Stand By Your Man

Chapter Fifteen

They buried Nosmo King in a mausoleum. To Mama's way of thinking, that was all wrong. The way we were raised up, you couldn't get to heaven if you didn't go six feet under ground first. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," Mama said. "That don't mean sticking a body in a closet, like you're coming right back. It just ain't right. Dead," she said, "is dead, and let no man put that asunder by filing a body away in a drawer."

I stood on the edge of the crowd that had gathered and watched the entire proceeding before following the mile-long train of vehicles back to Nosmo King's farm out in Brown Summit.

Mama would've disapproved of the farm, too. It was a rich man's attempt to appear earnest, and Mama didn't like the foolishness of false pride. Nosmo King had crammed a riding ring, a huge barn, and an obviously manmade pond onto five acres of white-fenced property on the edge of a subdivision. His gleaming-new, green John Deere tractor sat parked beside the riding ring. Probably didn't even have gas in the tank.

Cadillacs, Mercedes, and an assortment of other vehicles lined the drive up to the house. Up where I came from, if it'd been a true farmer's funeral, you would've at least seen an old tractor or two, and it would've been pickup trucks lining that driveway, not leather-cushioned luxury cars.

I pulled the bug in behind a BMW and started making my way up the smooth, black asphalt driveway. That's when I began to hear the music. The closer I came to the house, the clearer it was. Fiddle, banjo, guitar, and mandolin. The musician in me started picking out notes, looking for the tune. They were playing Fisher's "Hornpipe," not at all the somber "Crossing Over Jordan" you might've expected. In fact, any music at all was pushing the borders of respectability.

Nosmo's brick two-story colonial had a black wreath on the door, along with an arrow that pointed toward the barn. Up ahead of me, ladies carried covered dishes, and a few of the men toted instrument cases. If I hadn't known this was a funeral reception, I would've figured it for a party.

By the time I reached the barn, I'd given up all pretense of appearing to be a mourner. The place was packed. People were everywhere, and not a sad face among them. I walked inside and looked around. Nosmo King's barn had never known a horse, or hay, or any farm equipment. Nosmo King's barn was an entertainment haven. Gleaming wood floor, wet bar along one side, kitchen along the other. Rows of tables set out here and there, and a sound system that made the Golden Stallion Country and Western Palace seem antiquated and small.

Bess King sat at a round table, surrounded by people who seemed to be expressing condolences. She looked wan and tired. I couldn't see any way to get to talk to her about Vernell, at least not now. I turned away from her and started toward the huge buffet table of food. When in doubt, I find it useful to eat. A person standing around with a plate of food looks harmless and approachable. I figured with a full plate, I could sit down at a table and observe without difficulty. No polite person questions someone when they're chewing. And what better than the homemade brownies I saw in the middle of the table?

Nosmo King's family had put on one hell of a spread. Mama still wouldn't have given it her stamp of approval, though-too many happy faces, and music. At a true southern funeral gathering there would've been just as many people and just as much food, but the voices would be hushed and respectful. If we laughed, it was because of a funny story told about the deceased, not because we were really having a good time. But all around me, people were laughing, and worst of all, they were drinking.

I stood there with my plate, watching, half looking for a place to sit and half amazed that there was a keg of beer sitting right out at a funeral luncheon. I looked over at Bess and saw that her mother had joined her. The two of them seemed to be the only ones in the room not enjoying the party.

"Makes you wonder, don't it?" a soft voice whispered.

I turned. Behind me stood Vernell Spivey, dressed in a cheap gray suit and sporting an even cheaper gray beard and hairpiece.

"Vernell!" I was so relieved to see him that I almost overlooked the getup and forgot the reason for his disappearance.

"Hush!" he commanded. He looked furtively from side to side. "Step over here."

He walked quickly to a deserted spot along the wall, in the shadow of all the activity, and turned his back on the crowd of partyers.

"Vernell, where the hell have you been?" I reached out and touched him, as if maybe he were an apparition.

He took a swig of beer from his cup and squared his shoulders. "Well, if you were thinking I run off and left you hanging, you're wrong. I'm gonna handle this, it's just that-"

"Vernell, put that beer down and talk straight! Do you know how much trouble you're in?"

He stood like a lanky scarecrow in front of me, and he did what he always does when he's dead wrong, he hung his head and looked sheepish. He was a little boy in a bad Abe Lincoln costume. He made it awfully hard to ride herd on him when he seemed so vulnerable.

"Aw now, Maggie," he said, "it ain't as bad as all that."

I hardened my heart, looked right past him, back out at the crowd and over to the big barn door. "Isn't it?" I said. "Then tell me this: If I was to tell you that Detective Marshall Weathers of the Greensboro Police Department had just stepped through that door over yonder, would you stick around to talk to him?"

Vernell's thin, pressed rat face drained of all color and his eyes widened. "You're kidding me, right?"

I looked back at Marshall, standing like a Texas Ranger, dressed in his charcoal-gray suit, and shook my head.

"Nope, I don't kid, Vernell. And as soon as his eyes adjust to the light in here, he's gonna be on you like a fat man at a pigpickin'."

"Catch you later," Vernell said, and started walking toward a side door.

"Vernell," I said, "you wait one minute! We've gotta talk! You've got some explaining to do!"

Vernell looked back at me for one brief second, shoving his beer into my empty hand. "I'll find your car, and I'll wait for you there. Now, go get rid of him!"

Vernell was as scared as I've ever seen him, and for a man who spent most of his teenaged years tangling with the law, I was impressed. But then, Vernell knew Marshall Weathers, and he'd seen what he was capable of doing when he put his mind to it. We'd both seen that, and Vernell was divorced on account of it.

I gripped my plate in one hand and Vernell's beer in the other. The best thing I could do was find a spot at an empty table and try to blend in before Marshall saw me standing in the shadows looking guilty.

He was looking in Bess's direction when I sat down at the closest table. I didn't give so much as a second thought to my new tablemates, only noticing that they were two women about my age. I kept my head down and started in on the food.

My companions didn't seem to care that I'd joined them; in fact, they seemed oblivious. It didn't take long to follow that piece of information up with another one. The women across from me were knee-walking, about to be bowl-hugging drunk, and one was crying.

"I tole you thish was a bad idea," one girl said.

"I know, I know," the crier said, "but I just wanted to be near his spirit."

I looked up then. The crier was a large, dark-haired girl, her hair permed into long kinky curls that fell halfway down her back in a frizzy halo. She could've been anywhere between twenty-two and thirty, wearing fifty pounds of mascara that ran as she cried, leaving fat black trails down her cheeks.

Her companion was a frosted blonde, with the same frizzy hairstyle and thick pancake makeup that couldn't hide an accumulation of bad acne scars.

I put my head back down and concentrated on my plate. This was gonna be good.

"Oh, Nosmo," the black-haired girl said, the words coming out in a long moan of anguish.

"Shush up!" her friend said. "People will know."

"Who cares now? He's dead," she wailed, "and it's all her fault! She killed him! He would've left, he told me so, but she killed him!"

Her voice rose and her friend, drunk as she was, smelled trouble. "Shut up! We'll take care of this, but not now!"

There was a brief pause and I figured they'd noticed me and were nudging each other. Still I didn't move or look up.

"Will you look at that guy," the blonde said softly.

"What guy?"

I knew what guy. There was only one guy in the room that deserved that tone, in my opinion.

"Oh my God, he's gorgeous!"

"And he's coming right over here! Wipe your face!"

There was a mad scramble as the girls fumbled for lipstick and I tried to sink lower into my chair. I turned my head to the side and stared at the door that Vernell had gone through, wishing I could be anywhere else. Still, when he put his hand on my shoulder, a thrill went coursing through my stomach, and I couldn't quite work up the cold indifference I'd sworn to show him.

"Well," he said, "fancy this."

I looked up and tried to smile. He stared down at me, his eyes like lie detectors, looking right through me.

"This is right interesting," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting next to me. He looked across the table, saw the two women watching us, and smiled. "Ladies," he said.

They each raised a hand, wiggling their fingers and giggling. Weathers gave them the 200-watt treatment and turned back to me.

"This ain't like you, Maggie," he said, picking up Vernell's cup and staring into it.

"What? Drinking beer? I do it all the time."

Weathers smiled. "No you don't. And what are you doing here? I thought you didn't know Nosmo King?"

He spoke softly, so his words didn't carry across the table to his two admirers. I'm sure to them we seemed to be having an extremely intimate conversation.

I grabbed the half-full cup of beer, stared down into it. "Well, shucks," I said, "this beer's about gone. How's about filling it up when you get your plate?"

Weathers cocked an eyebrow. "Finish it," he said, "and I'll run right up there."

But he knew me. He knew I didn't drink beer. I hated it. In fact, I don't recall that Marshall Weathers had ever known me to drink anything. And other than a frozen strawberry margarita once or twice a year, I guess I didn't really drink. But this was a showdown. This was to protect Vernell's unworthy hide. So I picked up the cup, held my breath, and drank it down as quickly as I could.

"Go girl!" the drunken blonde said.

"Well," Marshall said, the smirk firmly in place. "Looks like you need another." And with that he got up and crossed the room to the keg.

In the minute he was gone, I tried to leave. But there's something about alcohol on an empty stomach that makes thinking and acting difficult to do at the same time. So, instead I wolfed down my brownie and wished I was walking out the back door.

"Here you go," he said, plopping the full cup down in front of me. "Enjoy!"

"Well, I just will," I said. "I love beer. Don't know why I never told you that before." I took a huge swallow and looked up at him. "What're you doing here?"

He looked right back at me. "I got business here. Question really is, what're you doing here? You don't know Nosmo King." He pushed the beer a little closer to my hand, daring me, and I wasted seconds taking a huge swig.

"My that is good," I said. "Nothing like a fresh keg." Across the table, my drinking buddies giggled.

"I'd need a drink too, if he was gonna look at me like that!" the blonde said.

Marshall Weathers put his hand down on the table, right next to mine. He leaned in closer, his eyes never leaving my face.

"I've been thinking about you," he whispered.

My entire body started to respond. My heart started racing, my stomach did a little flip, and every place he'd touched the day before remembered the feel of his fingers. But my brain was on override. I tried to picture him with Tracy the cadet, but when he was staring like that, all I could think of was him.

"I've been thinking about you too," I said, but it came out kind of squeaky and high-pitched.

Marshall leaned back a little and stared at me. "You're up to something, Maggie Reid."

"No, I'm not. I'm just, um, glad to see you, surprised, that's all."

"Drink a little more of that beer, Maggie. You don't want it to go flat on you."

I picked up the cup, never broke eye contact, and drained it dry. It was all I could do not to spit it out. That's when I remembered Tracy.

"Don't you have a job to do?" I straightened up in my chair and frowned at him. Truth of the matter was, if he stuck around much longer, I was going to melt into a little puddle of desire, right at his feet.

"Yeah, way I see it, you're part of my job. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have something up your sleeve. After last night, I'd think you'd get a clue that this is dangerous business, but no, here you are in the thick of it. A good detective oughta be asking himself why."

"Way I see it," I said, "is I've gotta go." I started to get up, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back down into my seat.

"I'd have to arrest you if you did that," he murmured.

"Arrest me! Why?"

My drinking buddies giggled.

"On account of drinking and driving being against the law and dangerous." He smiled, but it was a dangerous smile. He was licking his lips, enjoying the bind he now had me in, knowing he owned this particular situation.

"Way I see it, I'm gonna have to take you home." One of the girls sighed and he smiled over at her, then looked back at me. "You stay right here. I've gotta talk to a couple of people, then I'll be back and we can go."

While he spoke, the beer snuck up and whopped me between the eyes. I'd only had two, but they were king-sized cups, and on an empty stomach at that.

"All right," I said, "I'll wait. But if you take too long, and I sober up, I'm out of here." Then the beer took over and did the talking for me. "You know," I said, "I don't need you. And I don't even drive a van, so if you're looking for some backseat boogie queen, well, buddy, you'd better roll on."

Weathers raised his eyebrow, frowned for a second, and then laughed out loud.

"Backseat boogie queen?" he said. "That's good. No, honey, you're not the backseat boogie queen type."

I watched him turn around and walk away, still formulating my comeback. What did he mean I wasn't the backseat boogie queen type? I was just as wild as stupid Tracy. I had half a nerve to show him just how wild I was. Stupid men.

My drinking buddies were watching Weathers walk away, moon-eyed. The blonde took another swallow of beer, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and belched softly.

"You just don't see an ass like that every day."

"You got that right," I said. "Asses like that only come along once in a blue moon." Idiot.

The three of us watched him walk away, straight over to Bess King's table. I waited until he was deep in conversation and then reached for my little beaded purse. I pushed my chair back and got to my feet carefully. The beer buzz hummed around my head and left me feeling a little woozy.

"You're not leaving?" Nosmo's girlfriend asked.

I looked at my drinking buddies and smiled. "Like a silver bullet."

"But he told you to stay right there!" the blonde exclaimed.

"He can tell me all he likes, but I've got a mind of my own. I'm not sitting around waiting on some man to finish his business and come after me."

The dark-haired girl sighed. "I waited on Nosmo, and where did it get me?" The water faucet started up, and it was crying time again.

The blonde looked at me and rolled her eyes.

I couldn't help it. I truly was on my way out the door, but opportunity is not a lengthy visitor. I pulled a tissue from my purse, handed it to the dark-haired girl, and sank back down in my chair.

"You must've been very close to Nosmo," I said. And that was all it took.

"He loved me," the dark-haired girl said, sobbing. "She wouldn't let him go!"

The blonde's head dropped down into her hands.

"Yeah," I prompted. "She looks like the type to hang on, just like a rat terrier."

The dark-haired girl favored Bess with a malicious glare.

"Nosmo said she'd ruin him, take half of everything they owned! She's a money-hungry, greedy bitch, and there's not a person in town would disagree with that."

"Surely you don't think she really killed him, do you?"

"Aw, Pauline, let it go, honey," the blonde said.

Pauline drew herself up in her chair and stared at me, her eyes wide and raccoon-ringed with mascara.

"She did. I know she did. I don't know how she got away with it, but she killed him all right, even if she had to hire it out!"

"Pauline," the blonde sighed. "Look at her, she don't look like a killer. More'n likely, it was business."

Pauline grabbed her beer cup, knocked it over, and went for her friend's cup.

"All right then, Christine, then you tell me this. Why'd she have him followed? And when we got caught, why didn't she do anything about it? Huh? Answer me that! And a week later, he's dead." Her voice broke off in a hiccuping sob. "Oh, Nosmo!"

Christine rolled her eyes again. "It's always like this," she said. "When somebody dies young, everybody thinks it's a conspiracy. Well, this time it's just a plain old killin'. Nosmo had a lot of enemies, Pauline. You can't work for…" She broke off then and looked over at me.

I cut my head from side to side, then looked back at Christine. "It's okay," I said, "I know who he worked for."

"Well then," Christine said, "you understand. It was business."

I looked at Christine, checking out her tight black satin dress with the little rhinestones that ran around the low-cut neckline. She looked like the type to know. She looked like a gangster's girlfriend. Maybe she'd heard enough to know. Whatever she knew, she certainly wasn't going to tell me. She hadn't even told Pauline.

I pushed my chair back again and stood up. Weathers was still talking to Bess and her mother. Her mother was frowning and sitting up ramrod-straight, as if she didn't like what Marshall was saying.

I took one last look at the back of his head, allowed myself one last little thought about the way it felt to run my fingers through that hair, and then turned away. I smiled at my companions, winked, and walked right out the side door into the midafternoon air.