Three Bedrooms, One Corpse(32)

“Sweetheart, do you like them?” he said finally.

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~ Charlaine Harris ~

“Oh, yes,” I said, trying hard not to cry. “Yes, Mar- tin. They’re beautiful.” My hands were shaking, and I clenched my fists so he wouldn’t notice. “Didn’t you tell me November was your birthday?” “Yes, it is.”

“And here it is November. I didn’t know which day, but I wanted to get you a present. I know topaz is your birthstone, but none I saw seemed warm enough to me. These look like you. If you didn’t know it, you look beautiful tonight.”

The stones glittered. The amethysts were rectangu- lar and edged with small diamonds.

“I’m overwhelmed. Martin, I don’t know what to say.” I’d never spoken truer words.

“Tell me you love me.”

I looked into the mirror.

“I love you.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear.”

“Martin.”

His hand touched my cheek.

“Do you—?”

“Yes,” he said into my ear, kissing my neck. “Oh, yes. I love you.”

After a while he said, “Do we have to go?” “Unless we want my mother coming here to find out what happened to me, yes.”

Actually, I needed a space to think, to calm down. If we stayed here, I certainly wouldn’t get it. Talk about warring emotions. Someone loved me. I loved him back. He might be questioned tomorrow for murder. He’d given me the most romantic gift, the kind

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women wait a lifetime for. And I’d thought for a mo- ment that he was going to strangle me.

Martin fetched my coat from the closet while I re- examined my earrings in the mirror. “Can you stop looking long enough to put on your coat?” he asked, laughing.

“I guess so,” I said reluctantly. The moment of ter- ror was oozing out and filling up with delight. “Mar- tin, what’s that clipped to your coat pocket?” “Oh, a beeper. We’ve been having trouble with a particular man on the night shift. His supervisor is watching him tonight, and if he catches him stealing, he’s going to beep me so I can go have it out with the guy.”

In my now almost complete wave of euphoria, I did a Scarlett O’Hara and decided to think about the bad stuff later. Maybe I couldn’t put it off until tomorrow, but I could savor this minute, surely.

Martin and I were a little late, among the last to ar- rive. We picked glasses of white wine off the tray a waiter carried by. I spotted Lizanne and Bubba Sewell immediately. Lizanne did not hint in her greeting to me that she had given me a warning that afternoon. Maybe her liquid dark eyes rested on me a little sadly, but that was all. Bubba started one of those conversations with Martin designed to link them in the male network: he connected what he was working on as a representative with what Martin was trying to achieve at Pan-Am Agra, he told Martin that he could call him any time he wanted to “talk things over,” he illustrated his intelligence and grasp of Pan-Am Agra’s interests, and he implied that

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Martin was the best thing that had happened to the com- pany since sliced bread.

Martin responded cautiously but with interest. Lizanne told me how pretty my hair looked, and ad- mired my earrings.

“Martin gave them to me,” I said proudly. She looked worried for a minute, then properly complimented me and drew Bubba’s attention to them. “Did you show them your ring?” he responded after a token remark.

Lizanne, with her lovely slow smile, held out her hand on which glittered a notable diamond. “My en- gagement ring,” she said calmly.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, Lizanne, it’s beautiful.” I sighed, suddenly realized I was doing so, and tried to make it silent. “When’s the wedding?”

“In the spring,” Lizanne said offhandedly. “We’ve got to sit down with a calendar and pick a date. It de- pends on the legislature, and of course I have to give notice at my job.”

“You’re quitting work?” I didn’t mean to sound star- tled, but I was. What on earth would Lizanne do all day? “Oh, yes. We’re going to be living in my house for a while, until Bubba’s career plans are finalized, but there’s a lot I need to do to it . . . and I’m bored with my job anyway.”

I hadn’t known boredom was a concept Lizanne un- derstood. Also, Lizanne heard every bit of news in her job, since the power company was a place everyone had to go sooner or later, and she had the most amazing ca- pacity to attract confidences. I would have supposed Bubba would want Lizanne right where she was.

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“Congratulations, Lizanne,” I said quietly as Bubba drew Martin off to meet another Lawrenceton mover and shaker.

She bent down to kiss me on the cheek. “Thanks, honey,” she murmured. Then she whispered, “They’re going to take your friend in tomorrow for questioning. For sure. I’m not going to tell you how I know.” That was why she was so popular. She never told how she knew. And she certainly hadn’t told her fiancé; otherwise, he wouldn’t be sucking up to Martin. He’d be avoiding him as though Martin were a leper. “Thanks, Lizanne,” I said in almost as low a voice. Suddenly curious, I asked, “Why are you telling me?” “You helped me the day my parents were killed.” I nodded, and pressed her hand. I had never been sure Lizanne had been aware of my presence or my identity on that horrible day. She and I gave each other a look and drifted apart, and I strolled over to my mother, my wineglass clutched in a death grip. “Where’d you get the earrings?” she asked instantly. “They’re gorgeous.”

“Martin gave them to me tonight,” I said numbly, turning my head from side to side so she could get the full effect, all the time wondering what I could do to prevent tomorrow from happening.

“He did?” Mother raised her perfect brows. “But you’ve only known each other such a short time!” I shrugged.

“Oh, you have got it bad,” she said darkly. “But at least he does, too. They’re very nice, dear.” “What are you admiring, Mrs. Queensland?” Patty Cloud, in her favorite pink, this time a rose shade,

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appeared at my mother’s shoulder, trailing a delicate cloud of expensive perfume and a staggeringly hand- some date, some man from Atlanta she’d met at a Sierra Club meeting, she managed to let me know. I talked to them for a few minutes of stultifying conver- sation about white-water canoeing before Martin res- cued me.

“How’d you get along with Bubba Sewell?” I mur- mured as we went to our places around the table. “He’s on the rise,” Martin said thoughtfully. “I won’t be surprised if he makes U.S. Senate some day.” “Really?” I tried not to sound skeptical. “He’s doing everything right. A lawyer, but not a criminal lawyer. Comes from a local family with a clean record, worked himself through law school, prac- ticed for a while before running, going to marry a beautiful wife who can’t possibly offend anyone. She’s planning to quit work and stay at home, producing the right picture, and I bet they have a baby before they’ve been married two years. It’ll look good on the cam- paign poster, a family picture.”

I tried to think about this, to care about Bubba’s ca- reer, all the while turning nonsensical schemes over in my mind. I should tell Martin. Then he could brace himself. Or run. (I staved that thought off.) I should not tell Martin, so he would show unfeigned surprise

when the police came to Pan-Am Agra. I pictured Mar- tin being taken from his office, his humiliation; at least the people who worked for him would see it as humili- ation. I checked the rein on my imagination; surely the police could not arrest him without warning, on the lit- tle or no evidence they had. But still . . .

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Of all the people I knew, the one best qualified to fend for himself was Martin. Why was I worrying? I yanked myself out of this anxious silent yammer- ing to introduce Martin to Franklin Farrell and his date, who were seated across from us. Franklin must have been calling his reserve list, the day he’d called me; maybe this woman had been next, in alphabetical order. She was in her late forties, remarkably well groomed and dressed. Physically she was a good match for the immaculate Franklin. She glittered in a hard way, and her practiced conversation aroused my in- stant distrust. Her name I didn’t catch, but she was full of glib comments that gave no clue to her character. She was playing up to Franklin in a rather desperate way, and I could tell they hadn’t been out together be- fore. He was being courteously cool.

The meal was served, and I talked to Mackie on my left, and Martin on my right, and Franklin and Miss Glitter across the way, though what I said I couldn’t have told you afterward.

Even through the worry, I could tell Martin and I were attracting a certain amount of attention. The ta- bles had been arranged in a large U. Martin and I were seated on the outside of one arm of the U, and as Franklin bent to retrieve his lady friend’s napkin, I real- ized someone across from us at the far side of the U’s other arm was staring. With some amazement, I recog- nized my former flame Arthur Smith sitting with his wife, homicide detective Lynn Liggett Smith. Who on earth had invited them? Arthur was looking at me with all too apparent concern, his fair brows drawn together and his fingers drumming on the table. Lynn was eating