“Yes, but you can’t go to the lake or even down the steps without me. Stay on the deck.” Jamie nodded. She turned to Kate. “So exactly what is import, export? I never got a straight answer.”
“He was a jobber. Do you know what that is?” Kate asked.
Jamie shook her head.
“He was an independent buyer of clothing and jewelry from stores after they had finished their seasonal sales. He would give the store ten cents on the dollar for all that was left and then sell it for twice that to discount clothing stores. He exported stuff out of those stores and imported it into other stores,” Kate said.
“He made it sound like a fancy job.” Jamie melted into a chair. “God, I feel stupid.”
Kate rocked up onto her knees and used the door handle to help her go from there to standing. “You mentioned doubts?”
“A wife knows when a man is having sex outside of his home. Surely you did.”
“I didn’t give a damn after the first year,” Kate said.
“Then why didn’t you divorce him?”
“That’s none of your business.” Kate’s hands were shaking when she went to her room, closed the door, and kicked off her high heels. She sat down on the edge of the bed. What if one of those other two did kill him? If so, then she might be next in line. They both sure seemed to be in a hurry to lay claim to the cabin, and she was the only one standing in their way.
“Stop it!” she scolded herself. “They want this place, but they did not kill Conrad. Not even a Hollywood actor can put on an act like they did at the funeral.”
Still, a shiver ran down her back as she opened her suitcases and filled the empty dresser drawers, hung up shorts and shirts, and neatly placed her sandals on the floor of the closet. She’d brought two sundresses in case she decided to go to church and two bathing suits for swimming. Other than that, it was strictly casual summer clothing.
She unzipped her straight business skirt and removed the matching short-sleeved jacket, hung them on a hanger together, and then pushed the straps down from a full-length slip, letting it slide off her slim body and puddle up around her feet. No panty hose, no slips, no enclosed shoes—not until she went back to Fort Worth.
Dressed in khaki shorts, a bright-orange knit shirt, and her favorite brown leather sandals, she picked up her Kindle and headed toward the deck. Halfway there she remembered that Gracie was playing out there, so she steered for the front porch instead.
She settled into the rocking chair again. It would be a good place to sit and read until supper time, when she intended to eat the sub sandwich she’d tucked away in the refrigerator. Those other two hussies better not touch it. They had shared a husband and they might be sharing a house, but by damn, that sandwich was hers, and they’d do well to keep their hands off it.
Tomorrow she would drive down to that grocery store in Seymour and buy what she wanted for a week. They could starve or fish for their food. Frankly, Kate didn’t give a damn what they did, as long as they stayed out of her way.
She hadn’t sat there more than ten minutes before she got thirsty and went back to the kitchen to make a pitcher of tea. But there was no tea, no sugar, and not even a jar of peanut butter in the pantry. The only edible thing in the house was her sandwich, and she’d have to drink tap water. Fourteen years ago the water had had a strange taste to it. It was fine for laundry and not bad for showers, but drinking was impossible. She filled a glass, took a sip, and spit it out. The years had not changed the water one bit.
She headed toward the tiny utility room and switched the sheets over to the dryer and then tossed the quilt in the washer. Right then, she would gladly pay triple for a Starbucks coffee or a McDonald’s sweet tea. Neither was available in the tiny little town of Bootleg, Texas. It had a convenience store, a post office, a tiny bank branch set up in a portable building, two churches, and a liquor store. And that was at least half a mile down the dirt road in front of the cabin.
There had to be more than what a convenience store offered. She made a quick trip to her bedroom, exchanged the Kindle for her purse, and headed out of the house without telling anyone where she was going. These were her acquaintances, not her friends, and she didn’t care if they needed or wanted anything in the way of groceries. When the dust settled and they realized that their marriage licenses weren’t worth the paper they were printed on, they’d leave and she’d put the cabin up for sale. Until then, they were three strangers sharing a house.
Still, even with that little pep talk, Kate was very glad there was a lock on her bedroom door. Those women were about as stable as nitroglycerin in the middle of an F5 tornado, and she didn’t trust either of them.
She turned on the radio and headed south. “And now for your Texas news and weather,” the DJ said in a deep voice. “Weather through the week is more of the same heat we’ve been having. It looks like we’ll have days in the triple digits through Wednesday as least.”
Kate passed a fireworks stand on the side of the road. It had closed up after the holiday the week before, but she could imagine the scent of firecrackers and that put a smile on her face. When she was a little girl, her father let her pick out her favorites every year. After the big display put on by the company after the all-day picnic at her childhood home, he would take her down to a grassy area near the pool and they’d have their own fireworks show. Her mother hated the noise and the smell of sparklers and bottle rockets, but Kate always associated them with her dad.
I wonder if there are certain things that Gracie remembers about Conrad. Did they come to the cabin on the Fourth of July and set off fireworks on the lakeshore?
“This is Denise Winters with your Texas news.” The voice on the radio had changed. “In statewide news, there are still no solid leads in the shooting death of Conrad Steele, the victim of a robbery gone bad in downtown Dallas on Thursday, June 29.”
Kate’s whole body stiffened as she waited for the next sentence to be that it had been discovered that Conrad had three wives at the same time and that none of them were aware of the other two. That was sensational news—the kind of thing that those magazines beside the cash register at the grocery store checkout counter always had plastered on their covers. The headline, in big red lettering, would say, OIL COMPANY HEIRESS SUSPECTED IN POLYGAMIST HUSBAND’S DEATH!
The lady went on to other news, talking about the new political front since the election and how gasoline prices were on the rise, but she didn’t mention Conrad again. Hopefully, pretty soon they’d stop even mentioning him, and it would just be another shooting that slipped into the cold-case file. At least she hoped that was the case. Maybe Waylon Kramer’s supervisor would put him on more pressing cases.
Fifteen minutes later, she was inside the small grocery store in Seymour, Texas. She pulled a cart loose from a long string of others and stopped at a display with all kinds of cookies, cakes, breads, and pastries. She was trying to decide between iced sugar cookies or pretty little miniature cupcakes when she felt a presence behind her. She whipped around to find Detective Kramer so close that she could have slapped him without even stretching.
Seeing him in the grocery store, for God’s sake, was like throwing gasoline on a bonfire. Was he going to show up in her shower stall next? That put a picture in her mind that shot the temperature of the store up twenty degrees.
“What are you doing here?” She looked up into his eyes and visualized taking the top off the cupcake package and smashing the whole dozen into his face to get the picture of him naked in the shower out of her mind. Would that be considered assault?
“I might ask you the same thing. You are a long way from Fort Worth.” Detective Kramer grinned.
“A woman has to eat. Are you stalking me?” she asked. “Don’t answer that. I don’t even want to know. Did you find out who Conrad was buying flowers for that day?”
“You know I can’t tell you anything about an ongoing investigation. He had two more wives. Did you have an open relationship? How many men am I going to find in your little black book?”
She looked him right in the eyes. “First you have to find the black book.”
“From what I can piece together, y’all didn’t have much of a marriage. No kids. No joint property. Why didn’t you divorce him?” Waylon asked.