“Same here.” Krump settled on a fist bump. “Don’t let Foghorn Leghorn talk your ear off all night.”
Andrea couldn’t help but laugh. The description wasn’t that far off. “I’ll try.”
“Mike’s a solid guy,” Krump said, and Andrea stopped laughing. “Never believed the rumors.”
“Me, neither,” Harri chimed in.
“Great,” was the only word Andrea could force out between clenched teeth.
“Good deal. Thanks, fellas. Sleep tight.” Bible patted Andrea on the shoulder, indicating she should hurry along. “Judge is about to go upstairs for the night. Come in and meet her first.”
Harri and Krump gave her a salute before heading out. Andrea shoved her iPhone into her pocket as she followed Bible through the garage. There was another Mercedes parked in the far bay, a boxy 1980s S-Class with faded gold paint and cracked leather seats.
“Yankee Cheap,” Bible whispered.
Andrea smiled, because he was being nicer than she had a right to expect considering he’d told her to check the periphery and she’d ended up taking a thirty-minute introductory class in the Dyeing Methods and Collages of Judith Rose.
She told him, “I ran into Judith again. And Guinevere.”
“I’m guessing Guinevere was sneaking a smoke downwind to piss off her mama,” Bible said. “You like Judith’s stuff?”
“Uh—yeah.” Andrea realized she sounded diplomatic when she was actually feeling caught out. And then she realized diplomatic probably wasn’t a bad way to play this. “Art is subjective.”
“I know that’s right.” Bible patted her on the back in comradery. “Judge is in the kitchen with Dr. Vaughn. I’m gonna take a look-see around. Meet me in the library. That’s the place with all the books.”
Again, Andrea had the sensation of being tossed into the deep end. She wasn’t going to sink the way she had with Chief Stilton. She looked around, trying to orient herself in the long, dark hallway. Half-bath with newspapers on top of the tank. A shoe rack from the Dark Ages. Black and white Winslow Homer-esque portraits of rugged farm stock hung crookedly across a wood-paneled wall. Syd the parakeet’s warbles echoed down the back stairs. Somewhere, a television was playing. It was less House Slytherin and more Miss. Havisham does Hufflepuff.
She heard silverware clattering against china and assumed that was meant to draw her toward the kitchen.
Thermometer, Andrea reminded herself as she walked down the hallway. The judge would be cold, so she needed to be cold, too. Andrea could do that. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter.
She took a breath before entering the kitchen. Low ceiling with heavy oak beams. Corian countertops. White melamine cabinets. Faux-brick pattern in the faded linoleum. Gold chandelier over the farmhouse table. Someone had gone all out on the remodel back in the 1990s. The only update was one of Judith’s very good collages hanging beside the fridge.
“Hello, dear.” Esther Vaughn was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. Her husband was in a wheelchair beside her. His face looked completely slack. One of his eyes was milky. The other stared blankly up and to the right. “This is Dr. Vaughn. You’ll have to excuse him for not speaking. He suffered a hemorrhagic stroke last year, but he’s still fully compos mentis.”
Andrea guessed the stroke was the real reason for his retirement. And also why his granddaughter had moved back home around the same time.
She said, “Nice to meet you, Dr. Vaughn.”
The man offered no response, which was unsurprising. Because of Laura’s work as a speech therapist, Andrea was very familiar with the different types of strokes and their consequences. Hemorrhagic was the worst, caused by an artery bursting in the brain, which could lead to hydrocephalus, which caused intracranial pressure that could destroy surrounding tissue, which was a polite way of saying brain damage.
Esther misread her silence. “Do wheelchairs make you uncomfortable?”
“No, ma’am. They make me glad that the people we love are still with us.” Andrea fell back on her good southern manners. “I should thank you both for having me in your home. I know this is a stressful time for your family. I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.”
Esther studied her a moment before asking, “Would you like something to drink?”
Andrea felt her thermometer struggling to acclimate. The imperious, impervious, indomitable Judge Vaughn was not nearly as imposing as advertised. Her hair was loose from its tight bun and hung almost girlishly around her shoulders. The craggy lines on her eighty-one-year-old face were softer in the kitchen light. She was tiny in person, maybe five-two in socks, which was what she was wearing with her light pink terrycloth robe.
Esther started to stand. “I’ve got tea or milk or—”
“Nothing for me, thank you, ma’am.” Andrea indicated she should stay in her chair. The woman looked incredibly frail. Her wrists were as delicate as the bone china of her teacup. “I should get to work. Please let me or Deputy Bible know if you need anything.”
“Please sit for a moment.” Esther indicated the chair across from her husband. “We’d like to know a little bit about you since, as you said, you’ll be spending so much time in our home.”
Andrea reluctantly sat down. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do with her hands, so she rested them on her thighs. And then she realized that might look weird, so she clasped them together on the table.
Esther offered a grandmotherly smile. “How old are you?”