by Nina Wright
I was right on all counts. Dani wasn’t interested in anything I had to say on the phone. She immediately blasted my “lack of business integrity” and insisted that unless I appeared on her doorstep with a “satisfactory plan of remediation” before three o’clock today, she would file her formal complaint with the Board of Realtors. Although she mentioned something about calling her attorney, I was reasonably sure she had insufficient grounds to litigate me.
However, trouble with the Board was way more woe than I wanted. Even if they didn’t take action against Mattimoe Realty, they would investigate, and that would become a matter of public record. Trust me, nobody in the business of buying and selling real estate wants a history of consumer complaints.
I promised Dani I’d show up at her door as requested. As ordered.
I reached into my bra for my notes from attorney Bill Noury and promptly realized that I was wearing a different bra. A clean bra sans legal advice. Jeb had removed the instructions from my other bra before sleep two nights ago. While I could probably account for the location of the undergarment—in the laundry hamper—I wasn’t at all sure what had happened to the slip of paper, and Jeb was unavailable to tell me.
I took a deep breath, debating between paying Bill Noury to repeat his counsel or cajoling my mother into looking for it in my bedroom.
I called Mom.
Having the kind of mind she did, Irene Houston needed to understand why I’d ever store vital information in my brassiere.
“Why not use your day planner? Or, better yet, your smart phone?” Mom argued.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a tropical beach free of phones, mothers, and Dani Glancy.
“I put the paper in my bra because I wanted to make sure it would always be with me,” I explained.
“Well, that didn’t work, did it?” Mom said.
She traipsed upstairs to the site of my previous undressing. Although I tended to leave articles of clothing wherever they fell, Jeb liked to tidy things up before he left for the day. And this day was no exception.
“There’s no scrap of paper or dirty brassiere,” Mom reported.
“The brassiere wouldn’t be dirty,” I said.
“Well, it wouldn’t be clean.”
I suggested she open the clothes hamper.
“Hold on,” she said, setting down her phone. “Okay, I dumped everything out. There were two dirty brassieres in there and a lot of other clothes but no piece of paper. Could you have thrown it away?”
That was a fair question. While I wouldn’t have discarded the paper, Jeb, who was the last person to handle it, might have.
“Could you check the waste basket?” I said.
“I’ll check both waste baskets,” she said. But she found no magic paper.
“Could you have put it in a pocket?” Mom asked.
Jeb was the last person to handle the paper. He had been naked when he undressed me. No pockets.
“Would you look around on the floor, please?” I said.
She complied, lifting throw rugs and moving small pieces of furniture. Nada.
“I don’t get it,” I fumed. “Things don’t just dematerialize. It’s got to be there somewhere.”
Mom theorized that if it wasn’t in a pocket, purse, or briefcase, it was in one of my bureau drawers. I didn’t think so.
“Do you want me to keep looking, or are you going to call your lawyer?” she said.
“By ‘keep looking,’ do you mean go through my drawers, purses, and briefcase?”
“Only if you ask me to,” she said. “I have better things to do than snoop in your room.”
That hadn’t always been true. I recalled catching my mother going through my various private stashes back in the day.
“You were a teenager,” Mom balked when I brought it up.
“Yeah, but what about my right to privacy?”
“You didn’t have a right to privacy. You were a minor living under my roof. When Baby’s a dope-smoking teenager, we’ll talk.”
That shut me up. I hadn’t got past thinking about labor, delivery, diapers, and formula. Thanks to a couple baby showers, I had managed to stock mysterious items like a womb-shaped baby bathtub and a nasal aspirator kit, but I hadn’t let myself imagine Baby during his or her teen years. Thinking about living with a teenager was probably the best possible form of birth control.
“Hold on,” Mom said, and I heard the unmistakable clatter of dog claws on a hardwood floor. “Guess who just solved your mystery?”
“Is she inclined to fart and snore?”
“She’s inclined to be helpful.”
I knew Mom was patting Sandra on her square head.
“Are you sure it’s the paper I need?” I said.
“ ‘Admit nothing. Offer nothing. Say almost nothing. Do not—.’ ” Mom stopped. “Oops. Sandra drooled so much she dissolved the last part.”
Well, maybe that wasn’t as important as the rest. I typed what I had into my smart phone notepad.
“Sandra’s a good dog. Yes, she is,” Mom said in a voice directed at the Frenchie. To me, she added, “You should thank Sandra for her assistance.”
“Thank her for me,” I said, now in a hurry to get off the line.
“Whitney, do the right thing.” Mom’s voice rang with a moral righteousness I hadn’t heard since high school. “I’m going to hold the phone by Sandra’s ears while you thank her. She’ll recognize your voice, and it will mean the world to her.”
“It’s only me,” I told the Frenchie. “Thanks for retrieving my paper. Well, most of it.”
Sandra moaned in tones so plaintive they could have come from an Italian tenor.
“I feel your pain,” I said. “I’m waiting for Jeb’s call, too.”
When Mom got back on the line, I fretted about the missing piece of what Bill Noury had ordered me not to do.
“This is a simple problem,” Mom said. “You can call and pay for the privilege of asking him, or you can take your best shot with what Sandra gave you. She’s such a good girl, and she looks so good in her purple paisley pantsuit. Yes, she does.”
Mom’s voice had devolved into baby talk. The little gargoyle barked enthusiastically, clacking her claws all over the floor.
“What do you think happened to Jeb?” I whined.
“I don’t think anything has happened to him, Whitney.” Mom was using her stern voice again. “You need to take charge of yourself. Use your big-girl brain and get yourself home.”
25
Mom was right. I needed to use my “big-girl brain.” If only I could find it.
I breathed slowly, the way I’d learned in Lamaze class. With my eyes closed, I took a conscious, very deliberate head-to-toe inventory of my entire body. Everything felt more or less in the same place it had been yesterday, nothing shifting or loosening that I could detect. However, we were in countdown mode to delivery, and Baby controlled the show.
When I opened my eyes, Helen and MacArthur stood outside the Mercedes engaged in what looked like an animated discussion, possibly even an argument. Apparently, no one else from that merry band of deputies had emerged from the woods. What the hell had drawn the super-sniffer back so quickly? What was his issue with Helen?
Grunting like a rhinoceros in heat, I reached around my huge belly and forced open the car door.
“Hey!” I called.
MacArthur and Helen froze mid-word. The Cleaner sprinted toward me. Helen hurried after him in her uneven elderly gait.
“I’m fine,” I shouted.
They didn’t seem to believe me because their pace didn’t slow.
“Glad you’re fine,” MacArthur said, “but something has happened and we need to roll.”
I looked past him at Helen, who was still limp-jogging toward me, frustration twisting her face.
MacArthur said. “I sniffed something significant, and we need to move fast.”
“Because someone’s in danger?” I asked.
“Because yo
u’re due to give birth. Tick-tock.”
Helen arrived at my side panting. “MacArthur insists he needs to show you something, but I don’t like the idea one bit. You’re too close to delivery. Of course, I’ll do whatever you say.”
I glanced from Helen’s worried expression to MacArthur’s impatient one. Although I lacked sufficient information to make a decision, I made one, anyway.
“Helen, I need you to find Anouk and bring her to Vestige.”
My driver’s sparse gray eyebrows shot up. “Is there a canine psychic emergency?”
“Not that I know of. I just need to talk to Anouk.”
Given her reputation as a trainer and groomer of standard poodles—and, on occasion, other big dogs—Anouk might have known Diggs. If she did, and I could find out what she knew about him and his humans, I might get a clue to the connection between dogs, gunfire and arson. If there was a connection.
MacArthur and Jenx thought there was. It was why they had dragged me to the field that held the shell casing and Diggs’ tag, and why we were now out here on Wham-Bam Road.
Noonan had sensed a different though also troubling connection—between Anouk and Abra.
I couldn’t ignore the possibility that somebody was right.
“Bring Anouk to Vestige,” I said firmly, looking straight into Helen’s dubious eyes. “Tell her whatever you need to tell her to make her cooperate.”
“All I’ll have to do is ask,” Helen said. “Anouk likes me.”
I nodded. What was not to like about Helen? Except for the needling, needy people-pleasing side of her nature, which annoyed my mother more than it did me.
I couldn’t read Helen’s face as she shot MacArthur a glance. Did she think I was wasting her time? In any case, she tipped her cap at me and hurried back to the Town Car.
“Good strategy fetching Anouk,” MacArthur said.
He effortlessly slid me into place on the Mercedes’ spacious backseat and softly closed the door.
I wasn’t sure I had a “strategy,” but I hoped talking with Anouk would help me feel less conflicted about the now-dead dog I didn’t even known lived at the Mullens’ house when I mistakenly listed it. Talk about a hot mess. In my whole career I’d never listed a house contracted to another agent, or a house that exploded, killing clients and canine.
After MacArthur climbed into the driver’s seat, I asked what he and Helen had been fighting about.
“We weren’t fighting.”
“Well, you weren’t agreeing on much.”
He offered a rumbling chuckle.
“I told Helen I was going to take over as your driver for the rest of the day. She didn’t care for that. She’s become rather protective of you.”
Personally, I appreciated the change of driver, and not just for the scenery. After my chat with Avery, I wanted a chance to ask MacArthur if he’d seen a path through the field where he’d found the dog tags.
“You mean like for hikers?” he asked.
“Or runners,” I said.
He shook his head.
I let my shoulders sag in disappointment. So much for my wild guess about Ben, his boyfriend, and their GPS-based running app. A serious runner wouldn’t risk turning an ankle in a disused field, especially at twilight.
“Nothing mulched or paved,” MacArthur added, “but there’s a narrow trail beaten down by use. Looks like a shortcut connecting Uphill and Downhill Roads.”
I sat up as straight as I could.
“What if Ben Fondgren’s running buddy cut through that field while you were chasing Abra?” I said.
“Reagan, you mean?”
I admitted I didn’t know his name even as I recalled Avery’s saying it started with an R.
“Reagan Duffy,” MacArthur confirmed. “I suppose he could have done it, but nobody saw him. Chester said Ben was running alone.”
“Ben said he was running alone,” I argued. “As for nobody seeing anybody cut through the field, I was the only person not chasing Abra, and we all know I miss everything.”
“Not everything,” MacArthur said kindly.
“Well, if Reagan did cut through the field, maybe he pissed there.”
My theory sounded so lame when I said it out loud that I quickly added, “Or not. What do you know about Ben and Reagan?”
MacArthur punched the Mercedes’ keyless starter and made the engine purr.
“Avery has more contact with Ben than I do, but I don’t think she knows him well. We’ve met Reagan. He seems pleasant. They’re more than running buddies, you know.”
“Right.” I was still grappling with the notion that Ben was gay. “What does Reagan do?”
“If I recall correctly, he’s a server at the Sugar Grove Inn.”
My heart contracted a little. The Sugar Grove Inn had been “our place” when I was married to Leo. Since his death, I’d visited the restaurant only a few times, and only because someone else insisted on dining there. Leo and I used to request a middle-aged server named Terrence. I couldn’t remember anyone there named Reagan.
When I asked MacArthur about Reagan’s appearance, he said, “About the same age as Ben. Same height and build, too.”
“Nothing unique about him? I asked.
MacArthur shrugged. “Not to me, but then I don’t lean that way.”
His vagueness surprised me. Were Ben and Reagan simply off his radar? That didn’t seem likely considering Cassina employed MacArthur to drive, protect and clean up after her. He needed to notice everything. He didn’t need to comment on it, however. I believed MacArthur generally knew more than he shared.
I sat back, wishing I could relax. Was it mere coincidence that the names Reagan Duffy and Randy Dupper were similar? Peering into the greening woods as MacArthur put the Mercedes in gear, I saw no human or canine action. We passed Roscoe dozing by the parked squad car, probably enjoying a sex dream about Sandra or having a nightmare about Abra.
“You’re sure it’s okay to leave Chester?” I asked MacArthur.
“Chester’s fine. He’s in his element bagging evidence with Jenx and Brady. They’re finding plenty of human and canine artifacts.”
I figured “human artifacts” was code for litter whereas “canine artifacts” meant body parts, dog accessories, or scat. The last item brought to mind the kind of treatment I was likely to receive at Dani Glancy’s house, and that motivated me to review what remained of Bill Noury’s notes. I must have groaned because MacArthur asked what was wrong. Briefly I explained my business crisis. His intense blue eyes met mine in the rear view mirror.
“No worries, Whiskey,” he said. “Dani Glancy is my mission, too. We’re going to her house together.”
“We are? I have to meet with Mrs. Glancy. What’s your excuse?”
“I smelled Lisa Mullen in the woods.”
“You did?” That seemed highly unlikely for several reasons, the most pressing of which was her death.
“Distinctly,” he replied.
“Okay,” I said. “What does that have to do with seeing Dani Glancy.”
“Lisa and Dani were sisters.”
That was huge news. It explained why Lisa and Todd would have listed their house with Hamp. Did the sisters get along? I thought about Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, a.k.a. Sandra and Abra.
“The woman I met at 318 Swan Lane didn’t seem the type to piss in the woods,” I noted.
“To be precise,” MacArthur said, “I smelled her perfume.”
His eyes were on the road now, not the mirror. I stared at the mirror anyway, willing him to look at me.
“You know Lisa Mullen’s perfume?” I asked.
I remembered he had volunteered to identify her body at the scene of the explosion.
“I knew Lisa well,” MacArthur said, “but that was a while ago.”
“How long?”
He shrugged. “A while.”
I wondered how he kept time. The Cleaner had arrived in Magnet Springs the previous summer and landed a
lmost immediately in Avery’s bed. I spotted him with another woman last fall. After that flirtation ended, he vanished for seven months. When had he met Lisa? Mysterious as he seemed, MacArthur was a classic bad boy. Apparently his movie-star looks, major muscles, and sexy accent came with a capacity for convenient vagueness.
“Isn’t it possible you smelled another woman who happened to wear Lisa’s fragrance?” I said.
“No.” His disagreement was emphatic. Tapping his nose, he added, “To an instrument as sensitive as mine, the same perfume varies according to body chemistry. I smelled Lisa Mullen.”
“She’s been dead for days,” I protested. “Nobody knows when she was in that woods, if she was in that woods. How long can a scent last outdoors?”
“Odors cling to clothing. We recovered one of her scarves. ”
After driving in silence for several minutes, I could no longer contain the question.
“What was Lisa’s scent?”
“Coco Mademoiselle. Sweet, floral, sexy. Like Lisa herself.”
I coughed. Avery was not sweet, floral, or any definition of sexy I knew. Yet she and MacArthur were due to be wed. Thinking about marriage turned my thoughts toward Jeb. I dialed the recording studio. This time I got the recorded version of Rusha saying exactly what she had told me almost two hours earlier.
“Ocean Audio. We make beautiful music.”
I knew the message was recorded because it contained one more line.
“We can’t talk to you right now, so leave your name, your number, and your reason for calling, and somebody will call you back.”
I did as instructed sounding nowhere as near as mellow or, let’s face it, sexy as Rusha. In fact, I probably sounded worried or annoyed or both. I asked whoever might be the next person to talk to Jeb to make sure he called his immensely pregnant wife pronto.
“We have a baby ready to drop down the chute,” I concluded and clicked off.
MacArthur instantly made a screeching U-turn worthy of an Indy 500 driver and floored the accelerator.
“Whoa!” I yelled, dropping my phone.
I seized the Mercedes’ leather-covered grab bar, which was probably intended for hanging expensive suits.
