Truly Married (24 page)

“Then I’ll have to convince her that I didn’t, or she won’t talk to you or Ray, either, since you’re both defending me.”

Fergus sighed. “Sweetheart, let me handle this. I have to be here Monday to give my closing statement, but I’ll leave for St. Louis as soon as the jury goes out. Just wait for me, please!”

Monday. Impossible! She couldn’t sit around and do nothing for three more days. She’d go out of her mind!

She lowered her voice to a sexy pitch and hoped it would still work as well with her ex-husband as it had when they were married. “I’m sorry, darling. I’d do almost anything else for you, but please try to understand. I
need
to talk to Helen. I need to tell her that I didn’t kill her husband, and to offer my sympathy for her loss. I’d do as much for any close acquaintance, and she was my boss’s wife. If, in the course of the conversation, she says something that will help us, what harm could it do?”

For a long time there was silence at the other end of the line, then she heard Fergus draw a deep breath. “I’ll make arrangements to fly down there in the company plane first thing in the morning.” He sounded both gruff and exasperated. “Promise you won’t do anything until I get there. I need your word on that, Sharon.”

“I promise,” she whispered, and she didn’t have to work at making it sound sexy. She couldn’t have sounded any other way. If he’d been in the room with her they’d be making quick, hot, passionate love on the floor again. Why did she even try to resist him?

* * *

Fergus arrived in a taxi at nine o’clock the following morning. It was Saturday, Anna’s busiest day in real estate, so she had already left for work. Sharon had dressed for her visit to Helen in a turquoise flowered silk slacks suit, with a buff-colored scarf accenting the V neck of the jacket.

She opened the door for him and he stepped inside; without saying a word, he put his arms around her and kissed her. Her lips parted hungrily to admit his probing tongue, and for a few minutes she lost track of everything but the heat of his long, slender body pressed against hers, and the scent of him that was part shaving lotion and part male.

She felt whole again, and secure. Fergus would love her, take care of her, slay all her dragons. That feeling of tranquillity lasted until they finally broke apart, then all her doubts and insecurities came rushing back to haunt her.

She shivered as the voice of reason intruded into her fantasies:
You’ve got no one to depend on but yourself, dummy, so shape up and stop looking to Fergus to solve your problems. He let you down once. You can’t be sure he won’t do it again. There are no knights in shining armor to come to the rescue anymore. You have to fight your own battles.

“Is there any chance that you missed me even a third as much as I missed you?” Fergus asked as he put his arm around Sharon’s waist and started walking them toward the kitchen.

“I probably missed you every bit as much or more,” she admitted, “and I’m sorry I’m being such a pest....”

He squeezed her and chuckled. “Don’t be sorry. If you weren’t such a pain in the a—that is, in the
neck
—I wouldn’t be able to justify the time involved and the use of the plane to come back just for the weekend. Is there any coffee?”

Sharon laughed and felt happy again. “Sure is. Have you had breakfast?”

He looked momentarily uncertain. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I’ve been up since four-thirty, catching up on some work I had to finish before I could leave, and now I don’t remember whether I ate or not.”

She felt a fresh wave of guilt. “Oh, Fergus, I’m sorry. I not only messed up your weekend, but I interfered with your sleep.”

He sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and pulled her down on his lap. “You always interfere with my sleep,” he murmured as he burrowed his face in the valley between her breasts. “Every time I go to bed and close my eyes I think of you lying beside me, but when I reach for you, you’re not there.”

She cradled his head in her arms as he nuzzled her breasts through her clothes. It felt so good. So right.

But it wasn’t right. It could only end up one place, in bed, and in a few more minutes she wouldn’t have either the willpower or the desire to stop him.

She kissed the top of his head, then pulled away from him and stood up. “I’ll...I’ll fix you some breakfast,” she stammered and hurried across the room to the refrigerator.

“Coward,” he said from behind her, and his voice wasn’t very steady, either.

“Damn right,” she admitted. “I told you how much I missed you, and you have a way of sapping all my resistance.”

“God, how I wish that were true,” he murmured. “What do I have to do or say to get you to trust me again? I’ve never lied to you, Sharon.”

She stood in front of the open refrigerator door and contemplated. “No, You probably didn’t lie to me about Elaine,” she conceded. “You just didn’t tell me about her at all, and while that may not be lying, it is deception. I don’t see that there’s much difference.”

“I suppose there’s not,” he said wearily as she picked up a box of eggs and a package of bacon and closed the door. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, so let’s change the subject. Why are you so all fired intent on talking to Helen Vancleave?”

For the next hour they talked about that while Sharon fixed and served breakfast. By the time they’d finished eating they’d come to an agreement of sorts. They would both go to the Vancleave house, but Sharon insisted that she be allowed to talk to the woman alone. Fergus balked at that, but Sharon was adamant.

“Helen is a very private person,” she argued. “The shy, quiet type who lived in her husband’s shadow. I’ve seldom heard her express an idea of her own, and she never voiced an objection to anything he said or did. It will be difficult to get her to talk to me about her marriage, but she’d never do so with a man present. I feel strongly about this, Fergus. At least let me try. If I don’t get anywhere, then you can do it your way.”

He reluctantly agreed to stay in the car and let her handle the interview, but only if she promised to leave the house immediately should she feel threatened in any way. “These quiet, submissive victims can be human time bombs when they finally reach the end of their tolerance.”

* * *

According to the clock in Sharon’s car it was ten-twenty when Fergus pulled it over to the curb in front of the Vancleave home. Sharon’s excitement had mounted with every turn of the wheels on the way over, but there was also an undercurrent of apprehension. They hadn’t called to ask if they could come because they were both certain the answer would be no. Sharon had rationalized that if she just appeared on the doorstep it would be easier for her to talk her way in.

Now she wasn’t quite so sure. She knew the Vancleaves had never had children, but she wasn’t sure whether there were other family members in the area. She was confident she could get Helen to talk to her, but what if there was a sister or brother or some other relative with her? They probably wouldn’t be as timid about throwing an uninvited visitor out as Helen might be. Also, there was the possibility that she had a security guard to turn away curious strangers.

Sharon hadn’t voiced any of these concerns to Fergus, and she didn’t intend to. Instead, she turned to him with her most confident smile. “This may take a while. You don’t need to wait. I can call a cab when I get ready to go home.”

He glowered at her. “I’m not leaving, and if I see or hear anything suspicious I’m going in to get you. Remember that, and please—” he leaned over and kissed her, a warm lingering kiss “—be careful, love.”

She cupped his face with her hands and kissed him again. “I will,” she said softly, and quickly got out of the car.

She could feel his gaze on her back as she walked up to the house and rang the bell. There was no response and she rang again, longer this time. Still she heard nothing. But just as she moved to press it again a muffled voice called through the door, “Who’s there?”

Sharon recognized Helen’s voice, even though it was barely audible. She took a deep breath. “It’s Sharon Sawyer, Mrs. Vancleave. I’d like to talk to you.”

For a moment there was no answer, then Helen said, “I can’t see you now. Go away.”

Sharon thought she’d heard a note of panic in the woman’s tone. She tried again. “Helen, I didn’t kill Floyd. He was alive when I left by the sliding-glass door. Please let me in. I think you may be able to help me prove I didn’t do it.”

Another pause. “My neighbor’s husband is a lawyer and he says I don’t have to talk to anybody. Just go away and leave me alone.”

This time Sharon was sure she’d heard panic. “Your neighbor is right,” she assured the woman. “You don’t have to talk with me, but I’m allowed to talk to you, and I don’t want to shout my questions through the closed door for all the neighbors to hear.”

“If you don’t stop threatening me and go away I’ll call the police,” Helen said, her tone strident.

This wasn’t going at all the way Sharon had planned. She didn’t want to scare the poor soul—she just wanted to talk to her. “Helen, I’m very sorry if I’m frightening you. I don’t mean to. If you’d feel more comfortable with a police officer present, then by all means call and ask for one. My attorney is waiting for me in the car. If you wish I’ll ask him to join us, too, but all I really want is a quiet conversation with you to see if you have any information that might help me prove my innocence. Surely you wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of my life in prison for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Sharon waited anxiously, wondering what would happen if Mrs. Vancleave did call the police and tell them she was being harassed by Sharon. She was almost sure they could revoke her bail and make her spend the rest of the time until the trial in jail. She should have listened to Fergus and Ray and let them handle this. Was her stubbornness in insisting on doing it herself going to put her in even more jeopardy?

Fergus would be livid, and she couldn’t blame him if he refused to continue to defend her!

She was getting more desperate by the moment, when she heard the lock turn and the door slowly opened. Her relief was so sharp that she felt light-headed and had to steady herself against the door frame to keep from stumbling.

When she regained her ability to focus she got another shock. Helen Vancleave, who had always been dowdy but nevertheless immaculately groomed, looked as if she hadn’t slept or changed her clothes and combed her hair in days.

She’d lost weight, too. Although she’d always been slender, she was now gaunt and pale. Her expensive silk dress was wrinkled and stained and drooped loosely on her bony frame, and her hair hung in limp strings around her haggard face.

When Sharon spoke she said the first thing that came to mind. “My God, Helen, have you been ill?”

The other woman stepped back to let Sharon enter. “My husband is dead” was her bleak reply.

Sharon shut the door and followed her into the living room. The interior of the house was dark and gloomy, and Sharon noticed that all the drapes were drawn. The rooms weren’t exactly cluttered, but there were dirty dishes, mainly cups and glasses, scattered on the dusty tabletops. It was evident that the place hadn’t been cleaned lately.

A chill of alarm crept through her. This woman bore no resemblance to the Helen Vancleave she’d known. “Helen, are you living all alone here?”

“Yes, Floyd died you know,” she repeated in a dull monotone as she walked to the nearest chair and seated herself. “You can sit down if you want to.”

Sharon’s alarm escalated. There was something dreadfully wrong here. “I know your husband is dead,” she said carefully, “but don’t you have a relative or a friend who could come and be with you? You don’t look well.”

“Oh no, we never had a family.” She looked straight ahead and spoke without a trace of emotion. “I was going to have a baby once years ago, but Floyd didn’t want children. They upset him. He made me have an abortion.”

Dear God, the poor woman was totally spaced out! How long had she been this way, and why hadn’t somebody noticed?

Sharon tried again to establish contact and get a rational answer. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “That must have been very sad for you, but now tell me about yourself. Don’t you have friends who could come and stay with you for a while?”

Helen shook her head. “No, Floyd didn’t like for me to have friends. He said they were a bad influence. That I didn’t need anyone but him.”

That man had been a psychotic bastard. It was no wonder his long-suffering wife had finally snapped, but did she kill him? If so, how did she get in and out of his office without being seen?

“Well, you need someone now,” Sharon said. “Have you eaten anything lately?”

It was obvious that she hadn’t, but Sharon was trying to lead her, step by step, back from the shell she’d retreated into.

Helen blinked and frowned. “Eaten? I don’t remember. I have coffee if you’re hungry.”

“Look, why don’t we go into the kitchen and I’ll fix you a nice hot breakfast?” Sharon suggested, and reached down to help the woman stand.

Helen ignored the extended hand and shook her head. “I don’t want any food. It makes me sick.”

Sharon remembered Fergus telling her that according to the police report Vancleave’s wife had been sick in bed the day they’d come to the house to tell her about the death of her husband. But that had been over three weeks ago. Had she been ill all this time? Had her doctor seen her since that day?

She leaned down and took Helen by the arms to half lift her out of the chair and onto her feet. “I’ll cook you some hot cereal,” she said, and prayed that there was something in the kitchen to cook. “That shouldn’t upset your stomach.”

Helen allowed herself to be led through the living room and dining room into the kitchen. There were no blinds to pull in there, and it was light and sunny. A large room, it had all the usual appliances plus a small breakfast table and two chairs at one end. There were also dirty dishes in the sink, and scraps of food covered with ants scattered around.

Sharon seated Helen in one of the chairs and started rummaging through the cupboards until she found a box of oatmeal. It only took a couple of minutes to cook it in the microwave, but unfortunately the milk in the refrigerator was sour. She poured it down the sink and added brown sugar to the cereal to give it a caramel flavor.