Till Dirt Do Us Part Read online

  Emmie’s face was flushed, and a strand of her hair had pulled from the perfect chignon that rested at the base of her neck. “I knew it. Things have been disappearing from our house for years. My father left that lamp to me in his will. It’s an unusual piece. I hadn’t found a place for it yet and was storing it in the garage. One day I went to find it, and it was gone. I thought Wade had thrown it in the trash.” I couldn’t imagine Emmie Atwood finding a place for such an unusual lamp. It was right out of Gilligan’s Island.

  “So, what are you saying?” Daisy asked.

  “I’m saying I want my property returned.” She turned to Daisy’s car and cupped her hands around her eyes. Emmie began surveying the load. “My waffle iron! I’ve been looking for that for the last two years.”

  Daisy had already lost her husband physically and legally. Now this woman who dressed in upscale suits from Macy’s wanted to take what little she had. It didn’t seem fair. I stepped forward, putting my box on the hood of my car.

  I couldn’t stand it. How could she be so cold over meaningless possessions? “Come on. Really, Emmie? Don’t you think you’re being silly? You could buy ten waffle irons.”

  “Yes, I could, but that’s not the point. The point is my so-called husband was quietly pilfering my possessions and giving them to this woman.” She pointed her finger at Daisy accusingly. “It’s bad enough you had a child with my husband, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to take my father’s lamp.”

  “Settle down, ladies. A lamp isn’t worth all this yelling.” Emmie Atwood’s skin was blotched from anger as she grabbed onto the lamp. Daisy grabbed it back. Somehow it felt as if this tacky nautical lamp had become so much more than a thing that gives light on a dark night. It was what was left of Wade, and neither woman was letting go.

  “Daisy, give her the lamp. We don’t need anything that belongs to this woman,” Naomi ordered from the porch. I wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there, but she was at least keeping her distance.

  “You don’t need anything except my husband, of course. Isn’t that right?” Emmie yelled, still tugging on a spoke of the ship’s wheel. “He was sneaking off all those weekends, buying jewelry for who? You! The waitress. I just figured he was having an affair with some two-bit floozy he met at a truck stop. I guess I wasn’t totally off base with that one.”

  Daisy lunged forward, propelling the lamp in Emmie’s direction.

  “That’s enough.” I stepped in between the wives of Wade Atwood and started trying to pry them off each other or at least the lamp. The lampshade was getting the worst of it as its nautical print began to bend out of shape. Somehow, I grabbed the lamp out from the both of them.

  “Emmie, take your lamp and go,” I said as she pulled away from Daisy.

  “Thank you, but first I want to see what else of mine Wade stole and gave to this woman.”

  “You need to go now before I call the police,” Naomi pulled out her cell phone.

  “What are they going to charge me with? Taking back stolen property?”

  “Just go,” I urged. Emmie’s eyes scanned the yard and the contents of Daisy’s car. “If you want to take possession of what Daisy thought was hers, you’re going to need to do it through your lawyer.”

  Emmie finally snatched the lamp from me, not willing to admit defeat. I let it go, and before Daisy could make a move to get it back, I shook my head. “It’s just a lamp.”

  A green pickup pulled to the curve in front of the house. With all the stuff out on the lawn, I had to assume the driver, a very pregnant woman in her early twenties, probably thought this was the setup for a yard sale. She wore a white flowered maternity shirt over dark blue jeans, and her black hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She looked as if she had been a head cheerleader at her high school just a few years ago. She lumbered out of the truck, her hand on the small of her back and, began to waddle up to the three of us.

  “Excuse me,” the young woman said. Now that I could see her up close, I guessed she had to be in her last month of pregnancy. The roundness of her middle was close to basketball size. Daisy and Emmie barely noticed her as Emmie ran to an old beat-up step stool.

  “This is mine!”

  “Excuse me,” she said again, this time emphasizing the last word. “Is one of you Daisy Atwood?”

  I pointed to Daisy, who had been about to wrench the step stool away from Emmie. “She is.” Daisy turned to the pregnant woman.

  “Daisy?” the young woman asked.

  Daisy took a breath and answered, “Yes?”

  “And you were married to Wade Atwood?”

  “Yes,” Daisy answered again, now getting annoyed. “Can I help you?”

  “I don’t know. To tell you the truth I’m a little confused right now. You see, my husband hasn’t been home in almost three weeks now, and our baby is due any day now.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “Well, I read in the Pecan Bayou Gazette that your husband is Wade Atwood.”

  “You mean my husband is Wade Atwood,” Emmie Atwood corrected her.

  “You’re Daisy?” the woman was getting so confused I was afraid she’d have to sit down, being so close to term.

  “No, but I’m Wade Atwood’s wife.”

  The pregnant woman let out a sigh and closed her eyes for a moment. “This is just too much. You see, my husband’s name is Wade Atwood. I’ve been trying to find him.” Suddenly, the drama over the lamp didn’t seem quite so important. The mystery of Wade Atwood’s death and life had just become more complicated. He sure had one heck of a delivery route.

  CHAPTER 12

  Ten minutes later we sat inside Daisy Atwood’s house drinking warm beer. Wade’s latest wife abstained. Her name was Susie. I had heard of men having a type before but never with names. Did Wade Atwood ever get confused in a moment of passion? Daisy, Emmie, Susie. This had the makings of a bad sitcom.

  “How long were you married to Wade?”

  “Six months.”

  “And you had no idea?”

  “Not at all. I work over at the garden store in Blakely, and Wade came in all the time. He was such a big flirt. Even though he was an older guy, I thought he was sexy, you know with that dimpleand all. He started asking me out on the days he came by. We would go out to lunch. I go to junior college at night. I’m studying to be a cosmetologist. Anyway, one day I peed on a stick, and it turned out Wade was going to be a daddy. He was so excited. He absolutely loves kids. Never had any of his own. I was sure he was going to tell me to give it up with him being older and all. What forty-year-old guy wants to have a kid? Instead, he surprised me, and we caught a plane to Las Vegas one weekend and came home man and wife.” She held up her hand, where a dinky diamond attempted to shine in the light. Did he go to the same jeweler or did he spread out his sales? “He told me he had to be on the road a lot but promised he was fixing up a little house for us that was going to be a surprise. We decided it would be better if I stayed with my parents so they could watch me. He’s always so caring and loving. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  I understood it all too well. Keep the pregnant girlfriend under wraps for as long as you can. I was surprised it was a gunshot wound that killed Wade Atwood and not sheer exhaustion.

  “I was going to let it go another week, but my daddy said I needed to track him down. I’m way too close to delivery, and he needs to be there. I didn’t know his other address, so I Googled him and found the newspaper article. That’s how I ended up here.”

  “So, you are saying this is Wade’s baby you’re carrying?”

  “I’m afraid so. I guess this means there wasn’t some kind of weird mistake. You know I saw on YouTube about this lady who thought her husband was dead, and it ended up being his twin brother. It isn’t anything like that, is it?”

  Her young eyes were hopeful, and I couldn’t help noticing the lack of crow’s feet. Was I becoming some sort of a magnet for desperate single mothers? Susie Atwo
od’s eyes rimmed with tears.

  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do now.” I put my arm around her.

  “You’re going to have that baby, of course. It’s a terrible thing that happened to Wade, but it’s not the end of the world. I am so sorry for your loss.” I felt a tension rising in the other two women in the room. They had all lost someone. The same someone.

  “Wade always talked about having an insurance policy. He told me he took something out for the baby and me. I don’t suppose that has come up yet, has it? I’ve only bought a few baby things. You know, some onesies and crib sheets. Oh, and a teddy bear.”

  Emmie Atwood cut in before Susie could continue. “We’ve discussed this matter in detail. I have been named Wade Atwood’s beneficiary.”

  Susie’s eyebrows rose. “Who are you? His sister?”

  “Let me introduce you. This is Wade Atwood’s first wife, Emmie Atwood. Over here is Wade’s second wife, Daisy Atwood, and from what I can tell, you are his third wife.” That was, if he didn’t have someone else out there.

  Did spending all that time delivering matter that enriches soil make Wade want to enrich the earth with little blue-eyed, dimple-chinned babies? Whatever his reasoning, we were left with a mess and enough suspects for the police to fill a bingo hall.

  “I don’t understand. Wade had three wives? He never told me he was divorced.” No one answered her, and then realization played across her face. “You mean at the same time? Is that legal?” Susie Atwood absently ran her hand over her rounded stomach.

  “Not in Texas,” I told her. Once again, my heart went out to her. Here was another woman who was stuck raising a child on her own.

  “And you may as well know,” Emmie Atwood added, “the insurance company has already ruled me the primary beneficiary. You’re pretty well on your own.”

  “But what’s going to happen to us?”

  Daisy shook her head in disbelief. It was evident Susie’s naïveté was getting to her. “You’re like the rest of us. What Wade did was very wrong, but that doesn’t mean any of us is helpless. You have a job in the garden center, I have a job at the truck stop in, and Emmie has her job.”

  Susie sucked in a big breath and then let it out. She was on the verge of a meltdown and quickly reached to get her oversized bag. With one hand on her chair and the other on her back, she pulled herself up using her knees. “I guess this means my trip was for nothing. I’ll have to go back home and tell my father. He said to me over and over again not to trust Wade. I should’ve listened to him.”

  I followed Susie to try and help her, leaving my warm beer on the table. “Let me help you out to your truck.” As we stepped across the empty room to the door, Susie suddenly bent over her hand on the lower half of her stomach.

  “Oooh.”

  Daisy and Emmie both rose from the packing boxes.

  “Are you okay?” Daisy said, now supporting Susie from the other side. Susie returned to an upright position.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “How close are you to delivery?”

  “Not for another week.”

  I couldn’t imagine how big she would be in a week. It already looked like she was carrying a two-year-old around with her. She pressed her lips together and gave us a guilty look. “Okay, five days.”

  “I’m not familiar with Blakely. How far away is it from Pecan Bayou?”

  “It’s about two and half hours. That is, if you don’t hit traffic.”

  That was two and half hours that she would be all by herself on the road. It was too dangerous. She could go into labor, and she didn’t realize it.

  “How about if you stay in Pecan Bayou tonight, at least until we can get some of your family back here to pick you up. I don’t think you’re safe to drive.” There was no way I was going to let this woman get out on the road alone. Wade might have let her down, but hopefully, the rest of Wade’s wives wouldn’t.

  “Stay here? Why would I want to do that?”

  Emmie now stood in front of her, hands on hips. She was the oldest of the group and more than ready to straighten out her brand-new sister wife. “Because you’re about to have a baby, silly. There’s no way.”

  Susie Atwood’s shoulders slumped, and she squeezed her bag. “I can’t afford to spend the night in a hotel. Every penny I have is saved up for the delivery. Wade always said he was going to start a fund, but he never did. I just figured he’d have it when I had the baby.”

  I squeezed her shoulder. “Why don’t you stay with me tonight? You can stay at our house.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Call your father, and I’m sure he’ll come to get you. I can’t believe he let you go in the first place.”

  “He didn’t actually. No one knows I’m here.” It was a wonder she made it this far. Of course, being nine months pregnant did have a way of messing up your perspective. I personally decided to go after a murderer when I was about to deliver Coco. I had no place to talk. As soon as we got back to the house, I vowed I would find the number of my obstetrician. Just in case.

  There was no way that I was letting Susie go anywhere. “Can you call your father and have him come pick you up?”

  “I could, but he’s going to be so angry. He warned me about Wade all along.” Susie sounded like she was about to cry.

  I could understand the angst that Susie was experiencing, but she was going to have to go home eventually, and she was going to need that father. My dad had certainly been there for me when I was in a similar situation. Hopefully, his love for his daughter would overwhelm his disapproval of Wade.

  “I’d offer to let you stay with me, but we’re already overcrowded at my parents’ house,” Daisy said and then looked over at Emmie. “And as long as you are going to be so heated up about Wade’s stuff, I have a box you can look through. I’m not going to get any insurance money, and I guess I never had Wade, but at least I have his kid. That’s something you can’t take from me.”

  Emmie Atwood paled. It was evident Daisy had struck at her most vulnerable point. She and Wade had never been able to have children. Not all women wanted children. It was just sad when they did and couldn’t.

  Daisy left to carry the box inside.

  I turned to Susie. “I can put you up tonight, don’t worry about it.”

  “Really? I think whatever this is I’m feeling will pass. I’ll be able to drive back tomorrow.”

  I highly doubted it. I’d make sure to get Susie’s parents’ information. “So how long were you married to Wade?”

  “Five months.”

  A newlywed. Losing a mate at any time was terrible, and being a newlywed with this loss had to be awful. To be fair, though, he wasn’t there enough. She was sharing him with two other women.

  “I know this is silly, but just how many cities did Wade deliver to?”

  Emmie’s eyebrows rose. Daisy came back with a cardboard box with Wade’s name on it written in red marker. She dumped the box out onto the floor. “Here you go.” There was an assortment of items: underwear, sweaters, ball caps, a watch, a pair of worn-out shoes, and more. Emmie reached down and picked up the watch, turning it inside out.

  “I gave him this watch on our nineteenth anniversary. Didn’t you ever read the inside?”

  Daisy pursed her lips as she examined the underside of the watch.

  “I never saw the inscription. He told me he got that secondhand.”

  Emmie scowled. “Second hand? This is an expensive watch.”

  Sure enough, the inscription read Love from Emmie. It was interesting to me that he loved the gift of the watch so much that he would wear it to another woman’s house. It just proved he must have really loved Emmie even though he had shopped for two younger models. We were deep into the mind of a serial marrier. What would motivate a man to get married not once but three times? This guy got married so much he had a punch card. Would the cost of his marriage license be free with the fourth wife?

  “Go ahead and take
it. This stuff will probably be going to goodwill.”

  Susie picked up one of his sweaters and held it up to her nose. She closed her eyes and smiled.

  “It smells like him.”

  I picked through the clothing and found coupons for fast food scattered among Wade’s belongings.

  “I gave him those. He always took off so early in the morning that I couldn’t give him breakfast. I worried he’d get sick. My mother even made breakfast burritos for him. For the days we didn’t have them, he had coupons for a biscuit somewhere.”

  Daisy’s thoughtfulness inspired me. I needed to start saving coupons for Leo, especially during hurricane season. Once he was tracking one, he didn’t think about eating. Once again, there was love between Wade and his wife. Daisy was in a dead-end job and getting only one-third of his salary, but she loved him. One thing I could say for Wade was he certainly seemed to have good taste in women. The only thing was, why did he have to go and marry all of them?

  CHAPTER 13

  Once I got Susie settled, I asked Aunt Maggie to come over and sit with her while I picked up Coco at Chickadee’s.

  “Are you saying there’s a third wife? And she’s pregnant? I should just cut off my cable and spend my time hanging out on your front lawn, Betsy. That is unbelievable.”

  “And she is very young, Aunt Maggie. She asked if bigamy was legal in the state of Texas.”

  “That one fellow tried it over in Waco, but I do believe they put them in jail for it. Listen, I can’t get right over there because Danny has a dentist appointment, but I’ll send Ruby over.”

  Ruby Green? Really? “Doesn’t she have hair appointments?”

  “Oh, she’ll put them off for this.” It wasn’t a great offer, but it was the best I had.

  When I walked into Chickadee’s, I immediately checked the naughty mat. To my surprise, one of the sweetest little girls at Chickadee’s, except for my Coco of course, was sitting with her elbows on her knees.