Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,47
out the weak points in the plant management. That’s what I was brought in to do.”
“Not a popular job.”
“No. I’ve made some people mad,” he said matter-of-factly. “But it’s going to make the plant more efficient in the long run.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Just Wednesday and Thursday. I’ll fly back in Friday morning. But why don’t we have lunch today? Meet me out at the Athletic Club at twelve-thirty, and we’ll go from there, if that suits your plans.”
“Okay. But please let me take you to lunch this time, my treat.”
The look on his face had to be seen to be believed. I burst into giggles.
“You know, that’s the first time a woman ever offered to take me out,” he said finally. “Other men have told me it’s happened to them. But never to me. A first.” He tried very hard not to glance around at my apartment, so much humbler than any place he’d be used to living in since he’d climbed the business ladder.
“We don’t have to go to McDonald’s,” I said gently.
“Sweetheart, you don’t have a job—”
“Martin, I’m rich.” Gosh, that word still gave me a thrill.
“Maybe not what you would think of as rich, but still I have plenty of money.”
“Inherited?” he asked.
“Uh-huh. From a little old lady who just wanted me to have it.”
“No relation?”
“None.”
“You’re just a lucky woman,” Martin said, and proceeded to demonstrate just how lucky I was.
“You’ll mess up your suit,” I said after a moment.
“Damn the suit.”
“You told me you have an appointment at eight-thirty.”
He released me reluctantly.
“See you later,” he said.
I gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “Twelve-thirty,” I said.
I had an unpleasant task to face that morning. I had decided I should go see Susu. All the people who wrote in to “Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby” complained that they felt neglected when someone in the family had serious legal problems or went to jail, that people tried to act as if it hadn’t happened or stayed away entirely. While Jimmy hadn’t exactly been arrested, I didn’t want to be a fair-weather friend to Susu, though time and circumstance had certainly created a gulf between us. So I pulled on a bright sweater and black pants, and red boots to go with the sweater. Cheerful, casual—as if it were an everyday catastrophe that had befallen the Hunter family.
It took me a second to recognize Susu when she came to the door. Her veneer was stripped away, and so much of Susu depended on that veneer. Her shoulders sagged, her eyes were red-rimmed, her clothes were—it seemed—deliberately shabby and old. She looked as if she’d reached back in her closet for the things she was saving to pull on when she painted the carport. There were dirty dishes piled up in the sink. Susu was not only genuinely a woman in the midst of a crisis, she was also acting out the part.
“Where are the kids?” I asked cautiously.
“I sent them to my sister in Atlanta.” As if she’d put them in a box and taken them down to the post office.
“You’re here all by yourself?”
“Not a soul has come by except our minister.”
“What’s the story on Jimmy?”
“He’s down at our lawyer’s office right now. They kept him all day yesterday. I think they may arrest him today.”
“Susu, you think he did it!”
“What else can I think?”
“Well, I don’t think he did it.”
“You don’t?” She sounded amazed.
“Susu! Of course not!”
“His fingerprints were in the Anderton house.”
“So? Hasn’t it occurred to you there are several ways they could have gotten there without him having been the one to kill Tonia Lee?”
“Like how, Roe? Just tell me how!”
“Maybe some other realtor showed him over the house. Maybe Tonia Lee did show him the house, and then he left and her date showed up and killed her!”
“Jimmy must have been having an affair with her, Roe. Then she threatened to tell me or the kids and he killed her. He must have just lost his temper.”
“I could kick you in the rear, Susu Hunter. You are making up things you can’t possibly know. You get yourself into that shower upstairs and get your nice clothes on and put on your makeup and go down to your lawyer’s office and you ask him yourself.”
I was probably doing exactly the wrong thing. Susu would get down there and Jimmy would say, “Yeah, I did it. And I had been having an affair with her, too.”