“No, it’s nothing.”
“Chicken and dumplings is usually one of your favorites.”
“Lunch was delicious. I’ve just got a nervous stomach today.”
“Have a peppermint.” Stacey passed him a cut-glass candy dish, conveniently kept on a dust-free cherrywood coffee table. He took out a wrapped piece of red-and-white-striped candy and put it in his mouth. “Any particular reason why your stomach is nervous?”
Stacey had become her father’s caretaker when her mother had died several years earlier. She was single and rapidly approaching middle age, but she had never exhibited any ambition beyond being a homemaker. Because she had no husband or children of her own, she fussed over the judge.
She had never been a raving beauty, and age hadn’t ameliorated that unfortunate fact. Describing her physical attributes with tactful euphemisms was pointless. She was and always had been plain. Even so, her position in Purcell was well established.
Every important ladies’ league in town had her name on its roster. She taught a girls’ Sunday school class at the First Methodist Church, faithfully visited residents of the Golden Age Home each Saturday morning, and played bridge on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her activities calendar was always full. She dressed expensively and well, though far too dowdily for her age.
Her etiquette was above reproach, her decorum refined, her temperament serene. She had weathered disappointments in a style that was noble and worthy of admiration. Everybody assumed that she was happy and content.
They were wrong.
Judge Wallace, a sparrow of a man, pulled on his heavy overcoat as he made his way toward the front door. “Angus called me last night.”
“Oh? What did he want?” Stacey asked as she pulled the collar of her father’s coat up around his ears to guard against the wind.
“Celina Gaither’s daughter turned up yesterday.”
Stacey’s busy hands fell still, and she took a step away from her father. Their eyes met. “Celina Gaither’s daughter?” The voice coming from her chalky lips was high and thin.
“Remember the baby? Alexandra, I believe.”
“Yes, I remember, Alexandra,” Stacey repeated vaguely. “She’s here in Purcell?”
“As of yesterday. All grown up now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this last night when I came in?”
“You were late coming home from the chili supper. I was already in bed. I knew you’d be tired, too, and there was no need to bother you with it then.”
Stacey turned away and busied herself picking the empty cellophane wrappers out of the candy dish. Her father had an annoying habit of leaving the empties. “Why should the sudden appearance of Celina’s daughter bother me?”
“No reason in particular,” the judge said, glad he didn’t have to meet his daughter’s eyes. “On the other hand, it’ll probably upset the whole damn town.”
Stacey came back around. Her fingers were mutilating a piece of clear cellophane. “Why should it?”
The judge covered a sour belch with his fist. “She’s a prosecutor in the D.A.’s office in Austin.”
“Celina’s daughter?” Stacey exclaimed.
“Helluva thing, isn’t it? Who would have guessed that she would turn out that well, growing up with only Merle Graham for a parent.”
“You still haven’t said why she’s come back to Purcell. A visit?”
The judge shook his head. “Business, I’m afraid.”
“Does it have any bearing on the Mintons’ gambling license?”
He looked away, and nervously fidgeted with a button on his coat. “No, she’s, uh, she’s gotten the D.A.’s okay to reopen her mother’s murder case.”
Stacey’s bony chest seemed to cave in another inch. She groped behind her, searching for a place to land when she collapsed.
The judge, pretending not to notice his daughter’s distress, said, “She had Pat Chastain arrange a meeting with the Mintons and Reede Lambert. According to Angus, she made this grandstand announcement that before she was finished, she would determine which one of them had killed her mother.”