hide my car down on the creek bank.
“ ’Preciate the open window,” I said.
“I was afraid you were going to bust one before you found it. Hey, you know something? I always thought cat burglars were supposed to be quiet.” He was a dark shape against the white walls, but I saw his teeth flash in a mocking grin as I punched his shoulder.
“So what’d McCloy leave here?” he asked, turning serious.
“Whatever it was he was going to give me.”
“A pitcher?”
“Made a pretty story, didn’t it?” I said sourly. “Only when we walked upstairs together for him to change clothes for the funeral home, that particular pitcher was sitting on a shelf at the top of the stairs. He thought I wouldn’t remember that he was supposed to’ve had it with him on Friday night when he drove out here to meet me. Kinda insulting, isn’t it?”
The walkie-talkie burst into sound again. “Baby Bird to Blue Jay. The Snowball should be in your view any minute now! Over.”
Up on the highway, headlights slowed, then turned into the drive. Instinctively I drew away from the door as Dwight said, “I see him, Baby Bird. Proceed as planned. Out.”
As the pickup’s headlights flashed through the pines, Dwight turned off the receiver and took my hand and we rushed down the aisle. He tried to get me to hide behind the curtains on stage, but I said no way, Jose, and there wasn’t time for him to make me. As it was, we barely got ourselves stationed behind the screen again than we heard the outer door thump to. No hiding the truck or cautious reconnoiter for Denn.
A moment later, the prop room door opened and lights came on. The Chinese screen had four hinged panels, and Dwight and I both had our eyes up against the narrow cracks. We saw Denn framed in the doorway, still in his white shirt, but now wearing his usual black jeans and black leather cap.
“No!” he said sharply. “Come on in here and behave yourself.”
A familiar clicking sound pattered along the hall and then, to my utter dismay, Lily trotted past him and began sniffing the air.
Dwight and I both froze.
“Good girl,” Denn said absently and walked over to the racks of costumes.
Lily quartered the room, poking her nose under the dust sheet, checking out the boxes under the worktables.
As Denn started to pull back a dust sheet, Lily suddenly caught our scent. Her hackles rose and a low rumble started in her chest.
“What’s the matter, girl?” asked Denn, hesitating with the sheet in his hand.
Stiff legged, the dog slowly stalked across the room toward our hiding place. Her growl became a snarl and then she was barking fiercely and looking to Denn for instructions.
Without waiting to see who we were, Denn took off through the door.
“Stop!” Dwight roared as the screen fell over with a crash.
Confused, Lily didn’t seem to know whether to run or attack and I used her hesitation to call out, “Good girl, Lily. Come on, you know me. Right? There’s a good girl.”
I don’t know if it was because she did remember that I’d scratched her ears earlier in the evening or because she had always been more Michael’s dog than Denn’s, but she lowered her hackles and came over to me with her tail wagging while Dwight chased after Denn.
It wasn’t much of a chase since Jack Jamison-ol’ Baby Bird-had blocked the pickup’s exit again.
Denn was brought back to the prop room where he tried to bluster it out.
“I have a right to be here. I have a key!” he stormed. “Do you? Where’s your warrant?”
He did a true double take when he saw me standing there with Lily. “Deborah? You here, too? What’s going on?”
“You want a minute alone with your client?” Dwight asked.
“He’s no client of mine,” I said. “I don’t keep clients who lie to me.”
“Lie?” cried Denn.
“Lie,” I said coldly and gave him chapter and verse about the pitcher. “You start telling the truth right this minute or I’m outta here and you can rot in jail for all I care. In fact, jail might be your best bet right now. Hasn’t it sunk in yet that maybe it was supposed to be you lying in a closed coffin at Aldcroft’s? Your car, kiddo, sitting right where you were supposed to be.”
His head came up and his eyes widened abruptly. Clearly this was the first time such an obvious-and terrifying- possibility had occurred to him.
“You’ve jerked me around all afternoon,” I snarled. “I haven’t had any supper, and I’m tired of holding your hand while you think up more lies. Why’d you really leave word for me to come here Friday?”
Denn’s thin shoulders suddenly slumped in defeat. “I was going to tell you who killed Janie Whitehead.”
25 it’s out of my hands
As soon as hed said it, I think Denn wished he could take it back. The narrow brim of his black leather cap shadowed his eyes from the overhead lights, but I saw the wrenching pain there as he bit his lips.
“It feels like such a betrayal now,” he whimpered. “He said we were through. There’s someone in Durham he wanted to be with. I was hurt. And furious. All I could think of was how to hurt him back. If you’d answered the phone, Deborah, I’d have told you then and there what happened to Gayle’s mother, but it was only because I was mad then. I knew before I left Raleigh that night that I wouldn’t go through with it. That’s why I was late getting back. I hoped you would have gotten tired of waiting and already left. How could I betray him after all these years?”
“He can’t be hurt now by anything you tell us,” I said.
Dwight was less diplomatic. “Talk,” he said, plunking the tape recorder down on the table in front of Denn.
Rattled by the emotional roller coaster he’d been on since Michael’s death, Denn talked.
While Jack went off to try to find us some hamburgers or something, Denn sat hunched in a wicker peacock chair with a slipcover of gold satin-the throne from Once upon a Mattress, I believe-and told us how Janie Whitehead died.
“I explained about how Michael came back to Cotton Grove eighteen years ago and tried to lead a straight life?” he asked me.
I nodded. “But you need to tell Dwight, too.”
Haltingly, Denn repeated the tale of how Mrs. Vickery had worked on Michael’s basically conservative nature and his sense of guilt to persuade him to come home and make an effort to be the manly son she and Dr. Vickery could be proud of. He could do it if he tried. They would help him.
“You don’t realize how much things have changed down here these last twenty years,” said Denn. “I’m not saying gay marriages are ever going to make it in this county, but back then some people would rather have their kids dead than admit they were gay. Am I right?”
“ ’Fraid so,” said Dwight, and I thought of Will. He’d still rather take a licking than have it come out about Trish.
“So Michael tells me good-bye and comes home in January. New year. New beginning. And from January to May, he tries to be straight. He prays, he paints, he piles bricks for a kiln, he even chases after pu”-glancing at me, Denn caught himself-“pretty girls.”
He paused. “Could I have some water?”
He and Dwight both looked at me.
“Why sure,” I said. “I believe there’s a water fountain down by the men’s room. Y’all go right ahead. I’ll just wait and drink whatever Jack brings me.”
Dwight laughed. Denn didn’t seem to think it was particularly funny. He went over to the work sink, pulled a paper cup from the dispenser hanging on the wall, and ran himself a long drink.
