He had to make up for her disappointment in his previous murder tale. "Got their throats slashed." He paused for effect. "Somebody nearly took off Charlotte 's head."

"Wish I'd have seen them! Given me a real thrill to see those two mutilated like a couple of pigs."

Ted blinked at her. "Jeez, Dee."

She threw back her head and laughed. "I was joking. You should see the look on your face!"

"Shut up down there!" The voice of Dee 's mother shrilled down the dingy stairway and bounced around the living room. "And turn off that damned TV. You're runnin' up the electric bill."

"Why don't you turn off your heating pad and your dehumidifier and your air conditioner, too?" Dee muttered savagely.

"Is she cranky tonight?"

"Cranky? That one of your mother's words? She's a bitch all the time now, not that she was ever a bed of roses to live with. Being deserted by two husbands didn't improve her disposition, but my brothers and I couldn't help it."

"They don't come around much anymore, do they?"

Dee flushed. "Not anymore."

Not now that she'd been fired from the hospital where she occasionally lifted drugs for her brothers to sell, Ted thought. He always told other people the charges against her were false. They weren't and he had mixed feelings about the drug theft. What she'd done was against the law, but the brothers were losers with kids who were going hungry. She'd denied the allegations Andrew St. John had brought against her, even to Ted. She had only told him the truth one night when she was particularly drunk after a call from one of her nieces who'd run away from home. The girl was sixteen and Dee was afraid she would become a prostitute. There was no mistaking the sincerity of her love for the kids, but she'd done what she'd done and she was just lucky the hospital was more concerned about bad public relations than pressing charges or she would have landed in jail.

After losing her job, Dee would have left town if her mother hadn't been diagnosed with lung cancer. She now lived in her mother's house rent-free in return for nursing care. She earned enough to exist by typing. She also did other people's laundry, although Ted wasn't supposed to know this. He did know, though, and often anonymously threw business her way.

Dee hoped he would marry her. She'd never said so, but her desire was obvious. She was attractive in a strong-boned, earthy way. She lived life with a vengeance, though, and when she was forty, she'd probably look hard. That's what his mother kept telling him. Of course at fifty-seven Rhonda Hysell looked twenty years older with her long, shapeless, dark clothes and equally long shapeless hair that had never been touched by a beautician. Then there was her constant church work, her obsessive collection of Hummel figures she couldn't afford, her fervent attacks on dust and mildew, her unending war on grubs and mealy bugs and other garden pests. And for him she wanted a woman just like herself. Instead her son seemed to prefer Dee Fisher, a hard-drinking, raucous atheist. However, in Rhonda Hysell's mind Dee 's worst sin seemed to be the blatant sporting of a tattoo.

Ted snickered at the thought. "What?" Dee demanded.

"Show me your tattoo."

"What? Why?"

"I just want to see it."

"You're in a weird mood," she said good-naturedly and pulled up her sleeve. A red rose in full bloom sprawled three inches up her bicep. "You hate it, don't you?"

"No. I've decided I like it."

"You do?' Dee looked surprised and pleased. "Maybe I'll get another one."

"Let me guess. A big heart with 'Mom' written inside."

"Not in this lifetime. I was thinking of a butterfly." She paused. "On my right cheek."

"Your right cheek!' Ted shook his head violently. "Oh, no, Dee. That would look awful. Why would you want to spoil your face that way?"

She whooped with laughter. "My right buttock. My ass, you big dope!"

Ted stared at her a moment. Then his laughter joined hers. Mrs. Fisher thundered for quiet, displaying astonishing volume and shocking vocabulary, which set off Dee and Ted in a fresh fit of hilarity. They collapsed against each other, tears streaming from their eyes.

"Damn, I have a good time with you," Dee gasped.

"As good a time as you had with Eugene?" Ted asked and immediately regretted the question. The ghostly hand of Eugene Farley seemed to pass over her face, wiping away all happiness. " Eugene was different." Her voice always became eerie and flat when she spoke of her former lover.

At times like these, when Ted felt jealousy rising in him, he was tempted to tell Dee the truth about Farley. But he couldn't hurt her that way. He couldn't tell her about one day during the trial when he'd found himself sitting next to the elegant young Farley during a recess. He'd never spoken a word to Farley and was surprised when he'd suddenly asked, "Have you seen that young brunette who sits in the courtroom every day? The one who always wears the navy blue suit?"

"Yeah," Ted had answered. He'd noticed her great legs the first day.

"I used to date her. She has a good heart."

Ted didn't know what to say. He didn't know about her heart. He only knew about her legs.

"She was the first single woman I met when I came to Port Ariel," Farley went on. "She was in love with me. I enjoyed her company for a while, but she was too rough around the edges. I'm afraid I treated her shamefully, but there she is, every day, with her heart in her eyes when she looks at me."

"If it bothers you, maybe she meant more to you than you thought," Ted speculated uncomfortably.

Eugene Farley's perfect profile had remained calm as he considered this. Then he shook his head. "No. She meant nearly nothing to me. I'm just sorry I wasn't kinder to her." He'd looked at Ted. "There is a balance in the great scheme of things, you know. Maybe I'm in so much trouble because I'm being paid back for my indifference to that young woman."

No, you're being paid back for embezzlement, you dumb shit, Ted had thought in disdain.

He had absolutely no sympathy for Eugene Farley. The guy had everything-looks, polish, an impressive education, a great job-everything Ted wanted desperately but could only imagine having. Farley could have had someone like Tamara Peyton. Maybe even Charlotte Bishop. And he'd thrown it all away to embezzle money from Max Bishop so he could win back Viveca Cosgrove, an older woman and a gold-digger. Ted didn't even think she was pretty-she looked too styled, too stiff, too perfect, like a store mannequin. Max had brought in that high-powered outside accounting firm from Cleveland and they'd nailed Farley immediately. Oliver Peyton had done a piss-poor job of defending Farley-even Ted could see he wasn't half-trying. He'd been convicted. Then, weakling that he was, he had committed suicide. And here was Dee still grieving herself to near distraction over him.

Stealing from Max Bishop. What a fool.

Max Bishop. Oliver Peyton. What was the name of that accounting firm from Cleveland that discovered Farley's embezzlement? Martin, Goldstein, and Hunt. Richard Hunt, father of Warren Hunt.

"What's wrong?" Dee asked suddenly. "You look like someone just zapped you with the heart paddles. I'd say about 350 joules."

"I've got to call Meredith," Ted said. "Now."