THE FUTURE WIDOW'S CLUB Read online

  "I realize that," Andy explained with exaggerated patience, "but after calling around all morning, you were the person I was directed to." He paused. "Has Randy already called you?" he asked with irritated suspicion. "Is that why I'm getting the run around?"

  Dubbed "Double Death" by the citizens of Moon Valley, Andy and Randy Holbrook were identical twins who'd gone into the funeral profession. Together, to start with, but three years into a prosperous career, they'd had a falling out and had since started individual businesses.

  Moon Valley could comfortably support one funeral home, but the population simply wasn't sufficient to support two, and as such, every time somebody died Andy and Randy fought over the body and the bereaved like a couple of mongrels over a soup bone. Dean had been called in to intervene countless times, and the issue had even been raised at several town hall meetings. People ought to be able to bury their loved ones in peace, they'd argued, not be harassed and hounded until they wished they were dead as well.

  Jake swallowed a beleaguered groan. "No, I haven't heard from Randy," he told him, hoping to end the call.

  "Good, because if he tells you that she's planning on using Eternal Rest as opposed to Heavenly Harvest then he's lying. She was in here just last week checking out pre-burial plans." He chuckled grimly. "Bet she wishes she'd gone ahead and purchased one then," Andy remarked somewhat gleefully. "Now it's really gonna cost her. Dying isn't cheap, Jake." He sighed sagely. "Not cheap at all."

  Jake stilled as every sense went on point. "She was in there last week?"

  "Yep, so this fish is dangling on my hook. Randy has no claim."

  "Do you remember what day she came in, Andy?"

  "I do. It was Thursday. I know because I always do a follow-up a week after initial contact. I tried to call her yesterday, but she wasn't available."

  Less than a week before the murder, Jake thought with an increasing feeling of dread. That wasn't good.

  "She took some pamphlets home, said she wanted to show them to her husband."

  "These plans, were they for her and him?"

  "Nope. Just him. But that's not really uncommon, I'm afraid. Lots of people have a hard time coming to terms with their mortality—to their detriment," he tutted woefully. "You should really think about having a little look-see yourself, Jake. It's never too early to make arrangements. Death is certain, you know."

  "I'll think about it," Jake told him distractedly. He uttered an abrupt goodbye, then sat back in his chair and rubbed his gritty eyes with the palms of his hands. What the hell had she done? he wondered, absolutely flabbergasted. Why in the hell had she been scoping out a pre-burial plan for her husband less than a week before he was murdered? She hadn't killed him—he knew it.

  Last night while Todd had worked his magic and Leon had dozed on the couch, he and Mike had tossed some scenarios around and Mike had skeptically suggested that she might have hired someone to do it. That didn't fit either. Murder just wasn't in Jolie's character. Furthermore, a hired hit man wouldn't have cut off Marshall's dick. That was a personal attack, one that suggested the killer had some connection with the victim. If not an intimate connection, then at least one significant enough for the person to truly despise him.

  And this case was going to be hard enough to crack without Jolie's bizarre behavior factored in. Leon had finally been able to take the body this morning around four. Last night, Jake and Mike had walked the perimeter of the house, looking for forced entry, discarded cigarette butts, footprints, anything that might indicate the presence of another person at the house.

  They'd found nothing.

  With the exception of the scene of the crime, their search inside had been equally futile. Jake had taken one end of the house, Mike the other. A glutton for punishment, he supposed, Jake had searched her room first. He'd found a box of sentimental mementoes stored deep in the back of her closet—a pressed posey necklace he'd made for her in grade-school, several cartoon Valentine cards signed in his untidy juvenile scrawl, pictures of them at various dances, an empty bottle of strawberry wine, the very one they'd shared the first time they'd made love. Jake swallowed. God, it had been so long ago, and yet the memory was still so vivid it could have been yesterday.

  Graduation night. While other kids were hosting or attending parties, most of them getting hammered, he and Jolie had strolled hand-in-hand off the football field and headed straight for his truck. They'd been waiting for years, planning this particular night for almost as long. He'd gotten an older cousin to buy the wine, had stopped at a gas station and fed the condom machine a handful of change until it had spit out ten of the damned things.

  Jake grinned, remembering. What the hell, he thought, tapping a pen against his desk. He'd been optimistic.

  Then they'd headed up to their secret spot at the lake. He'd built a fire, spread a blanket and they'd talked about the future for hours. They'd shared that bottle, laughed and cut up, had simply enjoyed the night … then on an old quilt under a blanket of bright stars and the promise of a bright future, they'd enjoyed each other.

  To this day, nothing could compare to the absolute perfection of that time. He'd been head over heels in love, half drunk and nervous as hell, no longer a boy, but not quite a man. She'd been sweetly shy, but eager and trusting, and she'd made him feel like the most important guy in the world.

  Jake released a slow breath. What he'd give to go back and have a talk with that boy, to tell him the things he knew now so that kid could avoid making the mistakes he'd made. But he couldn't, and no amount of wishing would make it so.

  At any rate, aside from the bathroom, they hadn't found anything incriminating anywhere in the house. The best Jake could figure, the killer had walked through the front door, followed the sound of the shower to the bathroom, then shot Marshall at point blank range. The assailant had turned off the water—Todd had found smudges consistent with gloved hands—had cut off his dick, with what, no one knew yet. Nothing in the house, they were relatively sure. A hand towel was missing from the rack behind the commode. Todd figured—and he hoped Jolie could confirm—that one had definitely been there, that the killer had used it to transport their odd trophy. Afterward, the culprit had turned the water back on, presumably to alert Jolie when she came home.

  Jake hadn't found any evidence to support it yet, but he firmly believed that whoever had killed Marshall had been waiting for Jolie to leave. Waiting where was anyone's guess. Probably the street. Not in the yard, he didn't think. He'd looked last night for clues, but planned on going back over this morning as soon as he finished taking Jolie's official report.

  He wanted to scour the house and surrounding area again today. Who knew? Maybe a few winks and the benefit of daylight would give him a fresh perspective.

  Talking with Andy the funeral director this morning certainly had, Jake thought grimly. Those were not the sort of discoveries he was interested in, that was for damned sure.

  Dean knocked a couple of times on the door frame, then walked into Jake's office. Lines of fatigue fanned out around his eyes and he had the pinched look that marked a night of too little or no sleep. "How's it coming?" he asked.

  Jake relayed the pertinent facts, then told him about his conversation with Andy. He pulled a tired shrug. "My gut tells me it's a dead end, but it's still—"

  "Odd," Dean finished. He arched a brow. "She's coming in this morning to file the official?"

  Jake nodded.

  "Are you keeping it under your hat, or are you going to ask her about it?"

  "I'm gonna ask her about it," Jake told him. "I want to get a read on her." He rubbed his eyes. "Like I told you last night, she hated him—no question there—but Jolie's not a murderer. She's just not wired that way."

  Dean hesitated. "You can't rule her out, Jake. You're gonna have to stick to her like glue. Given your history, can do you that? Better still, can you do it objectively?"

  Jake nodded and felt his gut clench at the impending lie. Be objective where Jolie
was concerned? Ha. "If I couldn't, I wouldn't have asked to stay on as lead."

  "Keep me updated," he said. "And let me know when you find his dick," he added darkly. "I'd like to hold a separate sort of ceremony for it, if you get my drift."

  Jake suddenly imagined Marshall's dick glued to the center of a bull's eye, a calmly furious Dean using it for target practice.

  He cleared his throat. "Er … how did everything—"

  "She's packing as we speak," Dean told him flatly. His lips twisted with bitter humor. "This wasn't the first time, Jake. It was just the last damned straw."

  Surprised, Jake swallowed, then said the only thing he could think of. "Shit, Dean. I'm sorry."

  "Ah, it's my own damned fault," he said wearily, leaning against the door frame. "I should have washed my hands of her the first time. She blamed the job, made me feel guilty. Said I wasn't paying enough attention to her." He pulled an offhand shrug. "I thought I owed it to the marriage to give it another go. So I did. At least this way I know I did everything I could to make it work." He shook his head. "Wasn't enough, but it wasn't my fault. She'll be the one to carry the weight of that mistake, and better her than me, eh?" He managed a half-hearted smile, then turned to go. "I'll expect daily reports and updates on all new developments."

  Jake nodded. "You got it." He glanced at his watch, noting the time. He'd give Jolie another ten minutes and if she wasn't here, he'd run her to ground. If she'd checked into pre-burial plans, just what the hell else was she hiding? he wondered. What else had she checked into? Jake tensed as the obvious answer to that question dawned in his puzzled mind. He swore, pulled the phonebook from the desk drawer, flipped to the yellow pages—to the I section, specifically—until he found the listings he was interested in.

  Insurance.

  If she'd taken out any new policies on Marshall recently, things would take a nasty turn from bad to worse. Dread ballooned in his gut, anticipating what he feared he'd find.

  Four calls later he found it. One-hundred-thousand. Added last Tuesday.

  A stream of profanity spewed from his lips. He blew out a heavy breath, sagged back in his chair and felt the beginnings of one helluva headache claw through his skull. For someone he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was innocent, she was certainly doing a damned bang-up job of looking guilty.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sophia popped a bite of maple link sausage into her mouth, shuffled over to her kitchen table and set the warmed blueberry syrup and stack of fresh, fluffy pancakes on the table. They joined a host of other breakfast favorites. Biscuits and gravy, grits, scrambled eggs, hot tea and orange juice. Stress tended to make her hungry and when that happened, she couldn't just settle for a mere muffin or a piece of toast—she had to eat buffet style.

  This was particularly unfortunate as she was supposed to be dieting.

  Sophia had battled her weight for years, diligently fighting every eager fat-storing cell in her body. The struggle would have been a whole lot easier if she didn't enjoy food—the sight, scent and taste of virtually any sweet, cake, pie, main dish or gooey casserole. Honestly, other than hominy—which she detested—she didn't cull much.

  Furthermore, practically every occasion was celebrated with food. Holidays, birthdays, bad days and good days, deaths, etc.… Food played a prominent role in society and it was truly a pity—the height of injustice, dammit—that some metabolisms worked better than others.

  Hers, for instance, seemed to be permanently stuck in neutral.

  Sophia had always promised herself that when she turned fifty, she'd say to hell with it and eat whatever she wanted. She'd keep up her exercise—a good brisk walk was good for anybody—but once she hit the big five-oh, she'd trade her fat-free margarine for good old-fashioned butter, her low-fat frozen yogurt for rich, creamy pralines and cream ice cream. She'd take a sledge hammer to her scale, shatter it to bits before sweeping it into a dust-pan and gleefully throwing it away.

  Two weeks beyond her fiftieth birthday however—a blissful two weeks in which she'd eaten everything that hadn't been nailed down and she'd gained seven pounds—she'd had a terrible nightmare. She'd dreamed that she'd had a heart attack and needed to go to the hospital, but she couldn't get out of the bed because she was too damned fat. The rescue squad had ended up taking a Sawzall to her bedroom wall and cutting a giant hole in the side of her house in order to accommodate her whopping girth. It had taken a wench and a back-hoe to get her out of the house, and they'd hauled her bloated, flabby hideous body away on a flat-bed truck, a melting king-sized candy bar clutched in her fist.

  The next morning, Sophia had gloomily resumed her battle against the bulge.

  She occasionally fell off the wagon—like now—but after last night, she felt like she deserved a little comfort food. She'd walk another lap around the block, two if need be.

  Sophia started as a knock sounded at her back door. She rarely had visitors this early, she thought, wincing as she walked away from her warm breakfast. She opened the door, then horrorstruck, barely resisted the urge to slam it shut in her unexpected visitor's face.

  "Good morning, Sophia," Edward said dutifully.

  Sophia patted her uncombed hair, painfully aware of her unmade face and tattered chenille robe. She felt her mouth work up and down, struggling to dredge a syllable up her tight, mortified throat. "Good m-morning, Edward. What can I do for you?"

  "I just noticed that you weren't outside this morning. You're not feeling under the weather, I hope."

  Sophia's first thought was to blast him with an icy remark about unexpected house calls, but the kind concern in those compelling blue eyes, plus the warm knowledge that he'd actually missed her, prevented the impulse.

  She tightened her robe around her middle—the one not poured into a bulge-smoothing girdle—and resisted the urge to whimper. "No, I'm not, but thank you," she said, somewhat stiffly. After all, she wasn't accustomed to being nice to him. It had always been easier—safer—to be surly.

  He sniffed appreciatively and his keen gaze darted over her shoulder to the spread on her kitchen table. A grin slid across his surprisingly attractive mouth. "That certainly smells good," he commented lightly. "Are those blueberry pancakes?"

  Sophia felt a smile flirt with her lips. "They are," she conceded.

  His eyes narrowed, seemingly zooming in on the syrup. "And is that your homemade syrup?"

  This time it was her eyes that narrowed. How did he know that she made homemade syrups? "It is," she replied slowly.

  "Oh," he sighed, rocking back on his heels. "That's some count there, Sophia," he said with just enough sincerity and awe to make her want to preen despite the fact she looked like a bag lady. "I bid on a bottle at the Civic Club's silent auction last fall and won. Best stuff I ever put in my mouth."

  He was clearly angling for an invitation, and even more clearly hoping to garner one through flattery. One that, despite her unkempt hair and ratty robe, he was going to get. Still, she had her pride, so she pretended to look put-out. "As you can see I have plenty," she said grudgingly. "Would you like to join me?"

  He grinned. "I was hoping you'd ask."

  Betting on it, more like, she thought with a silent snort, but she wasn't going to quibble because a ridiculous thrill had whipped through her, momentarily gluing her tongue to the roof of her mouth. For the first time in fifteen years a man—one that captivated every sense and made her feel like her skin was stretched too tight over her old bones—was going to put his feet under her table.

  It was a start, Sophia thought, her insides quivering with anticipation. A beginning, she cautiously hoped, to an ultimate end.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jolie glanced at her watch and swore as she hurried down the hall toward Jake's office. She'd promised him that she'd be here first thing this morning, but she hadn't counted on having to awkwardly console a crying Marge when she'd learned of Chris's death. Chris had always treated Marge abominably, had criticized, shouted, and curs
ed her for the smallest of infractions, so she was the last person Jolie had expected to shed any tears over her late, unlamented husband. Jolie had heard herself muttering things like, "Oh, yes, it's terrible," and "Yes, it's such a loss," but the words felt weird and distasteful coming out of her mouth.

  Probably because they were lies.

  Playing the grieving widow was not a role that would come easily to her, which was just as well, because despite Sadie's dire warnings, she'd decided against it, and once she made up her mind, it was set. She'd been living a lie for two years. She was finished, a fact she planned to share with Jake this morning.

  While she couldn't tell him about the FWC, she nevertheless intended to make her position perfectly clear. She hadn't killed Chris, but she wasn't exactly sad that he was dead. Relieved, quite honestly, was more accurate. He could deal with those facts however he chose and if he decided to judge her for them, then so be it.

  She drew in a bolstering breath as she neared his office and felt her stomach do an odd little flutter, a physical reaction to the knowledge that she was about to see him. Under normal circumstances her reaction would undoubtedly be considered inappropriate—particularly since her husband's body was barely cold, Jolie thought with a wry smile—but these were hardly normal circumstances.

  Jake had been the love of her life—the one she'd let pride keep her from reclaiming—and Chris had been the bane of her existence for the past twenty-four months.

  There was no comparison.

  Jake's door was open and, given the one-sided conversation she heard as she neared his office, she guessed that he was on the phone, a hunch that was confirmed when she peered into the room. He glanced up and motioned for her to come in and take the only other chair in the room.

  His office was small with a functional metal desk, a single beat-up filing cabinet crammed in the corner and covered with magnets, business cards and the odd sticky note. A couple of photographs had been adhered to the wall behind his desk with thumbtacks. The sight drew a smile. True to form, framing them had been too much trouble.