Mr. And Mrs. Wrong

CHAPTER TWO

IN THE GRAY of early morning, cops and firefighters wearing protective gloves searched the railroad tracks, their yellow slickers like strokes of paint on a neutral canvas.

Lucky checked her light meter, then framed a test shot in the viewfinder. She’d lose the effect of the slickers with the black-and-white film, but the rescue workers seemed ghostlike in the mist and that, along with the overcast sky, helped convey the somber tone. The composition suggested the horror of the officers’ assignment without actually showing it.

But she didn’t have the right perspective yet. She slid carefully down the steep grade of the track to where she, police and fire personnel had parked.

With the permission of the fire chief, she climbed on top of one of the pumper trucks and reevaluated the scene. From this slight overhead angle, she could include more of the track. She could also sneak a contributor to the tragedy—the Top Hat Gentlemen’s Club—into the bottom right corner of the frame.

Despite the fancy name, “The Hat,” as it was more commonly known, was little more than a shack; it owed its popularity to the two-dollar drinks served from midnight to closing and a waitress named Ginger. She’d posed for Playboy ten years ago, but her chest still had its fans.

The victim had apparently left the club drunk last night, decided to walk rather than drive, but passed out on the tracks, instead. The three-o’clock freight express to Birmingham had ended his life. Lucky had found the body when she crossed the tracks on her way to work.

Satisfied that she had a good photo for the front page of the Sunday edition, she braced her left elbow against her body, held her breath and squeezed off several shots, bracketing the exposures to compensate for the wavering light levels.

“Hey, Lucky,” called one of the police investigators. Deaton Swain picked through some weeds along the bank about ten yards away. “I dare you to get in the cab and turn on the siren.”

“I’ll pass.”

“C’mon, Lucky, don’t be a girl.”

“I am a girl, Deaton. Haven’t you figured that out in all these years?”

“Yeah, but you’re no fun anymore.”

“I grew up, Deaton. You should try it. We’re too old for pranks.”

He shook his head. “I’ll never be that old.”

Lucky finished up and rewound her film. She climbed down and stuck her camera, meter and film in the bag on the rear compartment of her Blazer.

With these two rolls, a couple waiting at the office and the roll she’d taken yesterday of the twelve-pound squash, she’d have a full morning in the darkroom.

Off in the weeds, Deaton was starting to whine.

“Oh, man, enough of this.” He yanked off his gloves. “I’m outta here. Let the uniforms handle it.” After making his way down the bank, he came over and plopped down on her tailgate. “God, I hate these messy cases. And I do mean messy.”

“Me, too. Give me a ribbon-cutting or a town-council meeting any day. At least those don’t involve dead people.”

Deaton snorted.

“Well, usually they don’t,” Lucky qualified. “That one time was a fluke.”

“Not for you. How many bodies does this make for the year? Three?”

“Four.”

He seemed to think about that. “I remember the kid who crashed his car out on River Road and the old lady who died of hypothermia last winter during that freak ice storm, but what was the third one you found?”

“The floater. You remember. I was fishing for Channel cat and pulled him up, instead. The big guy.”

“Oh, yeah. Wasn’t wearing a ski vest.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Stupid idiot. Ought to be a law against fat people going in the water, anyway.”

She didn’t comment. Deaton couldn’t possibly mean half the things he said. She’d known him since kindergarten, and he was just as crazy and amusing as he’d been back then.

“Damn, Lucky, that’s four bodies in seven months. That’s got to be a record, even for you. What’s your total?”

“Seventeen. Eighteen if you count the one before I started working for the newspaper. Nineteen if you add the one out of state.”

“Seventeen locally in how many years on the job?”

“Twelve.”

He shook his head. “I’ll bet this stuff doesn’t go over too well with the captain.”

No, it didn’t, but she wasn’t about to discuss her personal life. People speculated enough on the reason she and Jack were living apart.

“Where is he?” she asked, instead. “He’s usually one of the first on the scene.”

“We had an earlier call and he took it.”

Good. After the fiasco with Jack last night, at least she wouldn’t have to face him in person this morning.

Or maybe she would. His unmarked police sedan turned in the service road and came around the barricade the moment she counted her blessings.

“Ah, hell,” Deaton said, hastily jumping to his feet.

Lucky took a deep breath to fortify her strength, but her already queasy stomach did a major somersault.

Jack was a formidable presence when he was in a good mood, but when he was all business—like now—he seemed even bigger, his shoulders broader. Lucky felt both overwhelming joy and deep sorrow at seeing him. She’d gone thirty years without losing her heart, but then this man had come along and stolen it within seconds.

One minute she was single and accepting of it, if not content, and the next—bam! She’d looked into deep-brown eyes and started dreaming about wedding vows and waking up next to him for the next seventy-five years.

Regrettably Jack had proved to be more interested in the idea of marriage than the reality of it.

As he approached, he didn’t take his gaze off her. Even as he spoke to Deaton, he didn’t look away. “Swain, have you secured this scene?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why is there a newspaper photographer inside the perimeter?”

“Uh, that’s Lucky.”

“I recognize her,” he said dryly, the comment so ludicrous she wasn’t sure how he kept a straight face.

She cleared her throat. “I called it in, Jack. I was already here when your people arrived.”

His expression didn’t change, telling her he already knew.

“Wait for me,” he ordered. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He motioned for Deaton to come with him, and they walked off several yards, then stopped. Jack’s posture suggested forced control as he listened to a rundown of the incident and the procedures followed by his department since their arrival.

He asked Deaton if he’d requested an investigator from DFS, the Department of Forensic Sciences.

“No,” Deaton told Jack. “I didn’t see a need to call. The death isn’t suspicious and we have an ID on the victim from Lucky. Some old guy named Charlie Bagwell. Plus, we found his wallet. His car’s still sitting in the parking lot of The Hat with a flat tire. Guess he was too drunk to change it last night and started walking. He only lives a mile or so up the road in that subdivision on the other side of the tracks.”

“Collect the evidence and don’t speculate. Call DFS and get someone over here. Have them take possession of the remains. I don’t want the funeral home leaving with them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you get photographs before you moved anything?”

“Uh…no.”

A few seconds passed before Jack spoke again. “Get them now. And get a video of both the scene and the car. Impound the car. I also want you to send someone over to the man’s house and make sure he’s not sitting at his kitchen table eating breakfast.”

“I’ll go myself.” Deaton hurried off.

Jack turned and walked back to her, his face grim. He mumbled an expletive under his breath.

“If I caused trouble, I’m sorry,” Lucky told him. “I grew up with Deaton and most of these people out here, and they’re used to me being around with my camera. They trust me to keep out of the way.”

He shook his head. “It’s not your fault. Did he bother to get your statement?”

“Yes.”

Jack looked at her more closely, and his expression softened. “Are you okay? You’re pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it.” He lightly rubbed the back of his hand against her cheek. “And you’re distinctly green around the gills. What’s wrong?”

“It got to me, I guess.”

“I’ve never known you to let this stuff bother you.”

She shrugged. “I suppose it’s because I knew the man.”

“Do you want to sit down?”

“No, I’ll be all right.” She prayed that was true. She’d hate to embarrass herself by throwing up. Usually she could eat, drink, smell or look at any gross thing and not be bothered. A cast-iron stomach came with the job, and he knew it from experience.

“Can you tell me what you saw?” he asked. “You can come down later and give an official statement.”

“I didn’t see much. I came through about six o’clock on my way to the office and glanced down the track. At first I thought the train had hit a cow again. When I realized it was a human, I called 911.”

“Are you sure of your identification?”

“Reasonably sure. He cut some trees for me a few years ago, and I’ve run into him a few times since. Yesterday afternoon he crossed the street in front of me and waved. I noticed his shirt—pink flamingos and palm trees on a yellow background. Your victim over there has on the same shirt. I can’t imagine there’d be more than one of them around.”

She told him how he might get in touch with his daughter, an old school friend of her sister Shannon’s. Lucky thought his wife was dead, but she wasn’t certain.

“Jack, I…” She hesitated, hating to bring this up, but feeling as if it had to be repeated. “I promise I don’t intentionally get in the middle of things. Deaton said you were on another call. Did you leave it because of me?”

“Not entirely, but yes, I wanted to make sure you were okay. Besides, we haven’t found anything on the other call. They can handle it without me.”

“What was it?”

“A bomb threat at the box factory. Probably called in by some joker who didn’t have anything better to do this morning. Chief’s out there leading the search, so he can reach me if I’m needed.”

“Does he know I reported this?”

He nodded. “Yeah, he asked me what it felt like to be married to the ‘Body Magnet.’ That’s what people are starting to call you.”

She slumped, her misery increasing. “I know.”

“People at work kid me at least once a day that you’re part bloodhound. The sheriff’s department has a pool on when you’ll find the next body in their jurisdiction. I’m told it’s up to six-hundred dollars.”

“I heard.”

“I don’t get it. Why does this happen to you? When there’s trouble, you always seem to be part of it.”

“I’m out taking photos every day, and I cover the whole county. My chances of being involved in any given incident are a hundred times, maybe a thousand times, greater than the average person’s. It’s perfectly understandable.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is.”

The argument was an old one. They’d had it many times. The irony was that the thing that had brought them together was now one of the things that kept them apart.

Last year she and her oldest sister, Leigh, had gone to Pittsburgh to be bridesmaids in their cousin’s wedding, and Lucky had found body number fifteen in the bathroom off the lounge of the Holiday Inn. Jack Cahill was the investigator on the case.

The attraction had been instant, the courtship wild and brief. Phone calls nearly every night. A couple of weekend trips to see each other. He’d come down to meet her family and visit Potock’s police department.

When the local chief, Rolly Akers, inquired if Jack was interested in relocating permanently and heading the revamped detective division, the offer had seemed like a gift from God. They’d married nine days later in the office of the probate judge.

And she’d never been happier in her life.

Until her new husband discovered she was a tiny bit eccentric. Her odd propensity to attract things that were no longer living wasn’t an asset, either.

“If you hadn’t rushed out mad last night,” she told him, “you might’ve been the one to pass through here first thing this morning and find the body.”

“Forgive me if I have a major problem with snakes in my bathtub.”

“They weren’t poisonous.”

“And you think that matters?”

Yes, it mattered, and she told him so. She’d caught the water snakes to photograph, had built an enclosure by the pier where she’d planned to put them at first light. She’d needed a way to keep them wet and contained until morning, and the bathtub had been the logical choice.

“This isn’t the place to talk about our personal problems,” he said. “I’ve got work to do.”

“So do I.”

“I want your film. I need the photographs you took before my unit got here.”

“I didn’t take any.”

He held out his hand. “Come on, Lucky. I don’t have time for games. You shot at least a roll before you called it in. I know you. You recorded every gory detail.”

“I did not!”

She tried to act indignant, but he saw right through it. He snapped his fingers with impatience. “Give it to me. No screwing around anymore. This isn’t funny.”

“No! It’s newspaper property. Leigh would skin my hide. You’ll get me in trouble.”

“I’ll make you prints and bring them over.”

“No, I’ll make you prints and bring them over.”

“I need them for evidence.”

“And I need them for the Sunday paper.”

He pinched his forehead. “Do you have to argue with me about everything? You’re too damn much work.”

His words wounded her gravely, and he had to know it. She teetered between anger and despair, settling on despair.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said immediately.

“Yes, you did.” Her voice quavered.

“No, not the way it came out.”

“Yes, you did, and that’s the root of the real problem between us. You married me thinking everything would be easy, that I’d be easy. You created this fantasy about the perfect life. House. Kids. Job. Extended family. A wife you could control. But then you found out you’d married a woman who refuses to fit your fantasy.”

“That’s oversimplifying it.”

“Maybe, but it’s still accurate.”

“I don’t want to control you, Lucky, only protect you.”

“No, you want to change me, because deep down you don’t really like who I am.” She walked to the back of the Blazer and reached into her bag. “Here.” She slapped the film into his hand. She pushed up the tailgate and closed the hatch. When she walked to the driver’s door, Jack tried to stop her, but she ignored him and got in.

“Sweetheart, wait,” he said through the open window.

“The sad part is I’m stupid enough to still love you.”

“I love you, too. That’s never been the issue.”

She wouldn’t even dignify his comment with a response. If he loved her, he would never have left her. He’d accept her for who she was. She cranked the engine and put the vehicle into gear. “Move if you don’t want to get run over.”

He didn’t budge.

“Move or I’ll show you in front of your officers what a hissy fit really looks like.”

He took a step back and raised his hands in surrender. She drove off, spewing dust and gravel behind her.

By the time she got the hundred yards to the barricade and went around it, she was weeping. Hiding her sobs from the uniformed cop was impossible, so she didn’t try.

The clock in the dash said it wasn’t even nine, and already it had been a horrible day. She blotted her tears on the sleeve of her shirt and tried to control herself, fumbling in her purse for sunglasses.

If she went into the office with red eyes, she’d have to answer a million questions, and she couldn’t handle that now. What she’d rather do was go home, sit on the pier for the rest of the day and feel sorry for herself. Unfortunately she had too much work and a noon deadline.

Worse than that, she’d have to face Jack again in a little while. It would take him about two hours to get that film over to the police lab and have it developed—and discover she’d given him photos of a twelve-pound squash.

THE BUILDING THAT HOUSED the Register had begun its life before 1870 as a pickle factory. Some days Lucky could still smell the brine that had once saturated the hardwood floor.

She loved every square inch of the place, from the elegant antique doors at the front to the ink-stained concrete in the pressroom.

She particularly loved the second floor, her own private domain. Storage took up most of it, but she had a fair-size darkroom, a bathroom and a “parlor” that overlooked the street. The natural light in the front room, filtered by the beveled glass in the windows, was exceptional.

The office was already bustling when she arrived. The newspaper published twice weekly, on Sundays and Wednesdays, so the composing room did computer pasteup for those editions on Monday and Friday mornings.

She’d called Leigh on her cell phone earlier to tell her about the train accident and the bomb threat. Pushing through the doors, Lucky headed straight for the stairs with only a wave to the office and advertising staff and down the hall past the framed copies of front pages with historic headlines:

Local Man Commands Shuttle

Plant To Bring 300 Jobs

Her favorite page was at the end. The banner headline of this special edition, from July 5, 1973, said:

Lucky Child Found Alive

She’d read the story so many times she knew it from memory. The reporter had written:

A three-year-old, who fell from a boat last night and spent more than five hours floating in the Black Warrior River, sustained only a slight case of hypothermia and no serious injuries, doctors at Riverside Community Hospital said this morning.

Erin Renee Mathison, youngest daughter of newspaper publisher Matt Mathison and his wife, Ruth, of 103 Brighton Street, was pulled from the river at 3:45 a.m. near the Gorgas steam plant on the Mulberry fork, some two miles from where she fell overboard.

The girl tumbled from her family’s pontoon boat at about 10 p.m. Monday while watching the Independence Day fireworks display with her parents, grandparents and three older siblings.

Sgt. Albert Cummings of the Walker County rescue squad said the child was wearing a life vest and had learned to swim as an infant. “But it’s a miracle she didn’t drown or get run over by the flotilla,” Cummings said, referring to the annual lighted parade of boats. “She’s one lucky kid.”

As she went by the frame, Lucky rapped lightly on the glass, something she’d done every workday as long as she could remember. Over the years she’d discovered that luck came in both good and bad varieties, and while her superstitious ritual might not help, it sure didn’t hurt.

Leigh’s office was next to the stairs, and she called out as Lucky passed. Lucky stopped, turned and stuck her head around the door frame. “What?”

“I’ve rearranged the front page for you. I need three or four shots.”

“Give me an hour and you can clip the negatives you want me to print.”

“What do you know about this? I need to put together a quick story.”

Lucky came in and gave her a rundown of the facts while Leigh typed them into her computer. They usually couldn’t cover breaking news with any success or compete with the big papers out of Jasper, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Aside from Leigh, they had only one other full-time reporter. Correspondents, called “stringers,” sent in news from outlying communities.

The Register carried in-depth features, follow-ups of events and local stories the dailies had no interest in pursuing. But often, like today, they had exclusive photos.

While other small newspapers were being swallowed up by chains or going bankrupt, theirs flourished because they gave readers news they couldn’t get easily anywhere else—names of hometown people serving in the military, the lunch menus for the schools, profiles of new people in the area. That meant residents subscribed to both a daily paper and the Register.

Their dad had been a good editor and publisher, but Leigh had a better instinct for what readers wanted. With input from Cal, who’d completed his master’s degree in marketing last year, Leigh had dramatically increased readership and profits.

Unlike the two of them or Shannon, Lucky hadn’t gone to college, but her photos helped keep them in the black, and she was proud of her contribution.

“That’s all I know,” Lucky told Leigh, finishing. “I wouldn’t print a name until you get it officially. I might be wrong. And I don’t know how long it’ll take them to notify family.”

“I’ll call before we go to press and see if we can release the name.” Leigh kept typing as she talked, reworking the information into a story. “If you get in a bind processing, get Cal to give you a hand. You can hold the rolls Eddie and I left. They’re for Wednesday. And the stuff you took for the food page.”

“Okay.”

“Whose case is the train accident? The Yankee with the fast feet?”

Jack, she meant. Leigh was the only one in the family who believed Lucky had made a mistake marrying someone she’d known for just a few months. Their parents, grandmother, Cal and Shannon were all crazy about him.

Leigh’s opinion about marriage was tainted by a rough divorce four years ago and lack of child support from her ex-husband. She didn’t even know his whereabouts. Most men were beasts, in her eyes, not only Jack, so Lucky didn’t take offense at her barbs.

“You can try Jack and see if he’ll give you what you’re missing,” she told Leigh, “but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“I’ll call the coroner. Jack still living in town?” she asked casually.