rough stuff in life get me down. Right now I feel as weak as a hundred-year-old man.” “You are strong, Jordy, you are.” Candace rubbed my shoulder. “You’re the strongest man I know.
You gave up your career, your independence to come home to help your family. I couldn’t be so brave.” “My family,” I snorted. “I’m not even sure who my family is.” Hot anger flashed in me as I thought of my sacrifices. “Damn her, Candace! I gave up my life, my career, to take care of that woman, and what if she never bothered to tell me the truth about who I am? How could they do that to me?” I thought of my father, Lloyd Poteet. Of his love, his kindness to me, his pride in my accomplishments, his gentle hands on my shoulders, letting me know he was there for me. Had he known? If he had, I marveled at the depth of his unconditional love. Not every man would have so willingly raised another’s child as his own. I missed him fiercely. “Jordy, please, quit beating yourself up over this.” “And if it’s true, Beta Harcher knew?” I didn’t listen to Candace. “Let’s face it, that witch was my worst enemy. That she knew, and I didn’t! God, that makes me sick!”
“Jordy!” Candace snapped. “Shut up for a minute and listen to me. Quit wallowing in self-pity. It’s just not like you.” I shut up. “I’m going to tell you a bit of wisdom here, babe,” Candace brought her face close to mine and her voice fell to a whisper. “Do me the courtesy of not interrupting. It really doesn’t matter if you’re a Poteet or a Goertz or if you’re sired by a man from Mars. What matters is the kind of person that you are, you sweet little idiot. You’re a good person.
Now Lloyd Poteet raised you and loved you. Even if he didn’t make you, that doesn’t mean he’s not your daddy for all intents and purposes. It just doesn’t matter.” It did matter, but I stayed quiet till I sensed she was done speaking. I laughed bitterly. “Southerners are always so concerned about the families they come from. My friends up North used to tease me about being one of the Poteets of Mirabeau because I made such a big deal about my family. And now I don’t even know who I am anymore.” I sagged against the couch. “I feel like a nobody.” “You are somebody,” Candace whispered, and she kissed me. Her mouth didn’t taste of chocolate like Ruth Wills’s, but the kiss was far sweeter. I lost myself in her. I vaguely remembered my arm going around her shoulders, her fingers locking in my hair, passion and heat rising between us like close campfires. Her finger-tips traced delicious patterns on my face, my chest, my stomach. Wanting her burned away the old miasma of death that Beta Harcher had left on the library. And as we made love, shuddering together on that old couch, the deepest part of myself came through, telling me that Jordy Poteet was still alive.
14
I wasn’t about to castigate half my family tree for all the lying that they might’ve done to me over my lifetime and then lie to Candace. Especially not after making love. I don’t imagine either of us had thought we’d consummate our relationship, if we ever had one, on the library couch where Old Man Renfro read the Houston papers every morning. So, with Candace lying against me, her warm back against my chest, I told her about Ruth’s advances to me, and her request that I meet her later this evening. “Are you going?” Candace asked, looking at the floor as though there was an object of monumental interest on the carpet. “No, I don’t believe so,” I said, stroking Candace’s hair. “I’m not going to pretend that Ruth isn’t sexy, but she’s not real attractive to me. You know the difference.”
“I wonder what she meant, though. Saying she could help you be sure that your mama was never in a home.” I rolled my eyes. “Probably just a coy lure to get me over there. I am, of course, above such common ploys.” “Maybe she was going to offer you money for your services.”
Candace giggled, now that Ruth was swept under the rug. “She certainly seems to do well for a nurse in a small town.” “Doesn’t she, though?
Nice jewelry, new Miata.” “Kept woman,” Candace guessed. “She’d fit the bill.” “Kept by whom?” I said, kissing her ear. “Maybe that’s an angle we haven’t considered.” Candace considered. “There’s any number of candidates in town, but that’d be a damned hard secret to keep.”
“I’m starting to think that adage about no secrets in a small town is a load of crap,” I answered. “We seem to be unearthing them left and right.” “Adam Hufnagel,” Candace said. “That’d be my guess. He’s smooth but sometimes I swear he’s got his mind elsewhere. Like maybe on a sweet young thang for a mistress.” “Your ability to see scandal everywhere,” I laughed, hugging her, “is one of your most attractive traits.” I hadn’t expected to smile or laugh anytime soon, considering the past two hours. Candace was good for me. “You’re smiling,” she said, glancing up at me. “You put it there.” It was she who smiled this time. “Look, about Bob Don-” “Honey, if I dwell on that I’m going to go crazy. I have to deal with it, no doubt. But I want to finish what I started. I want to find out who killed Beta and shot Shannon. I want the suffering that crazy bitch caused people to stop. And I want to find those letters.” I paused. “Anyhow, if Ruth is a kept woman, how could she say she’d help me? That would only work if the money was hers. I don’t think her lover would take too kindly to underwriting her affairs.” “I don’t think you should pursue this anymore, Jordy,”
Candace said carefully, turning in my arms to face me. She snuggled to me, kissing my cheek with small nibbles. It felt so good I held my breath. “You’ve gone through enough in the past few days. Just tell Junebug what you’ve learned and let him do it.” “No,” I said. “I’m not going to have Mama’s possible indiscretions broadcast around town as part of a murder investigation. I already know that Beta blackmailed Eula Mae and tried to blackmail Bob Don and might’ve tried to get money out of my mother, if she thought she could. That list of Beta’s must be a blackmail list, some way she thought she was going to get money out of folks for their sins so she could build her damned Holy-Roller church. I still don’t believe that Eula Mae could’ve killed her. I can’t let her rot in jail.” “So what was she trying to blackmail folks over? Aside from those rather vague quotes, you don’t have a clue.” “No, there’s more.” I reminded Candace about the books Beta had checked out and Shannon had returned to me. “She got that book on video technology and on a trip she’s on with Hally Schneider, his camcorder disappears. She had a book on book publishing and she’d squeezed ten grand out of Eula Mae. She’d gotten a book on Alzheimer’s, maybe to bone up on whether my mother could remember enough of her past to be blackmailed.” “There’s that book on drugs,”
Candace said. “Yes, there is, isn’t there? And I didn’t mention this before, but Matt Blalock had been smoking a joint when I went out to see him. I’m wondering if there’s a connection between that drug-abuse book and Matt being on her list.” “Big whoop,” Candace huffed.
“Everybody knows those guys in Vietnam tried it. I don’t think that would terribly surprise anyone that Matt might smoke marijuana.” She eyed me. “You don’t do that, do you?” “Not anymore,” I said. “I tried it in college once, but I’d rather smoke tobacco.” “I wonder. Maybe Hally’s the one doing the drugs. You hear about how bad it is in the high schools.” “Maybe, but Hally really doesn’t seem to be into that.
I don’t think he could sneak it too easily around his Stepford battle-ax mother.” “Gaston said Beta’s car was out late at night by the Blalocks’ last week,” Candace said. I stood. “Wait a minute. Let’s say she was out there sneaking around, ’cause she suspected drug-type activities were going on at Matt’s. What would you wear?” “I don’t know what DEA agents currently find fashionable,” Candace sniffed.
“Maybe black? I’ll bet that old toot was out sneaking on their farm at night, dressed in black so she couldn’t be seen. And out back on Matt’s farm, the overgrowth is as dense as the day Mirabeau was founded. Perfect to hide a marijuana crop. It might stay muddy back there, even if we hadn’t had rain for a few days. Remember that tarry- black mud on Beta’s shoes?” Candace licked her lips. “I think you might have a point. Call Junebug and tell him about it.” “He couldn’t do anything. We don’t have a shred of proof.” I pulled on my pants and fumbled in my pockets for my keys. “I think I should go out there and take a look.” “If Matt Blalock’s growing pot in the forest, there’s no need for you to go stomping around out there,” Candace insisted. “If Bob Don’s telling the truth, he didn’t give Beta a cent.
Now there’s $25,000 in Beta’s account that she got recently. If I can find who else paid off Beta, I can kill me several birds with one stone. I can maybe get suspicion off Eula Mae, find out if Bob Don is remotely telling the truth, and maybe see who might have torn apart Beta’s house and shot Shannon.” I jingled my keys. “Now I’m going out there and see if ol’ Matt had anything worth being blackmailed over.”
“Fine. I’m coming with you.” Candace stood. “No, you’re not. It might be dangerous.” “I am too coming with you.” “No, you’re not.” Candace and I were obviously on the accelerated course for relationships. We’d made love and had our first fight in pert’ near record time. And guess who won? Candace insisted that we eat before going out to the Blalock property. It was close to nine and I desultorily ate a cheeseburger and fries at the Dairy Queen.
