“Careful, Sheriff,” said Underwood. He put his hand on Horton’s arm to keep him from walking closer and pointed to the ground where ants and flies were busily feeding on the gore that had puddled on the brown leaves.
“Poor bastard must’ve bled out,” Horton said.
Underwood nodded. “Just like Ledwig.”
“Oh, shit!” said Horton as he and Lucius Burke shared a startled glance.
“Hey, now, wait just a damn minute here,” said Burke.
Underwood shrugged. “Two men going off decks? Friends? Both with head wounds?”
“Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re related,” Burke argued.
“Don’t it?” Sheriff Horton gave a cynical, seen-it-all snort. “I wanna be there when you try telling that to the Freeman kid’s lawyer.”
CHAPTER 15
As Mary Kay had warned me, the Three Sisters Tea Room was jammed when I got there a little past noon, but I quietly worked my way through the vestibule, where at least six people waited to be seated in a room that could accommodate about three dozen.
When people glared at me, I smiled politely and murmured, “I have a reservation.”
“They take reservations?” a woman asked indignantly. “I was told they didn’t.”
“I’m a relative,” I said.
The young hostess who approached with a frown for my pushiness was wearing a long black skirt, white ruffled blouse, and a retro black velvet and cameo choker, a costume meant to conjure up a more gracious era, no doubt, and appropriate for a tea room decorated in pink and white with fresh flowers at every small table. I remembered her from my courtroom yesterday where she had sat immediately behind Danny Freeman.
“I’m sorry—” she began.
“Carla Ledwig?” I asked, eyeing her trim waistline. Her pregnancy wasn’t yet showing.
“Yes?”
“I’m Judge Knott. I believe my cousins are here? May and June Pittman?”
Her annoyance turned to alarm as she recognized me.
“Well, yes, but they’re really sort of busy right now.”
I drew myself up to look as official as possible. “Never-theless, I’d like to see them. Now.”
“I’ll tell them you’re here.”
“Why don’t I tell them myself?” I said pleasantly and pointed to a set of double doors at the rear. “Through there?”
She nodded.
From my own waitressing days I knew to enter through the right door, so that I didn’t collide with the young Asian woman who came through the left one carrying a large tray filled with luscious-looking open-faced cucumber and watercress sandwiches. Like Carla Ledwig, she also wore ruffles, long skirt, and a ribbon choker.
“I’m sorry,” she said as we met in the short hallway. “This is the kitchen. Restrooms are around the corner.”
I smiled, nodded, and continued through the door.
At the long central counter in the kitchen, the twins seemed to have an assembly line going, the same sort of assembly line as when they put together sandwiches for our midnight snack last night.
May spotted me first and groaned.
“What?” said June and looked up. “Oh, shit!”
“You guys are so busted,” I said, shaking my head. “The food here stinks? You thought that would keep me away after my clerk keeps telling me how good it is? When were you planning to tell your mom and dad that you’ve dropped out of school? Oh, wait! Bet I know. Parents’ Day, right?”
June shook her head. “Wrong.”
“We were going to fake it that weekend,” said May. “Keep it going till Christmas, when they won’t get our grade cards.”
“I thought Tanser-MacLeod was a small school. How’re the professors not going to notice a pair of twins who aren’t regis— Ah! So that’s why you cut and dyed your hair. To change your looks for Parents’ Day.”
“It would’ve worked, too,” May said.
“It still can.” June looked at me with pleading eyes. “They don’t have to know yet.”
“They don’t? You’re going to wait till they drop another bundle on tuition and board you aren’t using?”
“They haven’t dropped a bundle. We didn’t register this semester.”
“Your dad’s a CPA. He didn’t notice that the check was never cashed?”
“Well … actually it was.”
They had gone back to work as two waitresses scurried in and out. The menu seemed to be limited to a couple
