Page 23 of His Last Wife

The point no one would attack was this: Kerry thought Val was slacking at busting her out of jail and saving her ass. But Val thought she was doing the best she could, seeing as how part of her focus actually had to be on saving her own ass.

So what was all of the abstract talk about, then? Perhaps each woman was still trying to play with her cards held close to her chest, to gather the true position of the one who was once on the opposition. It was a sticky and stinky situation. But neither could walk away. Each had to sit and play. Kerry had her reasons. Val had her reasons.

“But . . .” Val continued from where Kerry had cut her off “I’m not going to walk away. I’m not going to just let this go.” Val looked sharply at Kerry. “I meant what I said to you. I’m getting you out of here. Look, I know I’ve done some fucked-up shit in the past, but I keep my word—right or wrong. That has never changed about me. And you know it. I owe you. I owe you big-time. And I’m going to pay you back for what you did for me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

Kerry sat back in her seat, caught off guard. What Val owed her was the only bond the two women shared. When Val was at her weakest, Kerry gave her the words to make herself strong. She’d showed up at the women’s outreach center where Kerry was volunteering. Jamison had just kicked her out and Val realized something no woman who’d been put out ever wanted to admit: She had nowhere to go. Nowhere at all. And no plan. One of her old friends had told her about the Hell Hath No Fury House and when she pulled up out front she found HHNFH etched into a wooden sign hanging over a refurbished Queen Anne, with a huge porch decorated with potted flowers and swings and other beautiful things softer women might like looking at. When Val walked inside, shaking in her sadness and desperation, she assumed Kerry would turn her nose up at her as she always had in the past. Kerry was the first wife who’d earned the stripes, but lost the war. Val was the second wife who’d plotted and planned and eventually became prey. Served her right. Right? Kerry didn’t follow suit with this belief pattern, though. She gave Val tissues for her tears. She gave Val a seat. She listened. She helped Val like she was any other woman in need—just as someone else had once treated Kerry. She said softly to Val, “Now is the time for you to stand up for yourself. Time for you to be a woman.” It was the kind of grace a girl from the poorest part of Memphis hardly knew. She had to pay Kerry back for that.

“I spoke to Lebowski,” Kerry said, remembering her conversation with the lawyer. “He doesn’t seem hopeful. Feels like he’s giving up on me.” Kerry looked down at her chipped nails and the orange jumpsuit, which was no longer looking foreign on her frame that had once modeled Stella McCartney, Kate Spade, and Donna Karan in socialite circles where jailhouse meetings were the butt of the joke. She looked at Val’s designer shoes and couldn’t guess the brand. Maybe Prada. The suit was Hermès. Too much for visiting someone at a jail. It let Kerry know Val still thought she had something to prove.

“He says he’s stuck. Says he can’t get anywhere,” Val added, echoing exactly what Lebowski had told Kerry on the phone.

“You think he’s telling the truth?”

“I don’t think he’s lying. I’ve been trying to talk to people too. All I get is lip service,” Val revealed. “Remember those news spots I was able to book last month to keep your name in the media? Well, they’ve all dried up. No one will even answer my calls.”

“I don’t get it. We all know who did this. And she’s getting away with murder.” Kerry’s voice grew louder, where someone else would’ve whispered murder.

“I used to think that too, Kerry. I used to agree, but there ain’t much evidence against her.”

“You’re starting to sound like them,” Kerry said.

“No, I’m starting to sound like someone who’s paying attention.”

“To what?”

“The facts, Kerry. The facts.” Val uncrossed her legs and inched her chair closer into the table. “I hate Coreen like the next bitch, and I know how much hell she was giving Jamison before he died. But, come on: There is solid proof that she wasn’t there when he was killed.”

“I saw her!” Kerry slapped the table with each word.

“You saw someone. You saw something. But I don’t think it was her. Ever wonder why out of everyone who testified about who they saw on the roof that day, you’re the only one who is certain it was Coreen? Everyone else switches back and forth, saying it was a man or a woman, or you or Coreen, or some people even said it was just a bird up there.”

“It was her,” Kerry growled.

“You want it to be her,” Val offered sympathetically. “But it’s like she said, she hated Jamison for what he’d done to her, but killing him wouldn’t do anything but hurt her situation. Maybe you don’t get that thinking, but I understand it. I get it.”

“What do you mean, ‘like she said’?” Kerry asked.

Val had to admit to something she hadn’t exactly planned on telling Kerry. She told her about Coreen contacting her for money and threatening to go to the press.

“So, she’s in Atlanta now? Is the boy here?” There was a little jealousy in Kerry’s voice.

“I don’t know. I don’t care, so I didn’t ask.”

“I need to talk to my mother. I need to make sure Tyrian is safe.” Kerry’s voice was weighted with worry then.

“It’s just about the money. I spoke to her; she’s not trying to do anything stupid,” Val explained.

“Val, listen. You can’t trust that woman. I saw her myself. She’s crazy. What she did to try to steal Jamison from me . . .” Kerry trailed off.

“Who hasn’t done some crazy shit to get a man’s attention?” Val asked. “So, she went a little screwball. That doesn’t make her a killer. And I’ve been thinking. What Lebowski needs to get you off is someone else for the DA to put behind bars. If it’s not Coreen, then who else could it be? Who else could’ve hated Jamison enough to do this?”

“You’d know better than me. You were with him then,” Kerry said halfheartedly, still not convinced they really needed to have this conversation. “And from what I saw from far away, it seems like we could just give out numbers at the mall. Who didn’t hate him? Jamison made a lot of the wrong kinds of enemies before he died.”

“I mean plausible killers—people who could actually have done it.” Val remembered her ex-boyfriend Keet threatening vicious retaliation against Jamison or Val in an attempt to cover up some of the dirty deeds the crooked cop had done for Governor Cade. As worthy of a candidate for murder as Keet was, like Cade and the rest of his cronies, he had the best alibi in the world the night Jamison had been killed: He was in jail. Also, Keet wasn’t the kind of guy to dress up like a woman to kill a man. He’d want everyone to know his work. Want all of the credit and fame. If he’d done it, the streets would be talking. But, at that point, there’d been no word about Keet.

As if she’d been reading Val’s mind, Kerry started slowly, “I’ve been hearing stuff in here about the government. People saying Jamison was some kind of martyr. That he was assassinated.”

Val looked at Kerry like the jail had become an insane asylum. “You mean like Tupac or Biggie Smalls? Or like Malcolm or Martin?” Val asked carefully, like she was evaluating Kerry’s sanity.

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