Under the Skin (8 page)

Tuesday, May 15

W
hat about it, Hawk, have you two set the date? I need to work out the duty rosters for June.”

Sheriff Mackenzie Blaine—high sheriff of Marshall County, in the old-time parlance—stood in the doorway of Phillip’s tiny office, a cubicle partitioned off from a conference room, frowning at the clipboard in his hands. “You said you wanted to take a week sometime in June … that’ll work … long as it’s not the first week … Travis’s put in for leave then—his wife’s due the end of this month. So, when do you want me to put you down for?”

Phillip rolled his chair back from the computer. “You got me, Mac. We were waiting to find out when the kids would have some time off. Now it looks like they’re all available anytime after the middle of June. But Lizabeth hasn’t actually settled on a date. There’s been a distraction … and her name is Gloria.”

Blaine’s brown eyes widened and he stepped into the cubicle, closing the door behind him. “You want to talk about this? I thought—”

“Have a seat, Mac.” Phillip reached over and swept an accumulation of paperwork from the chair next to the desk. “I need to bring you up to speed.”

“… so I’ve been doing a little online snooping re this Jerry Lombardo—the husband Gloria swears is out to get her. And no,” Phillip held up a hand as Blaine started to speak, “I haven’t tried to contact anyone with the Tampa PD—according to Gloria, old Jerry’s pretty tight with them. And what’s more, according to Lizabeth, it’s possible that Gloria’s making the whole thing up.”

The sheriff said nothing but Phillip felt Blaine’s shrewd brown eyes on him. “What?”

The sheriff tapped the clipboard on his lap. “I was just wondering … is everything okay between you and Elizabeth? Back at the first of the year when you told me you two were going to make it official, you were—hell, I don’t know, Hawk—without getting all sensitive, I’d have said you were as happy a fella as I’d ever seen. But recently … well, it seems like something’s changed. Is it the cop work? That always gets to spouses sooner or later. One reason I’ve never thought about remarrying—”

Phillip broke in, shaking his head. “Yeah, I felt that way too … After Sandy and I split I swore there was no way I’d ever get myself into that situation again. But then I got to know Lizabeth …”

And she got to me … in spite of all the reasons not to get involved … and especially not with her
.

Setting aside those troubling thoughts, Phillip shrugged. “It’s not the hours—hell, Lizabeth keeps pretty long hours herself. And the woman’s as independent as a hog on ice—those years alone after Sam died, she pretty much got into the habit of not needing anyone. So if I’m out late or leave home early, she just rolls with it.”

Blaine raised his eyebrows but Phillip ignored his boss’s skeptical expression. “No, Mac, it’s not the job. What it is … well, at least part of it’s her sister Gloria. You never saw two more different women—I don’t know how the hell they came out of the same family.
And even though Lizabeth is trying really hard, Gloria’s always making these little comments and suggestions … I don’t know, I guess she means well but it rubs Lizabeth the wrong way and it’s making her … well, short-tempered … and sometimes a little … if it was any other woman, I’d say she was acting bitchy. Plus she’s gotten kind of distant—like something’s on her mind. And when she and Gloria start sniping at each other, I feel like I’m the monkey in the middle.”

Blaine put down the clipboard and leaned closer. He kept his voice low. “Listen, Hawk, it’s none of my business—except that I don’t like having my number two guy distracted by personal problems—but it sounds to me … sounds like someone’s having second thoughts.”

A silence hung between the two men. At last Phillip ran a hand over his bald scalp. “If it wasn’t for—” he began but Blaine waved aside his explanation and stood.

“Like I said, none of my business. You doing any good finding out about this Lombardo character? If I can help—”

“Thanks, maybe later. So far I can’t find anything against him. He appears to be a legitimate businessman but evidently there’ve been some investigations into his operations. Some of his associates have been nailed but he’s got a Teflon hide—nothing seems to touch him.”

Phillip reached for a printout that lay beside his computer screen and handed it to Blaine. “Here’s one thing that might be significant: Lombardo’s first wife—woman he’d been married to for years—died in a hit-and-run accident back in ’03 and the driver was never found. This was right before he got together with Gloria—who, by the way, was a very, very rich widow at the time. Lombardo had always maintained a pretty lavish lifestyle but in recent years he’s had some setbacks. I
suppose Gloria could have been the answer to his problems. ”

Blaine scanned the page, then looked up. “Tampa, you said? You know anyone down there? Anyone you can trust?”

“Afraid not.” Phillip glanced at his watch and pushed his chair back. “I’m done here for now. I’m due in court to testify in that drunk driving case. Should be back in plenty of time for our little expedition. I told Lizabeth I might be late.”

As he sat in the crowded courtroom, awaiting the call for his testimony and half hearing the lawyers’ opening statements, Phillip’s mind skimmed the surface of his memory like a flat pebble skipping over a still pool. The Navy years, the training camp where he met Sam … must have been the end of the sixties … Sam showing him the picture of the dark-haired girl with the amazing blue eyes … Sam’s Liz … now his own Lizabeth … or so he hoped.

The younger lawyer
—hardly old enough to shave, that kid
—was addressing the jury. “The settlement of the insurance claims …”

The awkward beginning … she with all her defenses up … the necessary lies … 
Please, God, don’t let that shit come back to bite me in the ass …
the deepening emotional involvement … her clueless bravery in the face of evil.

“We will show that my client could not have been behind the wheel as the state has stipulated but rather that …”
The kid’s got the moves, though. Looks like he’s spent a little time watching courtroom TV
.

Then they had become lovers … but she had evaded his offers of marriage with a dogged determination to remain unattached … eventually revealing that she’d
taken Sam’s death as a kind of betrayal and feared that a second marriage would leave her vulnerable again.

The plaintiff was on the stand now, denying up and down that he had been behind the wheel of the wrecked car. A skinny, grinning clown of a Marshall County good ol’ boy, he had been outside the courthouse earlier, laughing and joking with his cousin, the defendant—who also claimed not to have been driving.

Both men had been injured, or so they had claimed, when the vehicle left the mountain road and plowed into a tree. Phillip had been the first law officer on the scene. He and the EMS had arrived within seconds of each other to find that the injured pair had crawled away from the car and were sprawled side by side in the dimming glow of the shattered headlights.

Like my daddy always told me, the good Lord protects drunks and fools
, the EMT had muttered as she strapped the neck brace on one semiconscious victim.
I believe these two qualify on both counts—they got double protection. Ain’t no other reason they ain’t both of ’em dead
.

The thought came to him that Lizabeth would enjoy this story—two good old boys, each trying to get the other’s insurance company to pay for his injuries … and each with the identical defense: “No sir, Your Honor, I know for certain sure that it weren’t me driving that night. I was
way
too drunk to drive!”

I guess she’d enjoy it … I don’t know if she’s enjoyed much of anything since Gloria’s phone call. All the cleaning and commotion—the dogs had to be bathed, every last spiderweb vacuumed up, god knows what else. Plus the usual farmwork. Wearing herself out and for what? Women! What is it with them that they always—

He was being summoned to the stand now. As he walked to the front of the courtroom, he was struck
with the realization that this was the first time he’d thought of Lizabeth that way—as one of that vast and unknowable sisterhood summed up by the quasi-expletive “Women!”

The thought of home was like a beacon light at the end of the tunnel of the day. Home, a shower, and a beer … maybe put his feet up and finish that paperback. He’d had to stop just when the wisecracking hero was in a hell of a fix. Phillip knew it would be okay because the hero had left his concealed cellphone on with his psychotic, preppy sidekick on the other end and, no doubt, on the way to provide a little lethal backup.

He grinned in anticipation. Reading murder mysteries wasn’t usually something he enjoyed—too easy to nitpick over proper procedure and implausible coincidences. But
this
series—something about the blend of smart-ass humor and breakneck pace allowed him to just read for the fun of it without analyzing everything. Still, he did wonder about that stunt with the cellphone … would you really be able to hear what was going on if …

The house was all alight as his SUV crawled up the road. Phillip glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten-twenty—later than he’d expected to be. But that last-minute task of transferring a prisoner to a neighboring county had fallen to him. Then on the way back, there’d been an accident and he’d stopped to lend a hand. Good thing he’d called and left a message. Normally Lizabeth would have gone to bed by now. But there were lights on in seemingly every room so that as he looked up the road, the house appeared to float above him.
Like the mother ship in that movie—what was it
, Close Encounters
 … something like that?

As he turned into his usual parking spot under the big pear tree, Ursa and Molly padded out to meet him. The
shaggy black dog rubbed against his leg like a cat but the elegant red hound merely stood in front of him, presenting herself to him for a patting opportunity. He could hear James’s shrill howl a little way off.

“Hey, girls, what’s up? Thought everyone’d be in bed by now.”

The dogs were noncommittal but they followed as he made his way up the path and climbed the now familiar steps to the porch, where James was waiting and wagging. From within the house he could hear Gloria’s voice, raised in a nonstop harangue.
My god, but that woman can talk
.

Squaring his shoulders, he opened the screen door and stepped in.

“I tell you, I know what I saw—Hold on a minute, Brice.”

Gloria, cellphone in hand, swung round to stare at him. “Well,
you
sure put in a long day. If I were Lizzy—”

Thank god, you’re not
, he thought. Summoning a smile he said, “Hi, Gloria—has Lizabeth already gone to bed? I left a message and told her not to wait up—”

“I’m still up.” Elizabeth emerged from the office and came toward him. “Did you have something to eat on the road? I can fix you a sandwich …”

She hesitated, then brushed his cheek with a kiss as Gloria moved back into the dining room to continue her telephone conversation.

“Hey, Lizabeth,” he whispered, “c’mere.” Catching her wrist, he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”

Did her body stiffen briefly at his touch before she melted into his embrace? Was there just a moment of hesitation before she laid her head on his shoulder and whispered back, “I’ve missed you too.”

“Well, Elizabeth, if you can spare Phillip for a
moment
, I’d like to tell him about what happened today in
Asheville.” Gloria was standing in the dining room doorway, hands on hips and glaring at the back of her sister’s head.

Elizabeth pulled away from him instantly like a guilty teenager. The beginnings of a blush showed under the tan of her cheeks. “I think you should hear this, Phillip. I can go fix you a sandwich while Gloria tells you what happened in Asheville—”

“Thanks, but that’s okay—I ate a burger a while back and it’s riding pretty heavy.”

Dropping his briefcase into a chair, Phillip sank down on the love seat and propped his feet up on the old cedar chest. Elizabeth came and sat beside him while Gloria ostentatiously swept invisible dog hairs from the sofa before arranging herself decoratively on its cushions.

“Well, so there I was and at first I thought it was just some guy flirting with me and I made a big point of letting him know I wasn’t interested, thank you very much, by looking away, but then I took out my compact to check that my lipstick wasn’t smearing—oh, I should have said—I was in a Starbucks grabbing a skinny latte and I’d gotten a pastry—way too greasy, by the way; you would think—”

“Glory,” Elizabeth interrupted, “could you get to the point? It’s been a long day and Phillip and I need our sleep.”

Phillip tried to keep his face expressionless as the sisters looked daggers at each other.

Gloria backed down first, turning away and waving her hand as if to break the spell. “
Any
hoo,” she went on, as if there’d been no pause, “I was looking in my compact mirror and I could just see this guy who’d been watching me. He’d taken off his sunglasses and was cleaning them and then I saw the eyebrow and knew that I’d seen him before. So I—”

Phillip interrupted. “I’m not sure I’m following you.
What’s this about an eyebrow? One of those pierced jobs or—”

“Oh, heavens, no, this is a man in his
forties
, maybe older. When I said
eyebrow
, that’s what I meant—all one eyebrow—like a mustache across the top of his face. Eleanor and I used to laugh about it.”

I think my brain is going to explode
. Phillip took a deep breath. “And Eleanor is …?”

Gloria sighed and spoke very slowly, as if to a not-very-bright child. “Eleanor is my best friend. Back in
Tampa
. But Eleanor doesn’t have anything to do with this, Phillip. You need to
focus
on what I’m saying. The point is, this guy with the eyebrow is one of my husband’s so-called
associates
. I never actually met him—I’ve only seen him from a distance. There’d be a call for Jerry and Eyebrow Man would be waiting in a car parked out on the street. Jerry would go out and sit in the car and talk to him. When I asked why he never had his friend come in the house, Jerry just said that he didn’t like bringing business home with him. But I saw the guy a couple of times when the light was right and you can’t miss that eyebrow. It was him, I’m certain, there in Starbucks and watching me.”