The Fifth Victim

“Just got here. Didn’t you hear the Jeep?”

“She was too busy caterwauling,” Ludie said. “She thinks it’s gonna snow, but the weatherman said plainly that—”

“It’s going to sleet and ice over first, then snow,” Jazzy said.

Both women stared at her with round eyes and wrinkled brows.

“How do you—you’ve seen Genny today, haven’t you?” Sally lifted another piece of wood, then stuffed it into the stove. After shutting the door and trapping the fire inside, she wiped her hands off on her faded jeans.

“Did Genny say it’s going to snow?” Ludie asked.

Jazzy nodded. “I heard her tell Jacob that they’d better go over the crime scene with a fine-tooth comb now because of the bad weather we’ll get tonight. She thinks it’ll be really rough.”

“Then we’d better get ready for it,” Sally said. “That gal ain’t never wrong about the weather. She’s just like her granny. Melva Mae had the sight, too.”

“Ain’t it awful about that poor little Susie Richards.” Ludie shook her head. “What kind of person would do such a thing to anybody, least of all a seventeen-year-old girl?”

“Why were you up at Genny’s?” Sally asked. “Did she have another spell?”

Jazzy nodded. “She saw the Richards girl being killed. But that information is not to be broadcast by either of you.”

Ludie keened. “Lord have mercy!”

“She called Jacob and told him where he could find Susie’s body. Now, he’s got a murder case to solve and a county filled with scared people.”

“Jacob ain’t got the manpower or the up-to-date equipment to handle a crime scene investigation.” Sally headed toward the kitchen. “You staying for supper, gal, or you heading back to your place before the weather turns bad on us?”

“Guess I’ll head home,” Jazzy replied. “I just stopped by to see if you needed anything. With you out here so far away from town, you might not be able to make it in to Cherokee Pointe for several days if there’s ice under the snow.”

“Got all I need.” Sally called from the kitchen. “Want a cup of coffee before you leave?”

“Coffee and a piece of that custard pie I saw on the counter.” Jazzy winked at Ludie, knowing full well that Ludie had baked the pie and brought it over. Sally wasn’t much of a cook—never had been. If it hadn’t been for Ludie’s good cooking, Jazzy figured she’d have grown up on nothing but cornbread, fried potatoes, and whatever greens were in season. Ludie had a real talent for cooking and worked at Jazzy’s restaurant in town. Last year, she’d cut back from full-time to only a few days a week.

When Jazzy and Ludie joined Sally in the kitchen, Sally had already sliced the pie and set three plates and forks on the table. She lifted an old metal coffeepot from the stove and poured steaming black coffee into mismatched earthenware mugs.

As the three sat around the yellow oilcloth-topped table, Sally and Ludie got awfully quiet. Jazzy had an uneasy feeling that there was something wrong. Something other than the fact that there had been a murder in Cherokee County yesterday.

“Business good?” Sally asked.

“As good as it usually is in January,” Jazzy replied. “We’ve got a handful of tourists staying in the cabins and a few more stopping by the restaurant on their way to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.”

“It’ll pick up in the spring,” Ludie said. “Always does.”

“I’m ready for spring, myself.” Sally sipped on her coffee.

“Me too.” Ludie sighed. “Nothing like spring birds chirping and buttercups and tulips blooming.”

Jazzy caught her aunt and Ludie exchanging peculiar glances. “All right, what’s going on?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sally stared up at the bead-board ceiling.

“Might as well tell her,” Ludie said. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already heard.”

“Heard what?” A tight knot formed in the pit of Jazzy’s stomach.

“Just ’cause he’s back don’t mean you gotta have anything to do with him.” Sally skewered Jazzy with a warning glare. “If he comes sniffing around, send him packing. That’s what you’ll do if you’re smart. He ain’t no good. Never was.”

“Who are you talking about—my God! You don’t mean that—”

“Heard it in town this morning, before the news about the Richards gal got out,” Ludie said. “Jamie Upton showed up at the farm two days ago, and his granddaddy done brought out the fatted calf to celebrate the prodigal’s return.”

“Tell her the rest,” Sally said.

Ludie hung her head and avoided eye contact with Jazzy. “He’s brought home a woman with him.”

“A wife?” Jazzy asked.

“A fiancée,” Ludie replied.

“He’s been engaged before,” Jazzy said. “That doesn’t mean anything. You know how Jamie is.”

“I know he ain’t worth shooting.” Sally finished off her coffee, then rose and poured herself another cup.

Jazzy toyed with the piece of pie. She loved Ludie’s pies but knew that if she took a bite now it would taste like cardboard in her mouth. It wasn’t that she was still in love with Jamie. Actually she wasn’t sure she’d ever loved him. But she’d wanted him. God, how she’d wanted him. He’d been her first, back when she’d been young and foolish enough to think Big Jim Upton’s only grandson would marry the likes of her, a white-trash bastard raised by a poor, eccentric old woman half the town thought was crazy.

Jazzy rose to her feet. “I’d better be heading into town. Can I give you a ride home, Ludie?”

“Goodness no. You know my place ain’t a quarter of a mile from here.”

“But with a killer on the loose—”

“Got my revolver in my coat pocket, as always,” Ludie said. “You know I don’t go nowhere without it.”

Ludie carried an old Smith & Wesson that had belonged to her father; and Sally toted a shotgun. A couple of old kooks, that was what most folks thought.

Jazzy hugged Ludie, then turned to her aunt. “Keep your doors locked.”

“I intend to,” Sally assured her. “I’ve got my shotgun, and I’ll bring Peter and Paul in before nightfall, like I always do in the dead of winter. Them dogs ain’t gonna let nothing slip up on me.”

Five minutes later Jazzy headed her Jeep down the mountain toward Cherokee Pointe, all the while her mind swirling with memories of Jamie Upton. His smile. His laughter. The way he called her darlin’. The little presents he’d given her over the years—ever since she’d been sixteen and had given him her virginity. Expensive trinkets. Payments for services rendered? He’d told her at least a hundred times that he loved her. Every time he left town for months, even for years, he came home expecting her to be there waiting for him, with arms wide open. Actually, a better expression would be with legs spread apart. Why was it that every time he came back, she found herself unable to resist him?

Because, idiot, every time he comes back into your life, he convinces you that he loves you, wants you, and someday you’ll have a future together. Even when he’d brought home a fiancée, on two other occasions, he’d come to her for sex. How could she have been so damn stupid?

Well, this time Mr. Jamie Upton could find himself another whore. That’s the way he made her feel—like the whore people thought she was.

Just as she rounded the next corner, the county roads intersected. She halted at the four-way stop and glanced to her left at the arched gates and long driveway that led up to the biggest farm in Cherokee County—the Upton farm. Half a mile up the private drive sat a typical Southern mansion, fashioned after old antebellum homes and built over a hundred years ago for Big Jim Upton’s grandmother, who’d been a Mason from Virginia.

Once, long ago, Jazzy had dreamed of marrying Jamie and living in that big white house, with hot and cold running servants. All her life she’d wanted more, needed more than four walls and a roof. Something inside her yearned to be a lady, and to her that meant being wealthy.