woman with a disheveled mane of reddish hair—realized it had to be her in that wavy, gilt-framed mirror on the far wall and swiftly turned away.
She wasn’t ignoring the pastor’s wife. Just couldn’t see a point in starting a conversation with someone she had nothing in common with. And she kept fretting who Cal was going to see first—yeah, the woman had arrived before her, but Poppy was the one who had a ten o’clock appointment. For which she’d been early. And for which Cal was now two minutes late.
The far double doors were opened by a scrawny little guy wearing a bow tie. “Miss Thompson and Mrs. Price, come this way, please.”
Poppy tossed a startled look at the pastor’s wife. The woman shot an equally startled look back at her—then smiled. “I didn’t expect we would be called in together,” the woman said.
“Neither did I. I don’t understand anything about this,” Poppy admitted.
“Me either. I have no idea what I’m even doing here.”
Okay, Poppy thought. So the Price woman wasn’t the stiff-as-dried-mud preachy type she’d instantly assumed. But they were still from alien planets. Price was wearing a mid-calf-length dress, a print with little flowers and a tidy belt. Her wheat-pale hair swayed just to her shoulders, curling under, a style that suited her perfectly. Her posture was perfect. In fact, she could have aced the course in modesty and decorum—which Poppy couldn’t do if her life depended on it—and most aggravating of all, the damn woman was beautiful.
Their ages were similar; she had to be late 30s, early 40s. But she was one of those classic beauties, great bones, striking blue eyes, a tall, reed-slim figure. No hips. How could Poppy ever relate to someone who didn’t know what a hip was? And the darn woman looked that good without any makeup or artifice in sight. It was enough to make Poppy want to smack her upside the head, just on general principle.
Once ushered into Cal Asher’s office, Poppy quickly took the far leather chair and stretched out her legs, work boots and all. Ms. Prissy Price took the chair next to her and sat as if she were happy with a ruler up her spine.
Cal was just putting something out of sight in a side desk drawer. Poppy wasn’t born yesterday; she saw him rub an arm across his mouth, clearly wiping the last traces of liquor from the swig he’d just stolen. He smiled at both of them, looking much like a genial Mark Twain from a century bygone—give or take the rheumy eyes. “Ladies, if you don’t know each other, Poppy, meet Bren, and vice versa.”
They did a mutual obligatory nod, then quickly ignored each other. “I hope this won’t take too long, Cal, I’ve got a ton of work waiting,” Poppy said briskly.
“Ah, yes. Don’t we all.” With a dramatic flair, Cal slowly stood, shifted a bad print of hunting dogs to the side and turned the dials on a large wall safe. Eventually he pulled out two boxes—they looked like plain old children’s shoe boxes—and set them on his desk. “Do you ladies know an old woman named Maude Rose?”
“This is about Maude?” Bren said bewilderedly. “But she died several weeks ago.”
“Exactly. I was her attorney. Her estate was somewhat complicated because, well, Maude Rose tended to be a little on the complicated side herself. Certain situations had to be ascertained and resolved before I could contact either of you, even though you were both directly mentioned in her will.” Cal settled back in his old leather desk chair. “The state has always had the peculiar idea that a person’s bills should be paid and that no lien should remain on property or belongings before any legacies can be given away. Also, no one thought Maude Rose had any relatives, partly because she mentioned none in her will and no one ever saw anybody visit her. But that had to be verified, as well, before I could contact either of you. As you might suspect, when there’s money involved, it’s amazing how many shirt-tail relatives can suddenly show up out of the woodwork just in time to make claims.”
“Mr. Asher,” Bren said quietly, “if Maude Rose mentioned me in any way in her will, you can just give it to charity. I’m certainly not entitled to anything.”
Poppy rolled her eyes. How sanctimonious could you get? Not that she wanted anything of Maude Rose’s either. The town had treated the poor old woman like dirt. It had always infuriated her.
And Poppy was quickly guessing what this meeting was really about. Rose had no one, so obviously someone had to clean up her place and dispose of all her junk.
Hell. She’d roll up her sleeves if she had to. Better than have strangers—or people who’d been mean to her—paw through Maude Rose’s private things.
“Did you hear me, Poppy?” Cal asked.
“Nope. Sorry, I drifted off there for a second.” She straightened up, determined to pay more attention. The last thing she wanted was to cause this meeting to drag out any longer than it had to.
“Well now…Maude Rose felt folks treated her like a pariah. Of course, she was quite a liberal for these parts, marching for women and homosexuals and abortion and atheists and what all.”
Poppy didn’t want to interrupt, but damn, she could hardly let that go. “Uh, Cal? Being a supporter of women doesn’t exactly label one as a wild-eyed liberal these days.”
“Maybe not for you, Poppy. Your family has only been in this area for three or four generations,” he said with utter gravity. “But the point I was trying to make was, you know what people thought when they saw Maude Rose. It wasn’t just her politics. It was her walking down the public street in her bedroom slippers, wearing all kinds of gaudy jewelry, hanging out hours in Manny’s Bar. And though most weren’t aware, she’d been losing her sight for some time. Truth to tell, that might have contributed to how flagrantly she dressed sometimes and why folks were so sure she’d lost her noodles.”
“If she’d lost her mind—or her sight—that was even less excuse for how some treated her,” Bren said gently.
Cal Asher nodded. “Believe me, I know. Several times, the town council tried to have her put away. Had her tested to see if they could institutionalize her against her will. And then she was arrested twice last year for disturbing the peace. The mayor didn’t take it too kindly when she chose to burn her underwear in his front yard.” Cal scratched his chin. “I seem to have forgotten exactly what that was all about, but it sure got this town buzzing. Anyway…let me read you the paragraph in the will that Maude wrote specifically to you two.”
Cal opened his desk drawer, fumbled for his glasses and eventually found a pair to prop on his nose. Poppy doubted anyone could see through the lenses, they were so smudged up, but Cal was clearly into drama and he seemed determined to draw this out.
“‘People liked thinking the worst of me from the day I was born,’” Cal read. “‘Just like everybody else, I’d have lived decent if I’d had the chance or the choice. But I never did. My mom died too young and my daddy was a crook. I was selling my body before I was twelve to put food in my mouth, and I’ll be damned if I should feel guilty for fighting to survive. One person loved me for all I was, all I wanted to be, but Bobby Ray died a long time ago. Since then, I stopped caring. But sometimes it scraped hard when people were so mean. They didn’t know me. They didn’t try to know me. They were just in an all-fired hurry to decide who I was without ever even knocking on my door.’”
Cal glanced up to make sure they were paying attention, then read on. “‘But there was an exception. Two women in Righteous.’” Cal whispered, “She spelled exception wrong and quite a number of other
