If Two of Them Are Dead

1




"Are you serious? You are serious. Oh God, you're going to leave me alone here?"
At least he'd waited till Thursday to break the news--till the paper was in the can, or, more accurately, in the racks, in the mail, and in the hands of its several thousand readers. This way, she could devote her full attention to the horrible problem of his deserting her.
"Pull yourself together, Burnell. Don't be a crybaby," he snarled, to shame her into remembering her independence, her pride, her tough streak.
But at the moment, Maxey felt worse than when they'd agreed to a divorce, more than three years ago. Of course, then she'd been the leaver and Reece had been the leave-ee. Then the pain had been a dull ache in her chest. Now she felt as if she had inadvertently boarded a roller coaster and hung poised on the first awful peak, the path before her a rickety jumble of wooden planks. How could she hope to navigate the ups and downs without Reece?
She felt behind herself for the nearest of their assorted officechairs and sank into it, still staring at her ex-husband. He, in contrast, stood straight as a cadet called on the carpet, blue eyes intent on the far wall, every line of his lean body exuding determination, only his Opus the Penguin T-shirt giving away his true nature.
"What would Jim say?" Maxey made an effort not to whine. "He wouldn't have willed the newspaper to us if he'd thought we'd just curl up and quit."
"Old Jim would be surprised and pleased that I lasted this long," Reece said, looking directly at her now, scowling at her. "He knew me. He knew I'm not the kind to plod myself into a rut."
"Where will you go?" It was an automatic question, with no relevance whatever to the discussion. Whether he went to Tibet or to the next town up the road made no difference. The result would be the same. She would be the sole captain of the Blatant Regard, Colorado's most outspoken weekly newspaper, a rowboat in a sea of battleship dailies.
"I've always wanted to go to Alaska," Reece said. His posture relaxed a notch. "Go up there and look around at least, see what the opportunities might be for--"
"I can't buy you out. I don't have the money."
Reece smiled. "You don't have to buy me out. I've got a buyer."
"A buyer." Her dismay compounded with interest. "A woman. Oh, Reece, you aren't going to saddle me with one of your floozy girlfriends!"
"No, as delightful as that sounds. He's a man. You're going to love him. Guy by the name of Clark Dumpty."
"You're kidding."
"Nope, that's it. Clark--"
"You can't sell to somebody with a name like that. How's it going to look on the masthead?"
"Come on, Maxey. You don't judge people by their names. Where's that smart, adventurous, open-minded woman--"
"Has this noodlehead signed anything yet? Have you got his money?"
"No, but it's all settled, Maxey."
"Why didn't you discuss it with me first? This is so unfair." She slapped the arm of the chair and then clutched her stinging fingers to her chest.
Reece rolled his eyes. "I've been telling you I wanted to sell my half, almost since the day we got the Regard."
"You were . I thought you were kidding."
Reece crossed to her and squatted down, a hand on either arm of her chair, gazing up into her face. He hadn't looked at her like this, so earnest and caring, since the day before she found him in flagrante delicto with their then neighbor, Libby Rae Fitz.
"Maxey," he said. "Give Clark a chance. I know you're going to like him if you just give him half a chance. Wait till you meet him before you make up your mind to hate him."
"All right." She folded her arms and stared back, eye for eye, but hers were cold. "When?"
"The sooner the better. How about tonight? Dinner at Rev Taylor's? I'll buy."
Maxey knew at that moment she was doomed. If Reece was willing to buy at anywhere other than McDonald's, he must be truly desperate to leave the Regard.




She left work early, though not as early as Reece. As she stepped outside, the dry summer air closed around her like a warming oven. Along the brick mall, the petunias in their lamppost baskets looked like tongues hanging out.
While Maxey locked the office door, pedestrians trooped up and down Pearl Street, most of them young and dressed in nineties grunge or sixties leftovers. The bongo busker occupied his usualacoustical spot, the glassed-in bus stop. Prospective passengers stood outside and smiled or frowned, depending on their enthusiasm for drumming.
Maxey set off in the opposite direction, sidestepping a toddler who struggled to subdue a yellow balloon roughly the same size and shape as he. Passing the Dilly Deli, Maxey waved, in case her friend Morrie was in there looking out. She paused at the Banana Republic window to admire a tan-and-gray tattersall shirt, then hustled across Thirteenth Street with the light.
She had walked to work today. It was seven blocks, good for her health, and left a precious parking space downtown for someone else.
Cutting north to Spruce Street, she thought about what to wear tonight: a suit, in spite of the temperature--to appear businesslike and professional and to show up Reece, who'd no doubt change his Opus shirt for a more formal, plain white T-shirt.
At the pastel green house on the corner of her block, a neighbor lady Maxey didn't know by name lifted one hand in languid greeting, her porch swing never breaking stride. Maxey waved and shrank away from a kid on a skateboard. His graceful stance and serene face indicated he felt in control as he shot the broken sidewalk rapids.
She arrived at her destination, a white Queen Anne perched on a modest slope of hard-to-mow grass, surrounded by Maxey's dead landlady's perennials. Maxey's live landlady, who'd inherited flowers and all, lived in Florida and couldn't be bothered with little details like flowers, grass, or leaky plumbing, so Maxey and the downstairs tenant, a nice elderly gentleman named Ollie Kraig, divided up the maintenance duties and subtracted them from the rent. To date, there had been no complaints from Jacksonville about their rates.
Maxey clanked open the black mailbox next to her door and prized out three envelopes. She let herself into the stairwell and trooped up to her apartment.
"Hello, honey, I'm home," she called ahead.
Sometimes she locked the door at the top; sometimes she didn't.This time, she hadn't. It swung open on her combination living room/kitchen, where her roommate, Moe the cat, waited for supper, his irritation visible in the switching of his gray tail.
"You have to eat alone tonight," Maxey said, spooning a glob of pungent cat food out of a can bearing Moe's spitting image. "Okay if I don't light the candles?"
Ignoring her, Moe dug in. Watching him, Maxey felt renewed anxiety cramp her stomach. Like the Regard, Moe had been left to her by Jim Donovan. At least Moe wouldn't quit her to go tomcatting off to Alaska.
She fanned out the three envelopes that she'd dropped on the counter beside the sink--Visa bill, phone bill, greeting card. Oh God--already? Backing a step, she consulted the Far Side calendar magnetized to the refrigerator door. August twenty-seventh was tomorrow. Maxey had about six hours left to be twenty-something.
She headed for the bathroom to check herself out in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. No wrinkles except the laughing kind. No silver hairs among the gold--this after the five-minute inspection involving a hand mirror, a magnifying glass, and lots of pawing through the roots. She wadded her hair into a ball behind her head and considered getting a serious cut. Something Princess Di-ish.
Finally, she strolled back to the kitchen and opened her birthday card from the only person in the world who would send her one. The front illustration bristled with flowers and ribbons and bluebirds and lace. Inside, the five-line sentiment rhymed. A yellow sticky note was attached. It read:


Hi, sweetie.
Happy Big Three-oh!!!
When are you going to come visit? Neither one of us is getting any younger, ha-ha.
Love
Aunt Janet.
Maxey tossed card and note into the wicker wastebasket. She'd phone Janet this weekend and they'd coo back and forth about being fine and being busy and being another year better. She liked her mother's sister, even if she couldn't dredge up love.
Moe, mellow from his fish du jour, butted Maxey's shins with his face. "Hey, buddy. Trying to seduce me? What blouse should I wear with my teal suit?"
The fat gray-and-white tabby followed her into the bedroom, leaped gracefully into the center of the unmade bed, and curled into a watchful wait as Maxey headed for the shower.
As she peeled off her work clothes, she reflected that her biorhythm had to be at lowest ebb--Reece betraying her, a birthday stealing her youth, Aunt Janet making her feel guilty, and, sure enough, here came her period.




Maxey eased her Toyota into a parking space in front of an antique shop across the street from Rev Taylor's in Niwot. No matter where she might have parked, it would have been in front of an antique shop. The little Victorian town, named for a left-handed Indian, was an antiques mecca north of Boulder.
She'd refused Reece's offer of a ride because she wanted to be able to flounce out early if this meeting went the way she expected. Looking both ways before crossing the quiet street, Maxey admired the sun backlighting a jumble of clouds above the mountains. The evening smelled of dust until she reached the flowers erupting along the picket fence of the restaurant's side yard. Their sweet and spicy fragrance followed her to the front door, where garlic and tomato took over.
Maxey paused at the brink of the long, dim room, waiting for a hostess. It was just enough time for her to study the pastries in the old-fashioned showcases and feel the saliva begin to build. Theyoung woman who arrived with menus hugged to her bosom wore a white shirt, black walking shorts, white socks, and hiking boots. Her muscular brown legs indicated that this was not a costume.
"I'm to meet someone," Maxey said. "Reece Macy?"
"Oh, yeah, I think they're already here."
The woman strode away and Maxey followed, up a step and past mostly occupied tables, past the homey clutter of crafts and art--all with tiny white sale tags--that lay on shelves or clung to the high walls.
Maxey saw Reece and vice versa. On his best behavior, he came to his feet beside their table, an oak antique parked with the short side against the wall. He'd changed into a very nice olive plaid shirt and gray slacks. The front of the shirt still bore marks where the manufacturer had folded it.
Across from Reece, Clark Dumpty, presumably, had turned around in his chair to watch Maxey's final approach.
The hostess proceeded past the men and back toward the kitchen. Maxey longed to keep on walking right behind her.
As if reading her mind, Reece reached an arm around her shoulder and anchored her to him for the introductions. Clark, apparently of the feminist-movement generation, made no effort to stand. He smiled up at Maxey without a worry in the world or, she was afraid, a brain in his head.
Grimacing back at him, she offered her hand to be shaken. He touched it awkwardly, gripping just her fingers, though part of the reason for this was the angle of attack and the bud vase of two white carnations rearing up between.
Reece drew out the chair beside him and settled Maxey into it. She studied the layout. There was a beer stein in front of Reece, half-full, or, in her present mood, half-empty. Clark's drink looked like milk of magnesia in a brandy snifter, with a strawberry twist.
"You want a beer?" Reece asked, patting her on the shoulder beforeturning square in his chair and scooting toward the table.
"Okay." She snapped open her pink cloth napkin and spread it on her lap, at the ready.
"I understand you're a bit apprehensive about my investing in the Regard," Clark said.
Nobody smiled all of the time. Maybe he had some paralysis of the lips so that he couldn't shut his mouth completely. His whole face looked wider than it was long. He had plenty of straight dark hair, very little forehead, hooded eyes, a flat nose, and a strip of chin the width of a Band-Aid. If he'd fallen, like his namesake, he'd obviously landed on the top of his head.
"Tell me what your background is," Maxey said. "What qualifies you to run a newspaper?"
"Nothing." He laughed. Then he laughed again at her expression. "A desire to learn. A willingness to try anything. The cash that Reece requires."
"Ah. Uh-huh."
"He's pulling your leg, Maxey. Clark used to edit a little literary quarterly. Did it all, from acquisition to subscriptions."
"Is that so? What was the circulation?"
"Only about a hundred. Eighty, maybe. But that's good for the type 'zine it was."
"What type is that?"
"S and M. Mainly shoe fetish."
"But literary," Reece said.
"Oh, yeah. We had poetry and everything in Worm Naked. Got the title from a line in Chaucer."
Maxey wondered: If she burst into tears, would Clark continue to grin?
Another young woman dressed in black and white and wearing clunky shoes arrived to take Maxey's drink order.
"Have you got any whiskey?"
Reece twisted to look at her.
"No, wait. I'm driving. Iced tea."
"I'm perfectly harmless, Ms. Burnell," Clark said when the waitress bustled away. "And I assure you that you will have all the freedom you've enjoyed in the past to run the newspaper as you see fit."
"You'd be a silent partner?" That might not be so bad. Take his money and not let him have a key to the door.
"Not exactly silent." He sipped his pink swampy drink and set the snifter down. The smile, mercifully, died. "Shall we say ... muted?"
"You can hire the help we've always wanted," Reece interjected. Maxey suppressed a shudder, her usual reaction to remembering their one experience with an office helper, a young man who'd failed at almost everything in life except the leaving of it.
The waitress returned with the tea. "What'll it be, folks?" She looked at Maxey.
"Prime rib, baked potato, poppy-seed dressing on the salad. Bring me some fried mushrooms, too. And I'll want dessert."
Reece squirmed but said nothing.
"Sounds good," Clark said. "Bring me the same."
The girl looked at Reece. He hesitated, and Maxey guessed he was going to go with his usual--the cheapest item on the menu, whatever it might be.
"Make it a triple," he said, grinning triumphantly at Maxey. "Except I'll share Maxey's mushrooms."
"Which way is the rest room?" Clark asked the waitress as she turned away. She hand-signaled and said he couldn't miss it.
It took a moment for him to scrape back his chair as he fumbled under the table for what proved to be an aluminum cane or crutch. It fit into his palm and rose to brace his forearm. Maxey always associated such devices with polio.
"Polio," Clark said, reminding her it was impolite to stare. He limped in the designated direction, and--bad manners or not--she watched him walk out of sight.
Taller than his posture at the table had led her to believe, he wasburly above and wasted below, an inverted pear. Like Maxey, he'd worn a suit--brown, with an accordion of wrinkles up the back of the jacket. His cordovan loafers needed a shine and new heels. Maybe in Clark's circle, that was sexy.
"You sure his check won't bounce?" Maxey asked Reece across the rim of her water glass.
"He lives on Mapleton Hill. Owns his mansion and another one next door. His folks had a molybdenum mine northwest of Climax in the mid-twenties."
"So the Regard is just an amusement. Something for him to dabble in," Maxey said bitterly.
"His business experience will be invaluable. And he really does know how to write. Ask him for a sample copy of Worm Naked. If you like rubber boots, I recommend the 1992 summer issue."
Maxey laughed in spite of herself. "Oh, Reece," she said, butting his shoulder with her forehead, much the way Moe had showed affection for her earlier. "I hate to admit it, but I will miss you."
"Does this mean you're ready to accept Clark?"
"I didn't say that. What if I could come up with the necessary purchase price?"
"Where would you get it?"
She shrugged. "Borrow it from the bank? Maybe from a friend or a relative?"
Reece smirked at her to demonstrate he knew as well as she did that she was talking smoke. The bank would need collateral more enticing than the flimsy assets of the Regard. And Maxey didn't have any friends or relatives--at least not ones with money to spare.
"Okay, forget that. Maybe I can find my own partner to buy your share."
"Darlin', I've been searching for a solid year for someone. They either have the money or the talent, but not both at the same time. Clark is the first and only investor I found that I'd trust to take the torch from me."
Maxey mouthed a crude sound. "You faker. Selling some rube your so-called half of the business, when you know damn well I'm responsible for two-thirds of the production."
"Yeah, you do work too hard." Reece dropped his arm around her shoulders. "Which leads me to the surprise."
She groaned. Reece's surprises usually required the recipient's being a good sport.
"No, listen." He gave her a quick bone-grinding squeeze. "You're going to love this. Before I leave, I'm giving you a two-week vacation."
"Unpaid, I assume." She pushed him away from her and tugged at the hem of the teal jacket, afraid that it was acquiring some accordion wrinkles of its own.
"No, no. Time off, and you draw your usual salary."
She leaned her back against the wall, mouth crooked up on one side to show weary skepticism.
At the far end of the room, Clark Dumpty appeared and began to work his way back to them. He paused to speak to a family in a booth, and whatever he said drew real laughter from the kids.
"So where do you want to go, Maxey?" Reece prompted.
"I've always wanted to see Alaska. At least take a look around and see what opportunities there might be for--"
"No, seriously. Where do you want to go?"
She opened her mouth to say nowhere, that there was nowhere she wanted to go and she didn't need a vacation from the newspaper she loved. What came out was, "Nebraska."
Reece looked as surprised as she felt, before relief at her seeming acceptance of his gift spread across his face in a grin. "Great idea. Go visit your roots."
"I'm back, kids. Should my ears have been burning?" Clark eased himself into the high-backed oak chair and stowed the crutch under it.
"We were discussing the vacation Maxey's about to take."
"Oh? Someplace exciting?"
Maxey shook her head as their waitress thumped a salad on the table in front of her. It was an interesting jumble of greens, sprouts, red cabbage, carrots, beets, cucumbers, tomatoes, hard-boiled egg, grated cheese, and a sunflower-seed garnish. She couldn't see any bits of kitchen sink.
"Nebraska," Reece said.
"The Cornhusker State, huh?" Clark cut into his salad with his knife and fork.
Maxey didn't know why his smile irritated her so much. Would she have preferred his habitual expression to be a frown?
"She's got relatives there," Reece said. "Right?"
Maxey nodded. "An aunt and a cousin. Near Omaha. But I don't know ... I don't think I really want to--"
"Sure you do." Reece broke open a package of crackers to crumble over his salad. "When was the last time you saw them?"
"My mother's funeral." She stabbed up a wedge of tomato. "Ten years ago."
"Ah, the Midwest in August," Clark said. "All that marvelous heat and humidity. A place where 'mean temperature' takes on a whole new significance."
"I like it hot," Maxey said.
"Sweet corn on the cob," Reece continued to talk it up. "Red-ripe tomatoes fresh off the vine."
"Shelly beans," she added. "Cabbage and new potatoes."
Clark pointed his knife into the air. "Mosquitoes, chiggers, poison ivy, tornadoes."
Maxey leaned forward, looking him in the eye. "Lightning bugs, dew, rivers with water in them, trees."
"Maxey grew up in Ohio," Reece interceded. "Went to Ohio University."
"That so? What year did you graduate?"
"All I could afford was two semesters. Where'd you get your degrees?"She dragged out the last word, scoffing at his answer in advance.
"CU. CSU. Universities of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Denver." He paused, looking down his nose at the dregs of his salad. "I finished maybe thirty credit hours." He looked up, smile in place.
Reece laughed. "A rolling stone gathers no diplomas."
Maxey wondered how long Clark would be content at the Regard. Maybe she could stand him for as long as that might be. Maybe a year from now she'd be begging him to stay and not sell his share to someone twice as undesirable.
Their steaks arrived, fragrant with garlic and steamy as the Midwest. Before tasting his, Clark shook on a layer of salt and pepper.
"Do you have relatives around here?" Maxey asked him, still thinking about his proclivity to roam.
He nodded, chewed, swallowed. "Ex-wife in Loveland. My mother's in a nursing home in Arvada. One grown son who lives in Cheyenne, but we don't communicate."
Now that the edge had worn off of her hunger, Maxey ate more deliberately, no longer begrudging the mushrooms that Reece kept forking onto his plate.
"Reece tells me--warned me--that you're a regular Nancy Drew," Clark said. "Solving murders right and left."
Maxey's dozing animosity snorted full awake. "Don't you guys patronize me. I didn't go looking for trouble, but I handled it competently when it arrived."
"You did, no question," Reece hastened to say. "No man could have done it better. If I'm ever knocked off, I hope you'll take the case."
"If you're ever knocked off, I'll probably be the one who did the knocking," Maxey grumbled.
"So are you going to solve any crimes in Nebraska?"
Clark's question was too dumb to deserve an answer. Ignoringhim, she raised her empty tea glass at their waitress, who nodded on her way to another table, heaped plates balanced on her forearm. Maxey's eyes raked past Reece, then backtracked to his face, which was turned to stare at her.
"What?" she said.
"Is that why you're going there? To find out who killed your mom?"
"Oh, Reece, of course not. After all these years? How could--that's ridiculous."
"Sure," he said, drawing it out with lazy skepticism.
"No. I mean it. No."
The waitress arrived with the iced-tea pitcher, and she offered to bring the men coffee, fresh drinks, more water, dessert. While Reece and Clark were discussing and deciding, Maxey sipped tea and took cold, hard stock of what lay in the smallest cubbyholes of her mind.
Why should she spend two precious weeks visiting an elderly lady and a kid, people she didn't know very well and didn't want to know better? If she went to Nebraska--if, not when--the highlight would be a visit to her mother's grave, to make peace with the ghost of Peggy Witter Burnell.
IF TWO OF THEM ARE DEAD. Copyright © 1996 by Carol Cail. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.10010.