Twisted: The Collected Short Stories of Jeffery Deaver

Ralston nodded after her. 'Everybody's sure polite in Pine Creek. Takes a while for a New Yorker to get used to it.'

'I'll tell you, Mr. Ralston —'

'Bill, please.'

'Bill… It's second nature down here. Being polite. My mother said a person should put on their manners every morning the way they put on their clothes.'

He smiled at the homily.

And speaking of clothes… Sandra May didn't know what to think of his. Bill Ralston was dressed… well, Northern. That was the only way to describe it. Black suit and a dark shirt. No tie. Just the opposite of Jim — who wore brown slacks, a powder-blue shirt and a tan sports coat as if the outfit were a mandatory uniform.

'That's your husband?' he asked, looking at the pictures on the wall.

'That's Jim, yes,' she said softly.

'Nice-looking man. Can I ask what happened?'

She hesitated for a minute and Ralston picked up on it immediately.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I shouldn't've asked. It's —'

But she interrupted. 'No, it's all right. I don't mind talking about it. A fishing accident last fall. At Billings Lake. He fell in, hit his head and drowned.'

'Man, that's terrible. Were you on the trip when it happened?'

Laughing hollowly, she said, 'I wish I had been, I could've saved him. But, no, I only went with him once or twice. Fishing's so… messy. You hook the poor thing, you hit it over the head with a club, you cut it up… Besides, I guess you don't know the Southern protocol. Wives don't fish.' She gazed up at some of the pictures. Said reflectively, 'Jim was only forty-seven. I guess when you're married to someone and you think about them dying you think it'll happen when they're old. My mother died when she was eighty. And my father passed away when he was eighty-one. They were together for fifty-eight years.'

'That's wonderful.'

'Happy, faithful, devoted,' she said wistfully.

Loretta brought the tea and vanished again with the demure exit of a discreet servant.

'So,' he said. 'I'm delighted the attractive woman I picked up so suavely actually gave me a call.'

'You Northern boys are pretty straightforward, aren't you?'

'You betcha,' he said.

'Well, I hope it's not going to be a blow to your ego when I tell you that I asked you here for a purpose.'

'Depends on what that purpose is.'

'Business,' Sandra May said.

'Business is a good start,' he said. Then he nodded for her to continue.

'I inherited all the stock in the company when Jim died and I became president. I've been trying to run the show best I can but the way I see it' — she nodded to where the accountant's reports sat on the desk — 'unless things improve pretty damn fast we'll be bankrupt within the year. I got a bit of insurance money when Jim died so I'm not going to starve, but I refuse to let something my husband built up from scratch go under.'

'Why do you think I can help you?' The smile was still there but it had less flirt than it had a few minutes ago — and a lot less than last Sunday.

'My mother had this saying. 'A Southern woman has to be a notch stronger than her man.' Well, I am that, I promise you.'

'I can see,' Ralston said.

'She also said, 'She has to be a notch more resourceful too.' And part of being resourceful is knowing your limitations. Now, before I married Jim I had three and a half years of college. But I'm in over my head here. I need somebody to help me. Somebody who knows about business. After what you were telling me on Sunday, at the club, I think you'd be just the man for that.'

When they'd met — he'd explained that he was a banker and broker. He'd buy small, troubled businesses, turn them around and sell them for a profit. He'd been in Atlanta on business and somebody had recommended he look into real estate in northeast Georgia, here in the mountains, where you could still get good bargains on investment and vacation property.

'Tell me about the company,' he said to her now.

She explained that DuMont Products Inc., with sixteen full-time employees and a gaggle of high school boys in the summer, bought crude turpentine from local foresters who tapped longleaf and slash pine trees for the substance.

'Turpentine… That's what I smelled driving up here.'

After Jim had started the company some years ago Sandra May would lie in bed next to his sleeping form, smelling the oily resin — even if he'd showered. The scent had never seemed to leave him. Finally she'd gotten used to it. She sometimes wondered exactly when she'd stopped noticing the piquant aroma.

She continued, telling Ralston, 'Then we distill the raw turpentine into a couple different products. Mostly for the medical market.'

'Medical?' he asked, surprised. He took his jacket off and draped it carefully on the chair next to him. Drank more iced tea. He really seemed to enjoy it. She thought New Yorkers only drank wine and bottled water.

'People think it's just a paint thinner. But doctors use it a lot. It's a stimulant and antispasmodic.'

'Didn't realize that,' he said. She noticed that he'd started to take notes. And that the flirtatious smile was gone completely.

'Jim sells…' Her voice faded. 'The company sells the refined turpentine to a couple of jobbers. They handle all the distribution. We don't get into that. Our sales seem to be the same as ever. Our costs haven't gone up. But we don't have as much money as we ought to. I don't know where it's gone and I have payroll taxes and unemployment insurance due next month.'

She walked to the desk and handed him several accounting statements. Even though they were a mystery to her he pored over them knowingly, nodding. Once or twice he lifted his eyebrow in surprise. She suppressed an urge to ask a troubled What?

Sandra May found herself studying him closely. Without the smile — and with this businesslike concentration on his face — he was much more attractive. Involuntarily she glanced at her wedding picture on the credenza. Then her eyes fled back to the documents in front of them.

Finally he sat back, finished his iced tea. 'There's something funny,' he said. 'I don't understand it. There've been some transfers of cash out of the main accounts but there's no record of where the money went. Did your husband mention anything to you about it?'

'He didn't tell me very much about the company. Jim didn't mix business and his home life.'

'How about your accountant?'

'Jim did most of the books himself… This money? Can you track it down? Find out what happened? I'll pay whatever your standard fee is.'

'I might be able to.'

She heard a hesitancy in his voice. She glanced up.

He said, 'Let me ask you a question first.'

'Go ahead.'

'Are you sure you want me to go digging?'

'How do you mean?' she asked.

His sharp eyes scanned the accounting sheets as if they were battlefield maps. 'You know you could hire somebody to run the company. A professional businessman or woman. It'd be a hell of a lot less hassle for you. Let him or her turn the company around.'

She kept her eyes on him. 'But you're not asking me about hassles, are you?'

After a moment he said, 'No, I'm not. I'm asking if you're sure you want to know anything more about your husband and his company than you do right now.'

'But it's my company now,' she said firmly. 'And I want to know everything. Now, all the company's books are over there.' She pointed to a large, walnut credenza. It was the piece of furniture atop which sat their wedding picture.