by Mary Bowers
Michael turned to me. “I didn’t know you knew Fred.”
My glottis slammed shut, and in the moment I was unable to speak, Fred said, “Oh, hell yeah. We were a hot item back then. I mean, hot.”
I didn’t know where to crawl.
* * * * *
I stood there for ten or twelve years while Fred oozed into my personal space, looking me up and down, sighing and murmuring about what might have been. Of course he’d aged a lot, but he seemed as hearty as ever, working up a sweat in his get-down-and-party mode.
That was Fred in a nutshell. He hadn’t remembered that I’d existed for thirty years, but now that I was standing in front of him in the flesh, he began to pine for me. He wasn’t fooling me one little bit. He wasn’t one of those devoted cavaliers, eating his heart out over you, but noble enough to let you go if another man would make you happier. He was one of those guys who felt that once you’d been his girl, no other man would do. He had collected you, in a sense.
We’d never even been that serious. I think we had three dates. You know how those nights go: cocktails at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the ocean, you get a little tipsy but not tipsy enough to get into a groping match with the likes of him, and a quick good-night and slam-the-door-in-his-face when he finally gets you home again. Then you lean against the door and tell yourself, “Never again.” That was Date #2, the final one, so it was just two dates, not three.
I have no idea what we talked about for the few minutes after we ran into him, and I don’t want to know. I was in an altered state, one of those you slip into mercifully when things get too horrible to endure. There’s probably an official name for it in the Standard Guide to Abnormal Psychology, or whatever shrinks use to try to figure you out.
For the first time in my life, I was grateful when Coco popped up in my face and started to lecture me.
“You’ve been no help at all, and we were counting on you,” she said.
“You were?” I said groggily.
“Now you get yourself into the kitchen. The kids squirted canned cheese all over the place, and we’re running out of white wine. Oh, good,” she said, grabbing the bottle from Michael. “Come on, Taters, let’s go open this.”
I did a quick drive-by of Fred’s face as he lit up and said, “Taters?”
We left my two boyfriends, current and former, discussing me without supervision, amid a gaggle of old folks I’d never seen before in my life.
I figured I’d just hide in the kitchen until the party was over. Most of the guests were in their eighties. How long could they party, at that age? If Michael came to drag me out, I was going to plead that my friends needed serious help in the kitchen; after all, Coco had said they were counting on me, right?
When Fred keeled over in the dining room, I didn’t even know anything had happened at first. Not that they’d all been whooping it up like frat boys, but when there was a surge of excitement in the dining room, I wasn’t pulled-together enough to care. After all, it was a party. You expect a little noise. Only when somebody came into the kitchen and said, “Where’s the phone?” did I wonder what was going on.
It was a nice old gent in a tropical shirt, white cotton slacks and sandals, but his face was definitely not on vacation at that moment. He only dialed three numbers, and when he said, “Hello, emergency? We need an ambulance,” I finally figured out that I wasn’t the only one having a lousy time at the party.
The next couple of hours were kind of a blur, after which I found myself looking directly into the eyes of a homicide detective, and time slowed down to normal again.
Chapter 4
As the paramedics worked on Fred, an elderly couple went forward and insisted on going with him to the hospital. The husband had been the one who’d called 911, but the wife was the one that was really getting in the way, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would do that in the middle of a crisis. The medics had flooded in in battle formation, escorted by cop in uniform. They all seemed to know exactly what to do and got busy doing it. Most of us civilians stood back, awed, but not the little old couple. The medics simply ignored them and let the cop deal with them while they surrounded the patient and handled him as tenderly as a dying flower.
The medics communicated in a smooth, coded rap while the little old lady got closer and closer to the cop’s face, getting more and more insistent.
The discussion got intense, but I was pretty sure the couple would win out in the end, in spite of the cop’s air of authority. The husband was the type who’d shuffle his feet and do as he was told, but not the wife. She was a small, white-haired, vigorous woman, four-foot eleven in her shoes, and if the cop had really wanted to argue, she looked like she could go all night.
Even in the heat of battle, Coco managed to learn that the more adorable members of the paramedic squad were already taken, no doubt by lesser women than Coco. She was going by wedding bands, which isn’t always a safe bet, but like she always says, it’s a start.
The old couple won the debate, as I’d expected. In a kind of grand finale, the medics – four brawny and determined young men – formed up around the patient like gorillas balancing a crystal goblet, lifted him onto the gurney without effort and bore him and the feisty old lady away in their chariot of red paint and hysterical lights. The cop got back into her squad car and followed them while the old lady’s husband went to get his car and drive to the hospital.
Boom, it was over.
They had taken all of the oxygen out of the condo with them, and there was that interval of hollow-eyed staring and awkwardness that falls over anybody who doesn’t get swept off with the patient.
I hadn’t been introduced to anybody yet, and in the vacuum left by the exit of the superheroes, everybody was looking around at everybody else as blankly as I must have been looking at them.
“How can we help?” said a kind-looking lady with China-blue eyes.
Patty looked around the room like the survivor of a bombing. Suddenly, the room seemed nearly empty of people, of life itself.
“We can at least help you clean up,” said a good-looking, middle-aged blond woman.
At that, everybody began to move, slowly coming to life, picking things up and moving them toward the kitchen.
“I got sink,” I said, as if calling dibs, and went to run soapy water for the dishes. It was kind of a knee-jerk reaction. As a girl, I’d always been the one washing up, while other people cleared the table and dried the dishes. To this day, plunging my hands into soapy dishwater gives me a homey, secure feeling.
It turned out to be not much of a job. Coco and Patty had used disposable plates, flatware and napkins. The only things that needed washing up were a few pretty platters they’d used for hors d’oeuvres and the glass stemware, which Coco felt gave any party a touch of class.
“Good wine was not meant to be consumed from plastic,” was her judgment on the matter.
So I concentrated on the job at hand and made sure not to break any of the delicate things from the condo’s cupboard.
At one point, Coco eased up behind me and said, “Make sure you get all the lipstick off Candy Cutter’s glass,” in a way that telegraphed that Candy Cutter was somewhere near, behind us. “I think she uses greasepaint or something.”
So I was very diligent with the rims of the glasses, and Patty dried them for me, setting them back carefully into the cupboard, and when we were done I drained the dishwater, wiped around the sink, wrung out the dishcloth and felt like I’d made myself useful. Idiot that I was.
* * * * *
That kind of activity, tidying up, washing up, putting away, is very therapeutic. After the job was done, we seemed to snap out of it. I went into the dining room and saw Michael sitting with the lady with the China-blue eyes, who seemed to be having a delayed reaction to the shock. He was settling her down with a glib stream of gentle nonsense. I could hear the slow rhythm of his drawl across the room, and loved every note of it without being able to hear exactly what he
was saying.
While I’d been doing dishes, I’d gotten acquainted with the middle-aged blond lady. Her name was Terri, and I gathered that she was the on-site manager of the real estate office. She was the only one who really seemed to know what to do, one of those organized types, and she kept some semblance of order and energy going. I was extremely grateful to her for that.
China-blue was someone Michael had been acquainted over the years without seeing very much of her. Her name was Betty Everson, and Michael had her smiling by the time I walked across the room. She was hovering around the age of eighty, but was such a pretty little thing she might have been older and not shown it. Some people can assume an air of elegance by the very posture of their body; she was one of them. She had thin, silky white hair, brushed into a cute boy cut.
When he presented me to her, she acknowledged me with a sweet little nod. Her pink-and-white complexion was more white than pink at the time, and the pink had gone to the wrong places, but she hadn’t forgotten her manners. Her bright eyes looked bluer than ever against red rims, but she met my eyes forthrightly and kept her composure.
“I suppose you don’t know a soul here, other than your two friends,” she said, looking around. “Edith and Harold went with Fred to the hospital.” That seemed to focus her, and she looked directly at me with her pretty blue eyes. “They’re very old and very dear friends of his.”
“And, of course, you know Terri Jones,” Coco said, coming up next to me. “Everybody does.”
“We hadn’t met before tonight,” I said, transferring my address to Terri, “but you were a tremendous help. Thank you so much.”
She was the youngest woman in the room. Terri was around fifty, but she was one of those women who hang onto youthfulness with grim determination. She was blond and green-eyed, like me, but shorter. While most of the older women had shown up in polyester, Terri was wearing a floral sundress that showed off her figure and her tan.
“Of course, Taters,” she said warmly. (Coco had gotten in there and introduced me by that name back in the kitchen.) “I understand you’re not staying here in the condo with your friends. Are you at another development?”
“No, I live here, on the old Cadbury estate, down by Tropical Breeze.”
“Oh,” she said. Then, “Oh! I figured Taters was just a nickname. You’re Taylor Verone! Of course I know who you are. How nice to finally meet you.”
We shook hands, the first time anybody had offered to do so.
There were a few worried comments about Fred, and promises were made to pass on any information about his condition as soon as anybody heard anything, and in the middle of that, a well-built man with dark hair and eyes, a little younger than Terri, came up behind her and quietly said, “Let’s go. There’s nothing else we can do here.” He made an impatient movement with his head toward the door.
“Taylor, this is Jason Adderley,” Terri said, obviously irritated by the way he’d cut in and ignored me. “Jason, Taylor Verone. You know – the lady who runs the animal shelter in Tropical Breeze.”
He nodded, flickered his eyes at me and mumbled something.
“You’re right,” Terri said to Jason, “we should go.” Turning to Coco, she said, “Please let me know at the office if there’s anything I can do. What a terrible introduction to St. Augustine! I hope you won’t let this put you off. It’s a wonderful town, and we’re right on one of the best beaches in Florida.”
Coco said the appropriate things, and she and Patty began to sweep the guests gently toward the door, leaving Michael and me behind in the living room.
It wasn’t until later that I realized I hadn’t seen or met Candy Cutter, she of the greasepaint lipstick. There had been two glasses with her burgundy-colored lip prints on them, one absolutely coated with them, and one with just one little kiss on the rim. None of the other ladies, apparently, had worn heavy lipstick, so those two glasses were easy to pick out. That is, until I’d washed them.
My friends locked up, and the four of us fell into seats in the living room and just stared at one another. Somehow I didn’t like to leave them alone in the condo. I was prepared to sack out on the couch if they looked like they wanted me to stay.
Fred had vomited when he had collapsed. Michael told me later that he’d been the one to clean it up, and he’d done the best he could, but the smell was still in the air. It occurred to me that it would help to open the patio doors, but I just couldn’t get up, and I didn’t want to even mention it. Fred had fallen at the invisible line between the dining room and the living room, only feet from where we were all sitting. Nobody seemed to want to look at the spot.
We chatted disjointedly for a while, talking about what we might do during their week’s visit, what there was to see in the area, what might have been wrong with Fred, a few brave remarks about how he was going to be all right. It couldn’t have been the food. Nobody else had gotten sick. No, he must have eaten something earlier in the day, or had some kind of attack. After all, he was, what, eighty? Eighty-two?
When headlights swept across the sink window and penetrated into the living room from the kitchen pass-through, we all froze. We all knew. Whoever was parking a car in front of the condo at this hour of the night was not making a social call. Doors slammed outside.
Coco stood up and said, “I’ll get it,” before they even had a chance to knock.
By the time the forces of the law came in we were all standing, staring. There was a team of scientists ready to collect specimens, but after all our helpful friends had tidied up and the floor and the glasses had been carefully washed, there wasn’t much left for them to collect.
* * * * *
They took the garbage. They took the leftover food. They took the paper towels and rags Michael had used to mop up. Mostly, they took our hope away that we’d all be visiting Fred in the hospital with flowers in the morning, or maybe even going to see him in his own little condo up the center road through the Anastasia Resort.
Fred, they told us, had died about an hour after they’d gotten him to the hospital. He’d never regained consciousness. The emergency room doctor had seen those symptoms before, and not too long ago, and that had been a case of poisoning. They already seemed to know, or suspect, a lot.
My composure was further rocked by the fact that I’d met the police detective before. He looked at me and I looked at him and Michael looked at both of us. I felt myself shrinking somehow, as Detective Burton Bruno stared at me, his normally unreadable face showing surprise. Maybe a little dismay.
I knew he considered me the area’s greatest living crackpot, the lady who thought she had a magic cat. “Oh, lord,” he seemed to be saying to himself, “it’s going to be one of those cases.”
Yes, I, Taylor Verone, a quiet, reserved, dignified member of the community, with as much psychic ability as a rag-mop, had through no fault of my own, gained a reputation I was finding it hard to shake off, and Detective Bruno had been front and center during one of those confusing debacles I was always getting into because of a very silly friend of mine. Only I couldn’t blame this on Edson Darby-Deaver. So far, he’d had nothin’ to do with nothin’. It was my other silly friends, Coco and Patty, who’d gotten me into a mess this time.
I gazed back at Detective Bruno, calm and innocent, ready to assist him in any way possible.
Just before settling himself and coming forward to meet the witnesses, he flicked another quick glance at me and sagged a little.
* * * * *
It took some little time to get it firmly across to the detectives, (Bruno’s partner, Miles Carver, had joined us by then), that Michael and I had arrived at the party late, after which I’d gone almost directly to the kitchen to clean up a mess some kids had made. I’d had no opportunity to touch anybody’s food or drink or anything else. I’d even managed to avoid getting hugged by Fred.
It fascinated Bruno that I had once dated the dead man. He kept poking, probing, gently suggesting that we’d been carrying
on right under Michael’s nose for years and years. Somehow, Bruno just couldn’t seem to believe that I hadn’t emptied a tiny vial of smoking liquid into Fred’s glass while nobody was looking. I was too good to be true, I guess. Especially when he found out that I was the one who’d carefully cleaned the glasses.
“Some woman had gotten heavy lipstick on some of them,” I said, looking desperately to Coco and Patty for back-up.
“Candy Cutter,” Coco said. “I bet she killed him. She was up against Fred all night like a bear scratching on a tree, and he wasn’t paying any attention to her. She got pretty frustrated after a while. The only one he seemed to pay any attention to was that little witch, Edith. You should go question Candy, before she has time to think up a pack of lies.”
Bruno nodded and Carver made a note. It was a flat-out accusation, but they gave the impression that it was just more of the usual blather they have to put up with, and at that time of night they weren’t even going to raise their eyebrows over it.
Bruno looked back at me as if Coco hadn’t spoken. “So you washed the glasses, being careful to get every trace of the lipstick off one of them?”
“Her lipstick was on two glasses,” I said, trying hard to be helpful.
“Oh?” Bruno perked up. “Did she switch glasses with somebody?”
“She was falling all over Fred all night long,” Coco said. “He actually was kind of handsome. Very handsome, in fact. Beautiful head of silver hair, and you could see he was proud of it. He told me he played tennis three days a week, and liked to ride his bike on the off days. He was in terrific shape, wasn’t he, Taters? Back when you used to date him, he must have been really hot.”
“He certainly thought he was.”
“And Candy did too. At one point she got frustrated, grabbed his glass right out of his hand and took a big sip out of it. Playful-like, you know? Being cute. Really pathetic. I would never do anything like that,” she added, making me remember the time I’d seen her do just that by the punch bowl at a dance.
