by Mary Bowers
After that, I stretched and went outside. I heard Coco swapping recipes with Myrtle in the kitchen (Myrtle was behaving herself for a change), and decided to exit by the French doors in my office rather than risk getting pulled aside by them on the way out. I wanted to take another crack at Carlene about Cousin Jason, now that I knew what he wanted. Or what he said he wanted.
But I wasn’t going to waste a lot of time on it. If she was still evasive, I’d just go back and be the gracious hostess. If Michael had been around, I wouldn’t have worried about Coco getting bored, but he was still out golfing – with Sarge, not Benny, tee hee. I couldn’t help it. I smiled like a mom whose little girl is the belle of the ball.
I saw Carlene walking toward The Cattery with a bag of cat chow in her arms, and yelled to her. She called back, “Be with you in a minute,” and ducked into a cabin.
When she came out I said, “I saw your cousin again today. The one with the manly skills and the shiny red truck.”
“Oh, Jason? Isn’t he wonderful? He’s not exactly my cousin, but he almost was. He almost married Cousin Jana,” (I had no clue who Jana was), “but they’re still friends, so that’s okay. Mama Bet wasn’t happy, but Mama Bet always wants everybody married, so that’s nothing new.” (Mama Bet is somebody’s grandmother, possibly Carlene’s. She’s one of those old ladies who eventually grandmothers everybody.) “He did a great job on the floor, and next time he comes by I’m going to bring him over to the new fence you put in and show him where the tree branch came down and made sort of a sag in it.”
I looked back at the cabins. “I suppose the cats aren’t grateful the floor has been fixed. They enjoyed being able to get out whenever they wanted, and I bet they also loved it when things decided to crawl in.”
She laughed. “There’s nothing they like more than chasing the anoles around. I’m always finding pieces of them in there.”
“Lovely. But why eat lizards when nice ladies like you are always coming around with nutritionally balanced meals that they don’t have to get up and chase?”
“They’d rather chase something. You know that.”
We were walking across the lawn toward the kennel, and when we were almost there, she said, “Let me drop this food off and we can go on up to the cemetery together. I was just going to take a break and have lunch. My backpack is in the one of the cupboards in the kennel. I got my lunch in there.”
“You eat in the cemetery?”
“It’s peaceful. And the view from the top of the hill is wonderful. And I don’t mind the Cadburys; they were nice folks. I knew some of them. Sometimes I talk to them. Sometimes I bring flowers for Vesta.”
“That’s nice. I do too. Part of my agreement with Graeme Cadbury is that we’ll maintain the cemetery, keep it tidy, but I’d do that anyway.”
I waited outside while she retrieved her backpack, and when she came out she flickered a glance over the cat pendant but didn’t say anything. We turned and began to lazily walk up the hill.
The Cadbury family cemetery is a traditional fenced-in plot with an arched, wrought-iron doorway and stone benches. We went right inside next to the graves and sat on one of the benches. Carlene offered me half her sandwich, just to be polite, and I said no thanks.
It was warmer up there, closer to the hot sky, but still it was more comfortable, since there was plenty of shade and a light, salty breeze. The landscape swept out before us, past the buildings of the estate and across the river, all the way out to the horizon at the edge of a thin strip of ocean. I felt myself slow down and breathe. At that point I remembered why I’d wanted to talk to Carlene, and I really didn’t want to anymore. Moonlighting handymen, poison in the wine and all the other grim problems of the past week seemed very far away.
“Jason really is a good guy,” Carlene said after a space of peace and quiet and the smell of peanut butter from her sandwich.
I turned to her. She’d said it in a defensive way, and I almost didn’t want to ask why. In the end, I didn’t have to. She went on, getting more and more defensive along the way, almost arguing with herself.
“Yeah, it’s an expensive truck, but he’s been wanting it for a long, long time, and he must have been saving up for it. The monthly payments on it must be huge, though. He was happy when he first came around showing it off, but he seems kind of worried about it now. Cousin Kyle said he’s not sure Jason’s even happy with it, now that he’s got it.”
I let Cousin Kyle drift away with all the other vague people Carlene was related to. Just then, I was interested in Cousin Jason.
I saw her glance at my hand and realized I was holding the pendant again. I let it go.
“Well, I really appreciate him being willing to help us out here,” I said.
“Oh, Jason loves animals, just like we do. He’s happy to help. And he’s a good guy.”
I nodded, but realized that he’d never mentioned the animals at all, and he sure hadn’t volunteered for Orphans before.
“Maybe he’s even using it as a kind of penance,” she added after a pause, and I turned my head and looked at her.
“For what?”
She looked unhappy. I could see her putting something plausible together. “He’s had some run-ins. Nothing serious. He’s never been to prison or anything, but he got into a fight at The Boondocks one time. Broke a guy’s nose and got arrested, along with everybody else. And then there was that car wreck. They tried to call it vehicular homicide, but it wasn’t any such thing, and the D.A. said so. Jason’s got a good heart. I’ve known him all my life. I think we all need to do penance from time to time, don’t you? For ourselves, and even for other people. Maybe we help the animals like we do to make up for the people who hurt them.”
“I just help them because I love them.”
“Well, we’ve all got our reasons.”
We left it at that. I like Carlene. And I’m grateful to her. Technically, she’s an employee, but she puts in far more hours than she gets paid for. I didn’t want to give her the third degree, but I figured I didn’t need to. I’d tried to get to know more about Jason, hoping to cross him off my list, and instead he was beginning to move up to the top of it.
Just my luck. A healthy, willing man with skills and a truck, and there I was beginning to wonder if he was murdering senior citizens.
Chapter 16
When I Coco and I got back to the condo, Patty wasn’t there yet.
“I’m gonna call her,” Coco said, whipping out her cell phone.
“Don’t you dare.”
“Why not?”
“Would you like us calling you if you were out on a date?”
Slowly, mutinously, she put the cell phone away. “I guess not. But if that girl’s not back by six o’clock, I’m calling her, no matter what you say. Since we travel together so much, we’ve got tracking apps for one another on our phones. I’ll hunt her down if I have to. After all, we don’t know anything about that man. The more I think about it, the more I think we shouldn’t have just let her go off with him like that. He could be a sex maniac.”
“Benny is not a sex maniac. I’ve known him for years, and Michael’s known him all his life. Now pipe down. Oh, lord, what’s going on down there now?”
I was standing by the patio doors at the back of the condo, looking down the central drive, and Coco came to stand beside me and have a look. There was a group of people standing in the road, right next to the spot where Edith’s body had been found.
“Who’s that?” Coco asked.
“It looks like Betty and Terri and . . . somebody else.”
“Oh, Terri. Is that who that is, in the tent dress.”
I hadn’t heard that particular fashion term since the 1950’s, when our moms were wearing them. I just had to smile. On Coco it was a beach cover-up. On Terri, it was a tent dress. Betty was wearing the Florida lady’s uniform: cotton tee, cotton capris and sandals. The other one was in matchy-matchy, mail-order blue polyester, standing in the shade of a live
oak tree. I began to think I recognized her.
Coco decided to go out and join them, and when I tried to stop her, she turned on me and said, “You know darn well they’re talking about you.”
“About me? Why would they be talking about me?”
In answer, she looked down at my cat pendant, then looked back into my eyes with one eyebrow cocked.
She left the condo and I wobbled on my feet for a moment, nonplussed. Then I ran after her, meaning to drag her back by the hair if I had to, but by the time I caught up with her the ladies were looking our way and it was too late to get physical. Would’ve caused a scene. I didn’t really believe they were talking about me, but the last thing I wanted to do was gossip about Edith’s death, especially right next to the spot where she’d been murdered. And her husband, Harold, could come out at any moment and catch us. Also, they were standing right in front of Candy Cutter’s condo, which was another reason not to go there.
I briefly considered inviting them into our condo, but then we’d have to figure out how to get rid of them again, so I pasted a smile on my face and advanced. When we got there, they were all expectantly staring at us, and there was no telling what they’d been talking about.
The mystery lady under the shade of the old oak tree turned out to Bernie Horning, as I’d suspected. It was Friday, the day she usually brought out The Beach Buzz, but she’d probably stopped the presses for a late news flash about a second death at the Anastasia Resort. The Beach Buzz came wandering out weekly, and nobody complained (or noticed much) if it was late, especially if it was late for a really juicy reason. She was at the scene of the crime sniffing around, looking for meat to go with the potatoes. I knew I was in for an interrogation as soon as she could cut me out of the herd. She had that look in her eye.
“Has either one of you seen Harold?” Betty asked. “I’m worried about him. Nobody’s seen him around.”
At least she didn’t have a casserole.
“We’re all worried about him,” Terri said. She didn’t look worried to me. She’d air-brushed her face on, which always startled me. That kind of perfection is not only unnecessary, it’s jarring. One wants to look at another person’s face, not their make-up. I had to admit it, though, she had Coco beat when it came to modeling the beach cover-up, but only because she was younger. Coco didn’t stand next to her.
“Do you have any reason to think Harold isn’t all right?” I asked Terri. After all, she represented management.
“We just haven’t heard from him.”
I nodded, quickly turned my head, and stared at the second condo in the block. “That’s where Fred lived, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes,” Terri answered. “Why?”
“I – I thought I saw something. Is anybody in there?”
Terri stretched her neck, catlike, and looked. “Not that I know of.”
“Fred didn’t live with anybody?”
“No.”
At that moment, Candy peeled herself off the sink window and joined the gang. Just what we needed.
“Have you seen Harold?” she yelled, coming toward us. She was floating along like a grounded hot-air balloon, and Coco perked up. “I’m just about frantic about him. I bet he hasn’t eaten a thing.”
I heard a door opening behind her and looked around her to see that the poor man in question had chosen that precise moment to step outside. The murmuring doves immediately flocked to him. Bernie shamelessly attached herself to the group, hearing aids cranked up to 11. Harold stood among them looking expressionless and emotionless. He blinked, looked around, and said, “How do.”
His whole bearing struck me as wrong, considering the situation. I wondered if he’d been given a sedative. He was just off. He gave a tired but kindly smile and nodded around at the circle of women, and I could sense all of them feeling thrown, like me.
He was a bit of an odd duck, probably even in the best of times, but especially now. Back when he and Edith had been arguing with the cop about whether or not they could go in the ambulance with Fred, I’d noticed his air of not being in the same room as everybody else. Edith was intense. Edith wasn’t taking no for an answer. Harold was just occupying space nearby.
He noticed me in the crowd, staring at him like everybody else, and he seemed to single me out. All of a sudden somebody was there behind those eyes, and it gave me a creepy feeling, as if a mannequin had turned its head. Then he asked me, “Are you all right, dear?”
“Oh, Harold, you are too good,” Candy exclaimed, “worrying about us, when we’ve all been worrying about you! Have you even had anything to eat today? Did you ever get to sleep last night? I bet those horrible policemen were bothering you all night long.”
“They were just doing their job. I met with the undertaker this morning,” he said without emphasis, just telling us about his day. “They haven’t released her to me yet, but we’ve had our cemetery plots for a while now, and we’ll bury her as soon as we can. I hope you’ll all be able to come.”
Nobody spoke. In the vacuum that followed, he looked back to me and said, “I wonder if I could talk to you about something.”
“Me?”
“You’re that cat lady, aren’t you?”
Well, yes, you could call me a cat lady. A dog lady. Take your pick.
While I hesitated, a chorus came up around me.
“I have a casserole for you –“
“Harold, if you need anything –“
“Do you want me to come too?” That was Coco, having the vague notion that we went as a team.
“No, just this lady,” he said, smiling around at them. Then he looked back at me. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. Was it Mashies . . . ?”
“Taters,” Coco said.
“Taylor Verone,” I told him firmly. “Of course we can talk, if you’d like. Would you like to walk, or should we go inside?”
He swept an arm toward his condo and conducted me in, leaving question marks I could almost hear filling the air behind us.
“I saw you through the sink window,” he confided once we were inside. “Useful things, sink windows. Helps you to know when to open the door and when to ignore the knocking. Now come along to the living room.”
He stepped aside and motioned me forward, and I went to the couch and sat down.
“Would you like something to drink?”
“I . . . .”
“I know.” He sat on the edge of an overstuffed chair. “You’re wondering why you’re here.”
“I’m starting worry about why I’m here, frankly. I know I’ve got a reputation, but really, Mr. Foote –“
“Harold, please. It’s not that. You knew Fred. He was talking to you at the party, after he’d been talking to Edith. What did he tell you? I’m thinking it may have been the same thing he was talking to Edith about.”
“What was that?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. I was standing right there, at least for a while, but I’m hard of hearing. The room was pretty noisy by then. Hearing aids are notorious for not letting you sort out voices when everybody’s talking at once. It’s called the ‘cocktail party effect.’ We’re all born with the ability to do it, but hearing aids give everything equal value and make it hard to home in on just one speaker. Edith and Fred had lowered their voices, so whatever they were saying, they didn’t want it bruited about.”
“I’m sorry, he didn’t say anything to me that might interest you. He was just reminiscing about a couple of dates we had, back when I first moved here, and he wouldn’t have been talking to Edith about me. He didn’t even know I was coming.”
“I was afraid of that. I have a little confession to make. I turned my hearing aids down before the party. I’m almost stone deaf without them, but that can be useful in some situations. I don’t drink, and it’s no fun being the only one in the room who’s sober. As the night goes on and people get lit up, they talk too loud, laugh too loud, get a little crude. Having it all amplified
can really give you a headache. But Edith liked to go to parties, so we went. If everybody knows you’re hard of hearing, and you just smile and nod while they talk, they lose interest and go talk to somebody else, especially if you’re not laughing at their jokes. Drunk people,” he said, leaning forward confidentially, “tell the kind of jokes I don’t like.”
“You’re right about that,” I said, laughing. “And drunk men get grabby. I tend to get to parties late and then leave if the going gets rough.”
He nodded, agreeing. “So when Fred and Edith put their heads together, I could never have heard what they were saying and I didn’t even bother to try. They were always conspiring about something. If I wanted to know what it was all about, I figured I could ask Edith later. Usually it didn’t interest me, but now . . . well, I wish I knew. I believe you were the last person Fred talked to before going back and finishing his drink, so I thought I’d ask. Well, it was worth a shot.”
“Do you remember if anybody else was standing near them while they were talking?”
“People were moving around. I know that handyman and his little girlfriend were nearby, but they moved away. And of course, your friends were circulating.”
“Harold, don’t take this the wrong way, but was Fred a wealthy man?”
“He was comfortable. Yes, I think you could say he was wealthy, but it wasn’t going to do him any good. Money can’t buy you everything.”
I smiled. “You mean money can’t buy you love?”
“No. He was dying, my dear, and he knew it. The worst was just beginning. A tumor. Headaches. Vision problems. Even sounds. Oh, the doctors mean well, but sometimes they’re only trying to prolong a life that’s no longer bearable. Fred was at peace with it.”
At peace? Something was keeping him interested in this earthly plane. A last shot at one of his pet crusades? Exposure of a con man/lady? While I puzzled over it, Harold had gone into a reverie, and his distant affect became almost Delphic. I decided to shelve it for later.
