“Maybe he would’ve,” I said, “except that Mrs. Tuzzolino was trying to hold him to the partnership’s buyout agreement right away and he simply didn’t have the money.”
“Wow!” said Joyce as a personal application hit her. “God, Bobby! Think what it would’ve done to us if that’d happened to Norman.”
“That’s exactly why we both went for complete physicals, remember? The insurance people were a little worried about my cholesterol, but Norman was in perfect health.”
“Was Ledwig your doctor?” I asked.
“Carlyle?”
“Oh, no,” said Joyce. “Carlyle wasn’t an internist. His specialty was geriatrics.”
She passed me the bread basket, but when I turned back the napkin, all those hot rolls were gone. I’d already had one and knew I shouldn’t have a second, but I didn’t protest when Bobby caught our waiter’s eye and held up the basket.
I asked them what it was like growing up here in the mountains, and it sounded a lot like my daddy’s tales of his childhood—privations, yes, but a sense of rootedness. Hard work, where even children were expected to carry their share of the load, but time for music and storytelling, too.
When I asked if they knew Richard Granger or Hank Smith, Bobby began to laugh.
“Hell, yes! You hear about Dick shooting Hank’s ear off last month?”
“They were both in my courtroom today,” I said. Since Granger’s trial, like the trial of the Tuzzolinos, was now public record, I could speak freely about it.
“I hope you went easy on Dick,” Joyce said in quick sympathy. “He and his wife are having it rough since he got hurt at the chip mill. They’re too proud to take charity, but when she brought one of her mother’s quilts to ask me what I thought it should fetch at the craft gallery, I did manage to convince her to sell it to me for about twice what it was really worth.”
Bobby looked at her quizzically. “Did I know this?”
“Oops!” she said with a smile.
“They don’t have to live that close to the bone,” he said. “Dick and Sarah Granger are living on one of the prettiest pieces of land on Laudermilk Creek. They could sell out tomorrow and live in ease the rest of their lives.”
“Live where?” asked Joyce. “You know they’d die if you took them off that mountain.”
“All the same,” he said, “I believe I’ll take a ride out there next week, see if I can interest him in selling.”
“Bobby, no!” she protested.
“I know, honey, I know,” he said soothingly, “but if not me, it’ll be somebody else. Somebody who might not give him as good a price.”
When I got back to the condo, all it really needed to be ready to rent were fresher curtains and a carpet cleaning. The kitchen cabinets sparkled with new enamel, and all traces of paint buckets, brushes, and drop cloths were gone. Fred and Beverly should be pleased about this much, at least.
I checked my e-mail again. Still nothing from Dwight. Well, what did I expect?
There was also nothing on television, nothing in the condo’s selection of videos that I wanted to watch, and nothing I wanted to do.
Nobody to talk to either.
“Go to hell!” I told them both.
And went to bed.
CHAPTER 25
With no paint crew to cook breakfast for, the twins opted to sleep in the next morning. Hard as they’d been working, I certainly couldn’t blame them, and I tiptoed around quietly. Wouldn’t hurt me to make do with orange juice and an apple after those rolls last night.
Besides, I knew that the usual carafe of coffee would be waiting for me.
“The way you and Mr. Deeck are zipping through the calendar,” said Mary Kay, “it looks like tomorrow’s going to be early getaway.”
Now there was a thought. If I finished by lunch tomorrow, I could be home before dark.
Before Dwight left for Virginia.
Morning court was a brisk array of the usual, and at noon I went down to the Tea Room and scrounged a salad from the twins, who seemed strangely uninterested in discussing the murders.
“Of course, Carla and Trish still want to know who killed their dad,” June said, “but we were only asking around because Danny couldn’t afford a real detective.”
“And now that he’s going to be off the hook—” said May.
“—we can leave it to the police,” said June.
What mainly seemed to occupy their thoughts was where they were going to live after Parents’ Day at
