Chapter 4 #2
“What now?” he muttered, opened the email, and began to read, quietly cursing himself that he hadn’t thought to return all of Floy’s property when he was released, then froze as he read the last part. He opened the attachment, staring in disbelief.
“Son-of-a-gun!” he muttered. Then within seconds of reading it, he heard voices rising in the lobby. Female voices. One of them he immediately recognized. Mayrene Beaudine was back from the dead.
“I demand to see my husband!” Mayrene shrieked.
The chief strolled into the lobby. “Why? You walked out on him days ago without a note. He thought Elvis ate you. He has passed out twice in the last twenty-four hours, injuring himself anew every time he hit the floor. He cried for thirty-six hours straight. He had had a nervous breakdown not knowing where you were. I made the mistake of assuming all those cuts on his chest and the bruises on his body were from a fight you two had, only to learn later it was from a jar of green beans you broke on his chest when you slammed the door in his face. The rest of his injuries were from every time he passed out. I have cleared his name, but he now hates my guts and has blacklisted me from his client list. My deputies pulled him out from under the cot in his jail cell where he’d had some kind of seizure.
He’s been in the hospital twice since you left.
” He opened an evidence bag and handed her back her phone.
“This was seized during what we assumed would be a murder investigation.” And then pointed at the door. “You two can see yourselves out.”
Quilla’s face was beet-red. Mayrene’s was ghost white.
“Ohmygawd,” Mayrene mumbled, grabbed her mother’s arm, and dragged her out of the station.
Stuart glanced at the chief and grinned. “You didn’t tell her you took him home.”
Chief Arnold shrugged. “We wasted three days of manpower looking for her. She can spend a little more time running his whereabouts down on her own,” he said, then gathered all of Floy’s property from the evidence room and handed it to Tex.
“Your search of the property was pathetic. Did either of you even go into the basement? How could you not see a security camera over the doorway?”
Tex paled. “Uh . . . we didn’t search the basement.”
Chief Arnold rolled his eyes. “Well, Floy has requested the return of her property. Take it to him, please, and don’t forget to have him sign for it.”
“Right Chief,” Tex said.
Arnold went back into his office, rewatched the video Floy had sent, and began digging through laws that would allow him to file charges against the two women.
Mayrene drove her mama’s car now, flying through the streets of town toward the little hospital, going over every possible explanation she might use to get back in Floy’s good graces.
One more block, then a quick turn to the left, and they arrived.
The single ambulance was parked in the bay.
The parking lot was half full as she wheeled in and parked, then got out on the run, leaving Quilla to proceed at her own pace.
But the moment she showed up at the entrance, a communal gasp rose from the people in the waiting room. Mayrene could hear the whispers.
“Oh, my gawd . . . it’s her!”
“She has a nerve showing her face.”
“She don’t look dead to me.”
“Poor Floy.”
Mayrene’s heart skipped as she reached the reception desk. She hadn’t counted on the dangers of public opinion.
“I came to see my husband, Floy Beaudine. What room is he in?”
The receptionist looked up, frowning. “He checked himself out. Chief Arnold took him home.”
Quilla snorted.
Mayrene groaned.
They ran out of the lobby and back to the car. Mayrene knew the way home, but she’d never been afraid of walking through the doorway—until now.
“When we get there, you just take your stuff and go on in. I don’t need to be in the middle of this,” Quilla said.
Mayrene grabbed her mother’s wrist. “You’ve been in the middle of our business since we said, ‘I do.’ To my shame, I have let you interfere. I have followed your advice instead of that of my husband and look where we are. So you are, by God, going in with me, to help me explain,” Mayrene said.
Quilla sighed, but she had to admit that she looked forward to the broken version of Floy Beaudine.
Floy patiently waited for the inevitable arrival as he put the wet bed sheets into the dryer, then went back to the kitchen and added laundry soap to his lengthening grocery list.
The first car that drove up was Officer Tex returning Floy’s personal effects from when he’d been jailed. He knocked, and when Floy opened the door, he put the evidence bag in Floy’s hands.
“Sorry about all this,” he mumbled. “Sign here, please.”
Floy put an X on the signature line as more of his protest, closed the door in Tex’s face, got his phone charger out of the bedroom, plugged it in by the kitchen table, and left it charging.
He opened his wallet to make sure his ID, credit cards, and money were there, then put it in his hip pocket.
He took the clothes that had been confiscated and threw them in the laundry basket.
Even though he had some serious housecleaning to attend to, normal life was easing back into his life.
Five minutes later, he heard another car in the driveway and knew from the speed of its arrival that Mayrene had finally decided to get her ass home.
But he didn’t meet her on the porch. There was no open-arms welcome awaiting her. That crow had already flown off the fence.
He was in the living room when he heard the voices. Two of them. Quilla and Mayrene, arguing all the way up the steps. He braced himself against the arm of the sofa and waited.
The door swung open. The women were looking at each other, still muttering between themselves when they realized Floy was in the room.
Mayrene gasped.
Quilla paled.
They didn’t know where to look at first: at the gash down the middle of his forehead or the sight of his gaunt features—both eyes blackened and burning with a fury they had never seen him display.
His hair was awry. His clothes were hanging off his body as they’d suddenly become a size too large in only three days.
His phone rang, breaking the silence. When he turned to look, they saw the shaved area and stitches on the back of his head.
Mayrene darted toward him with arms outstretched.
“Oh my God! Floy! Honey! I’m so—”
“Don’t touch me!” he snapped, then raised his T-shirt, revealing the horrifying array of healing cuts all over his chest.
Her hands went to her mouth and then dropped to her side. “What happened?” she whispered.
“You happened. You did that when you shoved the green beans in my hands, then slammed the door in my face. The canning jar shattered against my chest while you were having your little fit. The stitches are from the second time I passed out when I learned it wasn’t you in Elvis’s belly.
Just somebody’s hog. The cut on my forehead happened right after I first saw Elvis in the backyard and thought he’d eaten you.
I turned around in absolute horror to get my phone and ran into the screen door.
That’s why I have a crease in my forehead and two black eyes.
” He glared at Quilla. “Sit! Both of you. I have something else to say, but it won’t take long. ”
“I don’t need to hear anything,” Quilla snapped. “Give me my car keys, Mayrene. I’m going home.”
Floy shouted, “Quilla, for once in your miserable life, shut the hell up and sit the hell down!”
The roar that came out of his mouth shocked both into submission.
They sat.
Floy stood.
“Here’s what happens next. Mayrene, you have exactly one hour to get all your clothes and makeup and whatever the hell else you want out of my house, because whatever you leave, I will burn.”
“No, Floy, please!” Mayrene said. “I didn’t know you’d take it this way.
When I saw Elvis, all stretched out in the backyard, I just panicked.
I was going into the house to get my phone and call you when Mama called, telling me she was home from her trip.
I told her about Elvis, and she said to just pack my clothes and come stay with her until everything was fixed.
I accidentally dropped my phone when I packed and forgot I hadn’t called you.
I didn’t realize it was gone until we were on the way to Mama’s. ”
Floy’s voice went down to a whisper. “So, you’re telling me you knew Elvis was in the yard, you saw the bulge in his belly, and just left me to find that out on my own.”
Mayrene was trembling. “Well, I knew you’d see him. I didn’t realize you’d think it was me in his belly. I’m sorry. Okay?”
“It’s never going to be okay. I came too damn close to blowing my brains out because of you. You could have left me a note telling me the witch who birthed you was back.”
Quilla gasped, her face turning red in anger, but he didn’t even acknowledge her presence; he just kept talking.
“You could have borrowed her phone. You had a hundred chances to call me, and you took none of them . . . In the end, after what I saw last night on the security camera, it will never be all right again.”
Mayrene’s heart skipped. “What security camera?”
“Uh . . . that would be the one I installed in the basement after Elvis’s second escape.
I kept blaming it on him breaking out on his own, when all the while it was you.
In my distress, I had forgotten the camera was there until this morning after I came home from the hospital.
” Floy’s voice slipped to a cold, deadly whisper.
“How dare you do this to me? You lied to me. You lied to me every time he disappeared.”
Quilla gave Mayrene a warning look, which her daughter promptly ignored. She was about to throw her mama under the bus for one last chance at redemption.
Mayrene lifted her chin. “I didn’t want a snake in my house.”