Pick Your Poison

5

Willis followed me home from Shade, coming in on my heels through the back door when we arrived. To my dismay, Kate immediately invited him to dinner.

She had prepared an organic vegetable ragout, and we ate in the kitchen, probably because any concoction containing rutabagas was never meant to be eaten in a dining room the size of a football field. No, I consider rutabagas, turnips, and collard greens to be kitchen food, the kind of stuff you feed the dog when no one’s looking.

Willis seemed completely unruffled by our previous testy encounter, so after we finished eating, I reminded him about his offer of assistance when he’d come over yesterday. “I think that’s why you drove all the way to Shade today, right? To help me out?”

“That’s right.” Willis wiped a zucchini seed off his chin with his napkin.

“Then help me arrange for Ben to be moved north to Shade for burial as soon as the medical examiner releases his body.”

“What?” he said.

“I promised Ruth Grayson her husband could be buried back home, and I’m not sure how to start the ball rolling. Since you seem so all-fired anxious to be involved, maybe this assignment will satisfy your need.”

Willis turned to Kate. “Can’t you talk some sense into your sister?”

“I avoid telling Abby what to do,” Kate replied. “Makes it much easier to live with her that way.”

“You think it’s easy living with someone who thinks tofu is actually edible?” I shot back.

She just smiled.

“Anyway,” I went on, getting back to Wills. “I promised Ben’s widow, so please make the arrangements. Bill me at double your hourly rate, if that makes you feel better.”

“Hourly rate will suffice,” he replied tersely.

Kate broke the uncomfortable silence that followed. “One problem solved. Now for the other issue. Selling this house. Helping us with the legalities might be more up your alley, Willis.”

He flushed so deeply I feared his blood pressure might shoot off the charts. “The dirt hasn’t settled on Charlie’s grave and you’re selling his house?” He pushed away from the kitchen table, a jagged vein in his temple pulsing. He stomped over to the sink with his plate.

“This isn’t about Daddy, Willis,” I said. “Kate’s moving in with Terry, and the idea of living alone in an airplane hangar disguised as a house does not appeal to me. I need a smaller place.”

Willis turned and stared at me for a second, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Sounding calmer, he said, “What does Caroline think about this idea?”

“She doesn’t know yet,” I said.

“Really?” Willis said. “I suggest you inform her before the For Sale sign goes up. And now I’d better leave before you two spring something else on me.”

I walked him down the hall and across the foyer, surprised to see we had another visitor when I opened the door. Steven Bradley, my ex-husband, stood on the front porch, his finger ready to press the bell.

“Hi there,” he said.

New contact lenses, I noted. This time he’d chosen an intriguing sea green. I had to admit a little ocean in his eyes looked pretty darn good.

“I’ll be running along,” Willis said uneasily, glancing back and forth between us as he slipped past to the walkway.

Steven stepped inside. “I see my favorite girl has gotten her name into the newspaper—nice picture, by the way. So tell me, what’s been going on here, babe?”

“I am neither your babe nor your girl, a difference of opinion that probably explains why we’re divorced.”

He grinned wider. “I knew that. Sorry. How’s about you tell me the straight story? Because I’m not sure I can believe what I read in the Chronicle.”

“If you promise not to address me with any word synonymous with child,” I said.

He held up a hand. “Promise.”

We walked into the game room, his favorite spot when we lived here together—maybe because he’d purchased the big-screen TV, the DVD, stereo, and home-theater equipment himself. Steven sat down on the butter-colored leather sectional and stretched out his legs.

I sat next to him and started at the beginning, when I first discovered Ben in the greenhouse. By the time I finished, Steven was shaking his head in disbelief.

“And you’re doing a funeral for this Ruth person? Then what, Mother Teresa?”

“Save the sarcasm, Steven.”

“If I know you, Abby—and I do believe I’m familiar with every square inch of skin and strand of hair—you’re more than a little interested in why Ben got himself killed. Does your curiosity have anything to do with this charity project?”

“I would have helped Ruth Grayson no matter what. After finding Ben like that, I feel so... so... responsible.”

“Responsible? Some nutcase kills a guy and you feel responsible? I don’t get it.”

“I never took the time to get to know Ben, to really talk to him—and I should have.”

Steven reached over and took my hand. “You’ve had a rough few months since losing Charlie. Cut yourself some slack.”

“But why do I feel so guilty?”

“You got me.” He slid over and fingered a wisp of hair near my temple. “I like your hair short, by the way. Like the color, too. Red suits you.”

I could smell his soap, the hint of an unfamiliar cologne, and I was tempted. But I refused to give in, even though lust was powerful enough to transcend insight and obliterate a long list of unpleasant memories, at least temporarily.

I pushed his shoulder. “Stop it. And move back over there where you came from.”

He laughed. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He migrated about six inches away and intertwined his fingers behind his head. “Now tell me how you plan to solve Ben’s murder, ’cause I know you’ve been thinking about exactly that.”

“I’m not planning to solve anything. I might check a few facts concerning the old murder case, though.”

“And how will you do that?”

“Talk to people, maybe dig up old newspaper articles, search Ben’s room.”

“All the things police do, right?”

“Well, yes, but maybe they’ve overlooked something.”

“And where will all this snooping around lead you?”

“I have no idea, but Ben came here for a reason. I want to know why.”

“Even a horse with blinders on can see what’s up ahead, Abby. This could get you in big trouble.”

I drew up my legs and hugged them to my chest. “That idiot cop already thinks Kate or I had something to do with Ben’s death, so what have I got to lose?”

He grinned and nodded. “I like that.”

“What do you like?”

“The fact that someone else besides me has gotten under your skin.”

“Not funny, Steven. Let me remind you that no one, and I mean no one, ever pissed me off more than you did with all your drunken craziness.”

“Hey. We’re supposed to put the past behind us—at least that’s what you told me the last time we talked. I haven’t had a drink in one hundred and forty days, so I’m doing my part.”

“That’s what you keep saying.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Sorry. Guess you have been trying,” I muttered. But why in hell should I be sorry about anything? He was the one who owed the apologies.

I decided to retreat from this precarious ground by changing the subject. “By the way, Kate and I have decided to sell the house. She’s moving in with Terry, and I’m not sure I want to live here alone.”

“Don’t, then,” he said quickly. “Let me move back in.”

“No way. We failed miserably and completely as a couple, and I like to think I learn from my mistakes.”

“One of these days I’ll convince you I’m a changed man and you’ll reconsider.”

What he didn’t know was that I had reconsidered, and then reconsidered the reconsideration. Despite all our fights, despite the long nights when he left here and I didn’t know where he was, despite words that hung like a venomous cloud long after they were spoken, I still wanted Steven. But wanting someone and loving someone are very different.

“Listen,” I said, hoping to ease the tension between us. “I need some work done on the house in Galveston before we get any further into the hurricane season.”

“No kidding. I helped your daddy cart some boxes over there a few months before he died and told him as much.”

“Daddy actually let you help him with something?”

“You know something, Abby? He and I got along a whole lot better after you and I divorced. Guess he figured he had you back where he wanted you.”

“Point to Steven,” I replied, trying to sound like his jab didn’t bother me. “Do you have any big jobs pending?”

“I’m building one house, got appointments to talk with a few people about contracts. Nothing too time-consuming.”

“So you could look the place over, see what needs fixing?”

“I don’t know. I might brush up against you, or touch your hair, or smile at you too much if we work together. Get you all pissed off.”

“Quit it, Steven. We can be friends.”

“Sure. Friends,” he said, unsmiling.

After I gave him a key to the Galveston property, he left, still moping, and as I went upstairs to wash the Shade dust from my hair, I told myself I’d made a mistake asking him for help. But like Daddy used to say, it’s always easier to borrow trouble than give it away.