'Quitcher yammerin', Tripplehorn!' Furmeister said with a wheeze. 'If Judge Legg says you killed his little girl, that's all I need to know! You're goin' nowhere!'
My eyes widened. The paperwork strewn on the deputy's desk suddenly seemed beneath my snooping.
'You know damn well I never touched a hair on Lucy's head!' retorted a familiar voice.
The bottom of my stomach dropped. Silently I stepped toward the cells, sensing the deputy would bait his prisoner all night unless I intervened. I couldn't believe what I was hearing! How could Lucy Legg be dead, when- 'Well, I know what you did touch, you cocky dog-'cause I watched you in that alley yesterday! Shoulda hauled your ass to jail right then and there, but-'
'But you were whacking off, wishing you could pump her!' Billy shot back. 'Since you saw the whole thing, you know Lucy started it. And you know I've been sweet on her for a long-'
'Yeah, yeah-it's long, all right, but this time that cock of yours got caught in the wrong-'
'Excuse me, gentlemen, is there a problem?' I interrupted in my most intimidating Alex Moore voice. 'I heard your argument all the way from the street! What's going on here?'
Virgil turned as fast as his bulk allowed him, giving me a profile shot of a middle-aged, blue-uniformed man who might've swallowed a bowling ball. 'Workin' late, Counselor?' he asked slyly.
'Seems we both are,' I replied, keeping my face blandly composed. This dimwitted lawman knew who paid his wages, just as I was the only lawyer the locals could hire when they got hauled into Judge Legg's courtroom. Not that Virgil and I would've been friends under different circumstances. 'And since I wasn't called to consult with Mr. Tripplehorn, I can also assume that his rights have been abridged-or ignored altogether. Correct?'
Furmeister sneered at my fancy vocabulary-and because he was privy to information he wanted to rub my nose in. 'Billy's bein' held on the magistrate's orders, and that's all there is to know. I hear tell Judge Legg's lookin' for you, too, Counselor. Somethin' about bein' an accessory, helpin' Billy here escape. Somethin' about two funerals- Miss Lucy's tomorrow, and the end of your practicin' law in this town.'
I raised an eyebrow. If Virgil had seen the rutting couple in the alley, and watched me driving Billy out of town, he also knew that Lucy Legg was very much alive-making a noisy plea to her daddy-when we left. So why was the magistrate holding Billy for murder? And why was Furmeister going along with it?
The answers fell somewhere between dusk, when Billy had escaped with me, and daylight, when he'd run from the Sisters of Samaria…or perhaps from a desperate Andrea who wanted to keep him for herself.
Either way, discussing the details in front of this lame-brained deputy was a mistake. I straightened to my full height and gave Billy a purposeful look-but my insides nearly melted at the sight of him. With his powerful hands wrapped around those iron bars and his defiant eyes shining as hard as dark marbles beneath those mussed umber waves, he was the picture of a rebel…the sort of reckless, devil-be-damned lover every woman wished would bed her. He'd been wearing Virgil down with his demands, figuring the old toad couldn't last much longer without sleep-or fortifying himself at the cafe. No doubt Tripplehorn had plans to disappear after a daring escape that would leave the natives talking for months to come. Every man his age considered himself invincible, after all.
'Don't say anything, and don't do anything foolish,' I warned him in my best advisor's voice. 'I'm going to question Judge Legg about this matter, and then I'll be back for you.'
'You'll be back to fill that other cell, Mr. Moore,' Virgil taunted, his belly vibrating with laughter. 'The magistrate won't take kindly to bein' woke in the middle of the night, after the day he's had losin' Lucy. You'll be sorry you ever met Mr. Tripplehorn here!'
I'd had that thought before-about the time those three lady vamps started circling Billy in the parlor, and again when Pandora's tarot cards foretold doom and gloom for this relationship. I swallowed hard. Here was that Tower card predicting a bolt from the blue for that blonde Empress, who resembled Lucy. 'Things that have passed away,' the witchy woman had intoned as she placed the cards on the table.
And now Lucy was dead. And Billy-and I, by association-were being held responsible, despite the absurdity of Harold Legg's accusation. I was the only one who could get to the bottom of this; the only one who could clear Billy's name. But as I strode from the overheated jailhouse into the night, I knew better than to ignore Virgil's bluster completely: if I, as Alex Moore, got thrown into jail on such trumped-up charges, justice would never be served. I would have to outfox Judge Legg at his own game…take advantage of the grief and emotions that overrode his legal expertise, to gather some irrefutable facts about how and when his daughter had died.
I drove to my office and parked the buggy behind the false-fronted building, so I could slip in through my back door. I had a lot to think about in a very short time, for if Lucy's funeral was tomorrow-allowing no time for the customary condolence calls and prayer vigils-any evidence I might find on her body would soon be buried. And while a woman in love might do some mighty outlandish things to prove her young stud innocent, grave digging went beyond my limits.
Something smacked of concealment here. What father would rush his beloved daughter into her coffin, denying himself those final, precious hours of her presence…unless he didn't want folks looking her over too closely?
Had Harold Legg learned his beloved little girl was pregnant? Had he killed her in his wrath-or to uphold his reputation in this repressive little town?
My stomach rumbled uneasily at the thought, for this seemed a much more logical motive than Billy Tripplehorn had. And the magistrate's authoritarian temper was legend, while the young man he'd jailed might have gone along with Lucy's scheme-at least until he tired of living with a peevish young mother and her squalling infant. Even then, I couldn't believe he'd strike out in anger. Not after the way he'd handled me in bed.
Whatever the case, I couldn't simply knock on the Judge's door and demand an explanation, straight up. My chances at the truth were better if I didn't run across Harold Legg at all-at least until I'd seen Lucy's body and mulled over all the possible scenarios for her demise. While I'd always thought her shallow and conniving and rotten beyond redemption, she was merely a girl who'd tried an age-old solution for an untimely pregnancy. She didn't deserve to die for it! Nor did Billy need to be her scapegoat.
As I mulled these things over, I was slipping out of Alex's suit and sideburns, to put on a simple dress I kept hidden in my little back room-it saved Andrea countless trips to the mansion when she needed to shop for orphanage supplies or food. I had to concoct a careful story, however, because the overseer of so many young children had no valid reason for being in town at this hour. The clock on my office mantel was striking twelve as I brushed my long hair over my shoulders. A few quick swipes of a wet cloth removed the masculine shadow along my jaw, and the small mirror pronounced me female again. Female, and plain enough not to attract attention as the shepherdess of Redemption's little lost sheep.
Could I pull the wool over Legg's eyes? Or, more importantly, could I convince the undertaker, Nathaniel Dammet, I had a legitimate reason to see Lucy? These days, the mortician's art had taken on a secretive side akin to black magic; things that went on in his embalming room rendered the dead viewable for years-not to mention more pleasant to be around on hot summer days. Much more complicated and formalized than dusting the skin with cornstarch and putting heavy coins on the eyelids, for visitation in the family's own parlor. I was hoping the hurried nature of Lucy's funeral would mean Nat was still working on her- And the light glowing through the downstairs curtains of the huge old home, which sat like a sentinel at the gates of Redemption Cemetery, told me it was my lucky night. If one could consider a midnight visit to a mortician lucky.
I approached the back door, my heart thumping hard. What did one say to a man who prepared the dead for a living? Bad enough that Nathaniel Dammet had been cursed with such a name, by a mother prone to flights of fanatical fantasy. The poor man was also deformed…a victim of his mother's Old Testament philosophy of 'if your eye offends you, pluck it out.'
Seems that when Nat was about twelve, she caught him on a snowy day practicing his penmanship before an audience of admiring girls, and the sight of that yellow ink in the snow drove Miranda Dammet over the edge. After that, nobody questioned why her husband had disappeared, years before. She'd whacked her son's offending member! Had a neighbor not rushed him to the doctor, Nathaniel might've died!
No doubt, over the years, he was wishing he had, since his name couldn't be mentioned without a reminder of his mother's affront to his manhood. Everyone in Redemption believed he took up taxidermy as a hobby just to irritate her-and then, as the final blow to her fragile sanity, he'd attended embalming school. Dammet was the wealthiest man in town, but what did that matter when everyone whispered about his…deformity, and the unspeakable acts he probably performed on a corpse? Rumor had it that when Miranda passed on, Nat preserved her in some gawdawful pose and relegated her to the bowels of this house-although no one had actually seen this monument to his final revenge.
Such thoughts gave me pause as I stood at the back door. Maybe Billy should come up with his own defense,
