can be damn sure I won’t do it again. My guests are going to be just that—mine!”

“You never answered my question.” Lyla heard the considerable control in Red's voice as she confronted her husband. “Tib run to you after he saw Lyla?”

Dub squirmed in the old chair. It seemed in danger of collapse under his weight. “He stopped by.” He hedged. “Tib always stops by during the day some time. I like a patrol car in and out.”

“I really don’t think you’re as dense as you pretend.” Lyla added the pasta to the boiling water. “But to answer your question, I don’t know how artsy they are, and it makes absolutely no difference. They have paid. They seem like decent people. They are well dressed—” she almost said well-mannered but remembered Sam’s outburst “—educated.” She finished, crossed her arms and glared at Dub in return.

“I don’t want Harrison there at all.”

She might not either, but it had to do with Sam’s temper more than anything else.

“Well, thank you for your concern, Dub. He’s my child. I’ve done a fair job so far.”

“I’m not saying you haven’t. He’s wonderful. You know what they say—”

The door swung open and Harrison entered, a scowl on his face.

“What’s wrong, son?”
“Murph won’t talk to me. He’s more interested in Ari and Andi Palmer.”

“Eighteen-year-old twins. I remember....” Red cleared her throat and Dub sighed, patted his knee. “Come have a sit, boy. Grandma and Mama are mad at me.”

“What’d you do?”

“I expressed an opinion.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It wasn’t theirs.”

Chapter Three

“W
ell, aren’t you the industrious one.” T strode into the kitchen the next morning, his stubble of hair still gleaming from the shower, his body loosely clad in an old plaid robe he’d found hanging in his closet. He poured a mug of coffee, doctored it heavily with sugar and half-and-half, and slid into a chair opposite Fletch. The yellow gingham cloth sported crumbs of toast and jelly. Fletch was busily tapping away on his laptop. “Thanks so much for fixing breakfast for me. Gee, I’m off food as well as drugs.”

“I got up at six thirty. You were still snoring.” He didn’t take his eyes from the screen.

“Six thirty in the morning? There’s a six thirty in the morning in the real world? Oh, I forgot, this isn’t the real world. This is still part of detox.”

Fletch looked up. “This is rest and relaxation. You are detoxed.” He lifted his coffee mug to his lips. “We definitely need bottled water.”

T turned the laptop around and scanned it. “You’ve got everything else on that list. You know how to cook all this stuff?” He sipped the bitter coffee. “You don’t have near enough water.” He maneuvered the cursor and adjusted the amount.

“I am a man of many talents. Don’t screw with my computer.” He took it back. “My second wife—you remember, Josie—hell, what am I saying, you don’t remember much about anybody but yourself, do you?” T’s face was fixed with a ‘go to hell’ expression. “Josie was a chef. She taught me everything she knew about the culinary arts and I taught her about the bedroom.”

“If that was an even exchange, it doesn’t bode well for my diet over the next three weeks, does it?” He got up.

Fletch ignored him and reached for the phone.

“What’s wrong? Can’t you just email it to her?”

“Go play the piano. Go compose. Go make yourself useful.”

T lingered at the coffee pot, while Fletch laughed at something Lyla said over the phone.

“Well, it’s an involved list. I had to get the feel of the kitchen, decide how adventurous to be.”

T rolled his eyes. Surely the woman was too smart to be taken in by that bull. It was disgusting. Leaving the kitchen, he sought solace in the piano, started with BCA’s first cut from their last triple-platinum album. At last, something that made sense.

***

It was mid-afternoon when Lyla got all of Fletch’s list assembled. He must be planning on a true retreat, she thought, as she reviewed the three stores she’d gone to in order to locate all of the requests. She’d tried to do it all at the Quik-Lee, but almond paste, canned crab, sesame oil, and small containers of seven flavors of gourmet New York ice cream were beyond their clientele. She’d like to be a fly on the wall when he put all this together. No alcohol, though there was enough tea to float the British navy.

She pulled up immediately in front of the log steps and shut off the engine. Shep quickly found his favorite spot on the porch. The afternoon sun blazed, sucked the air dry. Nothing moved on the lake. Labor Day in two weeks would change that. She always worked overtime that weekend anyway, wouldn’t miss watching it from her own porch.

It was hard not to go right in. She stepped around the dog, balancing a sack on her left hip and clutching the assorted receipts in her right as she knocked. The piano continued. Czerny. Exercises. God, was he dedicated or just nuts? She’d hated those. Hated to do them, hated to teach them. He probably couldn’t hear her. She knocked harder. As the music quit, she heard the bench scrape back and footsteps approach the door. Sam swung it open and glared at her.

“Tell Mr. Fletcher I have his groceries.” She handed him the sack and started back to the Jeep to get another load, stuffing the receipts into her shorts pocket. Sam made no effort to move, even as she came back up the steps with a sack in each arm. “They go in the kitchen.” He shuffled in behind her, depositing his sack beside hers on the counter. “Where’s Mr. Fletcher?”

“He took the boat out. He’s probably putt-putting himself into the Gulf even as we speak.”

She sucked in her cheeks at his lame attempt at sarcasm. Oh, fine. She knew she should have been paid first before she bought. Would she never learn? Somehow all this was Dub’s fault. If he weren’t so suspicious, she wouldn’t have to be so trusting. “One, make yourself useful by unloading the Jeep while I put all this stuff up. Two, I don’t suppose he left some money.” She started emptying a sack.

He imitated her expression and put his hands on his hips. “One, I don’t have to try to make myself useful. I am a very useful person.” It was a forceful statement, issued as if he had practiced it. There was a slight pause, and Lyla watched the moment of indecision race across his features. He licked his lips and she followed the tip of his tongue back between his teeth. “Two, I was just on my way to unload the groceries you graciously agreed to buy for us.” He turned toward the door, called over his shoulder. “Three, the money’s on the table.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Three one-hundred-dollar bills peeked out from under the closed laptop. Scrawled on a piece of yellow legal paper was a simple ‘thank you’. Feeling mildly contrite, she put the receipts and proper change under the sheet and scribbled ‘anytime’ on his note.

Three trips later, the groceries were all inside and the piano was once more in business. He’d changed from Czerny to Mozart. Beautiful. Fine music for unloading grocery sacks. She put the obvious in the refrigerator and freezer and stacked the rest on the shelves she’d cleared for guest use. She folded the sacks, brushed off the tablecloth and quickly swept. She’d just check the bathrooms, make sure there were no problems and then go.

Re-entering the living room, she noticed what she’d moved right past on her trip to the kitchen: her music cabinets had been emptied. Sheet music, books, hymnals lay about like the leavings of an undisciplined child. Nothing had been returned to the cabinet. With Fletch not in the house to control Sam, she elected to say nothing. Maybe he had been hunting for something specific, but nothing was on the piano. He was playing freely. The music spilled from him.

Slightly chagrined at his combination of raw talent and lack of discipline, she started down the hall to check the bedrooms and bath. She turned into the first room and was quickly brought to a stop. He had changed the melody, and the memories it evoked almost brought her to her knees.