Where There's Smoke (82 page)

"Don't bother.
 
I'm dying.
 
I want to.
 
I can now."
 
Jody's words were slurred, the consonants only partially formed, the sounds left open, like her lips.
 
The vowels were guttural.
 
But Jody was forcing herself to be understood.
 
"Couldn't let him."

"Couldn't let him what, Jody?"
 
Key knelt beside her.
 
"Couldn't let him what?"

Lara called 911.
 
For the second time in twelve hours she requested two ambulances-one for Jody, one for Randall.
 
Then she returned to her place beside Jody and wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm.
 
"She must have come in right behind me," she told Key.
 
"He fell exactly where he was standing when I left."

"Couldn't let him tell about Clark."
 
Jody struggled with the words.

"Don't talk, Mrs. Tackett," Lara said gently.
 
She released the cuff and firmly pressed her fingers into Jody's wrist to take her pulse.

"Help is on the way.

"What about Clark?"
 
Key supported the back of Jody's head in his palm.

"What did Randall Porter know about Clark that you didn't want him to tell?"

"Key, this isn't the time.
 
She's critically ill."

"She blew your husband's brains out!"
 
he shouted at Lara.
 
"Why, goddamnit?
 
I want to know what drove my mother to murder.
 
Do you know?"

"You're upsetting my patient," she replied tightly.

"Christ.
 
You do know.
 
What was it?"

She remained silent.

He looked down at Jody, realizing, as Lara did, that she was frantically trying to impart something before it was too late.
 
"Jody, what was it?
 
Did Porter know something about Clark's drowning?

Was it a political assassination staged to look like an accident?
 
Did Clark know that Porter was still alive?"

"No."
 
Imploringly, Jody rolled her eyes toward Lara.
 
"Tell him."

Lara shook her head slowly, then emphatically.
 
"No.
 
No."

"Lara, for God's sake.
 
He was my brother."
 
Key reached across Jody and took Lara's chin, forcibly turning her face toward him.

"What do you know that I don't?
 
What did Porter know that was such a threat to Clark, even dead?
 
Whatever it is, it's why Jody didn't want you in Eden Pass, right?
 
She was afraid you'd leak a secret."

"Porter .
 
. . Jody wheezed.
 
"Porter was "No, Mrs. Tackett," Lara pleaded.
 
"Don't tell him.
 
It won't solve anything and will only hurt him."
 
She looked at Key.
 
"Don't ask her.
 
It crushed her.
 
She committed murder over it.
 
Leave it alone.

1 beg you, Key, leave it alone."

Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
 
He bent low over jody, until his face was inches from hers.
 
"Porter was what?
 
Plotting something with Clark?

Was Clark caught up in a political intrigue he couldn't get out of?
 
An illegal arms deal?
 
Drugs maybe?"

"Tell me, Jody," he urged her softly.
 
"Try, please.
 
Tell me.
 
I've got to know."

"Randall Porter was "Yes, Jody?
 
What?"

"No, Key.
 
Please.
 
Please."

"Shut up, Lara.
 
Randall Porter was what, Jody?"

"Clark's lover."

For several seconds Key remained motionless.
 
Then his head snapped erect and his eyes drilled into Lara's.
 
"My brother and Porter .
 
.

.

?"

Lara sank against the wall, defeated.
 
The secret she had wanted desperately to reveal for five years, she now wished could have died with Jody Tackett, so that she wouldn't have to watch the disillusionment spread over Key's face like a dark ink spill.

"They were lovers?"
 
His voice was as brittle and dry as ancient parchment.
 
It crackled on each word.

She nodded forlornly.

"That morning in Virginia, my brother was in bed with Porter, not you.

You caught them."

Tears ran down her cheeks.
 
She rubbed them off with her fist.

"Yes."

"Jesus," he swore, bearing his teeth.
 
"Ah, Jesus."
 
He propped his elbow on his raised knee and shoved his fingers through his hair, cupping his forehead in his palm.
 
He held that anguished posture for ponderous moments.

Eventually he lowered his hand and looked down at his mother.

"Clark confessed to you, didn't he?"

"When he gave "When he bought this place for Lara," Key prompted.
 
Jody nodded imperceptibly.
 
Her eyes were swimming in tears.
 
"You demanded to know why he'd do such a crazy thing for the woman who'd ruined his career.
 
He broke down and told you the truth.
 
You denounced him, probably disowned him.
 
So he killed himself."

A terrible sound issued from Jody's chest.

"Key, don't do this to her," Lara whispered.

But it wasn't his intention to torment her.
 
He slipped his arms beneath Jody and lifted her against his chest.
 
She looked small and helpless in his brawny embrace, this woman who, using brains instead of beauty, had bagged the notorious playboy of Eden Pass, had driven Fergus Winston to commit a criminal act to exact revenge, and had for decades instilled in her employees a fearful respect and in an entire town fierce loyalty.

Key wiped the saliva off her chin with his thumb, then rested his cheek on the top of her head.
 
"It's all right, Mother.
 
Clark died knowing you loved him.
 
He knew."

"Key."
 
She spoke his name, not reproachfully, but penitently.

She managed to lift her hand and place it on his arm.
 
"Key."

He squeezed his eyes so tightly shut, tears were wrung from them.

When the ambulance arrived, he was still cradling her in his arms, cooing to her like a baby, rocking her gently.

But by then Jody Tackett was dead.

"Thank you, Mr. Hoskins."
 
Ollie had personally carried her gœceries out to her car and stowed them in the trunk.

"You're welcome, Dr.
 
Mallory."

"How is Mrs.
 
Hoskins?"

He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and unabashedly dabbed at his eyes.
 
"Not much good.
 
She sits in Tanner's room a lot.
 
Dusts it.

Runs the vacuum over the rug so much, she's worn down the pile.

Doesn't eat, doesn't sleep.

"Why don't you bring her to see me?
 
I could prescribe a mild sedative."

"Thanks, Dr.
 
Mallory, but her problem isn't physical."

"Grief can be physically debilitating.
 
I know.
 
Encourage her to come see me.

He nodded, thanked her again, and returned to his duties inside the Sak'n'Save.
 
This was one of the supermarket's busiest days of the year, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
 
Texas Street was jammed.

A crew of volunteers was hanging Christmas decorations, stretching strings of multicolored lights across the street and mounting a Santa wearing a cowboy hat and boots on the roof of the bank building.

Passersby offered unsolicited advice.

Despite the recent catastrophe, life went on in Eden Pass.

Lara was about to back her car out of the metered parking slot when Key's Lincoln loomed up directly behind her and blocked her exit.
 
He got out and moved between her car and the pickup truck parked next to her.

Noisy honking and a shout drew his attention back to the street.

"Hey, Tackett, you gonna move this piece of yellow shit, or what?

It's blocking the whole damn street."

Key called back, "Go around it, you ugly son of a bitch."
 
Wearing a good-natured smile, he flicked his middle finger at his friend, Possum.

He was still laughing when he reached the driver's door of Lara's car.

He knocked on the window and peeled off his aviator sunglasses.
 
"Hey, Doc, how've you been?"

They hadn't been alone together since the day Jody died.
 
If he could be cavalier, so could she, although her heart was racing.
 
"I thought you'd gone to Alaska."

"Next week.
 
I promised Janellen I'd stick around till after Thanksgiving.
 
She and Bowie will be celebrating their first one together.

It's important to her that I be here to carve the turkey."

"She brought him to meet me.

"The turkey?"

She rolled her eyes, letting him know her estimation of his joke.

"I like your brother-in-law very much."

"Yeah, so do I. I particularly like him because he's touchy about folks thinking he married Janellen for her money.
 
He works like a Trojan to prove he didn't.
 
He's inspecting every Tackett well for safety violations.
 
He'd blame himself for the disaster caused by well number seven, only Janellen won't let him.
 
He knew something was out of kilter.
 
Time ran out before he located the problem, is all.

"Anyhow, they're gaga over each other.
 
I feel like a fifth wheel.

Once I'm gone, they'll have the house to themselves.
 
I've deeded over my half of it to her."

"That was generous.

"That house didn't hold any good memories for me.
 
Nary a one.

Maybe they'll make it a happy place for their kids."
 
Shaking his head, he chuckled.
 
"Who'd've ever thought Janellen would elope?"

In a quieter voice, he added, "Her timing was off a bit.
 
She'll go to her grave blaming herself for not being here when Jody had her stroke."

He was back to calling his mother Jody, but Lara remembered the tenderness with which he'd held her, calling her Mother as she died.

"Did you tell Janellen about Clark?"

"No.
 
What would be the point?
 
It was hard enough on her to learn that Jody had murdered your husband."

There'd been an inquest.
 
Key had cited Jody's dementia as the cause of her violent act.
 
In her confusion, he told the judge, she'd linked Randall Porter's sudden reappearance with Clark's death.
 
She killed him, thinking she was protecting her child.
 
The court bought it.
 
In any event, the killer was dead.
 
Case dismissed.
 
Sometimes the good ol' boy system was the fairest.