I lowered my voice to match hers. “How long ago was this?”
“They were both 18,” Hayden answered. “Right out of high school.”
Holy spitballs.
Flint cleared his throat and pointed to the window. “Miz Dorsey, the weather’s kicking up. I don’t want to be outside if we’re going to get a tornado. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about Allyson Flannery?”
She nodded and grabbed the remote from a nearby table, muting the argument on the television. The silence was a welcome relief.
Hayden sat in a plastic waiting room chair. “What do you want to know?”
“You were here when everything happened?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “Yes. This town loved Stringer Maxfield, but sometimes he made poor life choices.”
“Like what?” I questioned.
“Marrying that trollop, for one,” Hayden’s voice took on an edge. “She was no good news from the get-go. Stringer didn’t care. He was just thinking with his… golf club.”
I snorted.
Flint coughed. “How did they seem together?”
“We see a lot of trophy wives around here, you know,” Hayden crossed her thin legs and leaned forward like we were gossiping on the back porch with a sweet tea. “Much younger wives to those old farts who probably can’t get it up to save their lives. And those young women are probably relieved they don’t have to look at a set of wrinkly balls.”
Oh, dear Lord!I was going to choke to death on my spit. Flint patted me on the back.
Hayden ignored my life-or-death choking and continued. “Their relationship was a little different. It had more of a father-daughter feel. Even though they were married, he treated her like his child.”
“And they came here for some help?” Flint quirked an eyebrow. A sexy, perfectly arched eyebrow that made me think about licking it.
Focus, Celia. Focus!
“Stringer came in for an adjustment once a month. Golf hadn’t been kind to his back. He’d been seeing a chiropractor for years. When he married his trophy wife, she suggested they see someone different,” Hayden rolled her eyes. “She wanted Stringer to visit that gal she went to school with.”
“Allyson Flannery,” I stated.
“That’s the one. She barely had her chiropractor license when she started seeing Stringer for his various ailments. But that wasn’t the strangest thing,” Hayden paused for dramatic effect. “The strangest thing was, Mrs. Maxfield would always be in the room with them.”
I scowled. It didn’t sound strange to me. If my husband was that much older, and I needed to make sure he was doing what the doctor, or chiropractor, told him, I’d be in the room too.
“Anything else out-of-the-ordinary that you remember?” Flint asked.
“Well,” Hayden put a finger to her lip. “Everything was always hunky-dory with those three. A little too cozy, if you catch my drift. But there was one time, right before Stringer died, that they were arguing so loud, we could hear it all the way up here.”
“Do you remember what they were arguing about?” I pressed.
She shrugged. “It’s been almost ten years. It’s hard to remember what I had for breakfast today, much less what people argued about back then.”
I slumped into a chair. My mind whirled with questions. Most of all, I thought it was high time we talked to this Allyson woman.
“Whatever happened to Ms. Flannery?” I looked at Hayden.
She snorted. “Oh, we ran her out of town on a rail! Our beloved Stringer Maxfield died, and she got a slap on the wrist. She couldn’t stay here. So, she disappeared. No one’s seen her since.”
Flint nodded and motioned toward the door. “Miz Dorsey, thank you for your time. I think we’ll be heading back to the ranch now.”
Hayden stood, then went up on her tiptoes to kiss Flint on the cheek again. She wiped off the lipstick she left behind and playfully slapped his hand. “You tell your Mama that I said hello, now won’t you?”
