Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,60
cousin arrived at the market at the same time I did. She still didn’t know that I knew about her alcohol problem, and I wasn’t about to tell her. She looked perky this morning, smelled fine, no cigarette smoke smell at all, and she didn’t have hangover breath.
“Big night?” she asked, looking me over.
“I look that bad?”
Carrie Ann shrugged. “I’ve seen you better.”
The morning’s business started slow. I had plenty of spare time to putter with displays. And to think. My ex-husband, Clay, had been on my mind way too much lately. When I saw him, I’d been convinced he hadn’t killed Faye, but now I wondered if it was possible. Emotionally, I was a confused mess.
“Everybody’s home nursing hangovers,” Carrie Ann said at one point, sounding slightly wistful that she hadn’t participated in the morning-after headaches and stomach churns. “Should I leave? I could really use the money, though.”
“Stay,” I told her. It was the least I could do for her after my disgraceful behavior with her boyfriend. “I have to follow up on some things. This is a good time to take care of them.”
I needed to know why Stanley Peck had a bee reference book from the library. And why the nonexistent Gerald Smith was searching for Manny Chapman’s journal. Not to mention the rumors surfacing about Clay and Grace.
I drove my truck into Waukesha and used my driver’s license to get into the jail.
“I’m Clay Lane’s wife,” I said, showing them my ID, which still said “Melissa Lane.” I made a note to myself to hold off changing the last name on my license until some time when I didn’t need to pump my ex for information while he was incarcerated. Although claiming that I was Clay’s wife made me almost physically ill.
“We buried Manny Chapman yesterday,” I told Clay from the free side of the Plexiglas. “Grace took it hard.” Clay’s expression didn’t give anything away. If he had a secret affair going with Manny’s wife, he didn’t show it.
Clay looked out of place in a jumpsuit, a sad fashion statement coming from a man who wore a diamond earring. “Aren’t you here to get me out, honey?” he said.
“Quit calling me honey. And I can’t get you out. Why would you think that?”
“I thought, when they said you were here, that . . .”
“Bail’s been set, then?”
“This morning.”
“I’m not here to bail you out.” Did he really think I would bail him out even if I could? “How’s the food?” I asked, not sure what to say. This was my first experience visiting someone in jail. Should we move to small talk? The weather? The comings and goings of mutual acquaintances?
Clay took the lead. “You didn’t come to ask about my jail diet. You came to hear me say I killed my girlfriend so you can go back to Moraine and spread it around. Well, I didn’t do it,” he said. “I didn’t kill Faye.”
“That’s not why I’m here. I want you to talk to Johnny Jay, admit that you tried to frame me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You went to the library.” I added an accusatory tone to my voice for maximum effect.
“Is that a crime now, too?”
If Clay was playing dumb, he was doing a good job of it. But then, he’d had plenty of practice.
“You tried to set me up, to make it look like I killed Faye,” I said. “You used the library computer to send an e-mail to the police chief, lying about seeing me arguing with Faye.”
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
“So Johnny Jay would lock me up instead of you. But it backfired on you.”
Clay stared at me. “You’ve finally gone over the edge.”
“Not me. Nope. If anyone went over the edge, it was you. Did you snap? Because the man I knew, the man I remember, was a rotten husband and a womanizer, but I never thought he was a killer. Or that he’d stoop so low as to try to blame me.”
I was getting worked up, hot and flushed at the thought of what he’d tried to do to me after all the stuff I’d already endured because of him. “You deserve to rot here,” I said.
“Guard?” Clay looked around wildly, but he was locked in a cubicle-sized room with no way out. For once, he couldn’t run away from me. “Can someone take me back to my cell? Please?”
No one responded.
“And another thing,” I continued, “you slept with Grace Chapman. How could you?”
“Oh, please.”