Free Cruel as the Grave by Dean James Page B

Her hands were unsteady as she lifted the glass to her lips. She bolted back the shot of brandy like it was orange juice, then put her glass away. She plopped down on one of the sofas and leaned back, her eyes closed. Her arms crossed across her chest, Claudine massaged her shoulders through the thin material of her dress.
    The silence grew uncomfortably longer as every person in the room glanced surreptitiously at the other occupants. The only exception was Gerard, whose eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the nearly empty glass in his hands. As she observed each of her relatives in turn, Maggie noted curiously that the blankness of expression had not cracked. Why wasn’t anyone saying anything? she wondered. Were they all still so stunned that they couldn’t absorb what had happened?
    Or were they afraid to look one another in the eyes, knowing that one of them had murdered Henry McLendon?
    All at once, Maggie wanted nothing more than to leave the house, to go outside and breathe deeply of the outside air. The tenseness of the atmosphere crowded in on her, making her claustrophobic. She forced herself to calm down.
    They sat in that chilling silence for perhaps ten minutes, not a one of them ever speaking. When the doorbell rang, Adrian got up to answer it. The others waited patiently for his return. A few minutes later he ushered into the room ahead of him a distinguished-looking man Maggie guessed to be about her father’s age.
    He went immediately to Retty. “Mrs. Butler, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to hear about this. I promise you we’ll find out who’s responsible as soon as we can.”
    Retty took his proffered hand listlessly. “Thank you, Arthur. I know you all will do your best.”
    Arthur nodded to the others, then his gaze rested on Gerard. “Good lord, nobody told me you had finally come home.” He moved forward to extend a hand.
    Gerard looked up at him for a moment, unable to focus upon the smiling man in front of him. After a few seconds his gaze cleared, and a slow, strained smile broke across his face as he stood up to shake hands. “Arthur Latham! I thought they would’ve run you out of town years ago. Don’t tell me you’re a cop.”
    Latham smiled back. “They couldn’t run off their top man, now could they?” His gaze rested on Maggie, and she registered his slight intake of breath, though he tried to cover it with a courtly nod of the head. “This young lady must be your daughter.”
    Maggie stood up to offer him her hand while Gerard performed the introduction. “Arthur and I go way back,” he told his daughter. “He got into so much mischief as a teenager, I figured he’d be a life-resident of Parchman by now.”
    Seeing the puzzled look on Maggie’s face, Latham explained that Parchman was the state penitentiary. She smiled dutifully back, uncomfortable over the man’s scrutiny of her. She matched him look for look, noting the streaks of gray in the dirty-blond hair and the many lines etched in a face burned red by the sun. His body, slightly overweight to judge by his incipient paunch, looked powerful. His shoulders strained at the seams of his fashionably cut—and expensive—suit.
    Abruptly the lighter mood of reunion vanished as Latham switched his attention to the matter at hand. Nodding at Adrian, he announced, “I’ll take a look around upstairs, then I’ll be back down to talk to each of you while my men go about their business.” He strode quickly from the room, followed by Adrian.
    Before the door closed behind them, a young man in uniform, his cap deferentially tucked under one arm, stepped inside. He smiled politely at them as he assumed a stance of seeming indifference near the door.
    Latham’s energy had managed to break through Gerard’s state of inertia, Maggie was relieved to see. Despite a lingering air of incredulity, Gerard looked more like his normal self now as he sipped the remainder of his brandy.
    Under the seemingly disinterested gaze of the