The Mulberry Tree

“Maybe. Think of the timing. When could Manville have obtained your mother’s permission?”

“He couldn’t have. We went straight from the roller coaster to a waiting preacher. There was no time to—” She looked at Matt.

“Waiting,” he said. “A waiting preacher. He knew you were underage because you had won in the under-eighteen division. He must have made up his mind to marry you when he gave you the blue ribbons. By the time you met him at the Ferris wheel, he’d already arranged everything, or else she would have come after you. I can’t imagine that a small-town fair wasn’t abuzz with gossip about a celebrity spending the afternoon with a teenager. Some busybody would have made it her duty to find your mother and tell her.”

“He preplanned the wedding,” Bailey whispered.

“Was he the type of man to have made the decision, then been so sure you’d agree that he went ahead with the arrangements?”

“Oh, yes. That’s exactly what Jimmie always did. It was a philosophy of his. He said that most people were indecisive fools, and that even if you worked for years to get them to see reason—meaning, to see his point of view—they could go backward in a second. So he’d have contracts ready before he went into meetings. The second they agreed, he’d present the documents.”

“I think maybe he saw you, wanted you, and knew you were under eighteen, so he began doing what he had to to get you.”

“Then you think he did get my mother’s permission?”

“Yes. And, what’s more, I think Atlanta and Ray may have recently been told that that piece of paper exists, and they know that if it shows up, they’ll lose everything. That’s why they’re liquidating as fast as they can, to get as much money out of the country as they can.”

“But where is the paper?” Bailey asked.

“Where’s the permission slip? It didn’t show up when the accountants went through Jimmie’s papers.”

“There’s someone who knows.”

“Who?”

“Your sister. My guess is that she either has it or knows where it is.”

Bailey gave a little smile. “That’s a good thought. Why don’t I just call her and ask? I’m sure she’d love to tell me. I talked to her just—let’s see—it was a mere three years ago. She was screaming at me that I’d ruined her life. She said it was my fault that her first husband had divorced her. I never knew if Jimmie was the one who arranged for her husband to get a job offer in the Middle East or not, and the truth is that I didn’t want to know. But Dolores was sure that he had. The fact that

Jimmie set up annuities for her and her daughter, bought them a huge house in a gated community in Florida, and kept supporting her through husbands number two and three meant nothing to her. In her mind, I had made her life miserable.”

Bailey took a deep breath to calm herself.

“Okay, so maybe you can’t ask her, but there must be someone who can, someone who could get information out of her.”

“I don’t know who,” Bailey said.

“Okay, let’s put our minds to this.”

But try as they might, they could come up with no solution.

After a while, Matt stood up and looked at his watch. As though she could read his mind, Bailey knew what he was thinking. They had put it off long enough: they had to tell Carol that her husband was dead.

Twenty-two

Matt wouldn’t allow Bailey to go to Violet’s house by herself. Instead, he drove her there, then told her that he’d wait as long as she needed. When Violet saw the two of them standing at the door, she gathered Carol’s two daughters and ushered them out to the backyard. Matt gave Bailey’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze, then left her alone with Carol.

It was two hours before Bailey walked out of the house into Violet’s backyard, where Matt was playing with the girls and Violet was sitting on a chair and watching them.

“How is she?” Matt asked.

“As well as can be expected. Carol said she left Phillip and didn’t even tell him where she was going. She wanted to shock him enough that he’d quit working for Atlanta and Ray. But the money they were offering was something that Phillip wouldn’t turn down.”

Bailey looked up at Matt. “You know something, I think Phillip was lying to his wife. I think there was some other reason why he didn’t leave Atlanta and Ray. Jimmie once told me that Phillip had a lot stashed away, and he never struck me as greedy. Phillip told me that what he liked about working for Jimmie was that he was never bored.”

“What now?” Matt asked, glancing up at the house.

Bailey looked at Carol’s daughters on the swing set. Violet was pushing them, and they were yelling that they wanted to go higher and higher. For all that the oldest was twelve, in Calburn, she was still a little girl.