The Sweet Scent of Murder Read online

  “It’s hard to find a job anywhere these days in Houston.”

  “Too true.”

  I felt sorry for all the older women I was meeting who were worried about their jobs. “Has the crunch affected insurance companies as much as everyone else?”

  “Yes. Even the sales of our top people are down. There seem to be more claims, too. I’m not sure yet why that is. Mr. Lawson was looking into it personally, he was so worried about it.”

  “I don’t know how that could be related to the economy. Does this company write all kinds of insurance?”

  She nodded. “Everything. Of course, we’re stuck with a lot of it that we don’t want—the pools, you know.”

  “Yeah, I’ve done some reading on them,” I said. I didn’t tell her that I thought the insurance pools were the best thing since Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which I sure would like some of since I couldn’t smoke. “Things are tough all over. What did Mr. Lawson attribute the claims to?”

  She blinked several times in rapid succession as her eyes met mine, and she started to say something, but the door next to Lawson’s office opened and the murmur of voices became chatter as people came out in pairs and in threes, still talking. I could see a long conference table with chairs turned every which way. Several men surrounded McAfee.

  “Goodbye, Annette,” one of the women called. “Good to see you again.”

  Annette nodded and smiled, all business now.

  An older, bald man wearing glasses and a five-hundred-dollar suit strolled out with Kelby McAfee. They spoke in quiet tones and shook hands. McAfee clamped the man on the arm, his mouth turned up in a huge grin. The man glanced in our direction as he passed by.

  McAfee spotted me. Annette Jensen jumped up and went over to him. They exchanged a few words and then she returned to her desk and said, “He’ll see you in his office in just a few minutes.” I thought she looked kind of wistful, but she shrugged.

  Both of us watched as McAfee hurried into his office and closed the door. One of the lights lit up on the phone set on Annette’s desk.

  “Ms. Jensen, I’m not here about Mr. Lawson’s death. I’m here about the children’s disappearance. Did you know the Lawson children have disappeared?”

  She grimaced. “No, I didn’t.”

  I nodded. “The girl first, and the boy, a day later. Did you know the kids?”

  “Yes.” She glanced around as she spoke, as if to be sure no one was lingering. “Nice kids, but spoiled rotten. Still, what could you expect with a mother like that.”

  “Do you know anything about their being adopted?”

  “Yes.” She glanced over her shoulder at McAfee’s door. “Their real father used to work here. He and Mr. McAfee came about the same time as I remember it.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “He wasn’t much good at the insurance business, I know that,” she said. “That’s why Hilary had to work.”

  I nodded again. “Why did he give up his rights to his children? Do you know?” I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know what I knew.

  She blanched. “Don’t ask me that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know anything about it, really,” she said, and began to fidget with a pen. Her eyes darted around constantly. “It was a terrible thing.”

  “What happened?”

  She shook her head. “Miss Davis, I liked the man. I was as surprised as the next person when Hilary said he’d done those things. All I know is—”

  McAfee’s door opened, cutting her off. She stiffened in her chair and said, “You may go in now.”

  McAfee’s door was the one at which Annette had jerked her head earlier. It said “Kelby McAfee,” the print on the nameplate not nearly as bold as the one that said HARRISON LAWSON.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Davis.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. McAfee.”

  When he led me inside, I could see that his office was not nearly as pretentious as the one with the conference table, hardly twenty-by-twenty. In fact, it was more like twelve-by-fifteen, no doubt signifying his lower status.

  It held a nice-sized mahogany desk, though, with a matching credenza, a couple of chairs, and a small love seat. A bookshelf stood to the left and an antique smoking stand next to the love seat. Various framed certificates of achievement hung on the walls, including a diploma from Texas A & M University and a yellowed certificate that said “Salesman of the Year” dated fifteen years earlier. Though it wasn’t a bad office, I could understand his wanting to inherit a larger one, Lawson’s, in fact. I would have loved to see Lawson’s office, including the insides of the desk drawers.

  McAfee eased into his executive chair with self-assuredness. He picked up his phone and said, “Coffee, please, Annette,” and hung up. Finally, he looked at me.

  I wondered what kind of game we were playing; clearly we were playing something. Maybe he was showing me how important he was.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” he said, and kicked back in his chair. His faded red hair looked even lighter in the streaks of sunlight that sneaked through the blinds. His pale skin was like that of an albino. I hadn’t really noticed that before. A genetic defect in some redheads. Quite unappealing on him. Lucky for me I was the suntan-and-freckle-type and my hair remained as red as when I was a child.

  He wore a dark gray suit and had cuff links and a tiepin that matched. His blue eyes were everywhere but on mine. Since I was already skeptical about him, when his eyes wouldn’t come to roost, I became downright suspicious. There’s something about shifty-eyed people.

  “I guess I could say the same thing,” I said, and crossed my legs as I leaned back and tried to look just as casual.

  “Really. It was quite a shock, I’ll tell you.” He stared at his fingernails. They were shiny—like they’d been buffed at a salon.

  “I heard a lot of interesting conversation at the Lawsons’.” I stared at him hard. It took the longest time for him to glance my way.

  “And this is something you think should be of some interest to me?”

  “Maybe not, but I was curious as to why people should be giving their condolences to your wife. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought she was the widow, not Hilary.” I curled a strand of hair behind my ear and smiled my sweetest.

  He bristled like an old boar. “Are you implying—”

  “Mr. McAfee, if your wife had been having an affair with Harrison Lawson, it would have been plenty of motive for you to kill him.”

  His eyes met mine for a short time, the meanness almost leaking out. “You have quite an imagination.”

  Bingo. A bite. “You wouldn’t kill for her?”

  “Joan?” Laughter bellowed forth. It surprised me at first, but then I detected a bitter note.

  “Did I miss something?”

  He sat up when his laugh turned to a sputtering cough and choking sound. He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and covered his mouth. His pale eyes reddened. He was okay after a couple of minutes and scooted his chair up to his desk, leaned his elbows on it, and looked me directly in the eye. His eyes were a faded blue, but pinkish around the edges. “She’s screwed half the population of Houston and probably Harris County.”

  I don’t know why, but his bluntness got to me. I sat there for a few seconds, my mouth open like a Venus flytrap.

  “She’s a nymphomaniac—always has been. Even in college. I’ll bet she had every guy on the Aggie football team,” he said, “not to mention the corps and the corps band.”

  I’d read somewhere that the term nymphomania wasn’t in vogue with the experts anymore, but I didn’t tell him. Instead, I asked, “Why’d you marry her?”

  “Just stupid, I guess.”

  “I don’t mean to pry—”

  “Sure you do,” he said. “That’s your business, isn’t it—sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?” His lids had fallen half over his eyes, but he was still staring, no—glaring—at me from under the
m.

  “So you didn’t have Mr. Lawson killed because you found out they were having an affair?” I knew I should let well enough alone, but sometimes my mouth seems to have a mind of its own.

  “She said that, but it was the alcohol talking.”

  That was news to me. Good news. Even though, yes, I know, I was not investigating the murder. I tried to act as though I’d already heard it all before.

  “She told them something like ‘if he didn’t die of a heart attack then I guess my husband killed him because he found out we were having an affair.’ What a dreamer! I told the police that—the dumb bastards. Hell, I’d have to have more of a motive than that.” He snickered. “Joan thinks she’s a romantic, Miss Davis. Always looking for quote-unquote, love.”

  “But that isn’t all they have to go on, is it? The police, I mean.”

  “What’re you talking about?” He’d begun drumming his fingers on the desk pad.

  “Don’t they have more than that?” I was testing the waters—hoping he would let something slip.

  “Like what?”

  “You are next in line for Lawson’s job, aren’t you?”

  He expelled a gust of air. Was there something I didn’t know? “So?”

  “So that’s a motive, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve been next in line for several years, lady. If I was going to kill him, I’d have done it a long time ago.”

  “At least that’s what you’d want me to think.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me and sneered. “We were hunting buddies. Don’t you think I could have arranged an ‘accident’ at the deer lease sometime over the years?”

  My distaste for the man grew by the minute. Bambi’s killer. Ugh. “I don’t know. Could you have?”

  “Hell, yes. Many a time he took the point. It would have been easy to mistake his back for a buck.”

  “It also would have been obvious.”

  His eyes perused me. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He jumped up out of his chair, banging his thigh against the desk. “Does anyone know you’re here? What are you doing here, anyway?”

  I could see I wasn’t going to get much cooperation out of this one. But my guesswork had at least paid a few dividends.

  The look in his eyes unnerved me, but not enough to make me back down. “I . . . wanted to ask you some questions about Jeanine and Tommy and their real father.”

  “Arthur?” He became more tranquil.

  “You knew him, right?”

  “Sure—poor, dumb son-of-a-bitch.” He sat back down and leaned back in his chair again, opened a drawer and got out one of those stinky cigars, clipped it, stuck it in his mouth, and lit it.

  Smoke issued forth into my face. I wanted to vomit. “Hey, can I open a window this far up?”

  McAfee laughed and reached over to his credenza, flipping on a smoke-eating machine, the whir of it soft. A lemon-lime scent filled the air.

  “What do you mean ‘poor, dumb son-of-a-bitch’?” I relaxed when he seemed to.

  “Annette didn’t tell you?”

  “Annette—the lady out front—no.” I sure wanted to get her alone, though.

  The door behind me opened. A young lady I hadn’t seen before came in with a cup of coffee on a saucer. She set it before McAfee.

  “You want something?” he asked me.

  “Got any diet drinks?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the girl said.

  “Please,” I said. “Any kind. Or a bottle of water.”

  She left. McAfee and I didn’t say anything. We just looked each other over. She returned with a can, a glass filled with ice cubes, and a napkin, and set them in front of me on his desk.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome,” she said and went out, closing the door softly behind her.

  “Half-day high schoolers, they’re slow,” McAfee muttered.

  “I have one, too.” But I would never talk bad about Candy behind her back to him.

  I poured my drink, took a sip, and waited for him to say something about Arthur Woodridge. He slurped his coffee, apparently going to make me ask again. Still game-playing.

  “So what would Annette have told me had she been inclined to talk, which she wasn’t?”

  He smiled like a ghoul. “Well, Miss Davis, she was in love with Harrison, you know.”

  “Miss Jensen?” It was a good thing there weren’t any flies in his office, I would have caught them.

  “It’s an old story. He never even knew it. That was years ago, though I imagine she still felt that way up until he died,” he said, still smiling, sadistically, I thought.

  “What’s that got to do with Arthur?”

  “Just that I was thinking, now that Harrison is dead, the old lady might spill her guts about how she feels about Hilary,” he said with a smug look, and puffed on his cigar. “Guess she can’t with the amount of stock Hilary’ll come into.”

  “She did indicate that she didn’t care for her very much.” I longed for a cigarette so I could smoke in self-defense. At least that’s the reason I gave myself.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. She hates her with a passion.”

  “For marrying him?”

  “You got it,” he said.

  “She should have told him how she felt before he and Hilary got so involved.”

  “Annette never had a chance. He was so smitten with Hilary from the day she started working here that he was a lost cause. Hilary could do no wrong. Whatever Hilary wanted, she got.”

  “Geez.”

  “It was a relief when the whole thing got over and he married her.”

  “You mean the divorce?”

  “Poor Arthur was a lost cause from the get go, too, but in a different way. He was just too dumb to know it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You really don’t, do you?” He cocked his head and said, completely serious, “It was a setup, Miss Davis.”

  “What was—the divorce?”

  “No, don’t you see? You’d have had to know Arthur. He was trusting, poor soul. He never knew what was happening right up until they came back with the guilty verdict. You could see it in his eyes.”

  “Guilty verdict? What was she alleging, cruelty?”

  “No—hey, what is this? I thought you knew about the kids,” he said and sat up in his chair.

  “Only that they were adopted.”

  “You didn’t know Arthur was convicted of molesting them?”

  “What?” I tried to sound shocked.

  “Hilary accused him of molesting them. That’s why his rights were cut off. I thought you knew.”

  I gave him my best dumbfounded look.

  “Only a lot of us figured he didn’t do it,” McAfee said.

  “That’s impossible. I used to work there. Child welfare and the police would have investigated the case. They’d have found out if it was somehow a setup.”

  “Nothing is impossible when it comes to Hilary Lawson, my dear. When she sets her mind to do something, look out.”

  “How could she do it—her own husband? Are you sure?”

  “As sure as my name’s Kelby McAfee,” he said pointing the cigar at me. “Listen, the kids were small. You must know how malleable kids are—if you’ve really ever dealt with them.”

  The thought that someone could get their children to say what they wanted was one of the big fears of every child welfare worker. “That’s horrible. But why would she do it?”

  “To marry Harrison. He was rich and Arthur was a long time away from having any decent money—if ever. Arthur wasn’t much good at the insurance business. She knew if she was caught having an affair with Harrison that she’d have trouble keeping custody of her kids. People were a lot more concerned about adultery back then.” He let out a harsh laugh. “She had a very carefully laid out plan—and it worked. Woe be to the person who crosses Hilary.”

  “But if you knew about it
, why didn’t you do something?”

  He shrugged. “None of us figured it out until it was too late.” He swallowed some coffee. “And then, what could we do? Harrison wouldn’t have listened to reason, she’d completely brainwashed him. We didn’t have any real evidence to show the police. Those who were suspicious feared for our jobs. The evidence seemed overwhelming and people tend to believe that kind of thing even now, much less back then.”

  “It seems kind of far-fetched to me,” I said. “Mrs. Lawson doesn’t act like she’s got that much on the ball.”

  “If you don’t believe me, why don’t you check it out? But be careful, you don’t want to get on her shit list.”

  “I might.” I studied his face. “I might just check it out. Now, about Mr. Lawson. If it wasn’t a heart attack, who do you think killed him? Did Hilary do that, too?”

  “First of all, is there any proof it wasn’t a heart attack? Secondly, how should I know?”

  “Could Arthur Woodridge have done it?”

  “Possibly, if prison changed him a lot. In the old days, he wouldn’t have had the balls even if he had the inclination.”

  “Prison does have a way of altering one’s thinking.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he said with another ugly smile.