“Huh?”
“The paper’s run by this old man, Mr. Wilson, but a few years back, one of the local girls convinced him to let her onboard to write some gossip and horoscope columns, things like that. Before he knew it, Lindy was riding all over on her Harley-Davidson motorcycle, drumming up news stories and taking pictures. All black-and-white, so I don’t know if she’d have what you need, but she develops them herself.”
“That’s a thought.” He pulled on the clean T-shirt I’d loaned him. It hung loose on his shoulders and around his belly. I liked the look of my clothes swallowing him up.
We were interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Get some pants on,” I told him. “I’ll see who needs their toilet unblocked this time.” Part of living close to town was being available for those urgent jobs that sprang up. I charged time-and-a-half and no one complained, so it’d been a win for me and the town. Now I resented the idea that sewage might take me away from time with Micah.
When I opened the door, Mrs. Beaufort was standing on my front step. I glanced around and spotted her car parked on the drive.
“What’s wrong? A problem with the new fence?”
She shook her head. “I… can I come in for a moment?”
When I was young, a woman wouldn’t go into a strange man’s house, but times were changing. Anyhow, she was married and expecting, her belly big and round, not some innocent girl. I pulled the door wider. “Sure. Come in.”
She gestured me ahead of her and closed the door behind us. I was impressed with her confidence, especially when Micah coming out of the bathroom didn’t seem to faze her. She just turned to face both of us. “I need to talk to you two about Peggy Fletcher.”
“Oh.” I scrambled for words. “I’ve never touched her, barely spoken to the woman beyond ‘Is this the right color to paint the shed—’”
Mrs. Beaufort waved me to a stop. “No, no. I need your help.Sheneeds your help.”
“Go on.”
She turned to Micah. “You, uh, went over to her house close to dinnertime. What did you see?”
Micah and I exchanged glances. He said, “I saw a brute of a man who I expect is her husband, and bruises on her arms. He said she fell.”
“Did you believe him?” She looked back and forth between us.
“Not a chance,” I growled. “Half the town knows Chuck hits her.”
“Maybe she asks for it?”
I rode over Micah’s “What the hell?” with “We both know that’s a lie. Why are you here?”
“To figure out if I can trust you. If she can.”
“If it’s a choice between her and Chuck, tell Peggy I’ll back her all the way to the Supreme Court.”Or a shallow grave for her husband, if the opportunity arises.
“Oh, thank God.” Mrs. Beaufort nodded to us. “I thought you’d understand. She’s finally going to leave Chuck. We hope.”
“Good. About time. What can we do?”
She hesitated, then said in a rush, “She needs to get out of town without Chuck stopping her. That’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“Can’t she take Chuck’s car, drive somewhere, and then leave it parked if she’s afraid of being followed. It’s her marital property. Not like she’d be stealing it.”
“She doesn’t know how to drive. She married Chuck at sixteen, and he never let her learn.”
“You then? You have a car outside, you must drive. If you need us to distract Chuck while you get her safely away, we can come up with a plan,” I promised, perhaps rashly.
But she shook her head. “My husband wants me to stay out of Chuck Fletcher’s way and, to be honest, I’m afraid of what Chuck might do afterward.” She curved a protective hand over her rounded belly. “I want to help her, but I need to keep this one safe.”
“Do you think Chuck was why Peggy lost her child?” I gritted my teeth.
“Peggy thinks so. She’s expecting again, and she wants to leave now, before he knows.”
