Desperate to the Max (14 page)

For the life of her, Max couldn’t remember what Ladybird had told her last night except that she spoke to her husband Horace. “Oh yes.”

“Well, that boy, Freddie I think his name is, broke down and cried, at least that’s what his mama told everyone. But those kids were down at the store on their bikes, cutting school like usual, and Freddie was there telling everyone he was glad the cheap fat bitch was dead.” Ladybird sat back like the cat who ate the canary and beamed at Max.

Max realized now exactly why nothing she ever said seemed to shock Witt. Piss him off, yes, but shock, no. With a mother like Ladybird, he was used to anything. “Freddie might have been boasting to impress his friends.”

“Or he could be a ruthless killer. Remember that movie
The Bad Seed
? He could be another Rhoda.”

The Bad Seed
? Rhoda? Ah yes, she remembered, the one with the merciless villain being an eight-year-old child. “What would his motive be?” Rhoda had wanted the penmanship pin.

“She might have stiffed him his salary. You know how those gang members are. It doesn’t take much to set them off.”

Somehow Max couldn’t picture kids on their ten-speeds at the grocery store as a
gang
. “I think he might have been trying to save face with his friends, Ladybird.”

“Well, I have that nice Detective McKaverty’s number, and I’m going to give him a call to let him know. I’m part of the neighborhood watch, you know.”

It was a terrifying prospect.

“Be sure you let the police handle all this. Poking around on your own can be dangerous.”

Ladybird flapped her hand. “You sound like Witt.”

She certainly did. Max sounded exactly like Witt when he was telling
her
to quit poking around. Of course, she didn’t listen either.

Things, however, were really getting scary with the thought of Ladybird Long on the loose looking for a murderer.

“Oh my goodness,” Ladybird gasped out. “Oh my goodness.”

Max about had a heart attack at the excitement in that breathy sound.

“I have the most wonderfully brilliant idea.”

“No.” The word came out sounding a bit like Witt’s horrified voice when Max had asked him to set her up on the phone sex line.

“Yes.” She leaned forward to put her hand on Max’s knee. “We’re going to take Virginia a casserole. That’s what people always do when there’s a death in the family.”

“But you don’t like Virginia. Yesterday you couldn’t even remember her name.”

“I never
admit
I remember her name, that’s all. Still, we must be kind to those who are friendliness-challenged.”

Max stared. No two ways about it, she was a candidate for Witt’s wood chipper if she didn’t immediately put a stop to Ladybird’s brilliant idea.

With Ladybird, however, she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The little woman rolled on making plans. “You know you want to talk to her. And to Jada. You have to find out who killed Bethany. At least, that’s what Horace told me.”

Once Witt heard about this, Horace would be glad he was already dead.

Max simply gave in despite the danger to her health. The tiny woman didn’t have such a bad idea. Even in Ladybird’s hands, a simple casserole was harmless. Wasn’t it? “All right.”

Ladybird jumped up, bouncing once again on her toes. “Casserole, casserole. What will we bring?” she sang as if it were a nursery rhyme.

Witt’s mother was certifiable.

Max knew it was the same thing Witt had said about
her
the first time he’d heard her talking to Cameron.

Chapter Sixteen

In the end, Ladybird decided on lasagna. She had a store-bought one in the freezer. With Max’s help, she took off the brand name cover, then settled a piece of tin foil—unused, thank goodness—over the top. Then Ladybird spritzed hairspray over her blue hair, dabbed on a little lipstick, and away they went.

Neither the Camry nor the Honda had moved. They’d been joined by a white Cadillac—a model Max hated simply because it was the kind Bud Traynor drove—parked along the front sidewalk of the house. Obviously the first of the family friends to offer condolences.

Ladybird’s quick step made up for her short stride, and she actually reached Virginia Spring’s front path ahead of Max. The curtains were pulled across the front window. The porch light was still on. The lawn was made of real grass, and the shrubs and flowers lining the walk proved to be organic, too. Plastic bushes, faded flowers, and Astro Turf had not taken over all of Garden Street, only Ladybird Johnson’s—oops, Long’s—front yard.

Ladybird rang the bell. The door opened moments later, as if the girl, Jada, stood sentinel by it, or was planning her escape. In the brooding dark of the house behind her, she appeared skeletal, her cheeks hollow and eyes sunken in their sockets. The typical Type A personality bags beneath looked like slashes of charcoal on a football player. The fragile Jada Spring—Max assumed the last name was the same—would have died of a heart attack or been crushed to death at a garden party, let alone on a football field.

“Who are you?”

Yesterday’s shock had worn off, and the bitter edge had resurfaced to pepper Jada’s voice and the creases down the side of her mouth. How old had Ladybird said she was? Twenty-nine? Her face looked twice her age while her body resembled that of a twelve-year-old waif. Maybe it was the frown lines marring her forehead, the crow’s feet at her eyes, and the lines around her mouth. Her collar bone sat in relief against her shoulders, mere flesh and nothing else connecting it to the rest of her body. She wore a baggy, long-sleeved, white shirt tied at the waist instead of tucked in, equally baggy jeans, and no shoes. Her toes were long and angular, bones with a little skin stuck to them.

She looked worse than an Auschwitz survivor only because she’d put herself in this condition.

Ladybird did not allow the younger woman’s stare to intimidate her. Or perhaps she simply didn’t notice it. “We’ve come to offer condolences to your mother. And you know perfectly well I live right on the other side of Bethany’s house, Jada.”

“Oh yeah.” Jada’s gum snapped, her jaw working it as if that would somehow assuage the need for real food. “Come in. Mother will be delighted, I’m sure.” The words sounded nice, but she rolled her eyes as she extended her hand in invitation. Well, there certainly weren’t many signs of overwhelming grief there.

Ladybird cocked a brow, lifted her lips slightly in triumph, and gave Max a twinkle-eyed look.

“Who is it, Jada?” The voice was low, soft, in keeping with mourning status, but Max recognized it from her dream. Bethany’s mother, Virginia.

“It’s Mrs. Long from next door.”

Max stepped over the threshold behind Ladybird. The house was the mirror image of Bethany’s, a small front hall, stairs to the right, coat closet on the left, and the living room straight ahead. Heavy gold velvet curtains closed against the afternoon sun, the room was lit by a single three-way lamp on it dimmest setting.

“Oh, do come in, Ladybird. Thank you so much for coming.” Virginia, ensconced in a wingback chair, held her hand out like royalty. Max almost expected to see Ladybird curtsey before her.

While Ladybird’s hair shone with blue highlights, Virginia’s was an unrelieved steel gray. She’d already donned a black knit mourning dress, with an onyx cameo at the throat and a white lace handkerchief tucked up her sleeve. She was a handsome woman simply because of her bearing, chin held high and slightly to the left, hand extended, impeccably dressed.

Despite her outward calm, misery misted the woman’s brown eyes, and Max knew somewhere in the faultless manner lurked the woman who had coaxed Bethany from the closet and made her favorite desserts.

Ladybird, of course, did no such thing as curtsey. She wasn’t anybody’s lady-in-waiting. “We’ve brought you a lasagna, Virginia,” as said lasagna was passed from Virginia to Jada like a baby with a dirty diaper. “We know you can’t even begin to think of cooking at a time like this. It’s so awful. I can only imagine what you must be going through. What have the police told you? Anything?”

What did friends, neighbors, family usually say when someone’s loved one died violently? Max couldn’t say from experience; she’d snubbed her friends, her coworkers, and her family was long gone. No one had gotten a chance to say a thing to her.

Ladybird, she was sure, was atypical, nor did she allow Virginia to answer. “Please do meet my future daughter-in-law, Max Starr.”

Max, for her part, stared dumbfounded at the tiny woman’s big words. An instant later, sanity kicked in. To get more information, best to let Virginia and her daughter think Max
was
the harmless fiancé tagging along at this point. “Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m very sorry about your daughter.” The words sounded trite, inhibited. Grieving made her uncomfortable. Max offered her hand anyway.

Virginia Spring’s grip was strong, warm, and dry. “Thank you, dear. I’m so glad to meet you.” Then her lipstick smile faltered. Something glittered at the corner of one eye. “I’m so glad to meet you? That sounds rather strange, doesn’t it?” She put a dainty hand to her mouth. “I don’t believe I’m supposed to say that.”

Strange? That in times of crisis people fell back on the instincts at their core? For Virginia, that seemed to be her innate politeness. Max didn’t let go of the hand in hers and held the woman’s troubled gaze. “You don’t need to worry, Mrs. Spring, you say whatever you have to say and to hell with how it sounds. The rest of us will understand.”

There was a moment of silence. Like prayers during church. The kind of silence in which the proverbial pin-drop could be heard.

In the kitchen, silver clinked on china. The refrigerator door closed with a soft whoosh. Leather soles squeaked on linoleum.

Max wondered who the third occupant of the house was. On the heels of the thought, the hair rose at her nape.

Virginia clasped Max’s hand in both of hers. The chill of the moment faded in the warmth of that grasp. How many times had Bethany felt the stroke of Virginia’s hand, pushing back her hair, drying her tears? The sensation was almost tactile.

“Thank you, my dear. I do mean that. I think you understand. Won’t you sit?” She indicated the gold velveteen sofa beside her. “Ladybird, please. I can’t believe I’ve kept you both standing.”

They both sat on the ungiving velvet couch the same color as the draperies, Ladybird’s shoes dangling several inches off the floor. The furnishings were of the uncomfortable variety, delicate looking, murder on the buttocks. The spindly legs of the mahogany coffee table looked as if they’d snap like twigs.

“Jada, be a dear, we’ll need two more cups of tea.” Virginia turned back. “You will stay for tea, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Ladybird chirped abruptly, as if she thought Max might have other ideas.

The kitchen door bounced open. “Here’s your tea, Virginia.” A man spoke, advanced through the dining room past the oversized rosewood table and chairs. Max gathered a thousand impressions.

Refined graying hair, yellow sweater over a white polo, khaki slacks, brown tasseled loafers, a cup balanced in his hand. Black eyes on her. Lips raised in the slightest of smiles. As if he’d listened at the door and known Max was in the room. As if he’d expected Max to be there. Maybe even willed her to come.

A man. Not just any man.

The man of her dreams.

The man of her nightmares.

The man she’d vowed to kill.

Bud Traynor.

Chapter Seventeen

She wouldn’t panic, she wouldn’t scream, and she damn sure wouldn’t kill him right here in front of all these witnesses.

She’d wait till later.

Max met Traynor’s gaze despite the quake in her limbs. He wasn’t surprised to see her, that much she could tell. He smiled, in fact, with a Cheshire Cat grin, all teeth and lips.

Virginia, holding her hand out for her tea, noticed nothing amiss. She smiled up at him with true gratefulness. “What would we do without you, Bud?”

Ladybird trilled, a little sound of delight emanating from the base of her throat.

Jada picked her way carefully around Traynor and across the dining room, presumably to store the lasagna in the freezer and to fetch those two additional cups of tea.

Max simply wanted to blow up and take him out with her. Spontaneous combustion.

Virginia did the introductions. “This is my neighbor, Ladybird Long and her son’s fiancé—” Virginia turned, her lips a round O of hostess horror. “My goodness, I’ve forgotten your name. Dear, please forgive me.”

Max had her mouth open to answer. Nothing came out. It didn’t need to.

Bud stepped in. “Why, if it isn’t Max Starr.”

Her first insane thought was to thank God because she wouldn’t have to shake his hand for politeness sake.

“You know each other.” A musical duet from Virginia and Ladybird.

His lids closed slowly, then rose again. His smile turned lazy. “Max is the wonder who flushed out poor Wendy’s murderer.”

Virginia gasped, put a hand to her throat, age spots dotting her skin. “My dear. I’ve heard the whole story. How can we ever thank you?”

Max smiled wanly. It was all she could manage. Yes, she’d uncovered Wendy’s killer, but she hadn’t made Traynor pay for his part in the whole affair.

Bud raised his pants legs an inch at the knee and sat in the chair opposite Max. His dark gaze pinned her to the sofa. “Wasn’t there that business with the hairdresser?”

God, he was actually taunting her.
Neener, neener, catch me if you can
. Like child’s play.

“Hairdresser?” Virginia bleated.

“Another murder, Virginia,” he answered, then turned his attention back to Max. “Perhaps Max will help us find out who killed Bethany. She’s done so well in the past.”

Obviously picking up on Max’s tension, Ladybird’s hand crept around hers, tiny fingers squeezing. Nice to know she wasn’t completely alone in the lion’s den.

Virginia’s lower lip quivered. She shook her head slowly. “I don’t understand what’s happening to us all.”