by Mary Bowers
She bit her lip and nodded.
“I might see her again tonight, maybe.” She looked at me with misty eyes. “Do you think I will?”
I didn’t want to cry.
“Maybe. If not, you’ve still got Bastet.”
For some reason, Trixie turned the album page toward my cat and showed her the picture. Bastet looked in close, stretching her neck, but possibly because she couldn’t eat it, she lost interest quickly.
I said good night and went to bed.
Chapter 24
That morning I was going into Tropical Breeze, as usual, to help with the bank deposit from Girlfriend’s, the shelter’s resale shop. Maybe it was one of those Freudian slips, but I had forgotten to bring Willa’s check along to include with the deposit – I was still a little conflicted about accepting Willa’s money to pay Harriet’s debt – and I sat at the breakfast table debating whether or not it was worth it to stop at Cadbury House to pick it up.
I was going to be driving right by, but it would still add at least 45 minutes to the trip. Negotiating the dirt road to Cadbury House would take almost 15 minutes each way, and stopping at home always means it’s going to take longer than you think. You can’t just run in, grab something and run out again without at least saying Hi. And Hi often leads to, “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” or “While you were out something happened,” and before you know it, it’s too late to go into town at all.
So I sat there, keeping up with the breakfast-table chit-chat while I idly pondered, and in the end, I decided next week would be soon enough. Checks are good for ninety days, right? Or is it sixty. Anyway, it wouldn’t be nearly that long before I’d get it into the bank. Willa seemed much better that morning, in fact we’d all had a good night, and I was absolutely positive that long before next Monday I’d be able to stop spending the night in Santorini.
On the other hand, $2,000 is $2,000, and funds in the bank are better than a slip of paper on the desk, just like that bird-in-the-hand thing.
I hadn’t mentioned anything about it out loud, but Willa happened to mention that this was my morning for going into Tropical Breeze and said, “Do you mind if I come along with you today? I have a few things to do in town, and I’d like to thank you for staying with me by buying you lunch. I have business at the bank, so we could even go there together.”
“Oh, can I come, can I come?” Trixie said, not exactly bouncing up and down in her chair, but close. “It’ll be fun, it’ll be fun, it’ll be fun! We’ll have a girls’ day out, and be the Ladies Who Lunch.”
How could I refuse?
“I haven’t seen Florence in ages,” Willa said, referring to the elderly treasure who runs Girlfriends, “so I’ll just come in and say hi to her and look around a bit to see what’s new. Don’t worry; I won’t get in the way. I know you have work to do in the back room. And of course,” she said, brightening, “you’ll be depositing my check. What a nice, fat deposit that’s going to be. Florence will be thrilled.”
I had to think fast and make the decision as I talked. “She sure will. But, dunderhead that I am, I forgot the check on my desk at Cadbury House. Taking the time to stop will be a nuisance,” I said, watching Willa’s face fall – she was proud of that check – “but I guess we’d better. It’ll give you a chance to say hi to Michael. He was working too hard to be very sociable the other night at the Mystery Dinner,” I added.
Silently, I was calculating how much time the side-trip to Cadbury House, the girls’ day out and the ladies lunching was going to add to my day, then decided I was just going to have to force myself relax for once. I’ve always been so driven, feeling like I need to finish up what I’m doing quickly because something else needs to be done next. I have to remind myself that it’s not like that anymore: I have helpers, I have a housekeeper, the shelter is a going concern with a set routine that just keeps on keeping on, most days. I can have fun. Sometimes. If I can just unwind and make myself relax, that is.
So I wrote the day off and said yes to the girls. At least I’d get the deposit into the bank. That would be one thing accomplished. But I wasn’t kidding myself; I wasn’t going to get much else done. And, I told myself sternly, I didn’t need to.
A fun day out with the girls it is, I said to myself, and I decided that whatever funny little negative feelings I was having about it were just because I was such a workaholic.
Besides, we could all use a distraction.
* * * * *
“That was weird, the way Kip was acting last night,” Trixie commented from the passenger seat as I drove. It was the first time anybody had mentioned it.
I nodded, keeping my eyes on the road. “I think he meant to act weird to us, but if he thinks that’s the way to make us back off, he’s going about it the wrong way.”
“He was trying to intimidate us,” Trixie said. “He wanted to scare us, and he succeeded.”
Willa had insisted on being the one to get into the back seat, and I glanced at her in the rear-view mirror to make sure she was okay. She looked troubled, but not exactly upset. In fact, I wasn’t sure she was even listening to us, over the noise from the air conditioner’s fan. She was looking out the window at the ocean view to our left.
It was almost June, and the weather had begun to pivot into summer, one of our three seasons here in northeast Florida. We don’t do winter.
“I found out that he and Frazier were friends,” I said, lowering my voice slightly. “Did you know that?”
“No!”
“He let it slip while he was trying to convince me that he and Linda were innocent, or at least had no motive. Remember that list of organizations Frazier left all his money to? There was one with an unpronounceable name. Frazier was only in that club because Kip got him into it.”
“Dang!”
“And he never told anybody in Santorini that he was acquainted with any of the Strawbridges in any way?”
“Not that I know of. Curiouser and curiouser.”
“And now all of a sudden his personality is beginning to slip. He’s standing in the driveway reenacting Julius Caesar.”
“He wants us to stop trying to figure out who killed Harriet.”
“Not very good psychology on his part. He could only make us suspect him more, standing there beside us and doing a pantomime of the murder. Whether he’s the one who did it or not, that had to be how it happened. It was creepy.”
“Exactly,” Trixie said. “Don’t expect to understand him. Murderers don’t think like us, Taylor. He wouldn’t look at it as making himself even more suspicious. Murderers get off on power. He was demonstrating his power and warning us what could happen if we got too close. Showing us the hand that struck down Harriet, and letting us see that he could strike us down, too.”
“You think so?” I said doubtfully. “He’d have to be crazier than he seems if he thinks that would work. I mean drooling-on-the-pavement crazy. Not sly-crazy. Of course, we don’t really know the man.”
But Trixie was determined. “He was showing us the hand that struck down Harriet. It’s about power, not psychology.”
“The hand that struck down Harriet was my Aunt Frieda’s,” Willa said quietly from the back seat.
We had forgotten she was there. She hadn’t seemed to be listening. Now Trixie and I shared a sideways, uh-oh look and stopped talking.
Willa went on, almost dreamily. “Harriet told us herself. Frieda always lay with her in the bed as she slept. As she slept! Only Harriet! And when the killer stood beside the bed, the knife raised, Frieda’s hand came up and helped to plunge the knife. She’s powerful, my aunt. She drew the knife down, just as she drew the killer to the bedside in the first place. And now . . . she has the house to herself again. Like she always wanted.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
* * * * *
The stop at Cadbury House turned out to be much-needed, after that.
“How does she seem?” Michael asked me. He’d followed me i
nto my office, while Trixie and Willa chatted with Myrtle at the breakfast bar.
I told Michael about Willa’s “hand of Frieda” soliloquy, and he gave me a worried look.
“Not so great,” he summed up.
“I thought she was fine this morning, until that happened. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m spending the whole morning with her, and not just the night. She told Ed she was haunted wherever she went. Maybe she needs a minder, full-time, at least for a little while, but it can’t be me. I’m taking most of today off to run around Tropical Breeze with her, and I’ll spend as many more nights with her as I need to, but I can’t be with her full-time.”
We gazed at one another a moment, then Michael went ahead and said it out loud.
“You’d better call Ed. Report in. He’s the only one I can think of who’d look forward to spending the day with a haunted lady.”
I made a little face, but I knew he was right. I had set my purse down on the desk and shoved the check into it first thing. With all the distractions and mental imaging about Harriet’s murder, I didn’t want to go off to Tropical Breeze without that check, after making a special stop for it. Now I reached for my open purse and took out my cell phone, looking through the French doors to the great room to make sure nobody was about to come in. I could still hear their voices, down in the kitchen.
I hit the screaming ghost on my touch screen, and four seconds later I was saying, “Hi, Ed.”
I told him about the girls’ day out, and that we were going to Don’s Diner for lunch. I gave him a ballpark estimate of the time we’d be there, hoping it would be a smooth handoff and everybody would believe it had happened purely by accident.
Then he could take her back to Santorini and stay with her. At least until I got there again that night.
I was beginning to wonder if the easiest thing wouldn’t be for him to marry her after all.
Chapter 25
Things always take longer than you think they’re going to.
After declaring that she wasn’t interested in second-hand stuff, Trixie kept us waiting for her at Girlfriend’s long after the deposit was made up, we were done catching up with Florence, and Wicked, the shop cat, was satisfied he’d gotten enough attention from everybody. Even Wicked was ready for us to go by the time Trixie paid for the little pile of things she’d been adding to by the check-out counter for at least 45 minutes, maybe closer to an hour.
But it had been worth it. Willa had basked in the glory of Florence’s delight over that big fat check, and she had done a little shopping herself, buying a dark red glass vase that reminded her of one her mother had used for wildflowers. She’d broken her mother’s when she was ten or eleven years old, and her faded blue eyes got a little watery at the sight of another one very much like it.
Next, we went to the bank, and Trixie tagged along with us when she could have been looking at the latest fashions at Sharla’s Dress Shop. I was kind of glad, actually. Girlfriend’s had taken her long enough. Sharla’s would have taken her hours.
There was a new shop on the other side of Hair Today Salon, and both Trixie and Willa wanted to see it. It was one of those places where local artists rent shelf space and sell their work. I forget the name of the place, but it had a lot of neat stuff. Not just paintings. Ceramics and stuff. That took 38 minutes. Trixie bought a sparkly bracelet and put it right on.
I wasn’t exactly straining at the leash by the time we got out of the last shop, but I was definitely looking at my watch too often. I glanced down the street (we were on the same side as the diner by then) and saw a little green bonger parked by the curb, whereupon I (hopefully) managed to look surprised when Willa said, “Isn’t that Ed’s car?”
“Has to be,” Trixie said. “All the other Geo Metros from the early ‘90’s have either been recycled into soda-pop cans or put into museums. Ripley’s Believe it or Not!”
“Ed is very proud of that car,” I said, mock-serious. We all quoted the miles-per-gallon at the same time, then roared with laughter. Ed’s always telling everybody how great his gas mileage is.
“Ah, ladies, what a surprise,” Ed said, crossing the street to our side. “I have just been doing some research at the book store. Very impromptu. Last-minute thing. I had no idea you were also coming into town today. What a coincidence. May I ask if you have already dined? If not, it would be my pleasure to escort you to lunch.”
He lined himself up beside his steady date, while Trixie fell in behind them. Letting them get a safe distance in front of us, Trixie leaned in and whispered, “You little devil! You called him from your house.”
While I debated whether or not to deny it, she added, “Brilliant! I should have thought of it myself.”
I decided to neither confirm nor deny, but she was satisfied she knew, and we got ourselves into Don’s Diner and piled into a booth together.
* * * * *
I had to admire the way Trixie handled herself. Ed had been telling me ever since she moved in next-door to him that she’d been flirting with him so aggressively he felt like a hunted man. And yet there she was, looking across the table at him with another woman and seeming sincerely happy for them. As usual, she carried the conversation, burbling about things nobody remembers for long, except for one thing.
Sometime between getting our drinks and our food, she turned to me suddenly and said, “By the way, whatever magic you’ve got, it didn’t work last night. I didn’t dream about Queenie.”
Ed quivered. He had his ever-present messenger bag beside him in the booth, and I knew he yearned for his recorder. He also knew that if he turned it on and put it on the table, I was going to knock it into the backside of some guy at the soda fountain. I managed to quell him with a look.
To Trixie, I said, “Sorry. I don’t really have any magic, you know. If I did, you’d have Queenie back, and I’d have a visit from Pinkie every night of the week.”
She engaged my eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“Thank you,” I said into her lavender eyes, “for not pointing out that denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
She flapped her lashes and said, “You’ve heard that one before.”
“Over and over.”
Around that time we got our lunches and conversation became sporadic – and safe.
When Willa excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Trixie went with her. Ed, just dying for the chance to talk to me without the others present, watched them until the door closed behind them, then hunkered himself onto the table, bringing his face halfway across it towards me.
“Has she said anything else?”
“She’s been happy and normal ever since. I almost regret calling you. Maybe we’re making too much of it. Everybody has ups and downs when someone close to them has died suddenly. It’s a shock.”
He was shaking his head. “This is different. She mentioned Frieda?”
“Only that one time. Really, Ed, we’ve been having fun since then. We’ve shopped all up and down Locust Street, and she’s okay. And she was really happy about the check she gave me. I wasn’t, but she was. I still don’t know if I should have accepted it.”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said with too much intensity. “You were doing her a favor. She feels terribly unworthy to be a Strawbridge, and to have all that Strawbridge money – it preys on her mind.”
“She certainly doesn’t spend much of it.”
“She never will. All her life, she only wanted to feel secure. Her Aunt Frieda always made it painfully clear she considered Willa and her mother a burden and an obligation. And now, having all of Frieda’s money . . . Willa never wanted to be rich. She just wanted to be safe. Now she’s secure, but she feels like an impostor, a thief. It hasn’t brought her any happiness.”
“Well,” I said quietly, “maybe you can. She seems to have accepted you as her boyfriend.”
“Her steady,” he said, correcting me. “I rather like the term. Steady. It implies strength and reliability and constancy.”
I nodded, and thought to myself that it might imply all of those things, but it didn’t say anything about romance. Maybe that’s why he liked it better than lover.
By then the other ladies had returned, and we sat back and switched gears.
After insisting on paying for our lunches, Ed did a heavy-handed pantomime of having an inspiration, then offered to drive Willa and Trixie back to Santorini so I could go straight home.
“Wasn’t that the plan all along?” Trixie murmured.
I elbowed her, but Willa didn’t seem to notice.
More loudly, Trixie made a few jocular remarks about what a joy it always was to ride in a vehicle when you knew it was getting really great gas mileage. She said it with a straight face, and Ed just nodded in acknowledgement.
“And then,” Ed said, after loudly clearing his throat, “perhaps we could spend the afternoon together, Willa. I have some rather interesting documentation on my latest investigation with the reality show. Photographic evidence! Difficult to discern in most of the frames, but definitely there, if you’re told what to look for.”
“Good grief, he’s going to show her his etchings!” Trixie whispered to me.
I gave her a grin and liked her very much. She might be a female masher, but at least she was generous in defeat.
And she was a heck of a lot of fun to be around.
* * * * *
“Everything go all right?” Michael asked when I finally got home at 3:00. I’m a morning person, so the day was pretty much shot, but I was already thinking I’d be able to clean out a few suites in the kennel that afternoon, if nothing else.
“Huh? Oh, yeah, everything went fine. After that one time in the car on the way here, she was fine. Ed showed up on cue and took them home, and he’s going to stay with her until I get there tonight.”
“She’s getting used to having you around,” he said.
“I suppose so.”
I had been unloading my cellphone, bank receipt and car keys onto my desk, and when I realized he was just standing there looking at me, I said, “What?”
