Page 12 of Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

“Put me down you fool, and let me say hi to J.J.” Mrs. Lawson swatted him on the shoulder and he sat her gently on her feet. “How’s my girl doing?” she asked, bending down to wrap me in her arms.

The endearment made me smile. I’d beenher girlfor as long as I could remember. She’d always been the one I’d gone to when my feelings had been hurt or I had scrapes or bruises to get cleaned up—which was often considering I hung out with a pack of boys most of my childhood. It had been her shoulder I cried on after my first broken heart and she’d been the one to walk me through the embarrassment of my first period. My own mother had always been too busy with work, which I knew now consisted of smuggling items hidden in the bodies that moved in and out of the funeral home.

“I’m doing good,” I said, squeezing her back, maybe a little harder and more desperate than I meant to. She leaned back and took my face between her hands and studied me long and hard, and then she nodded in what I assumed was satisfaction.

“When are you going to make an honest man out of my son?” She scooted into the booth next to me and gave me an impish smile.

“Apparently soon if your son has anything to say about it.”

“I can’t tell you how nervous it makes me for you both to be staring at me like that,” Jack said.

“Good,” she nodded. “Make sure you get your Great-Grandmother Lawson’s ring. People will start to talk if she doesn’t have a ring on her finger.”

“I’m on it,” Jack said. “How come you never worethe Lawson ring? I’d never really thought much about it until I pulled it out the other day to look at.”

“I told you your father and I eloped.” She turned to look at me with a sparkle in her eyesand a mischievous tilt to her mouth. “A group of us ended up in Las Vegas for a weekend, and Rich and I certainly knew each other but we weren’t exactly in a romantic relationship if you know what I mean.”

Jack groaned and I couldn’t help but smile at his discomfort.

“Needless to say, there was something about Sin City that changed things between the two of us,” she went on. “We found ourselves married by the time the trip was over. Rich bought me this ring at the chapel where we married.” She held out her hand and I looked at the gold band with barely a chip of a diamond in the center.

“He was barely twenty-one at the time and hadn’t come into his trust fund yet, so it was what he could afford. By the time we got back home and explained everything to our parents, I’d gotten attached to it and didn’t want to wear the Lawson ring. Not to mention your father would’ve had to pry that ring off your grandmother’s cold dead hand before she gave it to me willingly. I always thought that ring was too good for her anyway. Good thing she died before you came along, J.J.”

“Wow, Mom. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?” Jack said.

Mrs. Lawson smiled at her son and stole a fry off his plate.

“So she wouldn’t have liked me?” I asked, wondering how big of an impact marriage would make on his respectable family—a family that came from old money and traditions.

“That woman didn’t like anyone. A very disagreeable personin general, but she had a ton of money and the marriage made good sense businesswise. You’re just what we need in this family to shake things up a bit.” She waggled her eyebrows comically. “Jack’s uncles and cousins are a little staid. Meaning they’re boring as hell. We try not to see them very often. That’s why we travel so much over the holidays.”

“A good tradition for us to start too,” Jack agreed.

Mrs. Lawson scooted out of the booth. “I’ve got to get back to the house with the food before your father sends a search party after me. Congratulations to you both.” She bent down and hugged Jack tightly. “It’s about damned time if you ask me.” She leaned down to hug me again too and whispered in my ear, “I always thought of you as a daughter. It’ll be nice to make it permanent.”

Tears stung my eyes as she left money on the counter and grabbed her food. “She’s a good mom,” I said.

“The best.”

We finished up our food in silence and Jack left a generous tip with the bill. We snuck out while Martha was busy in the kitchen so we couldn’t get waylaid again.

“So how do you feel about eloping?” Jack asked when we got back in the Suburban.

“If it means there’s no one there but you and me and we get to have sex afterwards then I’m all for it.”

“I can almost guarantee there will be sex afterward. Probably several times.” He pulled out of the parking lot and headed in the opposite direction on Queen Mary, away from the funeral home and the rest of town. It took us higher in elevation, the trees becoming denser and the houses fewer and farther between.Only one road intersected with Queen Mary on this side of town—Heresy Road.

If we’d turned left it would’ve taken us back to the house I’d grown up in—the house where I’d seen the ghost of my father the day before. It seemed like a lifetime ago. But instead of turning left toward my past, Jack turned right. Toward my future.

Jack’s house—our house—jutted up from the cliff majestically, as if it were part of the landscape itself. It was a log cabin of two stories, but not like any cabin I’d seen before. The logs were smoothed to an amber gleam and grey stone chimneys rose from each end of the house. A wide porch wrapped around all sides. There weren’t many windows in the front, but the back of the house was nothing but windows that looked out over towering trees so thick you couldn’t see the river below. It was more space than we needed. Even if we someday filled it with children it would be too much.

Most people underestimated Jack. They saw him as the son of wealthy tobacco farmers, a little reckless and with a temper thathad plagued him when he was younger. They saw him as someone who craved the wild side of life, fast cars and fast women, but with a sharp and complex brain that made him a great cop. He had Master’s Degrees in both criminal justice and psychology.

But what they didn’t know about Jack was that he loved his solitude—his quiet spot on the side of a cliff that was completely private and closed off from the outside world.He liked good wine and intelligent conversation. And when he needed to think something through, he more likely than not did it in the kitchen cooking something that would make the mouth salivate and tastebuds explode.

I’d been thinking about the body that had washed up on shore. It was puzzling, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to know more about it.

“I keep thinking about the victim,” I said. “There was nothing familiar about him? Other than the tattoo, I mean?”

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