“Won’t be too hard,” he countered. “Remember… Be careful.”
“I will. I’ll try to call later. Bye.”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
She slipped the cell phone into her pocket then pulled her glove back onto her bare hand. As she walked over to the passenger side of the sheriff’s department cruiser, she thought about her relationship with Ben. It had been a tumultuous on-again, off-again ride that spanned several years now. The length of the breaks varied, but somehow they always came back together, so it was obvious that they cared for one another.
That much was evident in the words they exchanged.
And in the time they spent together.
And the sex… The oh-my-God-sex that was better than she had ever expected it could be, what with him being fifteen years her senior. She’d dated men half his age who couldn’t keep up with him, so there definitely weren’t any complaints there. At least not from her, and he always seemed more than satisfied.
Then she wondered silently why even with all that, neither of them ever seemed to be able to bring themselves to say to the other, “I love you.”
Under the circumstances, who knew? But maybe that was a good thing.
CHAPTER 11
“Afternoon, Martha,” Sheriff Carmichael greeted the woman as she drew herself up from her chair and made her way over to the front desk. Then he asked, “How is she today?”
Constance glanced around the clean but small lobby area. The squat, somewhat new sign at the entrance to the semicircular drive read Holly-Oak Assisted Living Facility. Inside, the building itself looked more like what her grandparents use to call a “rest home.”
Holly-Oak was obviously well maintained, but from an architectural standpoint it had definitely been around a while. Of course, that seemed to be an ongoing theme in Hulis, as with many other small towns where time itself seemed to be on an extended holiday. It also hadn’t escaped her notice that a funeral home was located directly across the street, well within view from any of the facility’s front windows; in her way of thinking, not exactly the most comforting vista for the residents. In fact, it brought the old adage, “location, location, location,” right to the forefront of her thoughts.
“Afternoon, Skip.” The woman returned the sheriff’s greeting, then answered, “She’s Merrie,” punctuating the words with a shrug, as if that simple statement and gesture said it all.
Given the knowing nod the sheriff offered in response, for the two of them, apparently it did.
“So, how’s Kathy?” Martha asked as Sheriff Carmichael signed the visitor’s register. From her posture it was readily apparent that she was ignoring the fact that Constance was even present. There was also an audible tension in her voice that more than indicated the pleasantries, while sincere, were for some unknown reason forced.
“Feisty as ever,” he replied. “I stopped tryin’ to keep up with her a long time ago.”
She nodded. “Smart man. And the girls?”
“Fine, fine. Doing fine,” he replied. “Cyn came home on break Friday.”
“This is her last year at Mizzou, isn’t it?”
“Supposed to be,” he grunted. “But she takes after her mother, so she’s making noise about going after her Masters.”
“Good for her.”
“So, Martha,” Carmichael said, shifting the subject toward the inevitable as he wagged a thumb at Constance. “I’m sure you know why we’re here. This is Special Agent Mandalay from…”
“I know, I know,” she replied before he could finish. “I’ve been expecting you all morning. Then I got the call from Stella not fifteen minutes ago.”
“Yeah, not surprised. She’s got a big mouth, just like her mother.”
Constance reached in to her jacket to extract her credentials, but the woman stopped her. “Don’t bother. You’re with Skip, that’s all I need to know…or want to know, for that matter.” Her voice held more than a hint of disgust as she almost spat the comment.
“I’d like to speak with Merrie, if that’s possible,” Constance said, leaving her badge case stowed in its pocket and slowly pulling back her hand.
“When are you people going to leave that poor girl alone?” the woman demanded. “Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”
“Calm down, Martha,” the sheriff said. “She’s just doin’ her job. You know that.”
“I thought her job was to find whoever is doing this killing,” she replied, directing herself solely at him. “I don’t know how dredging up the past for that poor girl every year is going to do that.”
“I know, Martha, I know…” he soothed.
She scowled at Constance for a moment, then snorted in disgust as she turned away from the counter and headed back toward her desk. “She’s in her room, Skip,” she called over her shoulder. “Just keep an eye on the time. You know as well as anyone what day it is.”
“What does she mean by that?” Constance asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Sheriff Carmichael said as he stepped back and pointed toward a door off the side of the lobby, indicating that she should go first. “It’s this way.”
Mandalay gave him a puzzled look. “Shouldn’t we wait? You did contact her state-appointed advocate, correct? I assumed that was the call you were making earlier.”
“Nope. She doesn’t have one.”
“If she has diminished faculties as you’ve said, then she definitely should.”
“Special Agent Mandalay,” he replied, a mix of bemusement and disingenuous formality in his words. “In case it has escaped your attention, this whole damn town is Merrie Callahan’s advocate. We’d all pretty much adopted her even before her parents were killed in that accident. Believe me, if you get your toes anywhere near the line, they’re gonna get broken, I don’t give a damn who you work for.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to protect our little girl…so will anyone else here in Hulis. And just so you know, that’s not a threat, sugar; it’s a promise.”
The carved, wooden sign on the door looked like one you would pick out from the pages of a personalized gifts catalog-the kind that had overpriced trinkets made to appear worth the cost because of the custom engraving. It was definitely too perfect to have been handmade. The router work had almost certainly been done by a programmed machine in a factory where they churned
out fancy name plaques by the hundreds each hour. In a deeply recessed outline font it read simply, MERRIE’S ROOM.
The door itself was only partially closed, with a gap of just a few inches left between it and the jamb. Through the sliver of an opening, the keyboard-heavy, pop music beat of a song floated on the air, although it was barely recognizable through the scratchy hiss of static that overlaid the notes.
Sheriff Carmichael tilted his head and listened closely for several seconds, then turned to Constance and said, “ Love Will Keep Us Together.”
“Excuse me?”
“The song,” he said, gesturing at the door. “ Love Will Keep Us Together. The Captain and Tennille.”
“Oh…” Constance replied, nodding. “I thought I’d heard it before.”
He shot her a half grin. “I guess you probably aren’t quite old enough to remember it, but they were on the Top Forty that year.”
She nodded but remained silent.
The sheriff reached out, hesitated, then gave a light, tentative knock on the surface of the door. After several seconds had passed with no answer, he cleared his throat then rapped his knuckles against it a bit harder and called out, “Merrie?”
A moment later the volume on the music ramped sharply downward, and a slightly frightened sounding
