Dead Over Heels Part 2

Discovering Martin's secret life had been the most terrible blow I'd ever sustained. Martin was born to be a buccaneer. For a while his love of danger had been satisfied by a brief stint working for a shadowy CIA-funded company following the war. After he'd begun working for Pan-Am Agra, he'd been approached again, and had resumed his clandestine activities. Only his complete withdrawal from the gun smuggling he'd been facilitating on his legitimate business trips to Central America had made our marriage workable.

I had just about recovered from the fact that he hadn't told me anything about it before we married; but it had taken a while. For a couple of months, separation had been a real possibility.

I didn't like remembering that time. Angel and Shelby dated from those days also, but I'd managed to regard them as friends and employees rather than bodyguards, for the most part. Martin had made some enemies along the way in his clandestine trade, and he was out of town a lot; installing Shelby and Angel had seemed like a wise precaution to him. Though Shelby had at first worked at Pan-Am Agra as cover for his real job-guarding me-it looked as if he actually had a career there now. He'd risen to crew leader and another promotion was looming on the horizon. That seemed the oddest by-product of the whole thing.

As I was sitting in our king-size bed with my crossword puzzle book on a lap desk resting on my knees, the thought occurred to me that, like Martin, Jack Burns was a tough man with a few enemies.

Jack, who must have been in his early fifties, had spent most of his working career on the Lawrenceton police force, though I remembered he'd tried the Atlanta police for a four-year stint. Jack had hated Atlanta ever after, and more than just about any other resident of Lawrenceton, he had resented our town's ever-nearing inclusion in the sprawling Atlanta metro-plex. Jack had hated change, and loved justice, which couldn't come pure enough to suit him. He'd had an almost total disregard for his personal appearance, beyond getting his hair cut and shaving every morning; he'd always looked as though he'd reached in his closet blindfolded and pulled on whatever came out, pieces that often seemed totally unrelated to each other.

"I wonder how he came to be in the plane," I murmured, putting aside the lap desk and book. "Seems like to me he took flying lessons at one time. I think I remember Bess saying he thought it might come in handy on the job."

Martin was brus.h.i.+ng his teeth, but he heard me. He appeared in the bathroom door to make gestures. He'd tell me in a minute.

I heard gargling noises, and Martin emerged blotting his mouth with a towel, which he tossed back in the bathroom as an afterthought. It landed sort of in the vicinity of the towel rack.

He's not good about hanging up towels.

"While you were out tonight," he said, "Sally called."

I raised my eyebrows interrogatively. Sally Allison was the kingpin reporter for the Lawrenceton Sentinel. Lawrenceton Sentinel.

"She wanted you to know, for some reason, that Jack Burns had rented the plane himself, from the Starry Night Airport ten miles away on the interstate."

"He rented it himself himself?"

Martin nodded.

Good friend that Sally was, she knew I'd be intrigued by that little fact. I clipped my pencil to the puzzle book and tried to imagine how someone had gotten Jack into the plane and then killed him and thrown him out; could one person do that? Could little planes be set on autopilot? Wouldn't someone be at the airfield to monitor arrivals and departures?

"From the very little Burns's wife said to you, he knew the ident.i.ty of someone here in Lawrenceton who'd been hidden by the Federal Witness Protection Program," Martin said.

"So why would the-I don't know, what do you call 'em, protectee? Why would he kill Jack?"

Martin raised his eyebrows at me. I'd missed something very obvious.

"I imagine whoever killed Jack Burns wanted the new name of the hidden person."

Naturally. I should have seen that before. "But if these were the people this witness had testified against, wouldn't they know what he looked like?"

"Maybe he's had plastic surgery," Martin said. "Or maybe these people only suspect they know who betrayed them." But his interest in the subject had ebbed. Once he'd decided we were safe, not implicated, he'd begun losing interest in Jack Burns's death, except as it upset or concerned me.

"But why in our backyard, Martin? You were worried about that earlier," I challenged him. "Let's hear a good reason." I took off my gla.s.ses (I was wearing my blue-framed ones that day) and crossed my arms under my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They were more or less covered in ivory lace, the top of a concoction Martin had given me for his birthday.

"Do you think our yard was picked on purpose?" Martin asked.

"Yes ... maybe. I didn't want to make a song and dance about it when Padgett Lanier was here, but the plane circled to get the drop right. The body could have been dumped in any of the fields around here and lain for days with no one the wiser and no way to trace the plane. They risked Angel and me seeing the plane, to dump Jack here." here." I pointed down, as if our bed had been the target. I pointed down, as if our bed had been the target.

"It was a threat against the protectee, as you call him," Martin said calmly. He seemed to feel better about the implications of Jack Burns ending up in our yard now. "Saying, 'Here is the body of the man who knew you, we're coming to get you soon.' "

"Could be. But why here?"

"They wanted the body found as soon as possible, to get their message across. They saw a nice big yard with two women in it who were sure to call the police right away."

Not for the first time, I realized how much I'd come to rely on Martin's decisiveness and authority. If he said this was nothing for me to worry about, I was fairly willing to accept it. And I also recognized something I should have spotted earlier; my husband was furious. Protective Martin did not like his wife frightened by falling bodies, especially when he'd decided the body had fallen near her by design. Martin was as full of pressure as a preeruptive volcano.

It was too bad we didn't have a home racquetball court. That was Martin's favorite method of letting off steam.

He had another one, however.

"Martin, I was really scared today."

Instantly he moved to his side of the bed and slid in, and his arms went around me. I nestled my head in the hollow of his neck. He held me carefully, delicately. I know a man's protection is illusory, but illusions can be awfully comforting sometimes. I raised my face to his and kissed him. When I was sure we were both thinking the same thing, I switched off my bedside lamp, turned back to him, and gave his neck a tiny nip.

We were much more relaxed when we went to sleep.

Sally Allison's story in the Lawrenceton Sentinel Lawrenceton Sentinel the next day said nothing about two big men from Atlanta. Martin left it folded open on the table by a clean coffee cup, waiting for me; he'd had to go in early for a breakfast meeting with his division heads. the next day said nothing about two big men from Atlanta. Martin left it folded open on the table by a clean coffee cup, waiting for me; he'd had to go in early for a breakfast meeting with his division heads.

Jack Burns, longtime member of the Lawrence-ton police force, was killed sometime early Monday afternoon. His body, thrown from a low-flying airplane, landed on the property of Aurora Teagarden and Martin Bartell, about a mile out of town on the Mason Road, at approximately 2 P.M. yesterday.

Burns, a native of Lawrenceton, was not known to have any enemies. His wife, former teacher Bess Linton Burns, expressed bafflement at the motive for her husband's death. "I can only think it must have been someone he arrested, someone out for revenge," she said.

"The means of his death are not known now," stated Sheriff Padgett Lanier. "Only the autopsy can tell us that."

Lanier went on to say the sheriff's department is investigating how someone else could have entered the Piper plane, rented by Burns from Starry Night Airport yesterday, and overcome Burns. The plane was found returned yesterday, and no one at the tiny airport can identify the pilot.

See Obituaries, Page 6.

I could imagine Sally's frustration at being given so little to work with. When she'd called me the night before to offer me the tidbit about Jack Burns himself having rented the plane that took him to his final landing place, perhaps she'd been in search of some additional detail to pad out the story. Accompanying it was the usual grim shot of the two medics loading the covered stretcher into the ambulance. You could tell the covered bundle was sort of flat... I gulped and pushed the memory away.

I glanced at the clock. It was a relief to have to look at it again, to have something to plan my days around. I'd resumed working part-time at the library in Lawrenceton four weeks ago when Sam Clerrick had called me out of the blue to tell me his oldest librarian had suddenly turned to him to say, "I can't shelve one more book. I can't tell one more child to be quiet. I can't deal with this new aide. I can't tell one more patron where the Georgia collection is."

Left in a bind, Sam had called me since I'd worked for him before. I'd agreed instantly to take the job; and Sam had agreed to see how my working part-time would do, at least while he scouted around to see if anyone wanted to work full-time. So I was working nine to one for five days a week, with one of the days changing every week, since the library was open on Sat.u.r.days from nine to one. No one wanted Sat.u.r.day every week, including me. The aide took over in the afternoons, sometimes in conjunction with a volunteer.

I was ready to go in early. Might as well get the inevitable inquisition from my co-workers over with.

It was a beautiful spring Tuesday, with lots of sun and a brisk cool breeze. Angel was sitting on the steps leading up to the Youngbloods' garage apartment, looking muddy, the result of pallor under her chronic tan.

"What's the matter?" I couldn't remember Angel ever being ill.

"I don't know," she said. "The past few days I've just felt awful. I don't want to get up out of bed, I don't want to run."

"Do you have a temperature?"

"No," she said listlessly. "At least, I don't think so. We've never had a thermometer."

I tried to imagine that. "Did you try to run today?"

"Yeah. I got about half a mile and had to come back." She was still in her running clothes, sweating profusely.

"Look, let me take you in to the doctor. I've got an hour before I really have to be at work," I said impulsively. I hated to think of Angel driving to the doctor by herself; she was so obviously ill.

"I've never been to a doctor except to get st.i.tched up in an emergency room," Angel said.

"Let me go call him," I said, when I'd recovered from my shock. "You go take a shower and pull on some slacks."

Angel nodded wearily and pulled herself up by the railing. She was trudging up the stairs as I went inside to call the doctor and the library. "I promise I'll work the hours today," I told Sam. "I just have to take a friend to the doctor. She hasn't got anyone else."

"There are disadvantages to having an employee who doesn't really need the job," Sam said distantly. "Is this going to be happening much?"

"No," I said, a little offended, though I knew he was in the right. "I'll be in on time tomorrow. It's just today that I'll be a little late."

When I got out to my old blue car, Angel was sitting on the pa.s.senger's side in white slacks and a yellow tank top, though it seemed cool for a tank top to me. I remembered how profusely she'd been sweating after her short run. She was leaning her head against the gla.s.s of the window.

Angel's indisposition was worrying me more and more. I'd never seen her anything less than 100 percent physically, and I'd always envied her Superwoman physique-though not enough to work out every day so I'd have one like it. Angel was silent and listless during the short ride into town.

Dr. Zelman's waiting room was not as full as I'd feared. There were two elderly couples; probably only one out of each pair needed to see the doctor. And oddly enough, there was blond Mr. Dryden, who was arguing with Dr. Zelman's receptionist, Trinity.

"Would you please inform the doctor that I'm here on official business?" Dryden was saying in an exasperated voice.

"I did," Trinity said coldly.

I could have given Mr. Dryden some good advice right about then, had he been in the market for it. "Never alienate the receptionist" is the first rule of all those who have a limited pool of doctors to draw from.

"Does he realize that I need to get back to Atlanta very soon?"

"He does indeed realize that." Trinity's face under its fluff of brown-and-gray permed hair was getting grimmer and grimmer.

"You're sure you told him?"

"I tell Dr. Zelman everything. I'm his wife."

Dryden resumed his seat in a chastened manner. It seemed the only two adjacent seats in the waiting room were the ones next to him. After we'd filled out the necessary "new patient" and insurance forms, Angel and I settled in, with me next to Dryden. I wriggled in my seat, resigned to discomfort. My feet can never quite touch the floor in standard chairs. So I often have to sit with my knees primly together, toes braced on the floor. I was wearing khakis that morning, and a sky-blue blouse with a b.u.t.ton-down collar. My hair, loose today since I'd been in a hurry to get Angel to the doctor, kept getting wrapped around the b.u.t.tons. Since Angel obviously didn't feel like talking, once I'd disentangled myself I opened a paperback (I always keep one in my purse) and was soon deep in the happenings of Jesus Creek, Tennessee.

"Aren't your gla.s.ses a different color today?" inquired a male voice.

I glanced up. Dryden was staring at me. "I have several pair," I told him. I had on my white-rimmed ones today, to celebrate spring.

His blond brows rose slightly above his heavy tortoise-sh.e.l.l rims. "Expensive," he said. "You must have married an optometrist."

"No," I said. "I'm rich."

That kept him quiet for a while, but not long enough.

"Are you the same Aurora Teagarden into whose yard the body fell yesterday?" he asked, when the silence seemed to stretch.

No, I'm a different one. There are several of us in Lawrenceton. "Yes." "Yes."

"And you didn't say anything at the Burns house last night?"

"What was I supposed to say?" I asked, bewildered. " 'Gee, Mrs. Burns, I saw your husband's body. It looked as though someone had run over it with a meat tenderizer?' Actually, she did ask me if he was dead before he hit the ground and I told her I thought he was."

"I see. About d.a.m.n time About d.a.m.n time.

"However," he continued, "we need to interview you about the incident."

I noted the terminology. "Then you'll have to do it this afternoon. I have to go to work after I take my friend home. And I have to get my husband off to Chicago." I added this last out of sheer perversity, since Martin, experienced traveler that he was, always packed for himself and drove himself to the airport in a company car, not wanting his Mercedes to be the target of thieves or vandals in the long-term parking lot. The only thing I had to do with Martin's trips was to miss him.

I'd been missing him a lot lately.

Dryden suggested four o'clock at my house, I agreed, and I returned pointedly to my book. But Dryden had his talking shoes on.

"So, your husband is the plant manager at Pan-Am Agra?"

"His job just got upgraded to vice president in charge of manufacturing." I turned a page.

"Have you been married long?"

By golly, I was on the verge of being rude. Really.

"Two years," I said briefly.

Then, thank goodness, Trinity called Angel's name.

"Please come in with me, Roe," my bodyguard said quietly.

Considerably surprised, but pleased to be escaping Dryden, I tucked my book in my purse and rose to my feet. Dr. Zelman's new nurse took over from Trinity, leading us to a cramped examining room with rose-and-blue walls and a table that would barely hold Angel. Something about the nurse seemed familiar. As she talked to Angel about her aches and pains, efficiently taking Angel's blood pressure and checking her temperature, I realized the woman in white was Linda Ehrhardt, whose bridesmaid I'd been in the long, long ago. She'd been Linda Poc.o.c.k for years now. As she turned away from Angel, she recognized me too.

After the usual exclamations and hugs, Linda said, "I guess you heard I got divorced and moved back home."

"I'm sorry. But it'll be nice to see you again."

"Yes, that'll be fun. Of course I brought my children, and they're in school here now."

"I'm sorry, I've forgotten. Was that two girls?"

"Yes, Carol and Macey." Linda extracted the thermometer from Angel's mouth and glanced at the reading. She wrote it down on Angel's chart without a change of expression.

"Mrs. Youngblood, you'll need to disrobe for your examination," Linda said rather loudly, as though Angel's habitual silence meant she was short on wits rather than words. "There's the cubicle in the corner, just put on one of those gowns."

Angel glared at Linda after she'd looked at the cubicle, and I had to admit I couldn't see Angel's changing in that tiny area as a possibility. But she managed, grumbling to herself. So I wouldn't be just sitting there listening to her, I brushed my hair with the help of the mirror over the sink, carefully drawing the brush all the way through the ma.s.s of streaky brown waves, trying not to break off my ends by pulling the brush out too soon. I gave up when it was flying around my head, wild with electricity. By that time Angel had managed to reensconce herself on the table with the obligatory sheet across her lap, though she was clearly unhappy with the whole situation and not a little afraid.

Dr. Zelman burst in just as Angel was about to say something. He never just came into a room, and he never just left; he made entrances and exits. He almost never closed the door completely, something his nurse or his patient's friends had to do. (I crept behind him to do it now.) Now in his early fifties, "Pinky" (Pincus) Zelman had worked in Lawrenceton for twenty years, after a short-lived practice in Augusta that had left him inexplicably longing for something more rural.