Your Cheatin Heart

Chapter Ten

Jack was gone again when I awoke. I don't know how he did it. I usually sleep light. Motherhood does that to you. Any sound in my house and I'd have been up and investigating. Vernell used to swear that if Sheila so much as turned over, I'd be down the hall, in her room, and checking her breathing. But for some reason, when Jack woke up and left, I'd slept through it.

I wandered downstairs, looking for coffee, and found the carafe waiting for me with a note attached.

"Evelyn waited around to meet you, but you were sleeping too hard. I'll be back later this afternoon: May need a ride to work. Hope you slept well. Jack."

I reached for a cracked mug and poured steaming hot coffee into it. A Starbucks bag lay empty on the counter. Mocha Java. I'd have to run by the Barnes and Noble at Friendly Center and pick some up for him. I wandered across the plywood floor, spotting a CD player. Music. That's what the morning called for, music.

I was not surprised to find that Jack had strange taste in music. He had a mishmash of artists I'd never heard of, along with some that I could recognize. At least he had Emmy Lou Harris. That fact redeemed him somewhat in my eyes. But I settled for a Jesse Winchester oldie. "Brand New Tennessee Waltz" floated out into the room.

I whirled around, singing softly and sipping coffee. I drifted up the stairs with my second cup of coffee and took a shower. The shower was one area where Jack seemed to have spared no expense. I stood in the stall and let two showerheads cover me in a warm spray. It was wonderful. Even his soap smelled good, like leather and spices.

By the time I'd dressed and let my hair fall around my shoulders in damp ringlets, I had a plan. A visit to Miss Sheila and then Vernell. One of those two, if not both, knew something they hadn't told me. I thought of the dark circles under Sheila's eyes when she'd come to the Curley-Que. A mama knows when something's wrong, and in hindsight, I could see there was more to Sheila's anxiety than worry about me.

I sat on the edge of the one clothing-draped chair in Jack's room and pulled on my boots. Sheila'd probably be at her after-school job at the bagel shop by now. Vernell would be at the satellite dish shop or at the mobile home lot, supervising the crew. That is, if he wasn't at the funeral home.

I ran down the stairs, added more coffee to my mug, and pushed the garage door button. Slowly the door began to edge upward, revealing a pair of new lizard-skin Tony Lama boots. I sighed. This was not going to be my day after all.

The garage door slid further up, revealing Marshall Weathers in all his glory.

"Sleep well?" he asked. He was smiling, but he didn't mean it. I could tell by the cold glint in his eyes. "Your boyfriend left about an hour ago. You didn't feel like breakfast?" There was a hard edge to his voice. Despite myself, my body started to respond.

"He's not my boyfriend," I said, my voice squeaking a little and making me sound like a guilty teenager.

"Well, I don't know what else to call him," he said. "The boy brought you home to his place. All the lights went off a half an hour later, just that little bit of candlelight coming from the bedroom. What else would you call him? I suppose you slept in separate rooms?"

"Yes," I snapped. "As if it were your business!"

"Everything about you is my business right now," he said. He was looking past me, into the living room. He was taking in the couch, the two beer bottles sitting on the coffee table in front of the woodstove, the coffee mug standing in the sink. He wasn't missing a trick, but he was looking hardest at the couch. It showed no signs of having been slept on.

"You followed us last night!" I said, the knowledge infuriating me. "That was your Jeep?"

"Might've been." He took a step closer on the loading dock. "You gonna let me in, or do you want to have this conversation out here?"

I took a giant step forward, over the doorsill, and pushed the garage door opener again. The squeaky wheel started to grind and the rusty door started rolling back down.

"Here is fine," I said. "It's not like I have anything to hide. I can talk out in the open. I don't have to skulk around in the bushes, spying on folks. You must have a lot of time on your hands, Detective, if you've gotta go following innocent people around! You don't have a love life? You've gotta go speculating on mine instead?"

He shook his head, like maybe I didn't get it. But his neck was slowly turning red. "This is gonna get us nowhere," he said. He looked at my cracked mug of steaming coffee and seemed to sigh slightly.

"Maggie, why don't you leave that there and come take a ride with me."

"Why, are we going downtown?" I stressed the word downtown, just like they do on TV.

"No, I was actually figuring we'd go over to Yum-Yums and get us a couple of hot dogs and milkshakes." The cold glint in his eyes was gone. He'd lost the anger and that astonished me. Somehow he'd just let it go, or stuffed it away in a box. He now seemed genuinely friendly.

"Hot dogs and milkshakes?" My stomach growled in agreement. I figured I owed him. I'd run out on him twice. It wasn't really that much of a choice anyway. If I got all snippy, then we'd end up downtown in his office. My stomach growled again, louder. I'd never get lunch at the police station.

He didn't wait for my answer. He assumed and started walking toward his brown Taurus.

"Where's the Jeep?" I said, following him.

"Home." He walked around to his side of the car and unlocked the door. This was not a date. This was still, underneath the friendly exterior, business. A gentleman would've unlocked your door, Mama's voice said inside my head.

He did wait for me to fasten my seat belt before he spun out of the parking lot and onto Elm Street. He picked up his radio, spoke into it briefly, then turned the volume down. He didn't say another word until we drove into the Yum-Yums parking lot.

Even at three in the afternoon, business was booming. There were a lot of police vehicles there, which surprised me because Yum-Yums is right by the UNCG campus. I'd always assumed it was just a kid hangout.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"Starved!"

He looked like he wanted to ask another one of his sharp-edged questions, but stopped himself. I hopped out of the car and followed his determined progress across the lot. Yum-Yums is a small storefront operation, with a few tables and stools outside and rows of hard plastic booths inside. It is old, settled in its grime, and full of good smells.

"All the way," he said to the guy who ran up to take his order. "And a chocolate shake."

"Just catsup, please," I said, "and a diet Coke."

He turned then to look at me. "No shake?" he said. "They've got the best ice cream in town. That's why folks come here."

"Not me," I said. "Gotta watch my figure."

He didn't move his eyes from my face. "I don't see why you'd think that," he said. "Nothing wrong with your figure."

I felt my face flush. I grabbed my hot dog and headed for the nearest booth, forgetting the soda, which he carried over. He slid in across from me and took a long sip of his milkshake.

"You missed out," he said, "best shake in town."

"You come here a lot?" I asked, studying him, trying to see a chink in his armor.

"A right good bit." He wasn't going to give up one single detail about himself if he didn't have to.

I stretched and took another shot at it.

"You grow up here?"

"Uh-huh."

"Where'd you graduate?"

"Smith. In 1978, since you're gonna ask that next." His blue eyes were twinkling. He was enjoying himself.

"I'm just making polite conversation! So you grew up over by the mill, huh?"

Weathers was chewing, his gaze circling the room, sweeping the customers and always returning to watch the entrance. He was making me nervous, like maybe he expected an armed robber or something.

"Your parents still live there?" I asked. The mill area had changed over the years, with older mill couples leaving and younger couples moving in. It was an innocent question, but instead his neck turned red and his jaw started to twitch.

"How about another hot dog?" he asked, abruptly sliding out of the booth and standing where he could tower over me, keeping me boxed into my side of the booth.

"No, thanks, I'm about done."

"Uh-huh," he said, then leaned down close to me, his hands resting one on the table and one on my seat back, fencing me in tighter. "Maybe you can think up a few more questions for me while I'm gone'" he whispered. "Maybe you'll ask the ones you're afraid to ask."

He turned around and left me sitting there. The questions I was afraid to ask. Are you married? Do you want me the same way I want you? Do you feel it, too? I could feel my face growing redder by the second. Damn him! How could he read me like that?

He acted as if he'd never said a thing when he returned to the booth. We ate in relative silence. I kept waiting for him to start with his questions, but he seemed comfortable just to be sitting and eating. Plenty of police officers stopped at the table, saying hello, offering a friendly comment. Weathers mainly grunted, sometimes said a phrase or two, but didn't offer them a seat or try to draw them into conversation. It was clear he had other things on his mind.

It all came to a crashing halt when he finished his meal. Suddenly he leaned forward, looked right in my eyes and started with the questions. Not the questions I expected either.

"How'd you feel when you and Digger Bailey broke up?"

I choked on my last bit of hot dog and felt my face flame. How in the hell had he found out about that?

"How'd you find out?"

"Hard work," he answered, a small, smirky grin playing across his face. He was pleased with himself.

"Hard work and nosiness!" I stormed. "What right have you to go hunting up my past? Who did you talk to? How did you…?" I lost my voice, my throat closed in, and I couldn't speak. How did the sonofabitch find out about Digger?

"I'm just doing my job," Weathers said, his voice calm, his face never betraying the kind of emotions I knew were written across mine.

"Digger doesn't have a thing to do with this!" I could feel the people behind us listening. They'd stopped talking and hadn't moved in their booth for minutes.

"Digger hurt you," he said softly. "I just wondered how you felt about it."

No two ways about it, Digger had hurt me. Digger hurt me publicly and in ways that I could not put words to because I was ashamed. Ashamed at my foolishness and ashamed at my stupid youthful belief that I was invincible.

"You must've been angry at him," he said.

"Angry?" Yes, I had been, but only later, years later. "No, I wasn't angry."

"Then what?" He was watching me with a sad look on his face. I couldn't stand that. I didn't want someone to feel sorry for me.

"Maggie, he left you and the whole town knew about it. He married someone else while you were off buying a wedding gown. Why weren't you mad?" Tears flooded my eyes and I couldn't see. "Come on," he said, standing up. "Let's go outside and sit in my car."

Why had I ever agreed to eat lunch with this man? Why did I agree to answer his questions? Maybe because I was still chasing the cowboy who'd come and smiled encouragement as I did my audition. Marshall Weathers was not that man. Oh, he lived in the same body, but he was not the same man.

I climbed into the front seat and tried to pull myself together. Digger was years ago. It just hurt me to know that Weathers had been nosing around in my hometown and had managed to find out the one thing I'd hoped everyone would've forgotten by now. Someone, probably more than one someone, remembered me for being left behind.

"I figure Digger was a real creep," Weathers said. "If I'd been your big brother, I'd have set him straight on a couple of counts'"

I ignored him. I didn't want to talk about Digger anymore, even if Weathers was on my side.

"Why are you following me?" I asked, wiping at my eyes and blowing my nose.

"Because it's my job."

There was no smile to accompany that answer. He was stating a fact. He had a job to do and that's all he could see, his job. I was a case number, a suspect.

"Why don't you look for the real killer? Why do you keep hounding me?"

Weathers turned in his seat and looked at me. "Maggie, I haven't accused you of anything."

"Oh, come on, you might as well have!" How could the man stay so calm? And why did I keep staring into his eyes?

"You're all I've got to go on right now, Maggie. I haven't accused you of anything. I haven't called you a suspect, have I? I'm just covering all my bases."

"Then why aren't you haunting Jimmy's widow? And why haven't you checked up on anyone else the way you've done me?"

"What makes you think I haven't?" he asked.

I didn't have a thing to add to that. We just sat there for a few minutes, watching people come in and out of Yum-Yums. Eventually, he leaned forward and started the car. The interview was almost at an end. I could make it back to Jack's place without anymore forays into my past.

We drove in relative silence and I relaxed a little. When we pulled into Jack's parking lot, I had my hand on the door handle and was almost out the door before he could roll to a stop.

"Thanks for lunch, I guess," I said, jumping out of the car and leaning down to look in on him. I was pushing the door closed when I heard him, and by then it was too late to stop the door from flying out of my fingers and slamming on his last words.

"Maybe we'll talk about Union Grove sometime," he said. The car began to roll and I was left standing in the broken gravel parking lot, staring after him. Now how in the hell had he found out about Union Grove?