Edmund and Natasha both looked at her. “What do you mean why?” Natasha asked.
“You’re out. The charges, according to you, have been dropped. Who cares about how the sausage got made? It got made. Isn’t that all that matters?”
Edmund felt a touch of pride inside when Maude defended him. It was something he was not accustomed to. It felt wonderful.
But Natasha grinned. “I see he’s got you hooked on that dick like all his other ladies.”
But Edmund didn’t find it funny at all. “Keep it up, Tasha, and we’ll get up and walk right back out of this house. Because what you aren’t going to do is disrespect Maude. That will not happen without penalty to you. Now do you want my help, or don’t you?”
Natasha got serious. She knew her brother meant it. “Yes, I need your help.”
“So knock it off!”
“Yessir,” Natasha said, but derisively. She was five years older than Edmund.
Maude decided to move on before Edmund could zing her back. “Tell us why you got arrested,” Maude asked. “What happened?”
“Hamp set me up, that’s what happened. I didn’t kill that ugly-ass wife of his and he knows it.”
“Did you know her?”
“Pernita? Everybody knew her.”
“When did they get married?” Edmund asked her.
Maude found that an odd question to ask. But she was coming to realize that Edmund had more knowledge about his sister than she ever would. She didn’t intervene.
But Natasha did. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“When were they married, Tasha?” he asked her again.
“About four years ago,” she said.
“So they were married right around the time you introduced Ross Hampton to me as your fiancé?”
Maude was shocked. “Herfiancé?” She looked at Natasha. “Hamp was your fiancé?”
“He was the night of that meet and greet party your publisher held for her,” Edmund said.
“But he got married a few months after that,” said a confused Maude.
“Yes, he did,” Natasha admitted. “Was I crushed? Yes, I was. But what does that have to do with the price of tea?”
“Motive,” said Edmund. “He rejected you and married Pernita. And you wanted revenge.”
“Four years later? Give me a break!”
Maude agreed. “That is a long time to be stewing in revenge,” she said. “Usually people lash out much sooner than that.”
“Then why would Hampton accuse you of killing his second wife?” Edmund asked his sister.
“Just like he accused that other lady of killing his first wife. His second wife, like his first wife, had the goods on his ass too. So he got rid of the first wife and blamed his mistress. Then he got rid of his second wife when she got the goods on him, and he decided to blame me to take the spotlight off of him. Because he knew I had the goods on his ass too. But he had an at least plausible excuse to point the finger at me. I did it because I’m the jilted lover. But that’s bullshit.”
“What goods do you have on Hamp?” Maude asked.
“He’s even more crooked than you thought,” Natasha said. “I got business records. I got recordings. I got it all. And he found out.”
“Do you still have those records and recordings?”
