how deeply Tommy Asher and Harlan Jennings had reached into the bank accounts and investment portfolios of friends and neighbors, it was Thelma Johnson.
Just as all roads once led to Rome, all news in Atoka—that is to say, gossip—eventually ended up at the General Store, where it was rinsed and spun through Thelma’s quirky worldview before being rereleased as something that belonged in a supermarket tabloid. I figured it was her addiction to soap operas that made her find drama and evidence of at least one—and usually more—of the seven deadly sins in every corner of our sleepy little village.
She was sitting by the space heater in her favorite spindle-back rocking chair reading one of her soap magazines when I arrived. Though seventy was probably in the rearview mirror, Thelma always dressed with the giddy joie de vivre of a teenager whose parents hadn’t seen her before she left the house on a date. Too much makeup and not enough fabric. At her age, the effect could be more Halloween scary than vampish flirt. Today she was dressed entirely in lilac—short skirt, plunging V-neck sweater, matching stiletto mules, and a mauve and lilac scarf tied around her carrot-colored mop of curls. Though I expect the effect was meant to be stylishly chic, the ends of the scarf flopping on either side of her head reminded me of Bugs Bunny.
She set her magazine on a small table next to the rocker and adjusted her trifocals, beaming when she realized who I was. I knew that look well enough. Thelma could get a monk who had taken a vow of silence to talk. If she thought I knew something, I wouldn’t leave until she knew it, too.
“Why, Lucille, honey! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
She jumped up and scooted around to the vintage enamel-top table where she kept three kinds of coffee brewing in pots labeled “Regular,” “Decaf,” and “Fancy.”
“Looking a mite tired, aren’t you, child? How about a nice cup of coffee? I got the usual, but you look like you could use an extra bit of pepping up. Today’s special is ‘Java Good One.’”
“I’ll take your special, thanks,” I said. “I could use a good one.”
Thelma never wasted time beating around the bush. “So what’s all this about you being with that young woman who went missing in the Potomac River?” She clicked her tongue. “What’s this world coming to, anyway, finding everything but her skivvies in that rowboat?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but she motored on as she handed me a large cup.
“Here you go. Fixed just the way you like it. One sugar, a little cream. Pull up that rocking chair, will you, child, and set a spell.” She gave me a significant look over the top of her glasses as I obeyed. “Rebecca, that’s her name, wasn’t it? Now that Asher fellow is saying she stole folks’ money. And then there’s that other hanky-panky I heard about. That affair.”
The Inquisition had commenced. Next would come the questions. Had Thelma found out about Connor, or was she referring to Harlan?
I drank some coffee, feeling my cheeks grow warm. “Wow, you’ve really ferreted out a lot of information, Thelma. Plus you have such an amazing memory for details.”
She smiled, looking pleased with herself. “Well, I tend to put things under a sharper microscope than most folks, Lucille.”
I kept a straight face. “I know that.”
“So, tell me.” She crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward as though we were coconspirators. “What kind of person was she? I know you know the truth about her. I promise, what you say won’t leave this room.”
Of course it wouldn’t. It didn’t need to go anywhere since everyone in Atoka would drop by the General Store and hear it right here from Thelma. I gave her the answer I’d given everyone from Detective Horne to Ian to Summer Lowe, knowing full well she wouldn’t be satisfied with it.
“I hadn’t seen her in twelve years and she didn’t confide any details about her personal life to me in the hour or so we spent together,” I said. “But I don’t believe she stole that money the way Tommy Asher said she did.”
Thelma nodded. I could tell I hadn’t convinced her, either, but she moved right along to the next subject.
“Well, then, what about the affair? You may as well come clean, Lucille.”
“Rebecca didn’t say anything to me about her love life.” Technically, she hadn’t. Everything I knew I’d learned from other people.
Thelma let one of her mules dangle flirtatiously off her foot. “Aren’t you the sly one? I can’t believe you don’t know about it.”
“About what?”
Her eyes searched my face through her thick lenses. Thelma knew better than anyone when I was holding back. “You know, you’re like me, child. We share that same psychotic ability when it comes to figuring out other people. We can sense the truth about what’s going on. Your sainted mother was like that, too. You know perfectly well that your friend was carrying on with Harlan Jennings, don’t you?”
I gave in. “I knew, but Rebecca didn’t tell me. How did you find out?”
“Oh, I’ve known for a while Harlan was having an affair. I just didn’t know it was your friend until the other day.”
“But how …?” I said, surprised.
She took off her glasses and rubbed them absently against her head scarf. “Why, because of Ali, of course. She’d come in here after driving back from Washington and teaching all day. She seemed so … melancholy, I guess. The boys were away at school and I know what buying dinner for one looks like.” She pressed her lips together. “You want to say something when you know someone’s heart is aching, but she’s got her pride—and a person’s got to respect that.”
“Oh, Thelma, how sad.”
I’d seen Ali’s outrage. Thelma saw through to her loneliness and hurt. Maybe she did have those psychotic sensibilities she talked about.
“What I don’t understand is how someone so book smart could be that blind to what’s going on right in front of her nose,” she said. “Him moving into town and setting up his little love nest. Why in the world did she put up with that?”
“Because she adores him,” I said. “And the boys.”
“Well, she’d certainly do anything to protect him, wouldn’t she?”
It hung in the air as Thelma waited for my reaction. Sure, Alison hated Rebecca. And I’d had my suspicions about just how far she would go to get rid of Rebecca and save her husband’s reputation. But I didn’t want to believe Ali would actually commit murder, nor did I want to admit any of this to Thelma.
“Define ‘anything.’”
“Whether Ali was involved in your friend’s disappearance.” Thelma put her glasses back on and watched me.
“I just can’t believe … she wouldn’t.”
“I don’t believe it, either, Lucille. It’d be a turrible waste of a good person. Just turrible. I mean Ali, not Harlan. I won’t say murder’s not on folks’ minds, but Harlan’s the one everyone wants to skin alive. The Romeos are madder ’n hornets they took up with him and let him pass all their money on to Tommy Asher.”
“I heard Harlan invested his own money with Asher Investments,” I said. “So he lost out, too.”
Thelma rapped her knuckles on the wooden arm of her rocker. “That boy’s a mile wide and an inch deep. I remember when he was growing up. Always had a taste for the good life, that one.”
“Thelma, he grew up with money.”
“Money, good looks, and that kind of easy aw-shucks charm that suckers folks in. He knows how to use it, too. Only thing he isn’t blessed with is a conscience.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” I said. “Do you really believe that?”
“Somewhere along the way he sold his soul, Lucille. Gave in to greed and temptation and now everybody who threw their lot in with him is paying the price. It’s a damn shame.” Her eyes glittered and I heard bitterness mixed in with the blame.
I got it now.
“Thelma, don’t tell me you invested with him, too? You’re one of the people who lost money?”
Thelma seemed to look through me for a long while, her head bobbing slightly. I couldn’t tell whether it was a
