Carnal Innocence

Elizabeth Arden counter. That gold case had caught her eye, and that particular shade of red.
    Hers was missing, too. And had been since … since the night she’d gotten plowed—in more ways than one—in the embalming room of Palmer’s with Teddy Rubenstein. She’d come home, Josie remembered, and had dropped her purse getting out of the car. Everything had spilled out.
    And the next day Tucker had wrecked his car because somebody’d poked holes in some lines.
    “That’s a pretty lipstick you’ve got there, Darleen. Looks good on you.”
    Josie’s eyes had taken on a hard, hunting edge, but Darleen heard only the compliment. “Red lipstick’s sexy, I think. A man likes to see a woman’s lips coming.”
    “I like red myself, and I never saw that shade before. Where’d you get it?”
    “Oh.” Darleen flushed a little, but was flattered enough to pick up the case and turn it around in the light. “It was a present.”
    Josie’s grin was fiercely jovial. “My, I do love presents. Don’t you?”
    She turned without waiting for an answer and strode out past a baffled Crystal.
    Fifteen minutes later Tucker, who was resting after three hard-fought games of Parcheesi, had his peacedisturbed when Josie shook him awake and poured out her story.
    Blinking against the last slants of sunlight, he tried to get his mushy brain around it.
    “Just slow down, Jose, for chrissake. I’m not even awake yet.”
    “Then wake up, goddammit.” She gave him a shove that nearly tilted him out of the hammock. “I’m telling you Billy T. Bonny’s the one who messed with your car, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”
    “You’re telling me he used lipstick to poke holes in my hydraulic and brake lines?”
    “No, you peabrain.” She took a breath and went through the whole business again.
    “Honey, just because Darleen had the same color lipstick as you—”
    “Tucker.” Patience wasn’t one of Josie’s virtues, and she punched him, hard. “A woman knows her own lipstick when she sees it.”
    He rubbed his arm, willing to concede the point. “You could’ve dropped it anyplace.”
    “I did not drop it anyplace, I dropped it right over there in the drive. I used it the night I went out with Teddy, and I didn’t have it the next morning. Or my mother-of-pearl fold-up mirror either.” Fury flared in her eyes. “The bitch’s probably got that, too.”
    With a sigh, Tucker rose. It wasn’t likely he’d be able to get in another nap. He wasn’t mad yet, only because it all seemed a little farfetched.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’ll go pass this along to Burke.”
    Josie slapped her hands on her hips. “Daddy’d have gone and stuck a rifle barrel up Billy T.’s ass.”
    Tucker turned, and though his face remained calm, his eyes weren’t. “I’m not Daddy, Josie.”
    She was sorry immediately and rushed over to throw her arms around him. “Honey, that was awful of me. I didn’t mean it, either. It just makes me so mad, that’s all.”
    “I know.” He gave her a squeeze. “Let me handleit my own way.” He drew back to kiss her. “Next time I’m in Jackson, I’ll buy you a new lipstick.”
    “Ruthless Red.”
    “You just go on in and relax now. I’m going to take your car.”
    “Okay. Tuck?” When he turned back, she was smiling again. “Maybe Junior’ll shoot his nuts off.”

c·h·a·p·t·e·r 15
    T ucker tried the sheriff’s office first, but found only Barb Hopkins, the part-time dispatcher, at her little desk in the corner and her six-year-old, Mark, who was playing jailbird in one of the two cells.
    “Hey, Tuck.” Barb, who’d put on about fifty pounds since she’d graduated with Tucker from Jefferson Davis High, shifted her girth and put down the paperback novel she’d been reading. Her round, jolly face creased into smiles. “We got ourselves some excitement ‘round here, don’t we?”
    “Looks like.” Tucker had always had a fondness for Barb, who’d married Lou Hopkins at nineteen and had proceeded to give birth to a boy child every two years thereafter until Mark arrived, at which point she’d told Lou he could either get his dick clipped or take up residence on the sofabed. “Where’s the rest of your brood, Barb?”
    “Oh, they’re running around town, raising hell.” He paused by the cell to look in on the grimy-faced, towheaded Mark. “So, whatcha in for, boy?”
    “I kilt ’em.” Mark grinned evilly and shook the bars.