The Jezebel Remedy

by Martin Clark

  “I do.”

  “Then why do you want me to cut it?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted you to cut it,” he told her. “DUI? Is your case a DUI?”

  “Why are you ignoring me?” she demanded.

  “I’m not.”

  “So you don’t like my hair this length?”

  “I honestly like every style you’ve ever worn,” he said, practically begging to be let alone. “If I don’t, I’ll tell you.”

  “So if I cut it, you’ll be okay with that?”

  “Yep. Fine.”

  “I might just tell her to trim the ends and try to grow it longer.”

  Joe didn’t reply.

  “Maybe I should try some new color. Add some pizzazz. I’m so tired of the same bourgeois helmet. It’s starting to look like crap. More and more gray to battle.”

  “You have gorgeous hair.”

  “So you think I shouldn’t color it? Maybe some highlights? Could you please give me a little input?”

  “I have,” he said. He sipped his juice, lowered his gaze. “We’ve plowed this field a million times, Lisa. Your hair’s great—long or short or medium. You’re beautiful. You are. I promise you are.”

  “I should leave it alone?”

  “I’m not sure I have a lot to add.”

  “Maybe I’ll just have her shave my head and dye my eyebrows green. How would that be?”

  “Different, for sure.” Joe stood up. The dog was crunching the dry food, the occasional brown chunk falling back into the bowl.

  “For sure,” she repeated. “It’s like you have zero interest in my appearance.”

  “Sorry, but you always choose well. I’m easy to please.”

  “How about you declare long or short? Could you at least do that much and stop being so damn passive-aggressive?”

  “Listen,” he said, pique etching his voice, “we have this same conversation every month. Same predictable, tedious discussion, and there’s no good answer for me, is there? Even worse, no matter how your hair looks, even if Vidal Sassoon himself manned the scissors, I can guarantee that when you get home from the beauty parlor—or whatever you call it—you’ll be pissed about the results and snap at me and be grouchy for at least a day. It would be great if you’d simply leave me out of it, make a choice, skip the harangue and be happy about the hundred bucks you’ve spent.”

  She glared at him.

  “No offense intended.” He put his glass in the sink, next to a pot of last night’s shoepeg corn, the kernels covered over by oily scum.

  “Thanks, Joe. Thanks so much. You’re a champ. The best. Brilliant. You and Vidal Sassoon both.”

  “Fine, okay. I’m an ogre and a stooge. You’re a minor deity. Far be it from me to offer advice that might actually be worthwhile.”

  She scowled at him. “And please make certain you leave the juice right where it is with the cap off so I can deal with it, okay? Leave it there on the counter like always. Talk about predictable.”

  She did, by god, correct her hair, stomped into the Hairport Salon still nettled and exasperated and anxious about Nassau to boot, and she told her gal Melanie, even before the cape was in place, that something had to give. “I swear,” Lisa groused, “I look like a cross between the Cowardly Lion and a guest-star hussy from Knots Landing.” Three hours later, she walked to her car with her hair styled dramatically shorter and its color noticeably softer, satisfied and pleased with her choice, snips, strands and thick brunette chunks ringing the chair, sliced from their roots, waiting for the broom and dustpan.

  To his credit, Joe made it a point to compliment her, not when she came home on Friday, the both of them still miffed, but the next morning at the bathroom vanity, where he told her the changes were truly an improvement, very original and sexy. “Great googly moogly,” he unfortunately added as she stood, clad in nothing but her underwear, a handheld mirror put away in a drawer before she left to dress.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  —

  The following Sunday, they met Neal VanSandt at his mother’s property. Neal was already at Lettie’s trailer, ahead of their three o’clock meeting time. A white cargo truck was parked parallel to the porch, its rear door rolled open and wire cages stacked inside. A tall, muscular man, conspicuously tanned and groomed, was standing with Neal. “Ross Sanctuary” was woven into the fabric above the left pocket of his short-sleeve shirt, “Don” was embroidered above the right. He was not wearing a jacket, even though it was forty degrees at best.

  Neal was his usual skittish, incomplete self, a collection of shuffles and tentative handshakes and scattershot glances. Don from the Ross Sanctuary introduced himself and thanked Joe and Lisa for coming to help with the rescues. He seemed bullish and clumsy chasing down the cats and dogs, but persistent. He cursed a cat that was nimble and difficult to trap. Neal took forever to cage even the friendliest dogs, appeared timid and halting, reluctant to shut the wire door on any of the animals. They needed over an hour to gather all of Lettie’s remaining creatures and load them into the truck.

  “How long will it take you to get to Bradenton?” Joe asked as Don was fastening the cargo door.

  “It’s a serious haul. Near twelve hours.”

  “What about the animals?” Lisa quizzed him. “Certainly they can’t stay jammed in a dark cargo area for that long.”

  “I’ll stop at a motel tonight. Too far for me to make it home today. I’ll set ’em all out in the parking lot, feed and water them, and make sure everybody’s safe and sound.” He finished securing the door, pulled a lever tight, metal against metal. “I’m not supposed to, but depending on the weather sometimes I’ll carry a bunch of the littlest ones with me and let them stay in my room. Dogs, mostly they’ll be okay in the truck. I’ll have the whole gang at the shelter for the vet to check by noon tomorrow.”

  “That’s quite a ring you got there,” Lisa noted. Don was wearing a garish gold ring, chunky and bright, the surface almost the size of a quarter. “Very nice.”

  “Gift from my wife. Thanks.” Neal was standing beside him, silent, toeing into the dirt drive with tiny staccato kicks.

  “Hope we didn’t cause you too much trouble,” Joe said.

  “Believe me, it wasn’t so bad.” He grinned and offered his hand to Joe. “I need to hit it if I’m goin’ to make any kind of schedule.”

  “Safe travels,” Lisa told him. They shook hands as well, then she covered her mouth for an instant. “Oh, I didn’t notice your manicure. I hope you didn’t ruin your nails chasing these varmints through the mud and bramble.”

  Don held his meaty brown hands in front him, at chest level, and ran his eyes across all ten fingers. “Nah, I’m good. No problem. Wouldn’t be the worst that’s ever happened to me in this line of business. Least nobody was bit.”

  “How long you been working at the shelter?” Joe asked.

  “A while. Several years. Started in 2004. Promoted to the office in 2008. Air-conditioning and a desk sure as heck beats shoveling the pens.” He chuckled. “Thanks again. And thank you, Mr. VanSandt.” He placed his emphasis altogether on the first syllable. VanSandt. “We’re glad we could arrange this.” He patted Neal’s shoulder.

  “Okay,” Neal replied. “Me too. Thanks for comin’.”

  “The paperwork’s at the office,” Joe told Neal. “How about you swing by, and I’ll sign everything and turn over your mom’s keys and checkbook to you? It’ll all be yours from here on out.”

  “I’ll, uh, follow you,” he said.

  The Ross Sanctuary truck left first, straddling ruts and gullies, slowly weaving a path to the hardtop, its brake lights flashing red for most of Lettie’s driveway. The Stones came next, trailed by Neal.

  “Are you getting some weird vibe from this?” Joe asked Lisa as he eased them toward the state road. “I have pretty dull antennae, so it takes a lot to register with me, but did you sense something peculiar? Maybe it was just being at Lettie’s, her being burned to death, th
e finality of it, and Neal’s a fucking basket case, so you toss his general strangeness into the mix, and maybe that’s it, maybe it simply is what it is.”

  “Yeah, the whole deal struck me as off-center. Can’t say why either. For me, Neal is creepy. Bell-tower-and-sniper-rifle creepy, so maybe that explains it. I’m glad to be finished with him. Delighted to put this behind us. Especially since we’ve done this pretty much for free, Joe.”

  A scrawny cat, yellow with fixed round eyes, appeared on the side of the drive, ramrod perched on a red-clay bank, in the midst of quartz rocks and wan winter weeds, and stared at the caravan departing Lettie’s.

  “Damn it,” Joe exclaimed. “We missed one.”

  “Huh?”

  Joe pointed. “There. A cat.”

  “Well, stop,” Lisa told him. “What a pitiful little thing.”

  He pressed the brake pedal and shifted to Park, but as soon as Lisa opened the door, the cat was gone, slipping through a thicket into deep woods, so quiet not a leaf rustled or a twig sounded, away from Lisa and Joe and help and steady, store-bought food and clean water in a silver metal bowl. Lisa climbed the bank and searched several paces into the trees, called “kitty, kitty, kitty,” in a sweetly inviting voice, but nothing came of it.

  —

  They waited for Neal outside their office, and then Lisa and Neal stood alongside Joe while he sorted through his mess of keys, the three of them silent, not even small talk. Joe inserted an old key and jiggled and coaxed the balky dead bolt until it finally clunked open. He flipped on the waiting room light, and they walked down the hall into his office. Joe sat behind his desk, Lisa leaned against the wall and Neal kept standing, hovering at the corner of the desk, at loose ends as always.

  Joe removed a sheet of paper from a drawer and reached toward Neal with it. “Here’s the document I’ve prepared renouncing any interest in your mom’s estate. I’m resigning as executor and transferring everything to you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Stone.” He took the paper but didn’t examine it.

  “I’ve already signed it, and I had it notarized on Friday since I knew you’d be here when our secretaries are off. Lettie’s estate is now yours, free and clear.”

  Neal inhaled so hard that it was audible, mouth-sucked a breath like a spelling-bee child about to embark on an obscure word, and he banged against the desk leg with a telltale shoe, and he fumbled through one front trouser pocket, then the other, until his search finally made it to an inside coat pocket, and he pulled out a folded sheet of paper and spread it to full size. “Mr. Stone, I, uh, you know, if you do your own legal work, then you’re your own fool, so I thought I should have my separate lawyer draw up the papers. I hope you don’t think it’s because I don’t trust you, or I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  “Pardon?” Joe frowned, more befuddled than irritated.

  “I, uh, figured it was my responsibility to get the papers written, and since it’s legal business and you’re a lawyer and I’m not a lawyer, I kinda went ahead and had the official stuff done elsewhere. Not because I didn’t trust you or Mrs. Stone. I just thought I should. Thought it was required. Thought it was best.” He jigged his eyes in Lisa’s direction.

  “Well, sure, okay.” Joe slanted forward. “Could I see what you have there?” He took the paper from Neal and read it. “Neal, if you compare these, you’ll see they’re virtually identical. Word for word the same, okay? Most of this stuff comes straight out of a form book. All lawyers use basically the same template. I’d be happy to sign your version instead, if that would make you happy. Doesn’t matter to me.”

  “May I see it?” Lisa asked. She stepped to the desk and took Neal’s paper from her husband. “Right from the book,” she said, but her voice was strained, the nonchalance forced. “Same form we use.” She shrugged, the beat between the rise and drop of her shoulders overplayed.

  “Well, now I guess I don’t know what to do,” Neal said. “Can I see ’em both?” He arranged the papers side by side on Joe’s desk and finger-read each copy, mouthing and mumbling phrases as he went. “Yeah, okay, yeah, they seem totally alike to me.” He smiled, relieved. “And yours is already signed and notarized and mine isn’t, and it’s a Sunday, so there’s a definite problem, so if it’s legal and okay by you, I’ll use yours and be on my way.”

  “Whatever suits you,” Joe told him. “If you want, you can take ours and I’ll execute yours and send it along to Atlanta. You can have a duplicate.”

  “No need,” Neal assured him. “Since they aren’t any different. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  “I wish you’d asked me about this before you paid a lawyer,” Joe said. “We could’ve saved you some money.”

  “No problem,” Neal said. “I didn’t mean to, uh, upset you or act like I don’t trust you.”

  “No, actually, Neal, I’m glad you ran it through your own counsel,” Lisa replied. “We probably should’ve mentioned it.”

  “So I reckon we’re finished,” Neal said. “I can’t thank you both enough. On my behalf and my mom’s. Don’t know what to say.”

  Lisa moved so she was in front of Neal. “I’ll bet a silk-stocking lawyer like Brett Brooks cost a pretty penny, huh?” She’d spotted Brooks’s firm name and address at the lower-left corner of the stationery, embossed in conservative black letters.

  “Two hundred fifty dollars. It cost me two hundred fifty,” Neal said, the answer quick, hasty. “Yep, two hundred and fifty.”

  “Huh,” she grunted. “That is steep.”

  “Brett has a solid reputation,” Joe said. He cut his eyes to Lisa. “Of course Lisa’s better acquainted with him than I am.” He flickered a sardonic grin at her.

  “Uh, I just picked him from the Internet. Off the Internet. He’s in Roanoke.”

  “Good luck to you,” Joe said, standing as he spoke. “Stay in touch, and give me a call if I can ever do anything else for you or your mom’s estate. She’ll be missed. Henry County’s a much more ordinary place with her gone.”

  “Amen to that,” Lisa added.

  They waited quietly—each understanding the other’s silence—until they saw Neal’s car pass by the office window, made certain they were alone before they spoke, lest they be overheard discussing business best kept to themselves. Joe typed in a Google search for “Ross Sanctuary” while they were killing time.

  “Website says Don Beverly is their chief fund-raiser and serves as their treasurer. Maybe that explains the fancy nails. He owns a rescue papillon and a Lab. Plays golf. Married. Originally from Michigan.” Joe peeked over the computer screen at Lisa, then returned to Don Beverly’s biography. “Huh…says here he’s been with the organization since its founding in 1997.”

  “Not exactly what he told us, but who knows, maybe he was just a volunteer or some such and they’re counting his service prior to being hired. Or maybe the info’s wrong. Half the stuff online is inaccurate anyhow.”

  “Yeah.” Joe continued to explore the site.

  “For damn sure, I plan to check with Brett Brooks in the morning and see if I can discover anything there.”

  There was a small grain of unease in her tone that registered with a husband’s ear. Joe stopped sliding and clicking his mouse and studied her. “Okay,” he said. “Let me know what you turn up.”

  —

  The next morning, she phoned Brett on her cell as she was driving to work. She veered into a Hardee’s parking lot while the call was connecting, kept the Mercedes idling so she’d stay warm. A woman in a muddy Chevy LUV pickup spied her and blew the horn and waved. She looked familiar, probably a former client. The Chevy joined the other vehicles in the breakfast line, the truck’s exhaust a steady, persistent cloud owing to the February cold.

  “Brett?” she said when he answered his own cell.

  “Yes?”

  “Good morning. It’s Lisa Stone.”

  “Morning.” Brett was cagey. His voice gave away nothing.

  “Are
you where you can talk?”

  “I am,” he said, still very formal. “Hope you’re doing well.” He could’ve been speaking to his tailor or an insurance agent.

  “Alone?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He paused. “Just left the diner. A morning ritual. Everything okay with you?”

  “Fine. I’m in a Hardee’s parking lot. By myself.”

  “Excellent. Hard to top the bacon, egg and cheese, though I avoid their burgers.” He chuckled.

  “Listen. Do you know a Neal VanSandt?”

  “Say what? Who?”

  “Last name is VanSandt. First is Neal. You recently did an estate waiver for him. Joe, my husband, renounced any interest in Neal’s mom’s estate. Her name was Lettie. Lettie VanSandt.”

  “No.” Brett was emphatic. “Doesn’t ring a bell, and it’s the kind of name I’d recall.”

  “You’re positive?” Lisa pressed him. “The document was on your firm’s stationery.”

  “Yeah. Why? I thought you were calling about our most important case, the Bahamian…affair.”

  “It’s this weird, loopy family, and we recently spent a red-flag afternoon with Neal and a Florida gent wearing tacky jewelry.”

  “Huh. Sorry, this is news to me. If we did it, something simple as that, I’m guessing one of the associates handled it. Want me to check?”

  “Please. Yeah.”

  “What is it you need to know exactly?” Brett asked. The reception broke for an instant, caused a word to divide. “Did it go south on you? I’m not sure what you’re after.”

  Lisa watched the woman in the Chevy collect her order, an arm, shoulder and part of a visored head stretching out from the restaurant’s rectangular pickup window with a bag and then a large cup. “I’d like to discover everything you can ethically tell me, Brett.”

  “Okay. How come?”

  The truck disappeared behind the building, came into sight again, and stopped near the Mercedes, separated by a sidewalk. A woman in jeans, black leather tennis shoes and a hooded down jacket got out and started toward Lisa. The woman was waving again, her hand held high and pistoning sideways as she walked, her smile tentative but friendly, her approach cautious, almost on tiptoes.