A Willing Murder Read online

  But then, poor Verna didn’t have many friends in Lachlan. Actually, only him and Mary that he knew about. There might be some other men, but he didn’t like to think about them. When you got down to it, he liked to think of Verna and Cheryl as his family. The one he never got to have.

  When everything seemed to be clear, he leaned on his canes and started toward the back door. To his right were the remains of an old thrasher, something Boggs refused to move until Arthur paid him to do so. Farther away was what used to be a barbecue pit. Left over from the six college boys who’d rented the house for a couple of months. They’d dug the deep pit, cooked their hog, then hadn’t bothered to fill in the hole.

  Because Arthur was thinking so hard about other things, he didn’t see Cheryl until he almost ran into her. He always tried to stay away from her. After all, what could he say to a kid who dressed like an adult? “How was work today? The traffic was bad, wasn’t it?” She didn’t look like someone you could ask, “Did you do your arithmetic homework?”

  Cheryl was leaning over the concrete steps at the back of the house and throwing up her guts.

  Arthur tried to leave unnoticed, but he didn’t make it.

  “Oh, Mr. Niederman,” she said. “Sorry, I—” She couldn’t finish but collapsed on the step.

  He thought she was such an old child, a woman-child, really. So adult, so unflustered by anything. But right now she was just a girl wearing what looked to be her mother’s clothes. Her usually perfect hair was messy and scraggly. When she looked at him, there was such misery in her eyes that he wanted to grab his canes and take off running.

  He was pretty sure he knew what was causing her to vomit. She was about to pop out of the front of her blouse and four days ago he’d seen her nearly faint. Lord! Yet another pregnant teenager.

  In an instant, Arthur could see his life ending. Verna wouldn’t stay in Lachlan. She’d take her wayward daughter and leave town forever. Arthur would be alone.

  The horrible thought made him practically fall backward to sit on the steps beside Cheryl. She wasn’t the only one who was depressed. Side by side, they were two glum-looking people. “What now?” he whispered.

  “I’ll get married,” she said.

  He turned to look at her. Ah, to be that young! There was no doubt in her voice that the boy would marry her and there’d be a happy-ever-after. “You’re a bit young, aren’t you?”

  “I guess not,” she said in a way that almost made him smile.

  “So he’ll take responsibility, that sort of thing?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s like that.”

  Again, there was that certainty. “What did your mother say?”

  Cheryl’s pale skin looked bleached. “She knows nothing.”

  “Verna must have some suspicions. When she met the boy—”

  “No!” Cheryl took a breath. “I couldn’t introduce her to him. To anybody. Never.”

  “You’ve kept all of this secret? In a town like Lachlan?”

  “It hasn’t been easy. I’ve—” She put her hands over her face. “Oh, Mr. Niederman, it’s been awful. I’ve had to lie and sneak and hide. Lots of hiding! But if Mom had found out I had a boyfriend, she would have ruined everything.”

  Arthur’s eyes were wide. His housekeeper was one of the town’s biggest gossips, yet he’d never heard a hint of the Morris girl with any male. Suddenly, he realized what Cheryl was saying. Her mother would “do” something? And young Cheryl was having to keep it all secret? “How old is this guy?”

  “Not much older,” she whispered. She was looking at him with eyes filled with tears.

  Arthur wanted to run away. He fumbled for his canes but one had fallen to the ground. He did not want to be involved in some scandal that would make little Lachlan a national laughingstock. Teen pregnant by...what? A man in his twenties? Thirties? Forties? Married with kids?

  “I better go. Tell your mother I’ll call her.”

  Cheryl clamped both hands on his forearm, her perfect pink nails cutting into his skin. “I want you to tell Mom for me. Find out how crazy she’ll be when I tell her that I’m going to get married very soon. Tell her I’ll stay here in Lachlan and I’ll get a good job at a local TV station. A job like she used to have. I will not be throwing my life away.”

  Arthur could feel his heart in his throat. “I can’t do that.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Again, he tried to stand up.

  Cheryl’s look of pleading went away and was replaced by an expression he’d seen on Verna’s face. Had seen it only once. About a year ago, he’d made a joke about how pretty her daughter was and maybe little Cheryl would start running around soon. It came out more vulgar than he’d meant it to.

  Verna’s face had changed to this, an expression of such rage that it made the hairs on his body stand up. Before he could apologize, she pushed him off the massage table. If he hadn’t bounced onto the bed, he would have hit the floor. As it was, he had to pull himself across the old carpet by his arms to get to his canes. The fact that he was naked added to his humiliation. When he managed to stand, he tried to cover his nakedness, but keeping his balance at the same time was impossible. He made an attempt to grab his boxers but she threw them out the open door.

  Completely naked, he got outside, leaned against the house to pull on his boxers, then drove home. It was seven months before he was able to persuade Verna—with flowers, candy, lavish apologies and doubling his payments—to forgive him enough to start the massages again.

  Right now, young Cheryl, with her tearstained makeup, was wearing that expression—and it scared Arthur half to death.

  “The people in this town think you and my mother have sex for money,” Cheryl said slowly. “You never contradict them because you like that people think you can still do it.”

  Arthur sat back down. She was right. He liked being teased about what he did at the Morris house. Young men driving big pickups tugged at the brim of their caps when they saw him. Their tributes made him feel young and whole.

  As he looked at Cheryl’s hard eyes, he thought of how his life would change if his secret was told. Pity instead of accolades. “I’ll talk to her,” he said. “I’ll ask.”

  She stood up. “Good.” She went into the house.

  Minutes later, Arthur was lying naked on the massage table that Henry Lowell had made for Verna. Her hands were glistening with oil as she gouged and dug into his flaccid leg muscles.

  “So why’d you come back to Lachlan?” he asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just being friendly, that’s all.”

  “You’ve never so much as asked me how my day was, much less about my life.”

  “So maybe I’m curious. Is that so unusual?”

  “From you, it is.”

  Arthur took his time before asking again. “So I’m bored. Tell me your life story. Take my mind off my own problems.”

  “I thought you believed only you had problems.”

  Arthur gave a sigh. “How about that car for Cheryl? In exchange for a story?”

  “The green one?”

  “Sure. So tell me a story worth a car.”

  “Why not? It’s not like I have a thousand friends in this town. It’s simple, really. In high school all I could think about was getting away from this backwater town. I wanted to go someplace where the muggers didn’t have four feet and teeth.”

  “What you got against gators?”

  “Are you going to listen or not? So anyway, the day after I graduated from high school, I went to Baltimore. I loved it! Everything was fast and they had snow. I worked as a waitress during the day and went to school at night. I became a legal secretary.”

  “Good money?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “But then my father died and I returned to Lachlan for the funeral and to get my