Part 13 (2/2)
She dropped onto the sofa beneath the window, the entire trailer shaking beneath her girth. ”I don't want anyone barging in and hearing this.”
I grabbed a metal folding chair and sat down.
”About six months ago, I was here late one night,” she said, her eyes still watering. ”I don't even remember what I was doing. Paperwork, probably. Anyway, he came by the trailer. He needed a key to one of the barns.” She sighed heavily. ”He was so handsome.”
I could only picture George in his denim coveralls. Considering the last time I'd seen him he was blue and frosted over, I couldn't remember whether he was handsome or not.
”I walked him down to the barn,” she said. ”We aren't supposed to give out the keys to anyone, even him. So I took him down there. And there was just a . . . spark.”
She was at least half a foot taller than George and a good two hundred pounds heavier. I was trying to imagine the spark.
”We were just talking,” she said, her eyes elsewhere, lost in her memory of George. ”We were in the barn and he grabbed me and kissed me.”
Whoa. Awkward.
”And it was the most amazing kiss,” she said, a smile creeping onto her lips. ”It was electric. That man knew how to kiss. I have no idea where he learned, but he was incredible.”
I was wis.h.i.+ng I had called Victor and told him to continue questioning her. I didn't need these images in my head. But now I was trapped.
”And, before I knew it, we were on a hay bale,” she said, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng again, but in a different way. ”I was on my back, he was on top of me, and he pulled out his . . .”
”So you were having an affair,” I blurted out loudly, before she could say anything else that would scar me for the remainder of my life. ”You and George were a couple.”
She giggled like a teenager and brushed the stringy black hair from her face. ”After that night, we were. But we kept it a secret.” Her face clouded over. ”I figured Mama might not like it.”
”Why not?”
”Two reasons,” she explained. ”One, she really doesn't like men. Does not trust them at all. And, two, she didn't want any fraternitying between fair employees.”
”Fraternizing.”
”Yeah. That. I knew it would make her mad. So we decided to keep it quiet.”
”George was okay with that?”
”He said he was.”
She was proving to me that there really was someone for everyone. I believed her when she said she didn't hurt George. She clearly seemed to me to be someone very much in love.
No matter how much it grossed me out.
”Okay, then. I need to ask you something else,” I said.
She pushed the hair away from her sweaty face again and looked at me anxiously.
”I was told that maybe he was breaking up with you,” I said. ”Is that true?”
Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes filled. ”Breaking up with me? Why?”
”No, no. Someone told me they saw you together and it looked like he was breaking up with you. You might've been crying or something like that?”
She thought hard for a moment, then shook her head. ”He didn't break up with me. I can a.s.sure you of that. So I'm not sure what you mean.”
I didn't want to mention Susan Blamunski's name because I was afraid it might cause more drama. But she was the one who'd told me about seeing Matilda and George together in the restaurant.
”Were you out together recently?” I asked. ”Publicly? In a restaurant?”
Recognition clicked through her eyes. ”Oh my G.o.d. Our anniversary.”
”Anniversary?”
”Six months from that first night in the barn,” she said. ”I wanted to go out and celebrate. He was kind of surprised because of the whole keeping-it-quiet thing. But I really wanted to go out and I was really tired of not telling everyone about us. I wanted everyone to know we were in love.”
I nodded. ”So you went out to dinner?”
”Yes,” she said, and something in her body language changed. She went from remembering a night out with a man she loved to being very uncomfortable.
”Something happened at dinner?” I asked.
”I really can't talk about it,” she said, her voice dropping to nearly a whisper.
”Why not?”
”I just can't.”
”But something happened that made you cry that night?” I asked. ”I was told you were crying. That's why it may have looked like you were breaking up.”
”Who saw us?” she asked. There was no malice in her question. She just seemed curious.
”I really can't say,” I said. ”But were you crying?” I gently pressed.
She nodded, but still didn't say anything.
”But you won't tell me why?”
She shook her head.
The air-conditioning hummed loudly in the silence. I waited her out. She was good at staying quiet and she just stared back at me, her eyes watery and sad.
”Matilda, do you want to find out who killed George?” I asked.
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