The Barefoot Summer(10)

Was the detective mentally challenged? If Jamie had killed him, she would have been standing on the roof of that flower shop shouting to the whole world. She was not a woman to run and hide, and Mr. Detective could write that in his little notebook.

“We are covering all bases,” he said. “Tell me the truth. Did you find out about those other women before or after he was killed?”

“If I’d known about those other two wives, he wouldn’t have been alive on Thursday to be buying flowers in that shop. Now let me ask you something. He owns a cabin up near Lake Kemp. Since Gracie is his oldest living blood kin, won’t she inherit that?”

He put his notebook and pen back into his shirt pocket and got to his feet. “I have no idea about property. You’ll have to talk to a lawyer if you want to get into it with his first wife.”

“Surely that hoity-toity witch won’t end up with the cabin, since he has a child,” Jamie said.

“She is his legal wife unless one turns up from before fourteen years ago, but a lawyer will have to help y’all with the property thing.” He started to walk away and then turned back. “Don’t leave town. I’ll have more questions as the investigation continues.”

“I’m not guilty of jack shit, and I’m going up to that cabin this weekend. It’s Gracie’s, and nobody is taking it from her,” Jamie declared.



Amanda heard the squeak of the door to her tiny one-bedroom apartment open and didn’t need to open her eyes to know that her aunt had stopped by—again. She could hear her in the kitchen putting food in the fridge, right along with what she’d brought the past three days. Very little of it had been touched.

Amanda hugged her wedding picture closer to her chest and curled up around it on the sofa. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep in the bed they’d shared last week. She could barely look at the bassinet with the cute little airplane mobile above it. Conrad was dead and those other two horrible women were telling lies about him. He might have been married to them, but he’d divorced them long before he even met her. And that little girl didn’t look anything like him, so she couldn’t be his child.

Conrad loved her with his whole heart, and he would have told her if he’d had another child. He talked all the time about the excitement of his first baby with her. She frowned. Or had he said his first son? She couldn’t remember, but still, he would have told her.

She opened one eye to peek at the picture and then snapped it shut as the hole in her heart grew bigger and bigger. She vowed that there would never be another man in her life. She’d given all her love to Conrad, and he’d taken it to heaven with him.

“You might as well open your eyes,” Aunt Ellie said. “This has gone on long enough. Today you are going to take a shower and get dressed, and you will leave this apartment. We are going to the store and you are going to do your job. You’ve had three days past the funeral to wallow around in sorrow.”

“I can’t,” Amanda whined.

“You will or I will drag you into the bathroom and put you in the shower. This is not good for that baby,” Aunt Ellie said with enough conviction that Amanda opened her eyes and sat up.

“I loved him so much,” she said with a long sigh.

“I reckon he was good at making the women love him.” Aunt Ellie pointed toward the shower. “Go. I’ll be right here when you get back. Put on makeup and something nice. You’re not going to the store looking like hammered buzzard shit.”

It took an hour to shower, get dressed, and put on enough makeup to cover the circles under her eyes, but when she finished, Aunt Ellie nodded in approval.

“Now eat,” she said. “I made bacon, eggs, and toast. Your plate is in the microwave. Coffee is in the pot. You’ve got fifteen minutes, so don’t argue.”

Amanda wanted to revert to her old rebellious days, flip off her aunt, and curl up back on the sofa with the picture for the rest of the day. But she’d promised Jesus when she accepted him into her heart that she would put her wild ways behind her, and so far she’d kept her word. Besides, Conrad had told her repeatedly how much he loved her sweet goodness and that she was going to make a wonderful mother to their son. She could not let him down, not even if it meant eating food that would taste like sawdust.

“I want to start my maternity leave next weekend,” she said.

“Fine by me, but you are not holing up in this place with the curtains pulled and the lights turned off,” Aunt Ellie said.

“I’m going to the cabin. Conrad said he was leaving it to me, and I can spend time on the deck looking out over the lake. We were supposed to go up there next week anyway. I think I can find closure there. Maybe I’ll even stay longer,” Amanda said.

“I can agree with that,” Aunt Ellie said. “But a week before the baby’s due date, you should come on home. Your doctor is here.”

“And I will make all my appointments.” She laid a hand on her baby bump. “I’ll take good care of this little guy. That’s the least I can do for Conrad.”



Waylon arrived in Wichita Falls right at noon, so he stopped at a pizza place advertising an all-you-can-eat buffet and had lunch. He’d found out this morning that the florist had no idea where Conrad was taking the dozen yellow roses he’d bought that day. He hadn’t signed a card before he was slain. He had only just been in the process of paying for the roses, which he’d had in his hands when the two men in masks burst through the door and shot him.