their little pink cottage for chicken and whatever else Aunt Regina had planned.
”A boy,” I said, when Carrie was strapped into the back seat and we were strapped into the front, and Rafe was behind the wheel and navigating the Chevy back in the direction of the mansion.
He nodded. “I didn’t see that coming.”
I hadn’t either, although I saw no reason to admit it. “That takes Laura Lee out, if not Frankie.”
“Plus a whole lotta other boys,” Rafe said. “Frankie wasn’t gay, though. Not if he married Laura Lee.”
No. But— “He might have experimented. Some boys do.” Some girls, too, at least from what I hear. I’ve never had a single romantic or sexual feeling toward anyone of my own gender, ever, but some people are more fluid.
I knew Rafe wasn’t. We’d discussed Big Ned before—the cell mate he hadn’t had at Riverbend Penitentiary—and he’d assured me that Big Ned didn’t exist and nothing like that had happened to him.
“And some boys get raped,” I added. “That doesn’t just happen to girls.”
My husband nodded. “It woulda been statutory rape either way, if the boy was underage. But if Jurgensson assaulted him, he wouldn’t need to be gay.”
“And might be struggling with some issues because of it.”
Rafe nodded again. “Hard to see the progression from that to killing a bunch of women, though.”
Yes, it was. If he’d gone on to kill a bunch of middle-aged, gay men, that would make more sense.
“This is confusing,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” Rafe answered, and zoomed past the entrance to the mansion.
I looked at it over my shoulder. “What’s going on?”
He glanced at me. “Did you have something planned for dinner?”
Well, no. I was here, with him. If I’d had something planned, I’d be home, cooking.
“You mentioned Beulah’s,” Rafe said. “I got hungry.”
“And you want to ask Yvonne if she knows anything about Jurgensson.”
“Yvonne’s younger than me,” Rafe said. “It happened years before she went to Columbia High.”
“She’s from Damascus, though. She might know something about Frankie and Laura Lee.”
“Can’t hurt to ask,” Rafe said, and headed for the small cinderblock building.
Eleven
Yvonne McCoy is my brother Dix’s age—a year younger than Rafe, two older than me—and in high school, the two of them had a brief fling.
Yvonne and Rafe, I mean. She isn’t Dix’s type, although she’d like to be. I think Yvonne would like to be everyone’s type. She likes men, has been married more than once, and going on a year ago now, she inherited Beulah’s Meat’n Three after Beulah Odom passed on. There’s still some question as to whether that passing was natural or not, but Yvonne isn’t a suspect, and Todd doesn’t seem inclined to get busy indicting the wife and daughter of Otis Odom, who’d be the guilty parties if Beulah was killed…
Anyway, we walked through the door, and Yvonne was standing there at the hostess station with her hair—flaming red—piled on top of her head and a big grin on her face.
“Saw you coming,” she told us. “Evening, princess.”
That’s her nickname for me, so I answered politely. “Hi, Yvonne.”
“Hi, precious.” She tickled Carrie’s feet. Carrie gurgled and Yvonne laughed. She doesn’t have any children of her own, and I sometimes wonder if she wishes she did. Or whether she just wishes she had Rafe’s baby.
She turned to him. “Evening, handsome. Saw a friend of yours earlier.”
Rafe arched a brow. “Yeah? Everything OK?”
“Fine,” Yvonne said. “You two here for dinner?”
Why else would we be here?
And then the import of that ‘friend of yours’ statement sank in. Clayton Norris had been by, and had reported to Yvonne that all was well, and now she was passing on the message.
“Yeah,” Rafe said. “I need me some meatloaf and peach cobbler.”
“Let’s get you to a table, then.” She grabbed two menus and preceded us down the aisle between the booths by the window and the breakfast counter. Her hips were swaying underneath a tight, black skirt, and Rafe grinned at me when I caught him looking.
“Been there, done that,” he told me, sotto voce.
“Just as long as you don’t plan to go there again,” I answered, as I slid into the booth Yvonne indicated.
She tilted her head. “Go where?”
“Nowhere,” Rafe told her. He maneuvered onto the seat across from me, and Yvonne distributed the two menus.
“What can I get you to drink?”
I ordered a sweet tea and Rafe a Coke, since Beulah’s doesn’t run to fine wine or beer. Yvonne nodded and reached for the car seat. “I’ll just take this little