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  King didn’t head to the front door; instead, he went around to the side of the trailer. Directly behind the double-wide about forty feet back and enclosed on three sides by leafy trees was a large wooden shed. It had no door, and inside they could see walls lined with tools and a large air generator on the floor. As they approached the structure, an unkempt dog, ribs showing, lumbered out of the shed, saw them and commenced barking and baring its yellowed teeth. Luckily, the animal appeared to be chained to a deeply set stake.

  “Okay, enough snooping around,” King declared.

  As he and Michelle mounted the steps to the trailer, a heavyset woman appeared behind the screened front door.

  The woman’s hair was big and black with silver streaks. Her dress resembled a purple sandwich board glued over her immense, square-cut frame, and her face was composed of doughy cheeks, three chins, small lips and closely set eyes. The skin was pale and virtually unwrinkled. Except for the hair color, it would have been difficult to guess her exact age.

  “Ms. Oxley?” said King with his hand out in greeting. She didn’t take it.

  “Who the hell wants to know?”

  “I’m Sean King and this is Michelle Maxwell. We’ve been hired by Harry Carrick to handle an investigation on behalf of your husband.”

  “That’d be quite a feat considering my husband’s been dead for years,” was her surprising reply. “You must be wanting my daughter, Lulu. I’m Priscilla.”

  “I’m sorry, Priscilla,” said King, glancing at Michelle.

  “She’s gone to get him. Get Junior, I mean.” She took a sip of something in a Disney World coffee mug she was holding.

  “I thought he was in jail,” said Michelle.

  The woman’s gaze swiveled to her.

  “He was. That’s what bail’s for, shug. I come up from West Virginia to help out with the kids till Junior gets himself outta this mess. If he can.” She shook her large head. “Stealing from rich people. Ain’t nothing dumber, but dumb is what Junior’s been his whole life.”

  “Do you know when they’ll be back?” asked King.

  “They were picking up the kids from school, so ain’t gonna be too long from now.” Priscilla looked at them in distrust. “So exactly what are you doing here?”

  “We’ve been retained by Junior’s attorney to dig up evidence proving his innocence,” explained King.

  “Well, you got yourself a long road ahead.”

  “So you think he’s guilty?” said Michelle, leaning against the banister.

  Priscilla looked at her in unconcealed disgust. “He’s done shit like this before.”

  King spoke up. “Well, maybe Junior didn’t do this.”

  “Yeah, and maybe I’m a size six and got me my own TV show.”

  “If they’re going to be back soon, can we come in and wait?”

  Priscilla raised the pistol that she held in her other hand; it had been hidden from their view behind an outcropping of fleshy hip. “Lulu don’t like me letting people in. And I don’t have no way of knowing if you are who you say.” She pointed the gun at King. “Now, I don’t want to shoot you, ’cause you’re kinda cute, but I sure as hell will, and your little skinny plaything there too, if you try anything funny.”

  King held up his hands in mock surrender. “No problems, Priscilla.” He paused and added, “That’s a fine pistol you’ve got there. H and K nine-millimeter, isn’t it?”

  “Hell if I know, belonged to my husband,” said Priscilla. “But I sure know how to shoot it.”

  “We’ll just take a stroll around outside and wait,” said King, backing down the stairs and pulling Michelle with him.

  “You do that. Just don’t steal my Mercedes over there,” said Priscilla as she shut the door.

  Michelle said, “Skinny plaything? I’d like to stick that pistol right up her—”

  King gripped her shoulder and led her away from the trailer. “Let’s just be cool and live to play detective another day.”

  As they headed away from the trailer, King bent down, picked up a rock and sent it sailing into a ravine. “Why do you think Remmy Battle left the hole in the secret cupboard in Bobby’s closet? She hired someone to fix the damage in her closet. Why not fix Bobby’s at the same time?”

  “Maybe she’s pissed at him and didn’t want to deal with it.”

  “And you think she’s upset because she didn’t know there was a secret drawer in his closet or what was in it?”

  “While we’re at it, there’s something bugging me too,” she said. “Why was her wedding ring in that drawer? She tells us what a great man her husband is, so why wasn’t she wearing her ring? It couldn’t be because of the secret drawer. She didn’t find out about that until after her ring and the other things were stolen.”

  “She might have suspected Bobby was hiding something from her, or maybe they were having problems. Like Harry said, Bobby slept around. Or she could’ve been lying to us.”

  Michelle had a sudden thought. “Do you think Junior was hired by someone to break into the house and steal what was in Bobby’s secret drawer?”

  “Who would know about it other than Bobby?”

  “The person who built it.”

  King nodded. “And that person could presume that valuables would be kept in there. In fact, it might be the same person who built Remmy’s. Bobby might have hired him to do his without bothering to tell his wife.”

  Michelle said, “Well, I guess we can rule out Remmy’s hiring Junior to break into the house and steal what was in her husband’s drawer. If she knew where it was, she could’ve done it herself.”

  “If she knew where it was. Maybe she didn’t or couldn’t find it on her own, and hired Junior to find it for her and make it look like a burglary.”

  “But if she had hired him, she never would have called the police.”

  King shook his head. “Not true if Junior double-crossed her and stole her things while he was looking for Bobby’s secret cache. And maybe Junior’s not telling everything just yet because he wants to see how the cards fall.”

  “Why am I suddenly thinking this case is far more complicated than people think it is?” said Michelle wearily.

  “I never thought it was simple.”

  They both turned in the direction of the van pulling up to the trailer.

  King glanced at the occupants of the vehicle and then looked at Michelle. “Lulu must have scored the bail. That’s Junior Deaver in the passenger seat. Let’s see if we can get the truth out of him.”

  “With the way things have been going so far, don’t hold your breath on that. Straight answers seem to be in short supply.”

  Chapter 20

  Junior Deaver looked like a man who made his living with his hands. His jeans and T-shirt were streaked with paint smears and seemed permanently coated with drywall dust. He was over six feet four, and his arms were thick and powerful, deeply bronzed by the sun, and bore numerous scars, scabs and at least five tattoos, by Michelle’s count, covering a variety of subject matter from mothers to Lulu to Harley-Davidson. His hair was brown and thinning, and he wore it long and pulled back in a ponytail that unfortunately emphasized his graying and receding hairline. A small, bristly goatee covered his chin, and his bushy sideburns had been grown down past his Santa Claus cheeks. He lifted his smallest child, a six-year-old girl with beautifully soft brown eyes and slender pigtails, out of the van with a tenderness that Michelle would hardly have given him credit for.

  Lulu Oxley was thin and wore a crisp-looking black business suit and low heels. Her brown hair was done up professionally in a complicated braid and bun, and she wore chic eyeglasses with slender gold frames. She held a briefcase in one hand and in the other the small hand of what looked to be an eight-year-old boy. The third child, a girl of about twelve, followed behind carrying a large school bag. All the children wore the uniform of one of the local Catholic schools.

  King stepped forward and extended his hand to Junior.

  �
�Junior, I’m Sean King. Harry Carrick hired us to work on your behalf.”

  Junior eyed Lulu, who nodded, and then he very grudgingly took King’s hand and squeezed. Michelle saw her partner wince before the big man let go.

  “This is my partner, Michelle Maxwell.”

  Lulu studied both of them very closely. “Harry said you’d be coming by. I just got Junior out, and I don’t want him to go back in.”

  “I ain’t going back in,” growled Junior. “’Cause I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  As he said this, the little girl in his arms began to quietly cry.

  “Oh, dang,” he said, “Mary Margaret, now don’t you cry no more. Daddy ain’t going no place ’cept home.” The little girl continued to sob.

  “Mama,” called out Lulu, “come and get the children, will you?”

  Priscilla appeared at the door, minus the gun, and shooed the older children inside before holding out her arms for Mary Margaret and taking the sobbing girl.

  She glared at Junior. “Well, I see they let anybody out of jail these days.”

  “Mama,” exclaimed Lulu sharply, “just go inside and see to the children.”

  Priscilla put down Mary Margaret, and the little girl fled into the trailer. Priscilla nodded at King and Michelle. “This slick-talking feller and his chickie come ’round asking a bunch of questions. Say they’re working for Junior. I say you should fire a bullet over their heads and tell them where they can go.”

  At the “chickie” slur King automatically grabbed Michelle’s arm to hold her back from throttling the older woman. “Ms. Oxley,” he said. “Like I said, we’re here on Junior’s behalf. We’ve already been to see Remmy Battle.”

  “Well, la-di-da,” said Priscilla Oxley, who finished this statement with a snort. “And how’s the queen today?”

  “Do you know her?” asked King.

  “I used to work at the Greenbrier Resort over in West Virginia. She and her family came there right regular.”

  “And she was… demanding?” said King.

  “She was a royal pain in my fat ass,” declared Priscilla. “And if Junior was dumb enough to steal from a witch like that, he deserves whatever he gets.”

  Lulu pointed a finger at the woman. “Mother, we have things to discuss with these people.” She looked up at the front door of the trailer where Mary Margaret was listening and trembling in her distress. “Things the children don’t need to hear.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, honey,” said Priscilla. “I’ll fill ’em in on all their daddy’s shortcomings. Only take me a couple of months.”

  “Now, Mother, don’t be going and doing that,” said Junior as he studied his large feet. He was a good foot taller than Priscilla Oxley, though he didn’t outweigh her by all that much, and yet it was clear to both King and Michelle that the man was terrified of his mother-in-law.

  “Don’t you call me Mother. All the things Lulu and me done for you, and this is how you repay us? Getting yourself in trouble, maybe going to the electric chair!”

  On this, Mary Margaret’s sobs turned into earsplitting wails, and Lulu erupted into action.

  “Excuse me,” she said politely but firmly to King and Michelle.

  She marched up the steps, grabbed a fistful of her mother’s dress and pulled the larger woman into the trailer along with Mary Margaret. From behind the closed door they could hear muffled cries and angry voices, and then all became quiet. A few seconds after that, Lulu reemerged and closed the door behind her.

  “Mama sometimes goes on when she’s been drinking. Sorry about that,” she said.

  “She doesn’t like me much,” said Junior unnecessarily.

  “Why don’t we sit over here?” said Lulu, pointing to an old picnic table on the right side of the trailer.

  Once settled there, King filled them both in on the visit to the Battles’.

  Lulu said, “The problem is that.” She pointed to the large shed behind the trailer. “I’ve told Junior a million times to put a door and lock on that thing.”

  “Old story,” he said sheepishly. “Working on everybody else’s house, ain’t got time for my own.”

  “But the point,” continued Lulu, “is that anybody can get in there.”

  “Not with old Luther back there,” Junior said, nodding at the dog that had emerged once more from the shed and was barking happily at the sight of his owners.

  “Luther!” said Lulu incredulously. “Sure he’ll bark, but he won’t bite, and he’ll roll over like a baby when somebody brings him food.” She turned to King and Michelle. “He has buddies coming over all the time to borrow tools. When we’re not here, they leave little notes and let us know when they’re gonna be bringing the things back, and sometimes they never do. And Luther sure as hell never stopped one of ’em.”

  “They’ll leave a six-pack as a thank-you,” offered Junior quickly. “They’re good old boys.”

  “They’re old boys all right, just don’t know how good they are,” said Lulu hotly. “One of them might’ve set you up.”

  “Now, baby, ain’t none of them gonna do that to me.”

  King cut in. “But all we have to show is reasonable doubt. If the jury thinks there’s an alternative out there, well, that’s good for you.”

  “That’s right, Junior,” said his wife.

  “But they’re my friends. I ain’t gonna get them in trouble. I know they ain’t done nothing to hurt me. Hell, there ain’t no way they coulda broke into the Battles’ place. And let me tell you, they ain’t gonna go up against Ms. Battle, that’s for damn sure. I ain’t got no college degree, but I’m smart enough not to take the woman’s damn wedding ring. Shit, like I need that grief?”

  “You don’t have to do anything against your friends,” said King emphatically. “Just give us names and addresses, and we’ll check them out very discreetly. They probably all have ironclad alibis, and we can move on. But look, Junior, friends or not, unless we find other possible suspects, the evidence against you is pretty persuasive.”

  “Listen to him, Junior,” said his wife. “You want to go back to jail?”

  “Course not, baby.”

  “Well, then?” She looked at him expectantly.

  Junior very reluctantly gave the names and addresses.

  “Now, Junior,” said King delicately, “I need you to be straight with me here. We’re working for your attorney, so everything you say is confidential, it goes no further.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Did you have anything to do with that break-in? Not that you did it yourself, but might you have done something to help somebody else do it, maybe even unknowingly?”

  Junior stood, his hands balled into big fists. “Okay, asshole, how ’bout I mess up that face of yours!” he roared.

  Michelle half rose, her hand sliding to her holstered gun, but King motioned for her to stop. He said calmly, “Junior, my partner here was an Olympic athlete, holds multiple black belts and could kick both our butts with her feet alone. On top of that she’s holstering a nine-millimeter cocked and locked and could put a round between your eyes at fifty feet much less five. Now, it’s been a long day and I’m tired. So sit down and start using your brain before you get yourself hurt!”

  Junior glanced in surprise at Michelle, who stared back at him without a trace of concern or fear on her features. He sat, but his gaze kept skipping to her as King continued. “We don’t want to be surprised down the road. So if there’s anything you haven’t told us or Harry, you need to correct that right now.”

  After a long moment Junior shook his head. “I’ve been straight with you. I didn’t do it and I got no idea who did. And right now I’m gonna go see my kids.” He rose and stomped into the trailer.

  Chapter 21

  When King and Michelle walked back to their car, Lulu went with them.

  “Junior’s a good man. Loves the kids and me,” she said. “He works hard, but he knows things don’t look good for him, and it’s drilling a hole rig
ht through his belly.” She let out a long sigh. “Things were going good, maybe too good. My job’s going great, and Junior’s got more work than he can handle. We’re building a new home, and the kids are doing real good in school. Yeah, maybe it was all going too good.”

  “You kept your maiden name?” said Michelle.

  “I don’t have any brothers,” Lulu replied. “My sisters took their husbands’ names. I just wanted to keep the Oxleys around at least so long as I’m alive.”

  “You work at the Aphrodisiac, don’t you?” asked King.

  She looked a little startled. “That’s right, how’d you know?” She suddenly smiled. “Don’t tell me you been there.”

  King smiled back. “Once. Years ago.”

  “When I first went to work there, it was more a whorehouse than anything else. It was called the Love Shack back then, you know, after the B-52’s song. But I saw a lot more potential than that. Over the years we’ve turned it into a nice club. Okay, we still have the dancers and stuff, but that’s only in one section, the original part of the place. Junior did a lot of the new construction work. You should see some of the millwork in there now, wood columns, nice moldings, classy drapes and wallpaper. We got a real nice restaurant, with linen and china, a billiards room and a place to play cards, a movie theater and a first-class bar with a special ventilated place so the men can smoke cigars; and we just started a club for local businesspeople. You know, a place to come and network. We got Internet access, a business center. Revenue up eighty-six percent over last year, and last year was the best year we’d had in the last ten. And I’ve been pushing to change the name to something a little more…”

  “Tasteful?” said Michelle.

  “Yeah,” said Lulu. “I own a piece of the place, so that’s me and Junior’s retirement. I want it to be as profitable as possible. I got the costs in line, manageable debt levels and strong cash flow with little direct competition, and our target demographic is golden: male high income earners who don’t care how much they spend. You should see our EBITDA level compared to what it was.”