Along Came Trouble

“Don’t go there. That was a lifetime ago.” And he didn’t want to be dragged down memory lane. The present was complicated enough without it.

Tucker handed her the clothes. “We need to get moving.”

“I’ll hurry,” she said at once.

True to her word, she was back in minutes. Without makeup and with her hair swept into a loose ponytail held up by what looked like one of his handkerchiefs, she looked a whole lot more like the girl he remembered than the sophisticated woman she’d become. The jeans hung loosely on her, and she’d had to roll up the cuffs. She’d tucked in the bright yellow T-shirt, then added one of his belts around her narrow waist. Somehow she managed to make the ill-fitting outfit look stylish.

He studied her pale complexion and worried eyes. “This is going to get rough. Will you be okay?”

“I’ll manage,” she said stoically. “Let’s get this over with.”

The drive to Swan Ridge took less than twenty minutes. Mary Elizabeth grew noticeably more tense as he turned through the open wrought-iron gate and onto the cedar-lined drive. Bright green soybean fields spread east and west as far as the eye could see. Up ahead, just around the first curve in the drive, Tucker knew he would catch his first glimpse of the three-story brick house with its jutting wings and majestic sweep of steps. It always reminded him of Stratford Hall, the historic home of the Lees not too far up the road. Same period, same style, only on a slightly smaller scale.

The landscaped grounds were filled with holly trees, azaleas, towering oaks, magnolias and the sweet, lingering scent of honeysuckle that had apparently escaped the notice of the gardener. The pink, purple and deep red crepe myrtles were just coming into bloom as July edged toward August. In the back, he knew, there was a formal boxwood maze, where he and Mary Elizabeth had stolen many a kiss far from her grandfather’s watchful eye.

“It hasn’t changed much,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

Her hands were clutched tightly together in her lap. She jerked her gaze from the sight of the sheriff’s cruiser in front of the house and looked at him.

“Larry loved this house as much as my grandfather did. He insisted we do nothing to change it. He even hired someone to run the soybean operation. When one of the trees got hit by lightning, he brought in a full-grown tree to replace it. It cost a fortune, but he said it was worth every penny.” She sighed heavily. “Sometimes I wonder if he cared more about losing all this than he did about losing me.”

Since that very same thought had crossed Tucker’s mind, he couldn’t bring himself to argue with her. He caught the flicker of hurt in her eyes when he didn’t utter some platitude denying her speculation.

“You didn’t know him,” she said stiffly, defending her husband despite Tucker’s silence.

“No, but you did, and you’re the one who said it, Mary Elizabeth,” he reminded her, hitting the brakes too hard and jerking the car to a stop in front of the house. “I knew nothing about Chandler or your marriage. I made it a point to keep it that way.”

“And now I’ve dragged you into the middle of it,” she said with regret. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not in the middle. From this moment on, I’m on the sidelines.”

She winced at the reminder. “Tell me about the deputy who will handle it.”

“His name’s Walker Ames. He’s good. He was a homicide detective in Washington up until a couple of years ago. He won’t miss anything.”

“But…” She regarded him with dismay. “Isn’t he Daisy’s husband?”

“That won’t matter,” Tucker said with conviction even as she turned to stare out the window. He tucked a hand under her chin and forced her to face him. “It will be okay. I promise. You want the best person available on this, and that’s Walker. If there’s so much as a hint that he’s not being scrupulously impartial, whatever the reason for it, I can call in the state police and turn the whole investigation over to them. I can do that now, if you’d prefer, if you think my department can’t give you a fair shake.”

“I want to believe you know what you’re doing, but I’m scared,” she admitted.

“You came to me because you trusted me, right? Then listen to what I’m saying,” Tucker told her. “If you’re not guilty, then you have nothing to fear.”

“If? I’m not guilty of anything except wanting a divorce,” she declared fiercely.

“And I believe that,” Tucker reiterated.

“Do you? Do you really?” she asked, her voice escalating in near hysteria. “Or did you bring someone else in to handle this just so you won’t have to be the one to slap the handcuffs on me?”

Before he could respond, she was out of the car and running. Tucker debated going after her, but decided against it. She wouldn’t go far. If she’d wanted to take off because she was guilty, she would have done it without ever setting foot in his house. She could have been halfway to Europe or South America before anyone even realized her husband was missing, much less dead. She certainly had the resources to flee to anywhere in the world she wanted to go.

Her accusation that he didn’t believe in her stuck in his craw. Surely she didn’t believe that. She’d just lashed out at him because her nerves were shot and he was handy.

But what if he was wrong? What if he’d just given her a convenient excuse to take off? He watched as she fled around the side of the house and headed for the river. He found that oddly reassuring. Unless things had changed, there was an old swing hanging from a tree at the edge of the beach. She’d always said that soaring into the sky in that swing was like flying and that the air there made thinking easier. That was where he’d find her when the time came to go looking.

Until then, he needed to go inside, talk to Walker and find out just how much trouble Mary Elizabeth was really in.

King strolled into Earlene’s and headed for his usual booth in the back. He’d only made it halfway when he spotted Frances Jackson sitting all alone at the counter, nursing a cup of coffee, her expression glum. He slid onto the stool next to her.

“Does that frown you’re wearing have anything to do with me?” he inquired.

Ever since she’d gone off to some spa and gotten herself all fixed up with a new hairdo and a new svelte figure, they’d been dancing around each other like a couple of testy old bears. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get things between them back on track.

Now she barely spared him a glance. “Not everything is about you.”

“These days, seems like nothing is,” he shot back before he could stop himself. “You want me to stop bothering you, Frances? Is that it?”

This time she swivelled her stool around and faced him fully. “Bothering me? When was the last time you asked me to go out? When was the last time you invited me to Sunday dinner with your family? Ever since I got back to town and Bobby got married, you’ve been all but ignoring me.”

“Ignoring you? I’m here now, aren’t I?”

She gave him a pitying look. “King Spencer, you are the densest man on God’s green earth. Why I ever thought for a single minute that you and I could get along is beyond me. Seems like our fate was sealed years ago when I beat you in that spelling bee and you resented me like crazy. What’s been happening between us the last couple of years was apparently just some kind of midlife foolishness.”

King bristled. “We’d been getting along just fine, at least until you got some crazy notion in your head about trying to take ten years off your looks.”

“You object to me wanting to look nice?” she inquired.

Her tone was only mildly curious, but King spotted the minefield in the nick of time. “Of course not, but I thought you looked just fine before. You’re a handsome woman, Frances. Always were.”

He’d always approved of a woman with a little meat on her bones, a woman who wasn’t afraid to look her age. This new, improved Frances had taken him aback. He was pretty sure the changes were meant to impress somebody else, since things between the two of them were decidedly cooler now than they had been. Just the thought of Frances with another man was enough to rile him, but it seemed like that was the direction things were headed unless he could figure out what was eating at her or who was stealing her attention.

He regarded her with impatience. “Don’t know why you couldn’t see that I found you attractive. Didn’t I make it plain often enough?”

She actually had the audacity to laugh at that. “King, for a normally blunt, plainspoken man, when it comes to you and me, you have always had an amazing knack for reticence.”

King couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d accused him of cheating on her. “I let you know how I felt. You spent Sundays with the family. You came to Daisy’s wedding with me and to Bobby’s. I took you to bingo, for goodness’ sakes. What man does all that if he doesn’t have feelings for a woman? I even broached the subject of taking things to another level, but you brushed me off, if I recall correctly.”

She nodded, her expression thoughtful. “Yes, I can see how going to a few bingo games would be a dead giveaway. I’ll have to think about that,” she said, taking a dollar out of her purse and leaving it on the counter. She snapped her purse shut, then slid off the stool and gave him an unreadable look. “I surely will think about it.”

She was about to walk away, when King blurted, “Have dinner with me tonight, Frances. Let’s talk this thing through. It’s not the kind of thing we can discuss with all these busybodies listening in.” He scowled in the direction of the owner. “Earlene’s already gotten an earful.”

King’s breath lodged in his throat as he waited for Frances to respond. For a minute, he thought she actually might refuse him. And maybe that was exactly what he deserved for being such a horse’s behind for all these months now. Daisy and Bobby had certainly told him so often enough. Even Tucker, who tended to avoid the topic of emotional entanglements like the plague, had put in his two cents on his father’s love life.

“Where?” she said at last.

King’s heart finally resumed a normal rhythm. “You name the place.”

“The marina,” she said at once.

“But—” He wisely cut himself off before he could protest that Bobby would spend the entire evening hovering over them and then reporting every last word they said to the rest of the family. Clearly that was exactly what Frances had in mind. She knew she had allies in his kids, and she intended to make the most of that. “The marina will be just fine. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Six-thirty will be better. We have a lot to discuss.” She leveled a look straight into his eyes, one of those piercing gazes that served her well as a county social worker. “And for once, it won’t be about your children’s love lives. It will be about ours.”

“Whatever you say,” King said meekly.

Obviously Frances had lost patience. It was put up or shut up time. Maybe, if he had a few spare minutes, he’d wander past a jewelry store and see if there was anything there that would suit her. In his experience, jewelry had a way of saying what mere words couldn’t express.

And, he thought with a sigh, with any luck, she wouldn’t throw it right back in his face.

Liz ran until she was out of breath. It was no surprise to her that she’d ended up on the banks of the river. It was where she’d always come when she had things to sort through—here or to Tucker. From the time she’d come to live with her grandfather after her parents’ deaths in an avalanche on an Alpine ski slope, Tucker had been her sounding board, always listening without judging. He’d been the best companion a lonely girl could have wished for. He’d been her champion when she’d started classes at the tight-knit Trinity Harbor school. He’d asked her to play on his summer baseball team and dared anyone to challenge the selection. For a tomboy like Liz, that had been the ultimate compliment a boy two years older could have paid her. Tucker had been her hero from the day they’d met on the school playground because he’d let her fight her own battles, hanging back and ready to help only if she asked for it.

Times had changed. She’d seen hints of judgment in his eyes more than once this morning, even when he’d managed to say all the right things. How could she blame him, though? She was lucky he hadn’t just tossed her out without listening to a single word she’d said.

She’d also noted what he hadn’t asked, how careful he’d been to avoid discussing the state of her marriage, but the questions were hanging in the air between them. She’d acknowledged her plans to divorce her husband but said nothing about her reasons. Sooner or later Tucker—or his deputy—was going to want to know what they were. She was going to have to brace herself for the humiliation of admitting that she’d never been enough for Larry, that he’d taken lovers within weeks of the wedding, perhaps even sooner.

Would the police see that as a motive for murder? she wondered. Could she make them see that it would be one only if she still cared, only if she hadn’t been worn out from a one-sided fight to save her marriage?

She picked her way along an overgrown path that would have horrified Larry—if he’d ever bothered to walk this far. Fortunately he’d been satisfied to survey his domain from the library windows or the brick terrace. He hadn’t known about Liz’s secret hiding place, little more than a shady patch of grass beneath a giant oak with a weathered swing dangling by thick ropes from a low branch. The river lapped gently at the shore here, glistening in the midmorning sun.

She sat on that swing now and pushed off idly, letting her thoughts wander. If Tucker was right, if someone had witnessed her scene with Larry and used it as a perfect cover for murder, who could it have been? A political enemy? A spurned lover? An outraged husband? There were plenty of each. Larry’s passions tended to draw emotional extremes. He’d fielded his share of threats, but had refused to take any of them seriously. Obviously he’d miscalculated.

There were anonymous letters, though, and tapes of threatening phone messages, all of the sort that many politicians received when they stirred up their constituents. Larry had dismissed them, but he’d been prudent enough to save them just in case one was ever acted on. She could provide them all to the police, which was what she needed to be doing now, not sitting down here hiding out and sulking over the doubts she’d seen in Tucker’s eyes. No one had a higher stake in proving her innocence than she did, not even Tucker.

Slowly she climbed the hill back to the house, aware that Tucker was waiting on the terrace, his expression inscrutable, his eyes shaded by mirrored aviator sunglasses as he watched her approach.

“Feel better?” he asked when she neared.

“Not really. I guess the soothing effects of my hideout don’t extend to murder.” She regarded him curiously. “I’m surprised you didn’t come after me to make sure I wasn’t taking off.”

“The thought never crossed my mind.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He regarded her worriedly. “Mary Elizabeth, this is going to get out of hand really fast. Walker’s had to call the forensics team and get the local medical examiner in here. Once Doc Jones heads out this way, the media won’t be far behind. You ready to face that?”

“Can’t we leave?” She shook her head and resolutely squared her shoulders. “Never mind. Of course we can’t. Can I go inside, put on something more appropriate?”

“No. It’s a crime scene.”

“Then I guess this will have to do,” she said, smoothing down Daisy’s ill-fitting jeans. “Your sister’s going to be thrilled to see her clothes on TV. She’ll probably burn them.”

“Or give them away,” he agreed.

Then, for the first time since she’d awakened to find him staring at her, he took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. The gesture gave her the strength to face whatever was ahead.

“You stay put,” he said. “You should be safe enough out here for a time. I’ll get you something to drink and be right back. Powell ought to be here soon, too.”

She nodded and watched him go. She could do this, she told herself. She’d faced the media a thousand times in the last six years. She was good at it, a natural at spinning a story. She would make Larry proud of her one last time.

An hour later, sheriff’s deputies and media were swarming all over the place. Liz stood by and tried very hard to distance herself from the reason for their presence. She didn’t want to think too much about the scene inside her home, about Larry—a man she had once loved with all her heart—being dead, about the vicious words he’d hurled at her the last time they’d talked. That exchange would live with her forever. It was a side of her husband she’d never seen before, a side that was ruthless and manipulative.

He’d made it seem as if he’d been devastated by her request for a divorce, when nothing could have been further from the truth. They’d both known for a long time that the marriage was a shell of what it should have been. There had been no passion for years now. There were no kids to distract from the fact that they had nothing in common. Larry had wanted her for her name and connections, and for Swan Ridge, second only to King Spencer’s Cedar Hill in terms of a prestigious address in the county.

Even the date of their wedding had been calculated for maximum political benefit, just when the campaign season was heating up. Somehow she had missed that when he’d been courting her with lavish gifts and whispered words of love, when they’d talked far into the night sharing their idealistic dreams for a better world that together they could help to shape. She’d been blinded by his charm and his rhetoric. Somehow she had completely missed the shallowness beneath it.

Her first clue that she’d been conned had been the lover she’d found in his hotel room when she’d unexpectedly joined him on the campaign trail. They’d been married for less than two months at the time. Larry had apologized, said the relationship was over, but the woman hadn’t accepted it yet. He’d sworn it would never happen again, and bought Liz a diamond and amethyst necklace he’d told her reminded him of the sparkle in her eyes. Maybe if he’d exchanged the extravagant necklace for a sincere apology, she would have believed him.

Even so, Liz had been determined to make the marriage work. She’d dutifully appeared by his side at every chicken dinner, every small-town parade, every campaign stop. The year of finishing school her grandfather had insisted on had made her poised. Early years in Europe with parents who had too much money and too many interests to pay attention to a little girl had taught her to fend for herself and never let them see how much their neglect hurt. For the rest of the campaign, she had smiled despite the torment.

And on the day after the hard-won election victory, she had insisted Larry fire the campaign manager he’d slept with, denying the woman the prominent place on his staff she had clearly expected.

“She goes, or I will leave you now and tell the whole world why,” she had threatened him quietly as he savored the headlines in the local paper. She had grown up over the course of the campaign. Now it was time he did the same.

It had been three months before he’d taken another lover. Another six before he traded that one in. Liz had known about most, if not all, of them, but with each one her will to fight had lessened. Her respect for her husband had vanished, and with it, the last remnants of her love. Her hopes and dreams had faded, including the plans for a family. Even if she hadn’t decided against bringing children into such a marriage, Larry’s belatedly announced timetable would have precluded it. He wanted his career on a firm footing before any children kept her from devoting her full attention to him, he had told her when she’d dared to broach the subject of starting the family they’d once talked about.

That coldly calculated timetable of his had been yet another reminder that he wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be. Even so, it had taken her a long time—too long—to admit defeat.

Now, though, as she watched her husband’s shrouded body being removed from their house, she knew the humiliation was finally over.

Or was it? Unless Tucker could find the evidence to save her, even in death Larry Chandler was going to find one more way to rip her life to shreds.

4

T ucker filled a glass with water and ice, then stood staring out the kitchen window at Mary Elizabeth. What had she been through in the last six years? What had driven her to want to put an end to her golden marriage? Had it been bad enough that she’d been driven to take drastic measures? Had she believed, even for an instant, that divorce wouldn’t end whatever hell Chandler was putting her through?

The instant the thought crossed his mind, he banished it. He would not let himself consider for one second the possibility that she was guilty of murder. Every person deserved a presumption of innocence, but it was easier for him to get to that point with Mary Elizabeth. Past history, deep feelings, gut instinct all intertwined to assure that he saw her only in the most positive light.

Which was why he’d turned the case over to Walker from the get-go. Tucker didn’t have a prayer of maintaining objectivity. He’d blindly rushed to her defense in a math class cheating scandal in tenth grade. He’d done it again on countless other occasions when her grandfather had found fault with one thing or another that she’d done. Each and every time Tucker had believed with everything in him that Mary Elizabeth was the innocent victim. Even after she’d turned her back on him years ago, he believed in her now.

How stupid was that? he wondered cynically. But breaking off a relationship was a far cry from murder. Things would have to be beyond desperate for a strong, deeply moral person to cross that kind of line.

Walker found him where he remained standing at the window, the glass of water still clutched in his hand, continuing to ponder whether things had gotten that desperate for Mary Elizabeth.

“You okay?” his brother-in-law asked.

“I’ve been better.”

“How’s she doing?”

“She’s a strong woman,” Tucker said.

“No hysterics? No grief?” Walker asked.

“She’s upset, not distraught,” Tucker conceded tightly. “The marriage was on the rocks.” He scowled at Walker’s immediate show of interest. “That doesn’t mean she wanted him dead.”

“What about money? That’s always a motive for opting for murder over divorce.”

“She had plenty of her own.”

“You sure about that? It costs a lot to maintain a place like this.”

“And she inherited more than enough from her grandfather. The Swans might have been relative latecomers to this area, but they were descended from English aristocracy. The first family member arrived here at the beginning of the eighteenth century, maybe a decade or two after the Spencers. William Swan had a head for business. So did every male descendent who came after, at least until Mary Elizabeth’s father. He was better at throwing money around than making it. He and her mother were spending the winter skiing in Switzerland when they died in an avalanche. That’s when Mary Elizabeth came here to live with her grandfather. It was the first time she’d seen him since she was a toddler. She barely even remembered him, but he took her in and devoted himself to raising her. He left her everything he had.”

“Thanks for the history lesson, but it doesn’t have much to do with what went on here last night,” Walker pointed out.

Tucker frowned. “Fine. Ignore the past and concentrate on the evidence. What have you got?”

“The forensics guys are working in there now. No signs of a struggle. Nothing out of place. We’ll have to ask Mrs. Chandler if anything’s missing, but it looks as if whoever did it had only one thing on his—or her—mind, killing Chandler and getting away.”

“I strolled around outside. I didn’t spot any signs of forced entry,” Tucker said. “How about you?”