Read Online Slow Dollar by Margaret Maron - Free Book Online Page B

brightened by September sunlight that spilled through a line of skylights in the ceiling.
    Except for a drink cup of clear purple plastic on the shelf beside the plaid couch and an ashtray with three cigarette butts, there wasn’t a paper or thread out of place. Janice Needham would’ve been hard-pressed to find something to pick at here.
    I glanced around as we sat down in the chairs at opposite ends of the couch. The doors to both bedrooms were open and she seemed to be alone. A house of bereavement is normally crowded with relatives, friends, and neighbors. In this case, though, relatives and neighbors were probably back in Florida, and friends here would be out working the carnival. This sunny Saturday had brought out lots of people and profit margins were probably too small to let natural sympathies take precedence till after hours.
    She noticed my glance. “Arn’s over at Braz’s trailer with your deputy friend. And we’re so shorthanded, I told Val he might as well help keep the stores going. Nothing else for him to do right now till they release Braz’s body. I guess that sounds sort of mercenary to you?”
    I shook my head. “My mother died near the end of barning season. The neighbors did what they could, but they had their own fields to harvest. So I know a little bit about what it’s like for you.”
    “Yeah, I was sorry when I heard she’d died.”
    That surprised me. “You knew my mother?”
    She abruptly reached for her glass and stood up. “I’m going to have another glass of tea. Can I fix you one?”
    I stood, too. “Let me get it for you. You’re the one who should be sitting.”
    “Trust me, I’m not, okay? If I sit still for too long, my mind keeps going over and over all the thing I might’ve done different, things that might’ve kept Braz safe.”
    “Mrs. Ames, how did you know my—”
    “Call me Tally, okay? Unless you mind if I call you Deborah?”
    “No, of course not.”
    “Or is it Deb?”
    “Never,” I said firmly. “Too many Little Debbie jokes when I was a child. Dwight—Major Bryant said you wanted to see me?”
    She put ice cubes in a second glass and poured tea from a jar in the small refrigerator. As she handed it to me, both our bracelets tinkled and she gave me a wan smile. “You
do
remember, don’t you?”
    “Excuse me?”
    Now it was her turn to look puzzled. “Isn’t that why you wore your bracelet to come here today?”
    “Because I saw yours in court? No, I came across mine by accident this morning. I’d almost forgotten I even had it.”
    “Pure coincidence, huh?”
    Her tone was flatly skeptical and I didn’t understand why.
    She held out her wrist and said, “Take a good look at mine.”
    From the weight of the charms as I touched them, I was sure they were solid gold and worth a lot more than my sterling ones. And yet, there amongst all the little gold totems was a single silver one, a tiny teddy bear identical to mine.
    A silver teddy bear?
    I could almost hear Mother’s voice. “Just like yours, Deborah. You were only three, though. That’s probably why you don’t remember.”
    “
Olivia?
”
    Her smile was half-defiant. “Or should I call you Aunt Deborah?”
    I couldn’t believe it. But here were those blue, blue eyes that I had noticed that first day in court.
    Cornflower blue.
    Knott blue. Like every one of my daddy’s children.
    Like all his grandchildren, too, it would seem. And on some visceral, subliminal level, my subconscious had picked up on Tally’s eyes—on Braz’s as well—and sent me a dream of blue quarters.
    “I had just turned five,” Tally was saying. “You weren’t quite three. My mom had dumped me on my Hatcher grandparents that summer, and you and your mom came out to the farm. She gave me a bag of chocolate candy and a silver charm bracelet just like yours. I forget what all was on mine besides the teddy bear. It came loose and I kept it in a little box by itself or it’d be gone now, too.”
    “She