“She lived with your parents for a long time,” Ed said. “They helped her raise Tommy from a baby. I think she probably feels the same obligation to help that you do. Plus they didn’t turn their backs on her when she went to prison. She found out who her real friends were when she went away.”
“And I guess Patrick realized how he felt about her,” Claire said. “Does that bother you?”
“At first, maybe,” Ed said. “But I’ve had three years to get used to the idea. We broke up before I even knew the whole story. I didn’t know her real name was Melissa, or that she wasn’t really Tommy’s mother. That was all a surprise to me.”
“Tommy was lucky he had you,” Claire said. “Who knows what would have happened to him?”
“Your parents wanted him,” Ed said. “But his biological grandmother felt they were too old. I was really his second choice.”
“It seems like it’s worked out,” Claire said. “How is it between Tommy and Melissa now that she’s back?”
“It was awkward at first,” Ed said. “But they’re working things out.”
“Have you heard from him? Is he having fun in Florida?”
“I don’t hear from Tommy,” Ed said. “Jane keeps me updated; it sounds like they’re having a blast. Walt Disney World, Harry Potter, Sea World, and then Busch Gardens.”
“I’ve never been to any of those places,” Claire said. “I have, however, been to many of the actual places they copied for those theme parks. I think that counts for something.”
“I went fishing in Canada once with my Dad,” Ed said. “We didn’t take family vacations even when my mom was still here.”
“Do you ever hear from her? Your mom, I mean.”
“She sends a Christmas card,” he said. “She has great-grandchildren now.”
“Does it seem weird to have half siblings you’ve never met?”
“I’ve met two of them,” Ed said. “They came to my dad’s funeral.”
“You were so young when she left,” Claire said. “We were still in grade school, weren’t we?”
“I was nine,” Ed said.
“What a shitty thing to do to a little boy.”
“I guess she was very depressed and unhappy,” Ed said. “At least that’s what she told my dad.”
“Does she ever visit?”
“Heavens, no,” Ed said. “And I don’t want her to.”
“People suck,” Claire said.
“You’re Miss Merry Sunshine today,” Ed said. “Is this just about your dad?”
Claire told him about Denise’s newest offer for the hair salon.
“Open your own salon,” Ed said. “If that’s what you want to do.”
“I don’t know what I want to do,” Claire said. “I feel stuck.”
“I’ve only ever wanted to do what I’m doing,” Ed said. “The problem is the industry is disappearing, or turning into something I can barely recognize as journalism.”
“Do you think you’ll like teaching at Eldridge?”
“I’ll find out come August,” Ed said. “My real fear is that they already know everything and I’ll look like an old-fashioned fool.”
“You can teach them the history, though,” Claire said. “I think they’ll get into it.”
“Let’s hope so,” Ed said. “I am looking forward to using the printing press again.”
While he was at his house on Sunflower Street, checking the mail, Scott received a call from Deputy Frank. The cruiser was downtown at the station, so he took his SUV up to Knox Rodefeffer’s house. Knox was standing on his front porch, and his ex-wife Meredith was in the driveway. Scott could hear them yelling even before he turned up the steep driveway. Several of Knox’s neighbors were standing outside, watching the show.
Meredith was Knox’s second wife, to whom he was still married, although they had been very much separated since the day he locked her in his office safe, and after she escaped, she almost killed him by bashing him over the head with a box full of collectible coins. Meredith had a very dramatic nervous breakdown immediately afterward, and had spent the intervening months in a private facility in Maryland. Scott was surprised to see her back in town. He wasn’t surprised that Knox was so afraid of her that he had called the police to come intervene.
“My mother’s china,” she was screaming. “My father’s pipe collection.”
Scott got out of his SUV and approached her slowly.
“Mrs. Rodefeffer,” Scott said. “Please lower your voice; you are disturbing the peace.”
“It’s Stanhope Huckle,” she yelled at Scott. “Never ever call me by that man’s last name, ever again.”
“Ms. Stanhope Huckle,” Scott said. “If I understand correctly, Knox has some of your belongings in his house that you’d like to recover.”
“They are all in a storage unit,” Knox said. “I told her that.”
“You’re also an inveterate liar,” Meredith yelled. “You probably sold everything so that whore secretary could get bigger boobs.”
“Let me suggest something,” Scott said. “Let’s get the keys from Knox, and go look in the storage unit. If everything’s in there, won’t that solve the problem?”
“Here,” Knox said, and threw a key that landed on the driveway.
“That won’t solve the problem that he married me for my money and then when he found out I didn’t have any he tried to kill me,” Meredith said.
“She’s crazy,” Knox called out. “She’s been in the loony bin for two months. You can’t believe anything she says.”
“Let’s go look in the storage unit,” Scott said. “If afterward, you’d like to make a formal statement down at the police station, I’ll be glad to look into whatever alleged criminal activities you’d like to tell me about.”
Meredith seemed to reconsider her threat.
“Don’t forget about Peyton,” Knox said. “Do you really want to drag our dirty laundry through the courts and in all the newspapers?”
Peyton was Meredith’s son, who was currently out on bail after his arrest on a hit-and-run charge. His court date was coming up, and Meredith was probably thinking any bad publicity would do him more harm than good.
“I will inspect my belongings,” Meredith said to Scott, and then yelled at Knox, “If there’s so much as one cup chipped, you’ll pay for it!”
“Gladly,” Knox called back. “Anything to never see your ugly old face again.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Meredith told Scott. “Someday, I’m going to get the jump on him when he least expects it, and I’m going to see the terror in his eyes right before I slit his throat.”
“Meredith,” Scott said. “I’m the chief of police in this town. Please don’t make threats like that just because you’re angry. I have to take them seriously.”
“I’m not well,” she said. “The doctors didn’t want me to leave but my son needs me. I just want to get my things and leave this terrible place.”
“I’ll help you,” Scott said. “Just please leave Knox alone.”
Scott radioed Deputy Frank to let him know where he was going and with whom. Although Meredith may have looked like a harmless middle-aged socialite, she had once confessed to killing both her father and husband by poisoning them, and had attempted to bludgeon Knox to death with the aforementioned collectible coin box. High-priced attorneys and Knox’s refusal to press domestic battery charges had saved her from being prosecuted for either. It was only prudent that someone know Scott was alone with her.
The storage unit facility was located north of town, close to the interstate. The whole way there Meredith furiously texted on her phone, so at least Scott was spared the challenge of finding something to talk to her about. When they arrived at the facility, Meredith stayed in the car while Scott spoke to the owner, who gave him directions to the unit.
Scott drove the SUV around to the back row, where he was surprised to see Deidre Delvecchio, the wife of IGA Foodliner owner Matt Delvecchio. She had he
r van backed up to the unit next to Meredith’s, and was unloading boxes of what looked to Scott like recyclable trash, including bundles of newspapers and plastic two-liter bottles. A well-known hoarder, Deidre seemed embarrassed to be seen doing this, so Scott just greeted her briefly before unlocking Meredith’s unit.
As soon as Meredith surveyed the neatly stacked boxes of her belongings, and the multiple pieces of furniture wrapped in moving pads, her shoulders sagged.
“It will take me days to go through all of this,” she said.
“These boxes are from a moving company,” Scott said, pointing to the name printed on the side. “It looks as if he had it professionally done.”
“I don’t have the strength to deal with this,” she said. “Could you just take me back to the Eldridge Inn?”
As he locked the unit, Scott glanced into the opening of Deidre’s. The same size space as Meredith’s, approximately thirty feet by fifteen feet, it was stuffed from floor to ceiling with junk. Scott had been in Deidre’s and Matt’s house, so he wasn’t that surprised. Still, it was disheartening to think how ill she must be that this could seem normal.
Instead of texting on the way back to town, Meredith was downright chatty.
“He’ll never marry her,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Scott said. “Whom are we talking about?”
“Knox, of course,” she said. “That secretary probably thinks as soon as he divorces me he’ll marry her, but he won’t. Women like that are fine for recreational sex, and I’m sure he’s fond of her in his own way, but Knox will only marry for money or position, and she’s got neither.”
“You don’t think his latest troubles will land him in jail?”
“Of course not,” Meredith said. “He knows too much about the senator and the congressman. They know if he goes down he’ll take everyone with him.”
“What about his brother, Trick?”
“Richard’s a dimwit,” Meredith said. “He does whatever Knox tells him to do.”
“And the mayor?”
“If he’s smart, he’ll keep his mouth shut and see how it all plays out,” Meredith said. “Or he could decide to take the fall for everyone if the price is right.”
“Has anyone from the FBI been to see you?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I may not be what they would consider a reliable witness.”
“How are you doing?” Scott said. “I mean other than this afternoon.”
“I’m heavily medicated,” Meredith said. “I feel numb most of the time, but that’s not so bad. There’s not a lot I want to remember. None of my friends have stood by me; my son is probably going to prison; I’m out of money and options.”
“Where will you go?”
“Anne Marie has offered me a position at her little ashram out in California,” Meredith said. “Imagine that. From Georgetown to Crazytown to Gurutown. I will singlehandedly provide months of party conversation to the hostesses of D.C.”
“I’m surprised Anne Marie is being so generous,” he said, “considering she was his first wife.”
“We have a lot in common,” Meredith said. “More than you know.”
“Will you promise me to leave Knox alone?” he asked her. “I don’t want to have to arrest you, but I will.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Meredith said. “I have no doubt Knox is eventually going to get what’s coming to him, but it won’t be me who does it. He has much more powerful enemies now, the kind who won’t leave any evidence.”
Chapter Five - Wednesday
Later that morning Claire caught a glimpse of a woman with a poorly cut, graying brown bob passing her window at a fast clip. She did a double take.
“I know that hair,” she said.
She rushed to open the door and poke her head out, just in time to see Meredith Stanhope Huckle Rodefeffer open the door to the antique shop and tea room that had been closed since she was carted off to a private mental health facility.
“I’ll be damned,” Claire said, and went back inside to call Hannah.
Hannah was there in ten minutes.
“She’s in there but the sign still says ‘closed’,” Hannah said. “She’s sitting behind the counter, talking on the phone.”
“I wonder when she got out.”
“I’ll consult my scanner granny network and get back to you,” Hannah said, and rushed back out the door.
Claire had no sooner sat back down to finish her tabloid article when Knox Rodefeffer’s first wife, Anne Marie, walked in.
In contrast to the dowdy Meredith, Anne Marie wore designer clothing and sported a waterfall of perfectly highlighted long blond hair. Her bright turquoise contacts were pretty. Unfortunately, she had also succumbed to the tendency of her California contemporaries by inflating her lips, stuffing her cheeks, and freezing her forehead. She looked like a frozen chipmunk with a fat lip.
“Claire, darling,” she said. “What in the world are you doing in this place? When I heard you were here I couldn’t believe it. What happened with Sloan?”
Claire reflected that a famous psychic should probably not admit to being surprised by anything, but she didn’t say it.
“Anne Marie,” she said instead. “You look amazing.”
“Thank you, darling,” Anne Marie said.
She took Claire’s outstretched hand and held it up to her jacked-up cheek. “You are one of my favorite people. So special. Such a bright heart light. People are drawn to that, you know. You’re like a magnet of loving energy.”
Claire had lived in Hollywood long enough not to be surprised by the New Age talk, especially coming from a self-proclaimed psychic. It was normal out there.
“What are you doing here?” Claire asked her.
“Gwyneth Eldridge invited me,” Anne Marie said. “We’re offering a Group Self-Awareness Intensive at the Eldridge Inn this weekend.”
“I’m surprised to hear Gwyneth is doing that,” Claire said. “Being a psychologist, I mean. She seems so uptight.”
“She was when she first arrived at my place,” Anne Marie laughed. “She was looking for her sister Caroline, whom she thought I was holding prisoner at my ranch. Can you imagine? Anyone who knows me knows I don’t keep anyone from following their bliss. The people who choose to live and work at the ranch want to be there. There’s a waiting list of people wanting to work for me; I don’t have to coerce anyone. Caroline’s in Hawaii, anyway. She took all the courses we had to offer and then went off to do her own thing. I invited Gwyneth to stay for some spa treatments and a seminar. By the time she left we were dear friends and potential business partners.”
“Business? With Gwyneth?”
“The Eldridge Inn is not doing well,” Anne Marie said. “While I’m here we’re going to discuss making it an East Coast outpost for my ministry. I’m thinking of calling it Heart Light East; that has a great sound, doesn’t it?’
“Wow,” Claire said. “I can’t quite picture Gwyneth being involved in it, but it sounds great.”
“That’s part of the reason why I came to see you,” Anne Marie said.
She unwound the silk wrap that was hanging loosely around her shoulders and handed it to Claire, who put it on the front counter. Anne Marie then went to the mirror and inspected her face, something that reminded Claire of her ex-boss. Sloan couldn’t be near a mirror without being drawn to it, so it could reassure her she was still the fairest of them all.
“I need someone to run the spa part of the business and you, my dear, are the perfect person,” she said. “That was the real reason you came back here, although you didn’t know it at the time. Everything happens with perfect timing for the highest good of all concerned.”
“I came back to help my mother take care of my dad,” Claire said. “He’s had some strokes …”
Anne Marie whirled away from the mirror and grasped both Claire’s hands in her own. Although she’d experienced this before with Anne Marie, Claire was still startled.
“Rela
x,” Anne Marie said. “Let me into your mind, your heart, and your soul, and I will tell you what I see.”
Claire felt the deep heat flow from Anne Marie’s iron grasp, and she had to fight the urge to pull away.
“Relax, Claire,” Anne Marie said. “You’re safe with me. Only a good influence can come through; we are surrounded by the white light of a loving universe.”
Claire’s was hypnotized by the intensity of Anne Marie’s turquoise eyes. A chill ran up her spine. She felt a little dizzy.
“There’s a man,” Anne Marie said. “He hurt you, but he’s sorry; he wants to be with you. Someone stands between you, but her hold over him is loosening. You doubt your love; you doubt his sincerity. All you have to do is open your heart to him and he will fly to your side. Am I right?”
Claire grimaced.
“Well …” she said. “Kind of.”
“Of course I’m right. I see it all. I can employ him as well; there will be room for everyone at Heart Light East.”
“But he’s an actor,” Claire said.
“We’re all actors,” Anne Marie said. “He’ll be perfect. I can train him to lead intensives. We’ll all get rich, I promise you. Money flows to me like a river of prosperity toward the sea of eternity.”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Don’t let your reactive mind hold you back from your perfect destiny,” Anne Marie said. “The key to achieving enlightenment is to empty your mind, and then use the divine magic of the universe to manifest your destiny.”
“I will think about it,” Claire said. “I promise.”
Anne Marie dropped Claire’s hands and sighed a deep, dramatic sigh.
“Your reactive mind is not your friend, Claire,” she said. “I am your friend. Don’t forget that. I see your special gifts and I won’t let you squander them on this.”
She gestured to the salon as if it were a pig sty.
“It’s inevitable, you’ll see,” Anne Marie said. “Meditate on it tonight, and by tomorrow the universe will have given you a sign. I’m staying at the Inn. Call me on my cell.”
Lilac Avenue Page 12
