Candy Apple Red

by Nancy Bush

  “I don’t see you jumping up to take the dog.”

  “I’m not dragging you off to Santa Fe.”

  “Fine. Someone else can take Binks. I’ll figure it out.” I clicked off in a huff. It bugs me when Dwayne pulls that “I know better” shit. Especially when it’s the truth.

  Because I was pissed at myself, I made myself run all the way back home, too.

  Murphy was at the computer when I let myself inside the cottage. I could hardly speak. My legs were shaking and there simply wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to fill my burning lungs. Binky came out and licked one of my sweaty legs. She backed away. Great. Even the dog could tell how disgusting I was. I stripped off my clothes and jumped in the shower, lowering the water temperature to lukewarm and turning my face to the spray, standing there for what felt like an eternity.

  Murphy opened the bathroom door a crack. “You gotta get a new computer, Jane. You can hardly get on the Internet with this dinosaur.”

  “Why do you need the Internet?” I called.

  “To get us some airline tickets.” He closed the door behind him.

  Suddenly energized, I shut off the shower, grabbed a towel, wrapped it around me and practically skidded across the hardwood floor to where he was standing in the bedroom, tucking his wallet into the back pocket of his pants.

  “Airline tickets? What about our cars?”

  “Mine’s a rental.” He gave me a look. “I figured you’d sell the Volvo.”

  My heart. I pressed a hand to it. “What…what about the cars that Cotton gave you? You said you got cars.”

  “I checked them out. I’ve got to sell them. They’re ancient monsters. Cadillacs from the days when Caddys were a mile long and a mile-and-a-half wide. One is, however, a red color. Not exactly candy apple, but close.”

  “You want to fly to Santa Fe? What about all my things?”

  “We’ll ship them.” He gazed at me closely. “You’re having second thoughts.”

  “Right the first time, Bucko.”

  He nodded, finally hearing me. “I’ve got to go, Jane. I’m pushing you hard because I just can’t do Lake Chinook a second longer.”

  “I get that.” He’d said it enough times. “But I’ve got to slow down.”

  My cell phone rang. I wouldn’t have answered it, but Murphy dug my cell out of my zippered pocket and handed it to me. It was Booth. “It’s my brother,” I said.

  “Take it. I’m going to call the airlines. See ya later.”

  He was out the door before I could argue. Reluctantly, I pushed talk. “Hey, Booth.”

  “Mom just called. She said she’s coming up here this week. She said she’s staying with you.”

  “She wants to meet Sharona.”

  “Does it have to be now?” He sighed. “I just got your message. You wanted to discuss something?”

  I couldn’t talk to him wearing only a towel, one that kept slipping from my hands. “Let me call you right back.”

  “Make it quick. I’m on my way to work.”

  I toweled myself off with inner fury, threw on my tan capris, a white T-shirt and my beloved Nikes. I brushed my hair hard until it lay straight and wet against my head, the tips touching my shoulders. I glanced in my refrigerator. Not—one—goddamn—thing—worth—eating. Couldn’t Murphy have at least stocked the fridge?

  I slammed the door, swept up the receiver for my land-line—why run up my cell bill if I didn’t have to?—and phoned Booth. He answered immediately and suddenly I had nothing to say.

  But Booth had lots to say, about how he didn’t think he was ready to have Mom come, about how wonderful Sharona was, and finally a hint about how I should get my life together.

  I was bugged. Why were all these decisions being thrust on me now? I’d been happy, hadn’t I? Hanging around Lake Chinook, making friends, process serving? Was that so bad?

  “So, what’s up, Jane?” Booth asked. It was the opening I’d been waiting for.

  In fits and starts, I told him everything I knew about the Reynolds investigation. I needed a new perspective. I needed someone to bounce ideas off. For better or worse, this time it was Booth.

  There was a moment of silence when I finished. I might have thought he’d hung up on me but I could just hear his measured breathing. He said, quietly, “You think this Craig—what’s his last name?”

  “Cuddahy.”

  “You think Craig Cuddahy got in a heated argument with Bobby Reynolds over the island property and subsequently killed him?”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again and said, “Maybe.”

  “What’s the investigator’s name? Lopez?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call him up, Jane. Tell him what you just told me.”

  He sounded so serious that I almost laughed. Almost. “Booth, half of it’s theory. And I won’t get any backup. Jesse, the Coma Kid, said he will not corroborate anything he told me and—”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He cut me cold. “Hand it over to Lopez. Let him break the kid.”

  “I feel a certain responsibility to Jesse,” I said heatedly.

  “Tough. I don’t know if you’re right about this, Jane. I don’t even care. I want you out of it. Pass along whatever you even think you know. Let the professionals figure it out.”

  “Okay.”

  Though I acquiesced, he heard the recalcitrance in my voice. “Do it, Jane.”

  I have really got to improve my lying. “Didn’t I say I would?”

  “You’re not up to this. Sorry, if that bursts your bubble. But you’re not. And stop listening to Dwayne Durbin. He’s going to get you hurt or killed.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ll put it in a memo to the staff.”

  “Damn it,” he said through his teeth.

  “I’ll talk to Lopez, Booth, okay? I’ve been meaning to anyway.” I hung up as quickly as I could as he started to launch into a dozen more reasons why I should stop trying to be something I’m not. Trust Booth to set my teeth on edge. I was really tired of people telling me what I ought to do.

  And I was going to talk to Lopez. I was. I just wasn’t going to do it right yet.

  I visited Greg Hayden and picked up some more 72-hour notices. The heat bore down on me until my tongue felt like it was hanging out like Binkster’s. I managed to post two with minor difficulty. One man called me a fucking bitch, but hey, he was probably hot, too. I told him, “Have a nice day.” He threw a dirt clod at me as I headed to my car but missed by a mile.

  By four o’clock I was done. I drove to Foster’s On The Lake. I wanted a drink, preferably alcoholic, but a bucket of ice water tossed over my head would suffice in a pinch. The only person at the outdoor bar was Manny and his shirt was sticking to him.

  I climbed onto a stool. “Have you ever had everyone you know give you advice you never want to hear?”

  “Frequently.” He placed a cocktail napkin in front of me and waited.

  “Something really, really cold.”

  To my chagrin he poured me a concoction made from blue curacao. My nemesis. It was bright blue and beautiful and spoke of Scandinavian fjords but I knew it would taste godawful. “Oh, Manny.” I sighed. “Give me something I can drink.”

  “Try it, Jane.”

  Well, hell. I picked up the martini glass, silently saluted him, then touched my tongue to the lighter fluid within. I sampled the flavor. Not bad. I took a swallow. Drinkable. “I used to make blue curacao drinks at Sting Ray’s, but I never could make one that anyone would order twice.”

  “What do you think?” He nodded toward my glass.

  Light refracted in blue prisms against my skin. “I think you’ve got sugar or Hpnotiq or something in there to make it less terrible.” I took another swallow. “Something that doesn’t corrupt the color.”

  “So?”

  “It’s okay.” I thought about it as I kept sipping. “I actually could drink two.”

  Manny smiled. “High praise, indeed.”r />
  I didn’t have to order a second because Manny slid one across the bar as soon as my first one was drained. I was already feeling lightheaded, so I took a long, long time over it, and Manny put some salt bread and hummus nearby, so I dug into that, too. I had a feeling it might all be free which cheered me up a lot.

  I supposed I should go home to Murphy. But then, he could always reach me on my cell phone.

  Slowly people began arriving. The temperature had to be in the nineties, so only the brave and foolish were outside their own air-conditioned splendor. I was twiddling with one of the little parasol umbrellas Manny sometimes sticks in chunks of pineapple when a boat came screaming up to the dock. I swear everyone on Foster’s deck inhaled in shock and braced themselves. I know I did.

  But the engine was cut at the last second and Cotton’s boat, captained by his lovely widow, bumped hard enough into the dock to give us all a little sway. Everyone at the bar kept her in their sights. And it was worth the viewing.

  Heather climbed out of the boat, wearing a hot pink bikini with a sheer white overshirt and a pink and red wraparound flowered skirt. The wraparound had unwrapped, however, and we were all treated to her tanned, bare legs as she staggered through the gate into the patio. Her skirt fell back like a bridal train.

  Foster himself came out to view the new arrival, a frown on his face. I slid off my stool and walked over to him. “Give her a drink. I’ll take her back in my car,” I said.

  “You’re awful chummy with the widow.”

  “My new best friend.”

  Of course, chances were Heather would scream and rail at me. She seemed to vacillate on her opinion of me at any given time. I wondered what had her in such a state. When she removed her sunglasses her eyes were red and any makeup they’d previously worn was rubbed off. As if realizing it, she sniffed and put her shades back on. Her nose was also a hot pink shade and it wasn’t from the sun.

  Foster took me at my word, letting Heather order a Mojito. He pointed his finger at me which meant I was the designated driver and babysitter. While she sucked down the first drink I moseyed over to her table.

  “You,” she growled, shaking the ice cubes in her glass then lifting it to her lips, sticking her tongue inside to catch a few more drops. The mint leaf on top nearly went up her nose.

  “This is just an observation, but maybe you shouldn’t be driving right now.”

  “So, turn me in.” She waved an arm around. “Go ahead. Screw me like everyone else.”

  I joined her at her table. She snapped her fingers for service. The waiter looked a little askance as her intoxication level was obvious. He went back and conferred with Jeff Foster who reluctantly nodded an okay, giving me the evil eye at the same time. It irked me that he didn’t believe I had things under control.

  “I understand you’re selling the island to Craig Cuddahy.”

  “Yeah? Well, you understand wrong. Catch up, girl. That’s yesterday’s news.”

  I gazed at her in perplexity. “I heard it was practically inked.”

  “You didn’t talk to Dolly Smathers. You don’t know jack shit about what you’re talking about.” The waiter delivered her drink and Heather gulped at it.

  “What’s Dolly got to do with it?”

  “Dolly Smathers, bitch extraordinaire, has turned herself into a matriarch of Lake Chinook society. That’s what she’s got to do with it. Didn’t you know? Dolly’s vice president of the Hysterical Society. Isn’t that unbelievable? A slut like her? I guess being Cotton’s whore put her on somebody’s A-list! And guess what? Now Cotton’s house is on the List of Historical Homes. Courtesy of Dolly Smathers who just happened to blab all about it to that group of tight-assed snobs. And you know what that means? It means I can’t fucking subdivide, that’s what it means! It’s got to be one parcel. The whole damn thing!”

  Heather drained her glass and thumped it back on the table. I searched in my purse for my car keys. “You want to create a scene, or do you just want to get drunk?”

  “I just wanna get drunk,” she muttered.

  “Then let me take you back to the island.”

  “Fuck that,” she said, but when I paid the bill—only her drinks as Manny shook his head when I tried to pay for mine, thank the gods of free booze—Heather capitulated. Although it practically killed me to fork over the money; Foster’s rapes you on the price of drinks, it won me enough brownie points to get Heather to leave with me, weaving her way through the restaurant on her long tan legs, causing quite a stir among the male patrons.

  Did this blow my theory on Craig Cuddahy? I didn’t think so. How would he have known about this turn of events? He’d been charging after the island like a Poloma bull for weeks. Had he killed Bobby over something that wasn’t ever going to happen? Wouldn’t that be irony in its purest form?

  Halfway to the island Heather started to cry. Big, gulping sobs. “I’m gonna miss him!” she wailed. “And it’s all that fucker Bobby’s fault. I wish he’d died years ago!”

  “Cotton was ill,” I reminded her.

  “Well, he got ill-er after Bobby showed up.” She wiped ignominiously at her running nose. “Did you know that? Did you know he came to the island? I saw him. Cotton didn’t want me to. He tried to hide Bobby. I think he was scared shitless I’d go to the police. I would’ve, too, if I coulda got away with it without Cotton knowing. That shiftless no-account. Whined to Cotton about needing money. I would’ve kicked him in the balls. Murdering bastard!”

  “Where was Bobby staying?”

  “Not with us! Cotton gave him money. All these secret calls, like I’m too dumb to notice? Gimme a break.”

  I love it when drunk people start talking. Note to self: use alcohol as an investigative tool. “But he did come to the island,” I pointed out as if it were fact.

  “I saw him once. About a week before the benefit. I just came unglued. Cotton tried to tell me I’d seen wrong, but I told him he’d better get rid of him and quick. I thought the benefit was important.” She snorted. “If I’d known what those fat, pink-assed old ladies were cooking up, I woulda pushed ’em in the lake!”

  “Cotton changed his will after he saw Bobby?”

  “Yeah, he finally got it! That Bobby was a total loser. He kept trying to act like he was so great. Talking, talking, talking about Bobby! Wonderful Bobby!”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “Oh, who cares. Bobby did.” She swiped her nose again. “It was never enough, you know? More money…more money…more money…I caught the tail end of enough calls to know. Still, it wasn’t until after the benefit that Cotton finally woke up. Murphy coming to town helped. Cotton called him up and told him Bobby was here. Murphy came right up from Santa Fe.”

  My hands tightened on the wheel. “Murphy knew Bobby was here?”

  “Ya think it was just coincidence he showed up this summer? Cotton told him Bobby was here. That’s what got him here.”

  “You overheard this?” If Murphy had lied to me, I wanted to be absolutely certain.

  She waved that away. “All I heard was money, money, money. Poor Bobby needs money. Poor, poor Bobby. Killed his family and now can’t get a break.”

  She was just talking. I set aside my concern about Murphy and said instead, “So, if Bobby hadn’t died, he would’ve inherited. That’s the way the will was originally written. Neusmeyer practically said the son always inherits.”

  “I guess so.”

  “So, it would have all been Bobby’s.”

  Heather squinted at me as I turned onto the bridge that led to the island. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m just trying to get it straight.”

  “Wait a minute…wait…just…one…minute.” She waved a finger at me and glared. “You think I woulda got screwed if Bobby was still alive. You think I wouldn’t’a got a red cent.”

  “Possibly. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “You think it was in my best interest that Bobby died! Well, I’m not the
only one. What about Owen? What about Tess? What about those goddamned blue-haired bitches of the Hysterical Society, like Dolly Smathers? They got what they wanted, didn’t they?”

  But they would’ve got that regardless. Heather, Owen, Tess and the Monroes were the ones who’d gained by Bobby predeceasing Cotton.

  “Oh, shit,” Heather said, lifting her head as I drove through the island’s open gates. “That’s Craig’s car. What’s he doing here?”

  I really didn’t want to see Craig Cuddahy. The idea made me tired. “You’ve still got a really valuable piece of property,” I pointed out. “Maybe he still wants to buy.”

  She laughed at me. “Forget it. I’ll have to contact Paula Whatever-her-face. She’s the one who’ll find a buyer for this piece of crap. I mean, really, who wants their own island?”

  I could think of a lot of people. Most just didn’t have the money to maintain it.

  Craig was waiting outside the front door. Seeing me brought a look of consternation to his face. We were equally underwhelmed to see each other again. “I thought we were going to talk about our problem,” he said meaningfully to Heather.

  “Oh, that’s right. I was supposed to meet you.” She lifted a shoulder and laughed without humor. “I forgot. I took the boat to Foster’s.”

  Cuddahy pursed his lips. “You’re lucky you didn’t get arrested.”

  I gave him a hard look. Like he had any room to talk when it came to alcohol consumption. I suppose I should have been more cautious around him. After all, I still sort of believed he may have murdered Bobby Reynolds. But there was something about Cuddahy that simply didn’t scare me. I wasn’t a threat to him, at least from his current perception. The truth was, I was having a hell of a time keeping him as my primary suspect.

  He ignored me, and although he was gentleman enough to let me walk through ahead of him, he practically trod on the back of my Nikes in his urgency to get to Heather. She went straight to the bar and pulled out a half gallon of Skyy Vodka. He followed after her toward the kitchen but I hung back.