White Hot (3 page)

He was leaning against the rear fender of her car. He’d taken off his suit jacket and folded it over his arm. His necktie was askew, and the collar button of his shirt was undone, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d put on a pair of dark sunglasses.

“I’m Beck Merchant.”

“I guessed.”

She had only seen his name in print and had wondered if he used the French pronunciation. He didn’t. And his appearance was as American as apple pie, from his dark blond hair, through his easy smile and straight teeth, to the Ralph Lauren cut of his trousers.

Giving no heed to her ungracious tone, he said, “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Hoyle.”

“Lynch.”

“I stand corrected.” He spoke with utmost courtesy, but his smile mocked her.

“Does delivering messages fall into your job description? I thought you were their lawyer,” she said.

“Lawyer, errand boy—”

“Henchman.”

He laid his hand over his heart and flashed an even wider grin. “You give me far too much credit.”

“I doubt it.” She slammed shut her car door. “You’ve extended their invitation. Tell them I decline. Now, I would appreciate some time alone to say good-bye to Danny.” She turned and headed up the rise.

“Take your time. I’ll wait for you.”

She came back around. “I’m not going to their damn wake. As soon as I’m done here, I’m returning to New Orleans and catching a flight back to San Francisco.”

“You could do that. Or you could do the decent thing and attend your brother’s wake. Then later this evening, Hoyle Enterprises’ corporate jet could whisk you back to San Francisco without all the hassle of commercial flight.”

“I can charter my own jet.”

“Even better.”

She’d walked right into that one and hated herself for it. She had been back in Destiny barely an hour, and already she was reverting to old habits. But she had learned how to recognize the traps and avoid them.

“No thank you. Good-bye, Mr. Merchant.” Once again she started up the rise toward the grave.

“Do you believe Danny killed himself?”

Of all the things he could have said, she didn’t expect that. She turned to face him again. He was no longer leaning indolently against the car fender but had taken a few steps toward her, as though not only to hear her answer but to gauge her reaction to his surprising question.

“Don’t you?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said. “It’s the sheriff’s office that’s questioning the suicide.”

“T
his’ll start you off, Mr. Chris,” Selma said, offering him a plate of food.

“Thank you.”

“Anything for you, Mr. Hoyle?” Although the housekeeper wasn’t supposed to be working today, she had put an apron on over her black dress. Incongruous with the apron, she still had on the hat she’d worn to the funeral.

“I’ll wait awhile, Selma.”

“Not hungry?”

“It’s too hot to eat.”

The balcony above the gallery provided shade along its entire width, but even that was insufficient against the inescapable heat. Ceiling fans circulated, but they only stirred hot air. Huff frequently had to wipe his sweating face with a handkerchief. Inside, the AC was keeping the house comfortably cool, but Huff felt it only proper for him and Chris to greet their guests as they arrived and personally accept their condolences before they went in.

“You need anything, sir, you just holler and I’ll fetch it.” Dabbing her tearful eyes, Selma went back into the house through the wide front door, over which she had draped black crepe bunting.

She had balked at hiring a caterer for the wake because she disliked having anyone else in her kitchen. But Huff had insisted. Selma wasn’t up to throwing a party. Since receiving the news about Danny, she’d been given to bouts of loud weeping, to falling to her knees and, with her hands clasped, calling on Jesus for mercy.

She had worked for the Hoyles since Huff had carried Laurel over the threshold as a bride, nearly forty years ago. Laurel had grown up with domestics, so it was natural for her to relinquish the management of her own household to Selma. The black woman had seemed middle-aged and maternal then; her age now was anybody’s guess. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, if that, but she was as strong and resilient as a willow sapling.

After the children came along, Selma had acted as their nanny. When Laurel died, Danny, as the youngest, was also the neediest. Selma had mothered him, and consequently they’d had a special bond. She was taking his death hard.

“I saw the buffet in the dining room,” Chris remarked. He sat the plate Selma had given him, untouched, on a wicker side table. “There’s a vulgar abundance of food and liquor in there, don’t you think?”

“Since you have never known a day of hunger in your life, I’d say you are no authority on how much food is too much.”

Privately, Huff conceded that perhaps he had gone a little overboard. But he’d worked like the devil to provide the best for his children. He wasn’t about to skimp on his youngest boy’s wake.

“Are you going to remind me how ungrateful I am for all I have, how I don’t know what it’s like to go without the basic necessities of life like you did?”

“I’m glad I had to go without. Going without made me determined never to go without again. It made me who I am. And you’re who you are because of me.”

“Relax, Huff.” Chris sat down in one of the rockers on the porch. “I know all the lessons by heart. I was suckled and weaned on them. We don’t have to rehash them today.”

Huff felt his blood pressure receding to a safer level. “No, we don’t. Stand up, though, here comes more company.”

Chris was beside him once again as a couple approached and started up the gallery steps toward them. “How do, George? Lila. Thank you for coming,” Huff said.

George Robson pressed Huff’s right hand between his own. They were moist, fleshy, and pale.
Like all of George,
Huff thought with repugnance.

“Danny was a fine young man, Huff. Nobody finer.”

“You’re right about that, George.” He reclaimed his hand, barely curbing the impulse to wipe it dry on the leg of his trousers. “I sure appreciate you saying so.”

“It’s a tragic thing.”

“Yes, it is.”

George’s much younger second wife said nothing, but Huff intercepted the sly glance she cast at Chris, who smiled at her and said, “Better get this pretty lady inside and out of this heat, George. She looks sweet enough to melt. Help yourselves to the buffet.”

“Plenty of gin in there, George,” Huff said. “Have one of those bartenders make you a tall one, light on the tonic.”

The man seemed pleased that Huff remembered his drink of choice and quickly ushered his wife inside. Once they were out of earshot, Huff turned to Chris. “How long has Lila been one of yours?”

“As of last Saturday afternoon while George was out fishing with his son by his first marriage.” Smiling, he added, “Second wives are advantageous that way. There’s usually an offspring that keeps their husbands occupied at least two weekends a month.”

Huff scowled at him. “Speaking of wives, between diddling Lila Robson, have you talked to Mary Beth?”

“For about five seconds.”

“You told her about Danny?”

“As soon as she said hello, I said, ‘Mary Beth, Danny killed himself.’ And her response was ‘Then my share just got bigger.’ ”

Huff’s blood pressure soared again. “Her share, my ass. That gal won’t see one red cent of my money. Not unless she does right by you and gives you a divorce. And I don’t mean in her own sweet time. I mean
now.
Did you ask about those divorce papers we sent down there?”

“Not specifically. But Mary Beth isn’t going to sign any divorce papers.”

“Then get her back here and get her pregnant.”

“I can’t.”

“You won’t.”

“I
can’t.
”

Attuned to Chris’s dark tone, Huff narrowed his eyes. “How come? Is there something you’re not telling me, something I don’t know?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“We’ll talk about it now.”

“This isn’t the time, Huff,” Chris said, straining the words. “Besides, you’re getting red in the face, and we know what that means in terms of your blood pressure.” He headed for the front door. “I’m going to get a drink.”

“Hold on. Look at this.”

Huff directed Chris’s gaze toward the lane in front of the house, where Beck was approaching a car that had just pulled to a stop. He opened the driver’s door and extended his hand down.

Sayre alighted, but without any assistance from Beck. In fact she looked ready to hiss at him if he touched her.

“We’ll I’ll be damned,” Chris said.

He and Huff watched as the two came across the yard and started up the walkway. About halfway, Sayre tilted her head back and looked up from beneath the wide brim of her black straw hat. When she saw him and Chris there on the gallery, she changed her direction and angled off toward the side of the house and the footpath that led to the rear.

Huff watched her until she disappeared around the corner. He hadn’t known what to expect upon seeing his daughter for the first time in ten years, but he was proud of what he saw. Sayre Hoyle—that name-changing business was horseshit—was a fine-looking woman. Damn fine. To his mind, she couldn’t have turned out any better.

Beck climbed the steps to join them.

“I’m impressed,” Chris said. “I figured she’d tell you to fuck off.”

“Close.”

“What happened?”

“Just as you thought, Huff, she was planning to leave without seeing you.”

“So how’d you get her here?”

“I appealed to her sense of family loyalty and decency.”

Chris made a scoffing sound.

“Has she always been that snotty?” Beck asked.

Chris answered yes at the same time Huff said, “She’s always been a little high-strung.”

“That’s a nice way of saying that she’s a pain in the ass.” Chris scanned the yard. “I think everybody who’s coming is here. Let’s go inside and give Danny his due.”

The house was jammed with people, which didn’t surprise Beck. Anyone even remotely connected to or acquainted with the Hoyles would turn out to pay respects to one who died.

Top- and middle-management personnel from the plant were there with their wives. Only a few laborers were there, men Beck knew had been employees since they were old enough to work. They stood apart from everyone else, wearing clip-on neckties with their short-sleeve shirts, looking ill at ease inside Huff Hoyle’s house, awkwardly balancing plates of food and trying to avoid a spill.

Then there were the ass-kissers who were always eager to stay on the Hoyles’ good side because their livelihoods depended on it. The local politicians, bankers, educators, retailers, and physicians all operated under Huff’s largesse. If one got crosswise with him, he was soon out of business. It wasn’t a written law, but it was etched into the stone of common knowledge. Each made certain to sign the guest register so that, in the unlikely event they didn’t speak to Huff personally, he would at least know they had paid homage.

The fewest in number were the people who were actually there for Danny, standouts because of their expressions of genuine grief. For the most part, they stayed clustered together, talking sadly among themselves, but having little to say to him, Chris, or Huff, out of either indifference or intimidation. As soon as they had stayed for a polite length of time, they left.

Beck mingled, accepting condolences like a bona fide member of the family.

Sayre mingled, too, but only with guests. Him, Chris, and Huff she avoided, ignoring them as though they weren’t there. People kept their distance from her unless she approached them, he noticed. These were simple, small-town folk. Sayre was anything but. She made herself accessible, but many seemed shy of her sophistication.

He succeeded in making eye contact with her only once. Her arm was linked with Selma’s as they made their way along the central hallway. Sayre was consoling the housekeeper, who was sobbing onto her shoulder. She spotted him watching them but looked straight through him.

Two hours elapsed before the crowd began to thin out. He joined Chris, who was grazing at the buffet. “Where’s Huff?”

“Having a smoke in the den. Ham’s good. Have you eaten?”

“I will later. Is Huff all right?”

“Tired, I think. The last couple of days have been a strain.”

“How about you?”

Chris shrugged. “Danny and I had our differences, you know. But he was still my brother.”

“I’ll go check on Huff and leave you to play host.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Chris muttered.

“It can’t be that bad. I see Lila Robson over there.” Chris had boasted of his latest conquest, confirming what Beck had always suspected—that Lila’s husband was a schmuck. “She looks a little forlorn, like she could use some company.”

“No, she’s sulking.”

“Why’s that?”

“She thinks I’m using her just for sex.”

“Now why would she think that?” Beck asked sarcastically.

“Beats me. She started whining about it right after she gave me a blow job in the upstairs bathroom.” Chris checked his wristwatch. “About ten minutes ago.”

Beck looked at him. “You’re not serious.”

Chris’s shrug neither denied nor confirmed. “Go check on Huff. I’ll try to keep these yahoos from walking out with the family sterling.”

Beck found Huff in his recliner, smoking. He closed the door behind himself. “Mind if I sit with you for a while?”

“Who sent you, Chris or Selma? I know it wasn’t Sayre. She wouldn’t waste any worry on me.”

“I can’t speak for her.” Beck sat down on the sofa. “But
I’m
worried about you.”

“I’m fine.” He blew a gust of smoke toward the ceiling.

“You’re putting up a brave front, but you just lost your son and that’s gotta be tough.”

The older man smoked in silence for several moments, then said, “You know, I think Danny would have been Laurel’s favorite.”

Beck leaned forward and propped his forearms on his knees. “Because…?”

“Because he was like her.” He shot Beck a glance. “I ever tell you about Laurel?”

“I’ve picked up things here and there.”

“She was exactly what I wanted, Beck. Not particularly bright. But hell, who wants that? Laurel was soft and sweet and pretty.”

Beck nodded. The oil portrait that dominated the staircase landing depicted a woman who was soft, sweet, and pretty. But he couldn’t help but think that part of Laurel Lynch’s attraction had been the metal pipe casting factory that her daddy had owned and where Huff had been an employee.

“I was rough and uncouth, foul talking. She was a refined lady. Knew which fork to use.”

“So how did you talk her into marrying you?”

“I bowled her over,” he said, chuckling at the memory. “I said, ‘Laurel, you’re going to be my wife,’ and she said all right. She’d been courted by men who walked on eggshells around her. I guess she liked my brass.”

He contemplated the smoke rising from the tip of his cigarette. “You may not believe this, Beck, but I was faithful to her. Never strayed. Not once. I didn’t go to another woman until she had been dead a respectable amount of time, either. I figured I owed her that.”

After a moment of reflection, he continued. “When she got pregnant, I busted my buttons with pride. I knew the baby would be a boy. Had to be. Chris was mine from the second they pulled him out of her and handed him to me. Back then, delivery rooms were off-limits to fathers. But I bribed the staff with a huge donation and they agreed quick enough to let me come in. I wanted my face to be the first one my son saw when he entered this world.

“Anyhow, I claimed Chris from the start, and from then on, he was mine. As the trade-off, it was easy to leave Sayre to Laurel. Sayre was her little doll to put in ruffled dresses, and to throw tea parties for, give English riding lessons to. Bullshit like that. But if Laurel had lived, she and Sayre would have wound up fighting tooth and toe-nail. Sayre isn’t exactly the tea party type, is she?”

Beck doubted that she was.

“Sayre wouldn’t have cared a flip about anything that was important to Laurel,” Huff continued. “But Danny now, his mother would have doted on him. He is—he
was
—a gentleman. Like Laurel, he was born about a century too late. He should have been born in a time when everybody dressed in white clothes and knocked around croquet balls and had clean fingernails all the time. Sipped champagne cocktails on the gallery. When leisure was an art form.”

He looked across at Beck, and the tender expression brought on by his reverie disappeared. “Danny wasn’t cut out for business. Especially our business. It’s too dirty. Not clean enough for the likes of him.”