Deadline. Metsy Hingle
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called marriage, dear. When you marry someone you take them—warts and all.” She poured Tess a cup of coffee. “He’s a good man, Tess. He’s done some remarkable things in his life. And he only wants what’s best for you.”
“I know, Grams. But that doesn’t give him the right to try to manipulate me and decide who I should marry.”
Her grandmother took a seat at the table next to her. “He just doesn’t want you to make a mistake.”
“You mean the way my mother did?” Tess asked. “Maybe marrying Jody Burns was a mistake in Grandfather’s eyes. But it was her choice. Not his. And whomever I marry, it’s going to be my choice, not grandfather’s.”
“You’re so stubborn and righteous. Even more so than your mother was.” Her grandmother sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder if things would have turned out differently if you and your mother had taken after me more instead of your grandfather.”
With the morning light spilling in from the window across her grandmother’s face, Tess noted the lines bracketing her eyes. The tasteful short coif of hair that had once been blond had given way to a lovely silver. Despite her seventy-plus years, Elizabeth Abbott’s skin remained smooth, her face lovely. “You’re stubborn in your own quiet way, Grams.”
“Yes, I suppose I am,” she conceded. She reached over and patted Tess’s hand. “So, are you going to tell me why you needed to talk to your grandfather and me?”
Tess was tempted to tell her grandmother, to confide in her all the questions that had been running through her head since receiving that phone call and the decision she’d finally reached. “I think maybe it’ll be better if I talk to the two of you together. When will Grandfather be home?”
“He had an early golf game with Senator Wilke. I expect him home any minute now.”
Any minute turned out to be nearly an hour later. And when her grandfather entered the breakfast room, the entire house seemed more alive. “Tess, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” her grandfather said gruffly, and Tess knew from his tone that he was still miffed at her over walking out on him at dinner more than a week ago.
“Tess called after you left this morning and asked if she could come by, Theo,” her grandmother explained as she poured her husband a cup of coffee before resuming her own seat.
A big man with a head of thick silver hair and skin darkened by hours spent golfing, her grandfather remained a formidable man even at the age of seventy-five. Ignoring the coffee, he popped a stick of the cinnamon-flavored gum that he favored inside his mouth. A onetime smoker, Theodore Abbott had kicked the habit some twenty-seven years ago, but he had taken to chewing gum. Since then, he was never without a packet of gum stuffed inside one of his pockets. Taking the silver foil from the gum, he proceeded to tie it into a knot. It was a ritual that she had watched her grandfather perform thousands of times. After a moment, he said, “If you’ve come to apologize for your rude behavior last week at dinner, you should know that I’m still quite upset with you, young lady. Your grandmother and I brought you up to behave better. You also owe Jonathan an apology.”
“Jonathan and I have already spoken, Grandfather.”
He pitched the knotted wrapper beside his coffee cup and sat back in his chair. “I’m pleased to hear that,” he said, sounding somewhat mollified.
“Don’t be, because I haven’t changed my mind about marrying him and I didn’t come here to apologize for walking out on your little setup at the restaurant to get us back together.”
He scowled. “Then why are you here?” he demanded.
“To let you know that I’m planning to ask the station for some time off.”
“Why, I think that’s an excellent idea, Tess,” her grandmother said, cutting the tension that permeated the air. “I was just telling your grandfather that you’ve been working too hard. It’ll do you good to take a little vacation.”
“Your grandmother’s right. Perhaps a few weeks’ rest will improve your disposition.”
“I won’t be taking a vacation. But I will be traveling to Mississippi. I’ve been in touch with the prison where Jody Burns died. I’m not sure his death was a suicide. I intend to look into it and his murder trial.”
Her grandfather slapped his hand down on the table, rattling the coffee cups and silver. “You will do no such thing. I forbid it!”
“I wasn’t asking for your permission, Grandfather.” Tess stood. “I just wanted to let you both know where I’ll be so you don’t worry about me.”
“You expect us not to worry when it’s obvious that you’ve lost your mind?” her grandfather fired back.
“Calm down, Theo,” her grandmother soothed. “Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure.”
“To hell with my blood pressure,” he shouted. His face turned bright red. “I would think you’d be glad that the man was dead. Need I remind you that he killed your mother? That you were the one who found him over her bloody body holding the weapon in his hand?”
Tess heard her grandmother’s gasp, saw the horror register on the older woman’s face. Tess looked back at her furious grandfather. “I was four years old. A child,” she reminded him. She had never seen Jody Burns following his conviction, and had long ago written him off as her father. But since that phone call, claiming his death hadn’t been a suicide and that someone else had been responsible for her mother’s murder, she had been plagued with questions. More importantly, she had begun to question her own memories of what had happened that night. “What if I was wrong about what I saw?”
“You weren’t wrong. He killed her,” her grandfather insisted.
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
And despite her grandfather’s angry protests and her grandmother’s dismay, Tess was determined to do just that.
“Okay, Tess, I need you to give me that sign-off again,” the sound engineer told her in the news studio the next day as she completed the edits on the piece she’d done on a local playwright.
“Reporting on ‘What’s New in Entertainment This Week’ for Channel Seven News, this is Tess Abbott.”
“That should do it,” the engineer advised her.
“Looks good. The guys upstairs are gonna like this one,” the cameraman told her.
“Let’s hope you’re right, Bobby,” she replied with a smile. She couldn’t help noticing Ronnie watching her, that worried look in her eyes again. It was a look she’d seen several times since their talk over lunch last week. She could only hope that telling Ronnie about her plans would go smoothly.
And there was no time like the present, Tess decided as she unclipped the microphone from her jacket. Dodging the booms of the cameras and lights, she sidestepped the trail of cables that snaked across the small studio where they’d been taping. She started over toward Ronnie, who was tossing out directions to the assignment editor, production assistant and technician.
Without even taking a breath, she turned her attention to the news anchor. “David, we’re going to lead with the story on the three-alarm fire downtown and move the president’s speech to second,” Ronnie instructed him while she continued to scribble notes that she handed off to her assistant. “We should be able to run Tess’s piece on the playwright near the end of the news hour, right after the weather.”
“Got it,” the news anchor replied. “I’ve reworked the copy some on the lead-in story, punched it up a bit.”
“Let me take a look,” Ronnie said and took the script from him.
Tess stood back and waited for Ronnie to finish. But in typical Ronnie Hill fashion she multitasked, flicking a glance up at her even as she scanned the script changes. “This looks fine. Go with it,”