More Than Friends (7 page)

"No, but he'll pass by on his way to the shack." The shack was as close as the tiny town of Gullen came to having a general store. Its shabby front room was crammed with necessities. Its middle room was the post office, its rear room the bar. Homer Peasely didn't give a fig about food or mail, but he was a bear until he downed his second shot of whiskey, and he rarely stopped there. Grady Piper knew that. Without another word he took Teke by the arm and led her out the door. When he got her home he sat her on the chair by the crumbling hearth, built up a fire, and said, "Rest awhile. Do whatever you do normal for him, then get in bed. If he don't see the bandage till morning, you'll be fine."

"But I got to pay the doctor," she whispered.

"Doctor'll wait," Grady said, and left.

She made supper, as usual, then got in bed. Homer was drunk enough when he came home not to notice her, and come morning she hid the bandage under overalls. Homer never found out about the dog bite, the doctor never came around for money, and Teke became Grady Piper's shadow. In time she became far more than that. The memory brought equal parts joy and pain.

With a blink she returned to the present, and at first her vision was so blurred that she thought he had gone. Then she saw that he stood there still, and something akin to panic seized her.

Go! her mind cried as it had once before. He couldn't stay. J.D. didn't know. He would be livid. He wouldn't understand. And she--she couldn't cope with Grady again. Not after so much, so long. Not with Michael at death's door and--my God--his truck having been the culprit. Go! she screamed silently. Go!

That long-ago time, he hadn't listened. He had Come into her home and changed their lives forever. He must have learned his lesson, though, because now he stared at her for a last, agonized minute, then turned and walked down the hall.

Sam didn't get through to Annie, though he tried half a dozen times. In guilt-ridden moments he wondered if she knew the truth and was avoiding him. But the secretary's claim that she was running from class to meeting to class was plausible. She would be trying to get ahead on things so that she could spend more time with Teke.

He feared for that relationship when Annie found out the truth. Even more, he feared for his marriage.

He was thinking that he didn't deserve her love,

but that it made his life work and that he couldn't live without it, when J.D. burst into his office looking smug as could be. "I knew they'd find dirt if they looked," he crowed. When Sam eyed him blankly, he announced, "The driver of that pickup isn't so innocent after all. I called our illustrious police chief this morning. I told him there had to be something on the man and that he'd better look for it if he wanted his contract renewed." He made a face. "Hell, wasn't he wondering what the guy was doing there? They said he wasn't speeding. They said he was going slow. Well, why was he going slow?

He sure wasn't looking to buy a house, not in our neighborhood. Was he meeting someone about a job? Or was he staking out the area with a break-in in mind?" "What did they find?" Sam asked. J.D. slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "He's an ex-con named Grady Piper. He served eight years of a twenty-year sentence for--are you ready?--murder." Sam came forward on his seat. "Murder?"

"Murder. How's that for finding something fishy." Sam sat back again. He could feel the defense attorney in him coming to life. "Just because the man spent time for murder doesn't mean he's guilty of anything here." His phone buzzed.

"Come on, Sam. A thug's a thug. You know that. You work with these people all the time."

Sam pressed the intercom button. "Yes, Joy?" "A writer for Lawyers Weekly is on the phone." "Take a number. I'll call back." He released the button and returned to J.D. "What else has the guy done?"

"Isn't murder enough?"

"That's it? Just murder? How long has he been on the streets?" "A while, but--"

"How long?"

"Fourteen years."

"After serving eight of twenty. Is he still on parole?"

"No, but--"

"You don't have a case, J.D. You can't condemn the man because he committed a crime twenty three years ago. He paid the price. He did his time. Unless someone can prove that he's done something else, or that he broke a law when he drove down your street, forget it."

"I won't forget it," J.D. said with an indignation that struck Sam as pure J.S. "If a little looking turned up a murder conviction, just think of what a little more looking will turn up." Gently, because he knew how often it happened and how much it bothered J.D." Sam asked, "Is John Stewart on your back?"

"I don't need John Stewart to tell me how to look out for my son," J.D. snapped. "I want to know what that man was doing on my street."

"It's a public street."

"And he's an ex-con from nowhere."

"He may have been lost, or sightseeing."

"He hurt my son, damn it!"

Sam wanted to remind him that Michael had run into the man's truck, not the other way around, but he knew that wasn't what J.D. wanted to hear. In a quiet voice he said, "You're barking up the wrong tree, J.D."

"Where's your imagination, Sam? You're the expert on criminal prosecution. You're the courtroom genius. They can get him on something. All we have to do is figure out what."

Sam accepted then that J.D. couldn't hear what he was saying, and he understood. It was J.D."s son lying comatose, not his. J.D. was upset. He was frustrated. He wanted to do something, anything, to avenge Michael.

Sam tried to imagine what J.D. would do when he found out what Michael had seen. And he would find out--though not from Sam. Sam had done enough harm already. No, Teke was J.D."s wife. She would have to be the one to tell him. Or Michael, when he woke up.

"Did you reach the Mayo Clinic?" he asked.

J.D. looked away in disgust. He put his hands on his hips. "Yeah. No help there. Henry Finch is delivering seminars in Paris for the next two weeks. I spoke with his second in command and told him about Michael. He said that Gardner's team is first class and that from what I told him, he wouldn't do anything different from what's being done. Which is nothing," he added sourly.

Sam rose and rounded the desk to put an encouraging hand on his shoulder. "They're doing all they can."

"Which is nothing," J.D. repeated, pulling away. He went to the door.

"I'm suing the school for negligence. I want you to handle the case."

Sam doubted the Maxwells had a case, but he could go through the preliminary motions as well as any other lawyer. He would do it out of loyalty--and guilt. With a little luck Michael would wake up and be well, in which case J.D. would rethink bringing suit.

"And the police," J.D. added. "Stay on their backs. They'll listen to you before they'll listen to me. You were a prosecutor. And you're not as emotionally involved as I am."

He disappeared, leaving Sam wishing it were so.

The minute Annie pulled up at the high school, the three girls clambered into the car, slammed the doors, and began talking all at once.

"Finally--"

"We thought you'd never get here--"

"It's so embarrassing--"

"You won't believe what that twerp said--"

"He's telling everyone--"

"All over school--"

"Quiet!" Annie cried. She was sitting sideways, looking from one disturbed face to the next. In a soft, calm voice she said, "You're the oldest, Leigh. Please tell me what you're so upset about." Leigh's cheeks were flushed, a deviation from her usual patrician pallor. She was J.D. in looks, Teke in femininity. "He started a rumor--"

"Who started a rumor?"

"Will Clinger. What a loser! He can't get people to pay attention to him because he's a dork, so he spreads rumors."

"What rumor is he spreading?" Annie asked.

"It's garbage!" Jana cried.

Zoe chimed in, "He's a troublemaker!"

"What rumor?" Annie repeated, still facing Leigh. Leigh's nostrils flared. "He's running all over school saying that Sam and Mom were messing around when Michael was hurt yesterday."

"Messing around." Annie conjured an immediate, absurd picture of Sam and Teke digging up dirt in the garden as they planted fall bulbs.

"Sex, Mom," Zoe said from behind.

Annie swiveled to stare at her. "What?"

"He is so stupid."

"It's his mother," Jana said, folding her arms. "She doesn't like us because we are who we are. We're successful and we're normal, everything they are not. She's a bitch."

"Please," Annie begged, "let's not have that language."

"But she is," Jana insisted. "She was the one who started the rumor. She said she saw Mom and Sam run out of the house after Michael, and that they were barely dressed. She said Sam had to fasten his pants right there in the middle of the street! Can you believe that? What a bitch she is."

Annie took a breath. "I still don't like that word, but if Virginia is indeed saying that"--and it was consistent with the visit she'd had that morning-"it may fit."

"And a liar," Leigh added.

"Why would she say it?" Zoe asked.

"I told you why," Jana answered. "She's jealous. The Clinger fortune isn't a fortune anymore. Her alimony is going down the tubes right along with the rest of the real estate in town. She didn't get a new car this year. We did. So she's pissed."

"Don't like that word, either," Annie mumbled, but Jana went on.

"He's blabbing all over school, trying to score points, at our expense. It's not fair!"

Zoe scrunched up her face. "It's so embarrassing."

"It's so untrue," Jana informed her archly. "My mother wouldn't cheat on my father!"

"Any more than my father would cheat on my mother!"

"Jon was livid," Leigh interrupted. "He would have punched Will if I hadn't held him back. That would have been awful. He'd have been put on detention for fighting in school, and missed practice and maybe the game Saturday, and Will would have felt important." She made a sputtering sound and muttered, "Loser," under her breath. When Annie started the car, Zoe leaned over her shoulder. "Aren't you furious?"

Annie felt the warmth of her breath and reached back to touch her cheek. Zoe was a cuddler. Annie swore she had been a cuddler in the womb, so con-tent there that she had refused to be born until three weeks after she was due. From the start she had been sweet and gentle. Annie loved that in her, even if it made her vulnerable to things that others could shrug off.

"I'm annoyed," Annie told her now. "Virginia should have known better than to say things like that to her children."

"She does it all the time," Jana said. "That's why the Clinger kids are crazy."

Annie relented. "They're not crazy. They just have difficult parents." She flashed Jana a grin. "They're not as lucky as you, that way."

"So what do we do?" Jana asked. "By seventh period everyone was talking,"

"They'll be talking about something else by tomorrow."

"No, they won't," Leigh said. "It was sounding like a soap opera. They'll want to know what happens next."

"Nothing happens next, because nothing happened at all."

"That's not what the kids think," Zoe said.

Annie was skeptical. "They believe Will? Who just said the kids thought he was a dork?"

"I did," Leigh admitted, "but once the rumor spreads, people forget who started it. You wouldn't believe how many people came up to me at lunch and asked whether my parents were getting divorced."

"Tell them no," Annie said.

"I did, so they asked if Michael had seen them doing it."

"Tell them no."

"I did, so they asked how I knew, and I didn't have an answer. No one knows what Michael saw but him, and he's not telling." Zoe leaned even closer. "Has he said anything?"

"No. He's still unconscious."

"I kept calling to ask," Leigh said. "The nurses must know my voice by now."

"Can't they do anything?" Jana asked. "Can't they zap him with something to snap him out of it? All you read about is the high cost of medical care. What are we paying them for?"

Annie had to smile. Jana was so much like J.D. sometimes, so imperious, so expectant. "We're paying them to keep a close eye on your brother, so that when he reaches a point where they can do something to snap him out of it, they'll be there." The girls quieted down, and Annie blessed them. They were more concerned about Michael than about Will Clinger's big mouth. Annie shared those priorities, but she did worry about the mouth, and she wasn't thinking of Will's. Virginia's was worse. Virginia talked wherever she went, and she went places--the beauty shop, the manicurist, the health club--where people listened. And those people went every which way, spreading the news. The woman had to be stopped.

Idle gossip was an ugly thing. It planted doubts. If Annie didn't have total faith in her husband, she might be wondering at that very moment if there was any truth to Virginia's claim. She might, indeed, be wondering why Sam had been half-dressed at midday. She might be wondering if his upset was purely for Michael or whether there was more to it. She might be wondering about those three long showers. But she had total faith in her husband. Total faith.

Sam arrived at the hospital to find Teke dozing on a chair by Michael's bed. He didn't risk waking

her by talking aloud to Michael, simply stood looking down at the boy.

He remembered when Michael had been born-Teke's little surprise, they had called him, though no one had ever ascertained whether the surprise had been fate's on Teke or Teke's on everyone else. J.D. believed the first. He had wanted to stop at two children and blamed Michael's creation on a faulty birth control device. He would have sued Teke's gynecologist if Sam hadn't called him an asshole. When Michael had proved to be a boy, all misgiving was forgotten.

Sam suspected Teke had planned that third child. She loved mothering and did it well. She hadn't ever been interested in working outside the home as Annie did and was perfectly content to sign for UPS

deliveries, run to school in the middle of the day when the kids got sick, referee backyard squabbles, and provide lemonade, oatmeal cookies, and Band Aids.