Capturing Cleo

“You have nothing to say. I know. Indulge me.”

Cleo slipped off her coat and headed for the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink?”

Malone hesitated. “I know you don’t have coffee.”

“Orange juice, water and flat diet soda.”

“I’ll pass.”

Cleo stepped into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of juice before walking to the living room to join Malone. Like it or not, she would have to explain a thing or two.

Malone stood over the roses her secret admirer had sent. “Where’s the card?”

“There was no card this time,” Cleo said as she dropped into her favorite chair.

“Is there usually?”

“At first,” she said, as Malone crossed the room and sat on the couch, facing her. “They were usually just simple notes. ‘Great set last night. I love that red dress.’ Stuff like that. Lately they’ve been delivered without a card. Since it was red roses like before, and came from the same florist, I just assumed they were from the same guy.”

“What florist?”

“I can’t remember the name, but it’s the one in the mall.”

Malone nodded his head, apparently satisfied. “I’ll get someone on that right away. Always red roses, you say?”

Cleo nodded. “One dozen, delivered to the club. Usually on a Saturday. Friday night is when we have our biggest crowd, so it was impossible for me to come up with a face in the crowd that might fit the notes and the flowers.”

Malone leaned forward. “Tell me about Palmer.”

Cleo felt her cheeks go cold. “He’s my sister’s husband. What’s to tell?”

“Come on, Cleo. Give me a little credit.”

Rambo padded over to Malone and rested her chin on his knee. He didn’t seem to mind, but began to absently pat the dog’s head.

“She’ll shed all over your suit.”

“It’ll brush off,” Malone said tersely. “Palmer.”

Might as well tell all. She had a feeling hiding anything from Luther Malone was hard work. And she didn’t have the heart for it at the moment.

“Thea is everything my mother ever wanted in a daughter. Tall, slender, refined. I think she was born with the desire to join the Junior League. She’s an interior decorator, and is very choosy about the jobs she takes. Hers is a suitable profession. Mine is not.”

“Palmer,” Malone said, urging her to move forward.

“I’m getting there.” She took a sip of juice, and Malone visibly relaxed. Rambo, sufficiently scratched, laid down at the detective’s feet and rested her chin on his shoe. “All my life, I had to deal with the sad fact that I’m not enough like Thea to make my mother happy. I’m short, I am most definitely not thin, and if you made me join the Junior League, I’d probably turn into a serial killer or something.” She didn’t mention the fact that her mother had been horrified when she’d gotten breasts at an early age. Her mother’s people were not voluptuous.

Malone smiled.

“When I decided I wanted to sing, when I realized that I needed to sing, my mother was quite distressed. A daughter of hers in a public profession? Making a spectacle of herself on stage?” Cleo studied Malone’s hard, expressionless face, and wished, momentarily, for a hint of softness. She didn’t get her wish. “In my family, making a spectacle of oneself is the worst possible crime.”

When had she started actually trying to make a spectacle of herself? Early on, though she couldn’t remember the exact moment. She hadn’t been able to win her mother over, so she’d learned to fight the only way she knew how. After her father had passed on, things had only gotten worse.

“So all my life I’m compared to this perfect daughter. I tried for a while, but finally accepted that I could never live up to that standard. I’m not like Thea, and by God, I don’t want to be.” She didn’t want to admit, not out loud, that it still hurt. She was too old to be hurt because her mother loved big sister best. “When Thea married Palmer, it was just icing on the cake. His family has old money and a long string of car dealerships, he played football at the University of Alabama, he’s a handicap golfer and he runs in all the right circles.”

“The ideal husband.”

“Yeah,” she said tightly, “except for the fact that he’ll screw any woman who has the misfortune to wander into his line of vision.”

Malone’s jaw tensed, his eyes narrowed. For a moment all was silent. Well, she had wished for a show of emotion, hadn’t she? Malone was angry.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Cleo answered quickly. “He just…makes a pass at me every time we’re alone.” In the kitchen, in the driveway, in the hallway of the family home. The man knew no shame.

“What kind of a pass?” Malone asked tersely.

“He likes to grab.”

“He likes to grab what?”

If she had taken any of her mother’s teachings on decorum to heart, she wouldn’t answer that question. But so few of her mother’s teachings had taken. “He likes to sneak up on me and grab what my flat-chested sister doesn’t have.”

A muscle in Malone’s right eye twitched. “He’s plenty strong enough to be our guy. Do you think he’d—”

“No,” Cleo interrupted. “To commit murder, you have to care a little bit, right? You have to have some kind of passion to commit a crime of passion.”

“I suppose.”

“Palmer has no true passion. He grabs me and makes passes because I’m not a notch on his belt. If I ever did get desperate enough to agree to sleep with him, he’d lose interest. That’s how he treats all his women.”

Malone shook his head. “Doesn’t anyone else know about this guy?”

“They all know,” she said softly. “But they look past it because he has money and the right social standing, and he is a real and true football hero. Disgusting, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m the bad guy, here. If Palmer makes a pass at me it’s because I’ve tempted him somehow. It’s because I insist on making a spectacle of myself.”