Your Cheatin Heart

Chapter Four

Police departments are set up to intimidate the guilty, and Greensboro's was no exception. Someone had hung a rubber chicken on the doorknob to the interrogation room where I sat waiting. The symbolism was not lost on me. I was beginning to feel like the sacrificial bird at a Sunday supper.

I sat in a hard plastic chair, considering my options. The right thing to do was to walk. But since I'd been personally escorted to the station, I'd be walking out in the middle of the night, hoping to catch a taxi. Greensboro is not New York City The cab drivers here go home at a decent hour.

Someone was dead in my home. Who? It had to be someone I knew. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made such a big deal about bringing me downtown. A chill ran over me. They were gonna make me look at the body! No! They couldn't do that. I couldn't look at someone I knew, maybe even loved or cared about, dead.

In an attempt to distract myself, I stared up at the two-way mirror that took up most of the wall across from me. Was that a tiny flicker of movement? I stood up and walked around the battered metal table, standing right in front of the mirror. This time I was sure I saw movement.

"You know, I'm thinking if you're man enough to stare at me from behind the safety of a two-way mirror, you're man enough to walk in and look me in the eye." I was guessing, of course, but a woman wouldn't skulk around like that. At least I wouldn't. "Why don't you come in here and tell me what's going on?"

The movement stopped. I slowly returned to my chair and started dunking again. Who was dead in my house? Why didn't the police take me there to identify the body? Was it someone I knew? An intruder, or someone I cared about?

Behind me, the door swung open. I jumped, startled as it banged into the wall, and turned around.

"Well, it's about damned…" The words faded on my lips. Standing in front of me was the blue-eyed cowboy from the Golden Stallion, just as I remembered.

"It's you," I said, kicking myself for pointing out the obvious. To make matters worse, I stood up, knocking my bag off my lap and onto the floor, the contents scattering everywhere.

"Let me help you," he said, his voice a deep, silky baritone.

We both knelt down, with me trying to grab up every little embarrassing item that women carry in their pocketbooks. He handed me my lipstick, his fingers briefly brushing mine. A shock ran up my arm. We were only inches apart.

"I'm Marshall Weathers," he said, a smile creeping out from underneath his mustache.

"Maggie Reid."

"Oh, I remember."

My heart was pounding in my ears. I focused on my purse, punching the flap closed and trying to calm down. Then I noticed the gun and the badge.

"You're a cop?"

"Yep."

We both stood at the same moment. I came almost up to his shoulder. "Then you know what's going on." He nodded. "Then why am I here? Who's dead?"

"Why don't you have a seat, Maggie," he said. He stepped past me, taking the chair across from mine.

I stood, gripping the back of the chair with one hand and slowly putting my purse down on the table with the other. "Who was it?" I asked slowly.

"His license says James Spivey. Do you know him?"

"Jimmy!" I cried. My legs weakened and I sank down into the chair. "Oh, no!" The tears came, tightening my throat. Not Jimmy!

Marshall Weathers sat there quietly, waiting for the initial shock to pass, I guess. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean, white handkerchief, and passed it to me.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"What happened?"

"We got an anonymous nine-one-one call from a public phone booth, saying there had been shots fired in your house and that someone was hurt. When the patrol officers responded, with the ambulance and EMS. people, it was…" His voice trailed off and our eyes met.

"You mean someone shot Jimmy? In my house? Like a burglar?"

Weathers shrugged his shoulders. "At this point we're not sure. There doesn't seem to be any sign of forced entry."

"Oh, that doesn't mean a thing!" I said. "My house is so old, all you need do is slam your fist upside the front door lock and the thing'll fall open. Just about everybody close to me knows that."

Weathers sighed softly. "Well, we haven't looked all through the house and premises. I'll need your permission for that to happen."

"Sure," I said, "do it."

Weathers whipped a form out of his pocket and passed it over to me. "Just sign right there."

I didn't even read it. My eyes blurred with fresh tears as I scrawled my name across the paper and shoved it back.

"All right," he said, "this'll get us started." He pushed back his chair and started for the door, then stopped, as if he'd had one more thought. "You own a gun?" he asked.

"Yes, I do. A Smith and Wesson thirty-eight. My ex gave it to me." I hated the thing, but Vernell had insisted.

"Where is it?" His tone was even, almost as if this were an afterthought, but I knew it wasn't. I watched enough TV to know. A little tingle of fear ran down my spine.

"I keep it in the closet, just off the kitchen. It's kind of my closet and the pantry. See, my house is so tiny, and well, they didn't leave me much space to put things, so I have to make do. I mean, my bedroom used to be a sunporch! That's why the back door opens right into it."

I was running on like a faucet as Weathers listened patiently, waiting for me to drip to a stop.

"Where in the closet do you keep it?" he asked.

"What?"

"The gun," he reminded.

"Oh, that. In a basket full of cookie cutters, on the top shelf."

If this seemed strange to him, he didn't let on. He merely wrote it down on a piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket.

"Okay," he said. "Wait right here. I'm gonna send this out to your house and let them get on about checking everything. I might have a few more questions for you. You want some coffee or something?" he asked. He was halfway out the door, his mind already on the murder scene. I don't think he even heard me say no.

I was alone again. Waiting. But now I knew. Jimmy was dead.

I'd lost track of the time, my mind drifting back over the fifteen years of my marriage and all the different memories I had of Jimmy. But when Marshall Weathers walked back into the room, I knew in an instant that something was wrong.

He was staring at me, as if trying to reach inside me for something. He was sizing me up. His eyes, deep blue lie detectors that darted across my face, seemed to be trying to take a read of my personality.

"When was the last time you saw your gun?" he asked.

"I don't know. It's not like I make a habit of checking all the time. Maybe two weeks ago?" My stomach tightened and I found myself fumbling with the flap of my purse. "What does it matter?"

"Well," he said, drawing the word out into one long sigh, "it wouldn't matter so much, except we can't find it."

"Well, that's funny. I haven't touched it. Nobody lives there but me. Where could it have gone?" I looked at him. He was staring right back at me, the lie detectors in full swing. "You mean, the guy who killed Jimmy could've stolen it?"

"Did you have it hidden real good?" he asked. He was rocking back in his chair, lifting the front legs up off the floor, just like a teenaged boy.

"Well, I thought so. It was at the bottom of that basket full of cookie cutters,"

He brought the legs of the chair down, hitting the floor with a sharp snap.

"Maggie, Jimmy was shot with a thirty-eight-caliber gun, just like yours."

"So you think the killer somehow dug through my cookie cutters, found my gun, and killed Jimmy?" I asked. "That doesn't make sense."

Weathers spread his hands out, palms up, on the table. "Exactly," he said. "It just doesn't make a piece of sense."

"So, it must've been another gun." I leaned back away from him, edging myself backward on the chair and feeling the cold metal slats dig into my spine.

"Thirty-eights are a dime a dozen," I said.

He shook his head again. "True, but then, where is your gun, Maggie?"

My head was starting to spin. Where was my gun? What did all this mean?

"I don't know," I said.

Marshall Weathers pushed back away from me, his hands resting on the edge of the desk, pushing his chair back on its rear legs again.

"I gotta be honest with you, Maggie, and I'm probably not supposed to tell you this, but I will 'cause I think I know what kind of woman you are. But if it turns out that Jimmy Spivey was shot with a thirty-eight-caliber gun, in your house, with no sign of forced entry, well, it's gonna start looking bad for you."

I was so afraid that I felt tears beginning to well up and close off my throat. This wasn't happening to me. It couldn't be. Weathers was watching me, noting my reactions, waiting for my response. I couldn't say a word.

"Maggie, why don't we do this: Tell me everything you did from about seven o'clock on tonight." He slipped a notepad out, flipped it open, and sat ready to write down my every word.

"I left home to go to work at around seven o'clock. That was early on account of something I do every night before I go in to the club."

"What would that be?" he asked, looking up for a moment.

"Well, I ride over to where my daughter, Sheila, lives and just kind of drive by the house. You know, just to check, see if she's home. When it's dark, sometimes I can see inside. That bimbo Vernell's married to keeps the house lit up like the Statue of Liberty."

"You just ride by and then go on to work?" He looked up quickly, making eye contact, and holding it. My stomach got that warm, electric tingle that let me know he was looking straight through me. I shivered deep inside.

"Well, not exactly. I drive by, and then I circle back around and park across the street. There's a big tree out in front of the house across from Vernell's palace. The limbs hang down so. far you can almost hide under them." I hated admitting this. It was my secret ritual, my way of watching my baby. I knew it was as pathetic as it sounded.

"How long were you there?" he asked.

"Maybe twenty minutes, maybe a little longer. No one was home, so I sat there hoping she might come in."

"Did she?"

"No."

"Did anyone see you there?" Again he looked up, watching me.

"I don't think so. They live on a cul-de-sac There weren't too many people home and not much traffic." Damn, I was hanging myself.

"Then what?" he asked.

"Then I drove on to work, got there about eight, and that was that until your men showed up."

"You've got people who can vouch for you the whole night?"

"Yep, except for going to the ladies' room, I was there all evening, in plain sight of everyone." I was feeling much better. I was at work when Jimmy got killed, so I wasn't going to be a suspect after all. "So, you see, all these questions were for nothing. I couldn't have killed Jimmy. I was at work."

Weathers was still staring at me, a disappointed look in his eyes. Slowly he closed the notepad, capped his pen, and folded his hands on top of the book, just like a schoolmarm. Then he unclasped his hands and brought them up to rub his face.

"Oh, Maggie," he sighed, "we've got us a problem. The medical examiner is fixing time of death somewhere between six and eight P.M. That don't let you out." The trip-hammer started in my chest again. I had begun to feel like a caged animal. "It'll get more specific after the autopsy and after we figure a few more things out, but right now, I can't count you out. It sure would help if you knew where your gun was."

"But I don't," I said, my voice sinking to a half-whimper.

At that moment, the door sprang open and a young officer beckoned for Weathers.

"Excuse me a second, Maggie," Weathers said, standing. "I'll be right back."

He stepped to the edge of the doorway, his back to me, listening to the young officer's report. What were they talking about? How could this be happening to me? What in the world would make the police think I had anything to do with Jimmy's death?

When the officer left and Detective Weathers walked back across the room, I could tell that his manner had changed. I could see it in the way he strode over to the desk, his back stiff, his shoulders straight and his movements terse and economical. He didn't sit down. Instead he placed his hands on the side of the desk near me and leaned over, inches from where I sat.

"Maggie, would you like to start over?" he said, leaning in a little, staring deep into my eyes.

"Not particularly," I said. "We need to be about catching the person who killed my brother-in-law, not wasting time going over the same little details. I don't have anything more to add."

"Oh, I think you might." His tone was almost hostile.

"No, I don't." The McCrarey temper, my mama's temper, began to simmer somewhere deep inside me. How dare this man think I was a liar?

"Miss Reid, I could arrest you right now. In fact, I need to go ahead and advise you of your rights. You have the right to remain silent," he started, droning on rapid-fire until at last he stopped. "Do you understand your rights as they have been given to you?"

"Yes," I said, "but no, I don't understand what in the world you're trying to do to me. I am an innocent, law-abiding citizen, and I haven't done one thing wrong."

A muscle in Detective Weathers's jaw started to twitch, his face had a dusky red undertone to it, and he seemed to be barely reining himself in.

"Perhaps you can tell me," he said softly, "how your brother-in-law's credit card came to be in your possession?"

"I don't have his credit card," I said. What was this?

"It was in your car, on the floor of the passenger seat. How did that happen?"

"What were you doing in my car?"

"You signed the search warrant." He was smug.

"I want a lawyer," I said quietly.

"Maggie," he said, straightening up. "You don't want to go and do that. Why, if you call a lawyer into this, I won't be able to help you. Your options will be limited."

That's when I lost it. I could feel the fire burning up from my gut, creeping across my throat, singeing my ears. I'd had a belly full of manipulation and fear and it was time to set some things straight. Unfortunately, my temper's never been better than a rabid dog treeing a coon in hunting season.

"Listen," I said, "all my life I've let men run over me like lawnmowers over fall leaves, but them days ended three years ago, and you aren't about to start it back up now. When I tell you I don't know anything about Jimmy's death, I mean it. When I say I want a lawyer, well, son, I mean that, too. You may haul riff-raff and convicts through here like lambs to slaughter, and your scare tactics may work with them, but, buddy, not with me. You're running a twenty-four-hour sucker lot and I ain't buying, because while I was born in the dark, I wasn't born yesterday, I know my rights and I know what I want. I want a lawyer."

Weathers didn't say another word. In fact, he was out of his seat so fast, I flinched, thinking he was about to come for me. He was gone, the door slamming behind him and leaving the rubber chicken dancing at the end of its rope.

I must've sat in that hardbacked metal chair for an hour, alone with only the cooling coffee and a rubber chicken to keep me company. I didn't say a word. I tried to not even look anxious. If real life were like TV, then there was a hidden camera somewhere. Finally, Weathers came back, slammed a phone down on the metal table, plugged it in, and shoved it in my direction.

"Make your call, Ms. Reid," he said.

I pulled the phone a little closer, my heart pounding. Who was I going to call? Not my divorce attorney. She didn't handle criminal cases. Not Vernell. Not Sheila.: Not Bonnie at the Curley-Que. She had enough on her with six kids and running the shop. The simple fact was, I had no one to call.

I sat there with my hand on the phone, not wanting Weathers to know I was in a bind. As Mama always said, pickings are slim when your mouth plants the seeds of pride. I slid the phone back in his direction. The time had come to take action.

"You know," I said, "I'm not gonna make that call just now. Instead, I'm gonna do you a favor." I pulled my purse onto my lap. I wasn't a lawyer, but I'd watched enough TV to play one.

Weathers snorted. "You're going to do me a favor, huh?" His eyes were lasering through me, sparkling. Beneath the angry exterior, he seemed secretly amused.

"Yes, I am. See, you don't have enough to charge me with murder. If you did, you'd have a D.A. in here." No discernible reaction from him, so I went on. "Jimmy was a good man. I don't know what's going on, or who wants to make me out to be a killer, but I do know one thing: If you don't find his killer, I will. So, I'm going home right now, and you can't stop me. I'm closing in on twenty-four hours without sleep, and I don't function like that."

I stood up, slinging my purse strap over my shoulder. "I'll talk to you later, if you let me leave. But if you jam me up, I'll have my attorney here in a New York minute, and then I won't say another word to you."

I turned around, headed for the door, and left. I couldn't believe he hadn't tried to stop me. I glanced up at the wall clock in the investigators' room, it was almost five A.M. It hit me as I reached the door of the main office that I'd gone and sowed the seeds of pride once more. How was I going to get home? Before I could stop myself, I'd whirled around and glanced down the corridor at the door to the interview room. There he stood, leaning against the doorjamb, a half-smile edging his face.

"Need a ride?" he drawled. His eyes slid over my body. He didn't try and hide his interest.

"Don't go to any trouble," I answered. I just couldn't help myself.

Weathers walked slowly toward me, the smile never leaving his smart-aleck lips.