Laid Out and Candle Lit (13 page)

“Yeah. They only wanted to keep me overnight for observation.” She tried to push herself up. He let go of her hand and stood up, helped her come to a sitting position, placed pillows behind her and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

She noticed the wet spot on his shirt. “Oh, no. Did I drool all over you? I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed.” She placed her hand over her mouth.

He pulled her hand away and held it. “Hey, I’ve always wanted to make a girl drool, so you fulfilled a fantasy.”

“Thank you for saving my life. I understand you were quite the hero.”

“You’re welcome. Of course, now you must become my slave and serve me for the rest of your life.” He chuckled, then brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Oh God, I’m sorry, that was inappropriate.” He lifted his brows. “On second thought, I’m not so sure, now that I own you.” He waited for her comeback line, but she didn’t give him one. “What? No smart ass comment?”

“No. I can think of worse things than being owned by you.”

He took a deep breath, placed his hand under her chin and trailed his thumb across her lips. She looked pale and fragile. He wanted to hold her close, so close he could feel her heart beat against his. He wanted to tell her he was falling in love with her. He wanted to hear her say his name. He moved his face in close until their lips almost touched, but the moment was broken when Saint, Pattiecake and Gracie appeared in the doorway.

Ridge stood up and gave Tizzy’s nose a wiggle. “I’ll check on you later, Margie Lou.” He chuckled. He reached over and hugged Gracie. “I’ll see you later, too, tootsie-wootsie.”

She giggled. “Mama, Trooper Cooper called me tootsie-wootsie.”

Tizzy smiled. “Trooper Cooper’s a silly boy, isn’t he, Gracie?” She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Thank you again.”

He squeezed back. “It was my pleasure. Now I can add saving a damsel in distress to my resume.” He put his hat on and strode away.

Pattiecake eyed her. “What did he call you?”

Tizzy smiled and sighed. “You heard him. He called me Margie Lou. Cute, huh?”

Pattiecake pursed her lips. “Yeah. Real cute
and
he’s still breathing.”

On his way out, Ridge met Dan McAlister coming down the hall. “Cooper? The nurses tell me you spent the night in Tizzy’s room. I think I need to warn you that where my sister is concerned, I have my eye on you.”

“I think I need to warn you, Dan. When it comes to Tizzy, you’d better have
both
eyes on me.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I
t took most of the week for Ridge to interview all but one of the employees of First United Bank. He’d gained no useful information from any of them. They had the same story. Marlene was a
bitch,
and Tizzy was an
angel.

He saved the best for last.

Ridge thought Leah Trammell’s office was tastefully furnished, the most striking feature a Monet print hung on the wall above a lavender sofa.

Leah, in her early fifties, cultivated an appearance much younger. Heck, Ridge considered her attractive, sexy even, in the gaudy way menopausal women try to cling to youth: Bleached blonde hair too long for her age, tight skirt, and four-inch heels.

“Come in, Officer Cooper,” Leah said, motioning for him to take a seat in one of the velvet chairs. Appearing completely relaxed, she sat down and leaned back. “How may I help you?”

Ridge rested his ankle on his opposing knee, took out his small notebook and flipped the spiral open. “Anything you can tell me about Mrs. Weston and the day of the murder will be helpful. Anything out of the ordinary happen?”

Her painted hot-pink lips broke into a laugh. “Out of the ordinary? Even the argument with Tizzy wasn’t out of the ordinary. Marlene was unpleasant most of the time. Nothing gave her greater joy than to make people’s lives miserable, especially Tizzy‘s.”

He shifted in his seat. “Tell me about the disagreement. “

She leaned forward, resting her hands on her desk. “Tizzy wanted the board to help some families in financial trouble with their mortgages, and Marlene wanted to kick them out. They got into a
discussion
and in the end, Tizzy won. She usually did. Marlene hated the reason for Tizzy’s victories, the money and power Boone left her. It took Tizzy a while after Boone’s death to exert her power, and I’m happy to say I helped with her transformation.”

Lines formed in Ridge’s forehead. “What did you do?”

Leah took a deep breath and smiled. “Tizzy’s young. She lacked experience in banking. I explained to her that this was Gracie’s future,” she said, gesturing around the room with her hands. “I made her understand, she had just as much power as Marlene. They might disagree, but Marlene couldn’t overrule her. Once Tizzy understood, she took an interest in what went on with the bank. I found it all very entertaining.”

“How did Tizzy handle the argument? Did she get angry?”

“No. Tizzy didn’t ever argue. She
informed
,” Leah said.

Ridge wrote something in his notebook. “Sounds to me as if you disliked Mrs. Weston. I understand she threatened on the day of her murder to fire you. How did you feel about her ultimatum?”

She pursed her lips. “Marlene threatened to fire me at least once a week. I’ve worked at this bank for twenty-five years, so do you really think her threats meant anything to me? I was here before Marlene’s reign, and I’m still here now it’s ended. She was no threat to me.”

Leah leaned forward, clasped her hands together and rested them on her desk. “Look, every family has secrets and some go way back to when Marlene’s dad served as president of the bank. I doubt seriously anything that far back would have any bearing on her death.”

He moved his note pad to her desk and looked at her eye to eye. “Miss Trammell, are you refusing to answer my question?”

For the first time in the interview, she appeared uncomfortable. “No. But I’m telling you this will have nothing to do with this case.” She tapped her fingers on her desk nervously. “Her dad had at least two affairs. Her mother got addicted to prescription drugs and went away for a while. Avery, Marlene’s daughter, had an abortion at age seventeen. Those types of things. Marlene wanted them kept secret. She thought if she fired me, I’d tell to get even with her. For what it’s worth, she was wrong. I wouldn’t want to hurt Mr. Weston. Funny, how she never considered that. She always thought everyone was like her, hateful and vindictive.”

“She didn’t love him, but she pretended to. Appearance was very important to Marlene. She wanted her life to appear perfectly happy, which is funny, because clearly she was an unhappy person. If she’d been happy, she would have treated people better.”

“What about Mr. Weston? Do you know if he ever cheated on Marlene?”

She gave a whispered laugh. “Believe me, Carl would never be able to have an affair without Marlene knowing. She kept pretty close tabs on him.”

“I’d like a copy of the bank entry record for the night of Marlene’s death.”

Leah shuffled papers on her desk, and stared down at the time sheet when she located it. “There’s only the one entry. Time entered seven-fifty-eight and time out, eight-fifteen.”

“That’s really not possible. You could certainly get my code, but you would also need my password, which no one knows except me. For security purposes, we change passwords every month, so unless I personally gave you mine, you couldn’t get in under my code.”

Ridge considered her answer for a moment. “Let’s say, you and I show up at the same time. I suppose we could go in together under either code or password and the record would only show one entry?”

Ridge stared down at the sheet and his stomach knotted. “Thank you for your time, Miss Trammell. Here’s my card. If you think of anything else, I’d appreciate your giving me a call.”

As Ridge left the bank, he had two things on his mind. First, he would go by the police station and pick up the paperwork that should be waiting for him. Second, he would confront Tizzy.

* * * * *

When Ridge pulled into the drive, he saw Tizzy stooped over weeding a flower bed and Gracie mixing up dirt and leaves in a plastic bowl. He got out of the car and walked toward them. Gracie came running full force shouting, “Trooper Cooper!”

He met her with his arms wide and lifted her into the air. “Hey, Noodle-doodle.”

Tizzy straightened up. “Oh hey, Cooper. You realize she’s never gonna call you anything but Trooper Cooper, because she’s heard me call you that.”

“That’s okay. I’m beginning to kinda like it. Should you be working in this heat? You’re barely home from the hospital.”

“I’m fine,” she said, running her fingers across her bandage. “I’m getting this bed ready to plant azaleas. You know what azaleas are, don’t you?”

“Are you talking about the pale pink bushes blooming when I moved in?” he asked, pointing to the Browning house.

Threads dangled from the frayed edges of her cutoff jeans and plenty of cleavage swelled above her pale pink tank top. She had her hair twisted on top of her head and held with a large tortoise clip. Wet from perspiration, wisps of it clung to her face and the back of her neck. Her skin, moist from the late afternoon heat, glistened as a trickle of sweat made its way from her throat and trailed between her breasts.

“Unfortunately, no.” He pulled his brows together and tightened his lips. “Why didn’t you tell me about being in the bank the night of Marlene’s murder?” he asked, his eyes demanding an answer.

Tizzy shuddered. “I didn’t think it was important. I was only there a few minutes. Marlene’s car was there, but she wasn’t. If she had been, I wouldn’t have gone in.”

“Not really,” she shrugged. “I figured she and Carl had gone somewhere together in his truck and would come back later to get the car.”

He exhaled sharply. “You know what bothers me? You think being at the bank the night of her murder and her car being found there wasn’t important enough to mention. Damn, Tizzy, I’ve asked you over and over if there’s anything else you should tell me and you keep saying no, and then I find out more. How many times is this going to happen?”

Ridge watched Tizzy stiffen. She stood up and fisted her hands as her anger rose. “So, what are you saying? I met her at the bank and killed her?”

“I’m saying you should have at least mentioned it to me,” he said curtly. “According to Carl’s statement, Marlene called him and said she was on her way to the bank. The entry log places you there at the same time, Tizzy.”

“Okay… I’ll play.” her voice rose as she went on the aggressive. “Let’s say I met her at the bank and killed her. How did I get her from the bank to the cemetery? Do you think I could carry dead weight out of the bank, put her into a car, unload her at the cemetery and place her at Boone’s grave?”

“I don’t think she was killed at the bank. I think the murder happened in the cemetery,” Ridge said.

“Of course. I took her to the graveyard and killed her. That way, I didn’t have to do a bunch of heavy lifting. Oh, and what about Gracie?” she asked, her tone showing her anger. “I had her with me, by the way, so what did I do with her? Did I let her watch me commit murder?”