The bare bones danced around me, mocking my inability to establish control, to force the wildly careening pieces into a coherent whole.
I was driving down our beautifully boulevarded main street, solidly planted with towering royal palms—past elegant shops on the right and our central park-cum-parking lot on the left. Past the large gazebo where residents clustered to hear every kind of music from Christmas choirs to jazz. Serene. Perfect. The ideal small town, a jewel safely separated from the ugly sprawl city Golden Beach had become.
As I crossed the old Tamiami Trail and headed toward the Center Bridge, I gritted my teeth and stripped the puzzle down to basic essentials. A young senior (Martin), an old senior (Miss Letty). One dead, one threatened. No possible connection, right?
So why was my brain trying to make one?
Because both Laura Wallace and Gwyn Halliday had too much imagination.
Or so I told myself at the time.
Chapter 8
On Wednesday morning there was a rat the size of the QE II lying in front of DreamWear’s back door. Artemis wound around my legs, preening. What a mighty hunter am I. While I made suitable cat-talk noises, assuring Artemis he was a champion, the rat was the biggest I’d ever seen (true), and he was such a good boy to give his treasure to mommy, I opened the trunk of my car and retrieved the long-handled “grabbit” and a plastic grocery bag I keep on hand for these emergencies. The rat was heavy, challenging the grabbit’s pick-up power. Darn it, you’d think Artemis would have taken a bite or two out of something that couldn’t have been an easy catch. I took another look at the battered, beady-eyed corpse and decided Artemis was every bit as smart as I thought he was. This was not an edible rat, even by cat standards. But he thought I’d like it. Thanks a lot, cat.
Artemis sat on his haunches while I finally bagged the rat, then followed me to the Dumpster. He uttered what might have been a satisfied meow when the lid clanged shut and then he stalked off—a four-footed orange tank, tail straight up—pausing at the rear door of the deli for a few appreciative sniffs of the odors drifting out as Sal and Angie began their day’s routine.
I was late today. No time to survey my kingdom, to enjoy the dust motes drifting over the displays in the front window or the row of animal heads sitting on the shelf. Someone was out front, peering in. As I crossed the length of the shop, I got a better look at our early customer. The door to the niche where I’d parked Boone Talbot crashed open, and my hormones somersaulted out, bouncing around like a tumbling act from Cirque du Soleil. Topping that was a rush of satisfaction that I was dressed for High Tea in a crinkle gauze dress patterned in tiny magenta and pink flowers. Its bias-cut skirt flowed around me as I dashed to the door, flipped the sign to Open, and turned the dead bolt. After all, one didn’t keep the Chief of Police waiting.
“Good morning.” Boone Talbot’s perfect white teeth flashed as he offered me a downhome Nebraska smile.
Guess he hadn’t heard about Scott. Or my feeble attempts at sleuthing. Or maybe he had, but his mama brought him up with good manners.
“My new shipment of mustaches hasn’t come in yet,” I said, “and that wig catalog I told you about is still sitting in my workroom at home. Sorry about that.” I was babbling again. He had that affect on me.
The Chief gave me a slow appraisal from the hot pink bow confining my hair at the nape of my neck to the tips of my black ankle strap high heels. What started out as sexy-appreciative gradually faded into a give-no-quarter cop face. Oh-oh. “I hear you’ve been asking questions,” he drawled. “Find out anything I ought to know?”
A blush shows up almost as well on skin the color of mine as it does on skin the color of milk. I couldn’t hide it. A “gotcha” moment, but the Chief’s lips didn’t even twitch. “Sorry about your brother,” he added, pursuing his advantage with a vengeance. “But on the plus side there’s nothing like a night in the drunk tank to set off a bit of soul-searching.”
The crack in the door to the Talbot niche in my brain slammed shut. The distinct snick of the lock echoed in my head. I backed up, zipped behind the counter, and perched on my tall stool, adding inches to my height. I was now almost eye to eye with the Chief, but inside I was still quivering. If Boone Talbot wanted to shake me up a bit so he could see what fell out, he’d done a good job of it.
Counter-attack time. “Vanessa Kellerman told me Martin died from anaphylactic shock. Is that true?”
He didn’t even blink. “That’s what the coroner says.”
“Peanuts on a Christmas tree. Seems kind of odd.”
“Maybe they were in his Santa suit.”
“Wha-at!” I lost my cool. The word came out on an unladylike screech.
“Sorry.” The Chief’s long fingers flicked the implied accusation away. “No matter where the peanuts were, Miss Halliday, no one thinks you’re responsible. But you’re a witness, a good one who pays attention to detail. I’m surprised you’ve already heard about the peanut allergy, but if there’s anything more you can contribute, I’d like to hear it.”
I repeated what I’d learned, emphasizing the Hospital Auxiliary’s role in my lunch with Vanessa Kellerman. Okay, so I might have given the impression that the Fund-raiser was my sole reason for lunching with Vanessa and the mayor’s wife, and her confidences had tumbled out because she felt an urge to talk. Female bonding and all that.
What had I actually learned, after all? Not much beyond the peanut allergy and Vanessa’s weak excuse for not going to her husband’s rescue. One thing was clear, however. Her joy over being invited into the bosom of the Hospital Auxiliary easily outweighed her grief over the loss of her husband.
“Has Jeb Brannigan come in to talk with you?” I added while the Chief was considering what I’d told him.
“Bright and early this morning, which is partly why I’m here.”
Truthfully, I was surprised. The Jeb I knew from high school would have ignored my advice, simply blowing off the whole mess, hoping it would go away.
“Do you believe him?” the Chief asked.
“Eighty or ninety percent,” I said, wiggling my hand in a classic comme çi, comme ça wave. I told him what Alyce Jahnke had seen.
Boone Talbot whistled. “You do get around. I have to admit there are advantages to living here since the Year One. Any other tidbits?”
“No. But I’m working on how peanuts or peanut butter got onto Rainbow’s End. I mean, it’s not like they were something Martin would stock in the galley.”
The Chief nodded. “Point made.”
“So you don’t think I’m nuts for thinking Martin might have been murdered.”
“I think you’re nuts for trying to do my job for me.”
Slam. Bang. Thank you, ma’am, but back off.
“But—but you just admitted I know everyone and you don’t. People talk to me.”My pride had just taken a hard fall and, dammit, I could hear the whine in my voice. Appalled, I clamped my lips over my teeth and simply glared. Or tried to. I had the awful feeling I probably looked more like a kicked puppy.
Chief Talbot muttered something under his breath that sounded like a four-letter word beginning with S. He heaved a sigh and glowered at me. “Let’s suppose,” he said, “that you’re right. If Martin Kellerman was murdered, then there’s a killer out there. The killer is not going to be pleased about anyone asking questions. Particularly someone who’s actually getting answers.”
I hung my head, staring down at the Hitler mustache, now all alone on the top shelf of the display case.
“I get paid to ask questions,” the Chief pressed on. “It’s my job. It’s the job of my detectives. They’re trained for it. They may not get paid big bucks, but they knew what they were doing when they signed on to risk their necks.”
And Gywn Halliday didn’t. So here it came, the final nail in the coffin.
“You, however,” he intoned, “are in the costume business. You are not trained. You are not paid to snoop. I have enough problems at the mome
nt without worrying about some costume designer who thinks she’s Sherlock Holmes. Find another hobby, Miss Halliday. Your sleuthing days are over.”
He stopped abruptly, his cop face twitching into something that looked remarkably like guilt. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Sometimes I get up on my high horse and just can’t get off. Guess this is a bad time to ask you out to dinner?”
“Right.” My stubborn chin angled up, but at the same time I heard the lock on the Talbot niche snick open again. My sub-conscious was playing hell with my best intentions.
Cop face back in place, the Chief nodded. “Until next time.” Then Boone Talbot was gone, the door sighing shut behind him.
My pheromones screamed, Call him back. Ask when and where.
Instead, I slumped on my stool and made a litany of calling myself a stupid idiot. I’d broken out of the designer box in New York and look what happened. Now I’d done it again and . . . Boone was right. I’d already suffered the destruction of my dreams. Of trust. Of love. I knew the ultimate terror of risking my life. So why, why, why would I plunge back into a pit I’d fled to Florida to escape?
I wouldn’t, of course I wouldn’t. I’d stick to costume design, and, well . . ., I couldn’t forget Letty. Helping a friend was neither nosy nor dangerous. No chickening out of Tea at four. I tucked Martin Kellerman into a niche beside Boone Talbot and shot the bolt on both of them. The trouble with that was, the dead bolt knobs were on my side, in easy reach.
I groaned and went to work. Just two costumes going out today. A classic Mrs. Santa with a full-cut red corduroy dress, big white apron, and stylish mob cap with narrow red ribbon trim. And a Christmas Elf, all in green. Dagged tunic, tights, a matching feather in his suede cap (which also doubled for one of Robin Hood’s Merrie Men), and crinkly green vinyl shoes with turned-up toes.
In twenty minutes I was done, the costumes ready for pick-up. I glanced at my watch. Five hours until tea with Miss Letty.
Crystal came in at one, wearing a caftan I’d never seen before. I suspected she might have whipped it up for today’s visit. The shell pink flowers, scattered haphazardly over a hot pink background, looked suspiciously shiny. She confirmed my suspicions by continually fluffing the dress in the air. “Can’t sit down ’til the paint dries,” she explained.
Bless her, and she’d even coordinated her colors to mine. Talk about best friends.
“So how are we going to do this?” I asked. “Miss Letty blew you off when you asked if anything was wrong. Any suggestions for a new approach?”
“Haven’t a clue. I’ve looked in my ball a dozen times, and all I see is shadows. Creepy swirling mists, same as her aura. Spooky.”
Crystal was beginning to spook me too. When she first came to DreamWear, I thought her “gifts” a nice little gimmick. Good for business. But her intuition, empathy—whatever you want to call it—had been right enough times for me to become less of a skeptic. I was ninety percent convinced she really did see auras. “Okay,” I said, “let’s look at the problem this way. What are the possibilities? What could intrude enough on Miss Letty’s life to screw up her aura?”
“Cancer?” Letty offered. “Something bad like that.”
I winced. Cancer had taken my father. But Crystal’s suggestion was valid. I put health at the top of the hopefully subtle questions we needed to ask. “Does she have close friends or relatives?” I asked. “Someone she might have quarreled with? Or maybe it’s one of them who’s sick.”
“There’s a nephew up north somewhere. She told me he’s all that’s left of her family.”
“Her heir?”
“I guess.”
“How about friends?”
“She’s a fiend for bridge, but won’t touch Bingo with a ten-foot pole. She’s on the board of all the high-falutin’ organizations like the Hospital Auxiliary, the Library, and the Art Center. I think she said they just put her on the “Keep Main Street Beautiful” committee. The old gal’s got impeccable taste.”
“Friends,” I repeated. “Someone she might have confided in?”
Crystal’s anxious amber eyes winked shut as she scrunched her rounded features together, thinking hard. “She eats out with the bridge club once a week. That’s about it.”
“Leaving you and me.” Mentally, I added problems with the nephew and local acquaintances to my list.
“Money?” Crystal offered. “I mean, the economy’s tanked, right? Maybe Miss Letty’s money went down the drain with everyone else’s.”
“Makes sense,” I murmured, “except I always got the impression her money was so ‘old,’ so securely invested that this latest downturn should be nothing more than a ripple in the flow of her finances.”
“Maybe . . .” Crystal paused, turned and paced toward her Cave, fluffing her dress with every step.
“Crystal?”
“Maybe it’s not that kind of money problem.”
“There’s another kind besides not having enough?” I prodded when Crystal didn’t follow up her highly ambiguous remark.
“Seniors like Miss Letty,” she said at last, “maybe you don’t know—Golden Beach being such an out of the way corner of the world and all—but con artists love ’em. Seniors draw scammers like bees to honey. Miss Letty’s generation came along when the world was still bright and shiny. They were taught good manners, trust with a capital T. They just can’t believe anyone would scam them. And they can’t believe they would ever be stupid enough to be taken in by a con. Which makes them perfect marks.”
Crystal was standing half-way between me and her Cave, head down, flapping her hot pink caftan. Slowly, I closed my mouth over the obvious question—how did Crystal know so much about scams? Was this the past she was escaping the day she wandered into DreamWear? If so, it was well behind her, and if Miss Letty was being stung by con artists, then Crystal’s knowledge could come in handy. But it didn’t take a lot of intuition to see that Crystal’s words had not come easy. No sense in twisting the knife.
Scams soared to the top of my list. But no . . . I shoved them back to last. We’d have to work up to scams, just as Crystal and I had done while brainstorming Miss Letty’s problem. I sagged down onto my wicker stool, plopped my head into my hands. Was I really up to this? Or was I plunging in, amateur night in Dixie, as I had with Jeb Brannigan and Vanessa Kellerman before Boone Talbot slammed the lid on my curiosity? Were Crystal and I charging off to Miss Letty’s like bulls in a china shop?
Not quite. We’d just worked that one out. We were Letty’s friends. We cared.
I cared about Martin Kellerman too, and look where that had gotten me. Shut out of a murder investigation.
Only if I wanted to be.
Only if I was chicken.
Curiosity killed the cat. There had to be a lot of truth in that old expression, right?
Not Artemis, my stubborn mind countered quickly. If only I had some of Artemis’s street smarts, his feral instincts, his sheer bravado, his flat-out muscle power.
Instead, I was five feet-six, one-twenty-five, and disciplined exercise was simply not on my daily schedule. Way, way back, when I was still Laura Wallace, I swam a lot, indulging in Chad-watching while showing off a succession of colorful bikinis, my bra size expanding with each passing year. But after my college sophomore summer Chad had disappeared from my life, disappeared from Golden Beach and never come back.
Which had absolutely nothing to do with the problems at hand. My mind was skittering again.
The front door swung open, and Tim DeFranco dashed in, surrounded by the energy surge of not-quite-seventeen. Tim is slim, medium height, with Italian coloring not too different from my own Gypsy looks. His hair is dark brown, rather than black, curly instead of straight like mine, and his eyes are a lighter brown. Gifted with a good nature and a ready smile, he looks like a junior version of the Italian men famous for pinching bottoms on the Via Veneto.
“I’m not late, am I? Tell me I’m not late.” Tim grinned as we assured him we had plen
ty of time to get to Miss Letty’s condo. “Oh, wow, you both look great.” He studied me a moment. “Isn’t that from our Thirties collection?”
I nodded. If you’re thinking not many seventeen-year-old boys would have noticed, you’re right. But Tim is, well, different. He’s currently struggling with this issue. Enough said.
“Is that new?” He twirled his finger, inviting Crystal to do a three-sixty, showing off her latest creation. “Neat! But maybe you’d better use a blow dryer before you sit on Miss Letty’s furniture.” Tim turned and ran flat out to his parents’ deli next door and returned, I swear, in ninety seconds, blow-dryer in hand. No doubt about it, I was blessed by the quality of my employees.
The upholstery of my Malibu, as well as Miss Letty’s furniture, was also grateful for Tim’s inspiration. I sneaked a look after Crystal got out of the car. Not so much as a smear of pink paint.
We looked at each other, drew identical deep breaths, and walked up the perfectly landscaped sidewalk.
Chapter 9
Letitia’s Van Ryn’s penthouse exceeded my imagination and, believe me, exceeding a costume designer’s imagination isn’t all that easy. A panel of windows filled the south wall of her living room, offering a view of the broad Golden Beach Inlet, with the late afternoon sun scattering sparks onto every wave and a golden glow onto the million-dollar homes lining the far bank. A second panel of windows revealed the infinity of the Gulf of Mexico a mile to the west. I loved our solid old Mediterranean-style home on Royal Palm Drive, built before “condo” was a word, but, oh my, Miss Letty’s aerie was truly special. Her furnishings, naturally, were designer showroom quality, with enough museum-quality antiques and objets d’art to turn Peter Koonce quite green with envy.
Royal Willie pranced up to us, inclined his elegant head for a pet, then took himself off to the Adams reproduction fireplace, where he settled in for a snooze on a small oriental rug that probably cost more than the entire inventory of DreamWear.
When I saw Miss Letty’s version of “afternoon tea,” a wave of guilt took me by surprise. She must have been working flat-out since the moment I called. And here we were, scheming to pry out her darkest secrets.
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