Who Left that Body in the Rain? Read Free Page B

over a new white Thunderbird and turned to drool over Marilee. She was worth at least a small drool—she’d come a long way in the thirty-five years since she was born in our Hopemore hospital. She’d been a scrawny little girl in Walker’s class with fat beige pigtails and such a big overbite that the boys called her “Beaver.” Nowadays, her hair was fluffy and blond, her teeth straight and white, her mouth a shiny bow, her skin tan even in February. Instead of lanky she was willowy, instead of skinny, slender, instead of friendly, enchanting. Marilee Muller made me wonder what a makeover could do for me.
    I hadn’t seen her in the flesh for seven years, since she and her husband (now her ex) moved to Augusta. We watched her, however, almost every night on an Augusta television affiliate, because Marilee Muller, a child without the sense to come in out of the rain, had grown up to forecast the weather.
    She crossed MacDonald’s showroom trailing glamour, intent on whatever she was telling Skye, one arm tucked through his elbow. When Skye looked up and saw us, though, he dropped her arm and came right over to give me a hug. It’s easy to appreciate a man like that.
    “Hey, Joe Riddley, Mac. You all remember Marilee Muller? We’re both Southern alums, and they’ve asked us to put a committee together to raise some funds.”
    Joe Riddley, Marilee, and I exchanged the kind of greetings people use when they don’t know each other well, haven’t seen each other for years, and figure they aren’t likely to see one another again in the foreseeable future.
    Marilee reached out again to take Skye’s arm, but Joe flapped his wings and squawked, “Back off. Gimme space.”
    She stepped back with a nervous laugh. “I’d better be going,” she told Skye. “I do want a decision today, though. Will you call me, or shall I call you?”
    “I’ll call you,” he promised. “I need to talk to these folks right now, but I’ll get back to you later this afternoon.”
    “Okay.” She paused as if expecting him to say something else, but when he turned to Joe Riddley she gave me a dazzling smile and hurried out. As she crossed the parking lot to a red Jeep Cherokee, she clutched her coat to her throat. The wind was picking up and had a raw edge to it.
    “I’m trying to sell her this car”—Skye patted the T-bird—“but she wants me to come down too far on the price. I’ll have to see what I can do.” He grunted. “I give to charity same as anybody else”—actually, he gave more than most folks—“but my business is not a charity.”
    “We know what you mean,” I assured him, following him to his office.
    The entire wall behind his desk was covered with family pictures, certificates, and plaques he had received for community service. That was one difference between Skye and Joe Riddley: Joe Riddley kept his award certificates and plaques in a file drawer at home. “If you get one more award, you’re gonna have to get a bigger wall or take down some of the family,” I teased.
    “I’ll build a bigger office.” He waved us to his two visitor’s chairs and settled into his own big leather one. It creaked under his weight as he shifted a crystal bowl of yellow roses and rested his forearms on his desk as if we were the most important thing on his calendar that afternoon. “Now, what can I do for you folks today?”
    I let Joe Riddley do the talking. This was his visit.
    He still wasn’t well enough, though, to do two things at once. Before he spoke, he deliberately lowered himself into a vacant visitor’s chair and took off his cap. As I moved unopened mail from the second chair, I couldn’t help noticing that the top letter was from a dude ranch in New Mexico, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Fergus MacDonald and beginning, “We sure hope you folks enjoyed your stay.” Skye and Gwen Ellen traveled so much I couldn’t keep up with all their trips. She had given up a ski week in Colorado after his business