“Good God, man! I'm not carrying the damned thing around with me! It's in the safe deposit box at my bank."
“No!" Kitty exclaimed. "He's lying. Dwayne told me he'd absolutely refused to sign anything."
Thatcher turned to her, looking as if he couldn't quite remember who she was. "What on earth would you know about it?" His voice dripped with contemptuous dismissal.
Kitty reeled back as if he'd physically assaulted her.
Mel stepped forward. "Mr. Thatcher, let's go somewhere private and I'll explain it all to you.”
Somehow Mel managed to sweep Shelley and Jane out of the room as well and abandon them the moment the door closed behind them. Thatcher was bellowing that he had the right to know just what the hell was going on and Mel was speaking quietly and leading him up the stairs to the privacy of Thatcher's remote bedroom.
“Can this possibly be true?" Jane said, still stunned.
Shelley headed for the kitchen. "I need coffee. Badly.”
They found the largest cups in the kitchen and filled them to take outside. It was getting dark and something nearby was blooming with a beautiful fragrance. Sitting down on the slight rise where the wedding pictures had been taken a few hours earlier, Shelley finally answered. "If it's true, Kitty and Dwayne are the sleaziest people I've ever known."
“I think I find that easier to accept than you do," Jane admitted. "I haven't liked Kitty since I set eyes on her. But until now, I didn't have any reason to feel that way and felt sort of guilty about having such antipathy for someone I didn't even know."
“I guess if Jack Thatcher can turn up with a prenup contract, that will prove she's lying." Shelley blew across the top of her coffee, trying to get it cool enough to down a big, comforting slug of it.
Jane thought for a moment. "No, not necessarily. It might only prove that Dwayne was lying to Kitty about not signing it."
“Could Dwayne have really and truly had the hots for Kitty?" Shelley asked.
“Sure. Remember Joselyn Wossername? That woman who lived down the block from us years ago?"
“Only vaguely."
“She was downright unattractive," Jane reminded her. "Thin cranky lips, practically no eyebrows, dumpy figure, awful hair. But men were gaga about her."
“But she had a good personality, as I recall.Made them all feel like King of the Mountain. Kitty didn't even have that going for her."
“Still, there's no accounting for other people's taste," Jane said. "If what she's saying is true, they were both such sleazeballs that they're way outside our range of understanding. The whole thing could have been a con job from the very beginning, just like Kitty said. They picked a sheltered, rich, mealymouthed victim who was being pressured to get married and if somebody hadn't bumped Dwayne off, it might have worked.”
Shelley nodded. "You could be right."
“Remember?" Jane said. "We were wondering all along why Jack Thatcher was letting Livvy marry someone so gigolo-ish. Kitty and Dwayne knew they weren't socially acceptable to the likes of the Thatchers. They had every reason to suspect Jack would give Dwayne a bundle to get lost."
“White trash who know they're white trash and make the best use of it?”
Jane took a sip of her coffee. "Something like that. Even we know that sometimes you get what you want by being deliberately obnoxious. I've seen you do it.”
Shelley grinned. "So true. But somehow I just can't accept Kitty's story. I suppose because it's so ugly and coldhearted."
“Yes, it's hard to connect with that kind of thinking, isn't it? But there is some evidence that Kitty's story is true. Just the fact that she put that wedding announcement in the paper is one thing.
Nobody'd do that unless they knew for sure they were actually getting married."
“Didn't work that way in her case, though," Shelley said, flapping her hand at a moth that had taken a liking to her and kept trying to form a relationship with her hair.
“But only because they misjudged how desperate Jack Thatcher was to get some grandsons on the way. But there's more. Look at all the luggage Kitty brought along to the wedding."
“I'd forgotten that. I remember thinking she looked like she had enough stuff along to follow up the wedding with a round-the-world cruise."
“Me, too. I'd bet anything she'd burned her boats and has nearly everything she owns in the suitcases and her car. She did intend to marry Dwayne this weekend."
“But was it what Dwayne intended?" Shelley asked, taking another vicious swipe at the moth.
“Apparently so," Jane said, then frowned. "Or maybe not. Possibly he just let her think so. But why would he want her to believe it?"
“Was he double-crossing her?" Shelley wondered. "Maybe he was just stringing her along in case the wedding fell through and he came out of it as broke as ever. No, that won't play.”
Jane shook her head. "I can't get a handle on Dwayne's role in this. Do you suppose he even liked either of them?”
Shelley shrugged. "I hardly spoke to him. But he could well have been one of those people who only like themselves. He certainly looked thepart. Maybe he, too, had grand visions of little Dwaynes all over the place and figured Kitty looked like good breeding stock and Livvy could finance him."
“Or maybe he just got in way over his head with the whole scheme and didn't know what to do," Jane said irritably. "There was Kitty on the one hand, who appears to have absolutely worshiped him, which is pretty hard to dismiss even if you don't have an inflated ego. And Livvy on the other hand, who was reluctantly willing to provide him with cash, luxury, and social standing.”
“You're saying he was spineless?"
“Probably. And maybe just too stupid to carry it off. Maybe he really did blurt out something about wanting Kitty instead, and Livvy lost her head. Imagine if you didn't really want to marry the guy to begin with, and then, while you're still in your wedding dress, he hits you with the news that he prefers a drip like Kitty. Add to that how utterly, horribly stiff-upper-lip and repressed Livvy is…"
“Mount St. Helen's. ." Shelley said. "KA-BOOM!”
t wenty-two ·
"I can't stand this moth anymore. Let's go back inside," Shelley said.
As Jane hoisted herself wearily to her feet, she said, "Don't you wonder what she might have in all that luggage?"
“I imagine the police have already thought of that," Shelley said.
“Still, let's just have a little peek.”
They refilled their coffee cups and strolled casually down the long hall to Kitty's room. Jane put her ear to the door and couldn't hear anyone inside. She tapped lightly. No response. Shelley opened the door gingerly. The room was empty.
It appeared that police had already made a cursory, and surprisingly tidy, inspection of Kitty's belongings. Two large suitcases were open on the bed. A briefcase was open on the small table under the window. Jane hadn't seen it before. A big box from Victoria's Secret was open and fullto the brim with exquisite and very sexy underwear. It all looked several sizes too small for Kitty's ample figure.
“She must be pretty good at fooling herself," Shelley said, holding up a lacy size 32 B bra. "She's got to be a thirty-eight C or it's been too long since I bought underwear.”
Jane was preoccupied. "There's something missing."
“What?" Shelley said, dropping the bra back into the box.
“There was another piece of luggage. A smaller case. Brown, I think. I carried it in and noticed that it was pretty light and had something in it that sort of thumped.”