by Janet Bolin
“Substantial enough.”
His obvious lack of enthusiasm did not prevent Loretta from gushing, “The income from renting it as a cozy cottage will be helpful to TADAM’s bottom line.”
I didn’t need to look at Clay to know what he was thinking. If TADAM’s bottom line was a problem, where would the money come from to renovate the carriage house? I changed the subject, slightly. “Do you have any idea why Paula killed her husband?”
She tapped an expertly manicured finger against her wineglass. “I figured it out long before the police did. Paula was a woman scorned. They’d only been married about half a year, but Antonio didn’t want to give up his bachelor lifestyle. He was always either having affairs or attempting to. His insensitive comments to you over the PA system about adultery were probably what put her over the edge. Plus he kept making moves on the female students at TADAM.”
Clay asked, “What are you going to do now, Loretta? Who owns TADAM?”
Loretta answered, “Apparently, Paula was mixed up about Antonio owning it by himself. She even signed the papers that made her his partner in the business. She is one confused lady. But in the end, it works out the same. She’ll be the sole proprietor. Which will do her a lot of good in prison.”
I commented, “I heard there were silent partners.” Loretta tossed her head, shaking those auburn curls around and making them glisten in the reddening sun. “Antonio told us that, but apparently, the money he—I mean he and Paula—got to start TADAM and renovate the mansion was actually from bank loans.”
“And to buy the property? A mansion, a carriage house, plus a large yard?” Clay had already told me the answer to that, but I wanted to hear if she knew.
She did. “The buildings needed repair, and the village wanted to unload the property and get some tax revenue from it. I think Antonio bought it very cheaply. That was part of the appeal for him.”
I asked, “So if Paula now owns the business, are you and Kent out of a job?”
“Not yet. Paula’s lawyer, who is also TADAM’s lawyer, suggested that since I was the assistant director, I should try to keep the place going while Paula fights her case, and that is what Kent and I intend to do.”
She looked at me with clear and guileless eyes. “I shouldn’t say this, but neither Antonio nor Paula knew much about fashion or about running a school. They heard about the mansion being for sale for next to nothing if the new owners would renovate it, and they figured that Threadville would be a good place to open a fashion design and modeling school.” She drew a shaky breath. “And they were right, but things just didn’t work out. Antonio shouldn’t have been allowed near female students, for one thing, and he shouldn’t have hired someone with a record like Kent’s, either, but Kent assures me that he was wrongfully convicted, and he promises not to touch any students. I guess that Paula knew only one way to keep Antonio from running around on her and embarrassing her by being charged with assault.” She shuddered. “Horrible. So unnecessary, and now Paula’s going to spend the rest of her life paying for it.” She swirled wine in her glass.
I said, “She took drastic steps.”
Loretta stared out over the waves. “Abused wives often do.”
I asked, “She was abused?”
Loretta finished her wine. “I suspect so, if not physically, then verbally.”
Yes, I could see that. Antonio had been fond of saying mean things to people, and who knew what he might have said or done to his wife when no one else was looking? It all fell into place. His arrogant belief that other women would welcome his advances . . . The way Paula had glared at him . . . Her nervous demeanor . . . Her immediate use of the word “murder” and yelling at Dora Battersby and me for killing her husband although he wasn’t dead . . . Her hedging when asked about his medication . . .
Even after only six months with Antonio, Paula must have felt trapped in an unbearable relationship. “It’s all very sad,” I said.
“Yes,” Loretta said. “Antonio meant well, really. He just wanted to succeed, and he wanted people to like him.”
I thought aloud, “Paula must have liked him enough to marry him. And yet the two of them destroyed each other.”
Loretta centered a lid on the container of potato salad. “It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy, isn’t it? I guess the least we can do is to make a success of TADAM in Antonio’s memory. Starting with Clay and me assessing the carriage house. We should get going, Clay.”
She could try to leave me out all she wanted, but Clay had made it clear that he and I, just the two of us, had a private “conversation” to continue, one that had begun with a fierce kiss that still burned my lips.
Loretta stretched out one shapely leg. “These boots weren’t made for walking, and I was wearing them all over the village just now. I’ll never be able to hobble back to the carriage house. Can you give me a ride, Clay?”
“Sure,” he answered. “I’ll drop you off, then go put the leftovers away.” He looked at me. “After you walk your dogs home, Willow, I’ll meet you at your place.”
“You can put the leftovers in my fridge and collect them after we assess the carriage house.” Loretta’s voice flowed like honey.
He turned her down. “I’m going to Willow’s, anyway, to see if Dora Battersby wants a ride.”
Loretta pouted. “Is she in the Seven Threadly Sins play? Those people are meeting later, after we’re done. At nine.”
Clay was patient. “Dora’s a member of my design team. Willow is, too, and you’re coming with me, Willow, right?”
“Yes.” I tried to look unexcited, but something like triumph or anticipation could have shown in the smile I did not quite manage to suppress.
“But, Clay, your truck has only one passenger seat,” Loretta pointed out. “You can’t give Willow and that other woman a ride at the same time.”
He deftly packed containers into his picnic basket. “Then Willow can drive my truck, and I’ll walk.”
Loretta gave me a hard look. “Don’t either of you women have vehicles?”
Didn’t Loretta? I didn’t quite answer her question honestly. “Everything in Threadville is within easy walking distance of everything else. Dora and I will probably walk with Clay.”
“Isn’t Dora too . . . old?”
I defended my spry friend. “Not that old. She walked to and from the TADAM mansion the night of the fashion show. Want help carrying any of these things to your truck, Clay?”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ll help him,” Loretta informed me.
She didn’t give up easily.
And neither did I, not after that kiss and the promise it had held.
After a backward glance at me, Clay led the way, holding willow fronds back so Loretta could pass between them.
I unfastened the dogs’ leashes from the leg of the picnic table. “You two have been sooo good,” I crooned. “Let’s run down to the lake, and you can splash on our way home.”
They lapped up several mouthfuls of water before they were ready to run along the hard sand with me, all the way back to the park between Lake Street and the mouth of the Elderberry River. We jogged across grass, then along the accessibility boardwalk, and onto the unpaved hiking trail that ran upriver for miles. We went only a block, though, to the gate to our backyard. I let the dogs in, latched the gate behind us, and unfastened the leashes. Sally and Tally tore around, and then were happy to go inside to greet the cats.
The evening had become too chilly for the flip-flops I’d been wearing for picnicking and wading in the shallows. I put on warm socks and sneakers. Since I didn’t plan to do any snooping, I pulled a pale blue jacket over my sweater.
Clay knocked on the patio door, and I let him in, complete with the picnic basket. “Here’s your lunch for tomorrow,” he said.
“Yummy. Thanks!” I gave him a peck on the cheek
.
“Hey!” he complained. “Not fair when my arms are full.”
Smiling, I turned around and led him to the counter nearest the fridge. “Set the basket here, and let’s unpack it.”
He did, and handed me containers of potato salad, chicken, corn bread, and cake.
I found spaces in the fridge. “There’s more than enough for one person for lunch,” I said. “Maybe you’d like to come here for supper tomorrow night and we can polish it off?”
His warm smile nearly undid me. “I’d like that. It turned out the beach was a little too public. That Loretta! She doesn’t know when to give up.”
Flustered by the affection in his eyes, I said, “Leave the dishes in the sink. I can wash them after I get back.”
“I’ll come with you and help.”
Suddenly, washing dishes had become a romantic activity.
I unpacked the dishes into the sink and pushed the basket out of the way.
“Now,” said Clay, “about that conversation we were about to start when Loretta interrupted us.” He pulled me into his arms.
But it turned out that even the inside of my apartment was too public. The cats leaped onto our shoulders and meowed in our faces. The dogs wormed their way between our knees again.
And that’s when the tapping started.
34
I looked past Mustache, who was teetering on Clay’s shoulder. “We’ll have to continue this conversation later, again,” I whispered into Clay’s cheek. “Dora’s peeking in.”
Clay tightened his arms around me. “So? Let her.”
Giggling, I squirmed away and opened the door.
Dora marched in. “Sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing with your friend. He phoned me a few minutes ago and said he was calling a sudden meeting of his design team, in the TADAM mansion carriage house. I’m ready to go.”
“We were just heading that way,” I told her. “Clay’s letting me drive you in his truck, and he’s walking there to meet us.”
“We could all fit in your car,” she pointed out sensibly. Then she made a face of pure revulsion. “Your skunky smell is horrible. Would you two mind if I didn’t come along? It’s giving me a headache. Besides, I really want to finish the place mats I’m weaving.”
I teased, “That’s your real reason for not coming along!” I suspected, though, that she wanted to give us more time alone together. I had to admit, “The carriage house probably smells worse than we do. I think the skunk sprayed inside it last night.”
She pushed the dogs inside and backed out to the patio. “Sometimes I think you folks have no sense. Enjoy!” She headed down the hill toward Blueberry Cottage.
Clay and I followed her out, and I locked up. Although we could walk to the carriage house, Clay drove us there.
He stopped in front of the TADAM mansion. “I called Ben to come to the design meeting, too, and he was going to call Haylee.”
“Subtle.”
He gave me a teasing smile that made me forget to breathe. “I do what I can. Ben and Haylee should be along in ten or fifteen minutes. I should leave room for him to park, and anyone else who might drive here tonight.” He leaned forward to stare past me at the three-track “driveway” leading toward the carriage house. “Might as well use the driveway. There was a fair amount of junk in that carriage house that will need to be removed before Mona can use it as a theater. Maybe I can enlist Mona and the rest of you to help me load some of it into my truck and take it to the dump.”
Would that be before or after our dish-washing date? Either way, the evening was shaping up to be very romantic. Or something.
He backed down the driveway. Tendrils of unclipped privet, lilac, and forsythia brushed the truck.
As Loretta had told us, the police tape was gone from the carriage house. Lights were on inside it. I hopped out of the truck and met Clay at the back. He was carrying a manila envelope. He pulled the carriage house’s person-sized door open and let me enter first.
Loretta’s voice came from a back corner, near where Paula had been sitting the night before. “There you are.” She stood. She looked cold in the tight shorts and tank top, but maybe the tall boots helped keep her from shivering. “I think I found where the skunk goes in and out.”
I pinched my nose. “I hope it’s out, not in, but it smells like it’s in.”
“It sprayed Paula in here last night,” Loretta explained, though I knew that. “The smell lingers a long time.” I knew that, too.
Clay pointed near the door. “I’ll use some of those concrete blocks to plug the hole.”
I helped him. The blocks were an old style of dense concrete, and surprisingly heavy. Loretta poked around in other corners. I hoped she wouldn’t scare up any skunks or other furry critters. I wanted to suggest we should simply leave the carriage house alone until the smell went away. Even if the actors consented to work inside it, would audiences stay after they’d taken a whiff?
The piece of super-sticky stabilizer was still on the handle of a lawn mower. “Don’t go near that white thing over there,” I told Clay, “unless you want a lawn mower attached to you for the rest of your life.”
He laughed. “That was how I felt the summer I was thirteen and started my own yard work company.” He raised his voice. “Did you hear that, Loretta?”
“The summer you were thirteen?” she repeated. “I wish I’d known you then. You must have been adorable.”
It was undoubtedly true, but I didn’t enjoy hearing her talk about him in that syrupy tone.
He corrected her. “I meant did you hear what Willow said? Not to go near that white stuff hanging from the lawn mower? It’s very sticky.”
“I heard.” She knocked against a broken pitchfork that went clanging down onto a pile of other rusting gardening implements. “Paula wrapped the stuff all over herself and couldn’t get loose.” Loretta peered into the carriage house’s one stall. “What shall we turn this stall into, Clay? Wouldn’t it be fun to repurpose it into something cute? With these half-height walls, it could be a cozy dining nook.”
And the tenant could feed his or her guests hay.
We’d closed the skunk’s passageway as well as we could with the concrete blocks, which cut off some of the fresh air. I ran back to the door and opened it as far as it would go. The big swinging doors, though, were not only blocked in the closed position with a long two-by-ten across the outside, they had settled into the ground, and to free them, we’d need to dig for hours.
Where were Ben and Haylee? I couldn’t blame them if they’d decided not to join us in this putrid place. The ten or fifteen minutes weren’t up yet, however.
Clay picked up his manila envelope and tapped it against the leg of his jeans. “Loretta, didn’t you draw a bathroom just about where you’re now proposing a dining nook?”
She giggled. “Half walls? I don’t think so. Oh! How about topping the half walls with glass blocks to let in lots of light but still allow for privacy?”
“If that’s what you’d like,” he said in a totally neutral tone. “We’d need to shore up the walls beneath the glass blocks to hold the weight.”
“You could do it, Clay.” That woman could really gush. “Or panels of frosted glass. Did you bring my sketches? Is that what’s in the envelope?” She stared hungrily toward his hand.
“No. I brought something else you might like to see. Which school was it where you knew me in fifth grade?”
I knew she’d said fourth grade, and I was certain that Clay knew that, also.
She flashed her cute dimples at him. “That’s just it. I can’t remember the name. Wasn’t it one of those common school names, like Roosevelt?”
“Harry S. Truman?”
She studied him for a second.
Clay looked totally honest and innocent.
“I think that was it,�
� she said slowly, “but I was young and had no idea who Truman was. All those old presidents’ names sort of got mushed together in my mind.”
Clay opened the flap of the envelope. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you from those days.”
She pouted. “No, you weren’t noticing girls yet. It was the great tragedy of my young life.”
Give me a break.
“And my mom scanned and e-mailed me the class photo.” He pulled a photo out of the envelope. “I printed it. I couldn’t find you in it. Can you?”
She practically galloped to his side. “Let’s see! Where are you?”
He pointed to a tall, thin, serious boy with dark brown eyes.
“I’d know you anywhere, Clay. See why I fell for you?”
“No,” he said.
Yes. I couldn’t see anyone with curly auburn hair, or anyone who resembled her at all, except one girl with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Is that you?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “I had jeans and a sweatshirt like that.”
So did nearly every other girl in the picture.
“No, that’s Velvet,” Clay said. “She was my next door neighbor.”
“Velvet?” Loretta said. “What a name. Sounds like she could have been one of the residents of that stall over there.”
“Don’t you remember her?” I was sounding like something else that may have resided in that stall over there, but one that meowed instead of whinnied.
“Of course I do. Let’s see if I can pick out Chief.” She pondered the picture. “Isn’t this fun?” she asked.
Fun? Maybe. Informative? Definitely.
She apparently gave up on recognizing Chief, which was just as well, since there were no German shepherds in the picture. She pouted. “I don’t see myself. Maybe I was out sick that day.” She snapped her fingers. “No, I remember now. Aren’t class photos taken early in the year, like September or October? We moved there near the end of fifth grade, and I was at Truman only during May and June of fifth grade.”
