Let us skip quickly past what happened between then and now. Watch the big hand on the granddaddy clock spin full circle—151 times.
Six days and seven hours later, long after she had gone to bed, Cassandra was not even slightly drowsy. When the hopeful sleeper would attempt to shut her eyes, they would pop open again. She tried reclining on her right side. Her left. Also flat on her back. After considering such time-honored remedies as sleeping pills, a glass of warm milk, a hot soak in the tub, counting stupid sheep jumping a rail fence, reading the history of Plano, Texas, or last month’s article in PSYCHICAL REVIEW about how death by violence affects the personalities of recently disembodied spirits—Aha—“Recently Disembodied Spirits!” This reminded her of that odd encounter at the airport with the talkative old lady from somewhere or other whose daughter had been dined upon by a herd of famished swine. The wide-awake lady switched on the light, found Florence Valentine’s black canvas bag between the tall, ticktocking timepiece and the deceased elephant’s foot, took it back to her bedroom, and began to examine the contents.
This was not the solution for insomnia.
Indeed, on this night, Cassandra would not get a wink of sleep. Not one.
A long, hot soak in the tub—that would have been the very cure for what ailed her.
Oh. Another thing. On the following morning, when Cassandra Spencer stepped onto her front porch to pick up the weekly newspaper, she noticed a letter-size manila envelope in the mailbox. No stamp, no address, no return address. Only a printed READ THIS on both sides. She opened it with a long, pointy fingernail, removed a single sheet of paper. The message was also printed:
I KNOW IT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS BUT I THOUGHT YOU OUGHT TO KNOW THAT YOUR SISTER CHEATED YOU. SHE WAS HOLDING TWO HALF-TOOTHPICKS IN HER HAND.
Mandy the waitress was across the street in the Corner Bar, watching the darker of the Spencer sisters through a dusty window. She was unable to see the expression on the psychic’s face as Cassandra learned The Truth. No matter—merely knowing that her note had been received was enough. In fact, Mandy was so excited that she—No. It is too indelicate to mention.
But one might go so far as to observe that the wielder of the poisoned pen had, while waiting for the climactic moment, polished off three beers. Without visiting the ladies’ room.
Nine
The Honeymoon
This was their final night in Costa Rica, at the small but well-appointed beach cottage on the Golfo de Nicoya. How sweet it was, here on the flower-scented veranda. A light mist of rain drip-dripping off the thatched roof, tap-tapping onto shiny pebbles and pearly fragments of seashells. Hardly a stone’s throw away, a gentle surf whispered of lost histories, ancient mysteries. A short walk inland, beyond yon cluster of coconut palms, within the lantern-lighted hotel ballroom, a rhythmic steel-drumming, a vibrant guitar thrumming, a woman’s throaty voice calling for her lost lover.
Barefooted Beatrice Spencer-Turner, seated on a wicker couch beside her husband, was pleasantly cool in the cotton dress Andrew had purchased from a street vendor in Puntarenas. An embroidered vine twisted and twined around her hip; blue and red roses blossomed from the stubby little stems. As she dipped a silver spoon into a crystal bowl of pineapple-mango-coconut ice cream, allowed the ambrosia to melt on her tongue, the bride filled her eyes with a sunset of blue and gold wisps, murmured to her mate, “The moment is absolutely perfect.”
The man nodded his agreement, raised a frothy glass, and responded in authentic beer-commercial fashion: “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
The bride indulged in another spoonful of the exotic dessert. “This stuff is simply scrumptious.”
“It’s also about a hundred calories per bite.”
The slender woman cast her man a look. “Are you afraid I’ll get fat?”
“Uh…no. Not unless you start eating sweets in between meals.” Turner stared at a horizon that was swathed in shadows. Or taking them to bed for nighttime snacks. He blinked. Now why did I think that?
The dead sister had invaded the absolutely perfect moment. Ghosts have a way of doing that.
Beatrice recalled that within a few weeks after Sis had married Andy Turner, she had put on a few pounds. The eldest sister had become somewhat—there was only one word for it. Chubby. She frowned. “Andy…”
“Yes?”
“I want to ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“I hope you won’t mind—it’s about poor Astrid.”
Since the wealthy sister’s tragic death, it was as if her first name had been legally changed to Poor.
The groom turned to regard his new sweetheart. “What is it?”
“Did Astrid indulge in bedtime snacks?”
Andrew Turner stared at the fading sunset. Sighed. “Yes. She developed a craving for sweets.”
“Such as?” Bea dipped her spoon into the ice cream.
He shrugged. “Bonbons. Also coconut macaroons.” Turner watched a gull skim the beach, snatch up a hapless land crab. “And strawberries.”
With the spoon at her lips, Bea paused. “Strawberries?”
Turner smiled. “She dipped them in powdered sugar.” A shadow wiped the smile away. “Whenever I was in Denver, I used to drop by a little mom-and-pop candy shop. I’d buy Astrid a box of chocolate-covered strawberries. Or a pound of apricot bonbons.” He turned to gaze at his new wife. “Does that surprise you?”
“Yes.” She put the bowl of ice cream on a small metal table.
“Before Astrid and I were married, she would never touch a dessert. Always worried about gaining weight.” He paused, listened for a moment to what the sea had to say. It said Shhhhhhhhhh…. “But people change.”
“Yes,” she said. In the hotel ballroom, the long, melancholy song ended. There was a muted murmur of applause that might have been a faint echo from the surf. “Even those persons nearest and dearest to us—I suppose we never really know them as well as we would like to imagine.” It dawned on the bride that the honeymoon was over. From now on her life would be filled with new, unanticipated responsibilities. And Beatrice was determined to be a perfect wife. Discipline, that was what was called for. She made herself a solemn promise to lose five pounds. And keep them off. She squinted at the sunset, which display was now blemished by a long, purple bruise. Poor, dear Astrid. You loved Andrew so very much. But now you are dead. And Andrew is mine…. To have and to hold. Till death do us part.
A few minutes past midnight, when her husband was deep in a dreamless sleep, Beatrice padded silently from their bedroom, removed a satellite telephone from her carry-on, and placed a ridiculously expensive call to her sibling.
Cassandra answered on the second ring. “Bea—oh, I’m so glad you called. I’ve been dying to talk to you but had no idea which hotel you were—”
“Well of course you didn’t. A blissful bride does not wish to have her honeymoon disturbed by frivolous calls from her silly sister. Andrew and I will be arriving in Colorado Springs tomorrow, and I wondered whether we should rent a car at the airport, or would you like to pick us up in your snazzy Caddy?”
“I’ll meet you, of course. But let me tell you what was in today’s newspaper. The police haven’t verified it, but the word is that they found strawberries in Astrid’s bedroom, which was what attracted the bears—”
“The story is undoubtedly accurate, Cassie. Just today, Andrew told me that our sister ate strawberries in bed.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
“Well then…that would seem to settle things.”
“As you say.”
Count eleven heartbeats. Four for Bea, seven for Cassie.
As if someone might overhear, the TV psychic lowered her voice. “There is something else. Just minutes after you and Andrew left for Costa Rica, I was cornered by this eccentric old woman whose daughter had died in the most horrible manner and she wanted me to—”
“Save it, Cassie.”
“B
ut—”
“Your story will keep till I get back.”
“But—”
“No buts. I mean it. Not another word.”
A tense silence.
“Cassie, are you still there?”
“Yes.” Her tone was awash with sulk.
Beatrice smiled. Oh, my, I’ve hurt her feelings. “Dear—I’m sure that what you want to tell me about is absolutely fascinating. We shall have many things to discuss. But not over the telephone.” She inhaled a breath of tropical flower scents. “See you at the airport?”
“Same flight as on your original itinerary?”
“That’s right.”
The response was icy: “I’ll be there.”
Cassie is having a major pout. “Okay, Sis. See you—”
CLICK!
“—then.”
Ten
Two Sisters
As she had promised, Cassandra was at the airport to meet Beatrice and her recently acquired husband. Customary greetings were exchanged, not excluding the obligatory hugs, but the embraces were lacking in enthusiasm, and even the perfunctory pecks on cheeks were replaced with air kisses. Being unaware of Bea and Cassie’s brief, tense telephone conversation last night, Andrew was puzzled. But due to his limitations, which included not understanding the least thing about the other gender, he observed their odd behavior with aloof, male bemusement.
On the drive to Granite Creek, conversation was limited to snippets about how warm and humid it had been in Costa Rica and how cool and dry it had been in central Colorado and Cassie’s stated hope that they were not suffering from jet lag and Beatrice’s explanation of the difference in longitude and latitude and Cassie’s resultant tight-lipped attitude. And so it went as the Cadillac ran a losing race with the setting sun.
That evening, while Andrew was at Granite Creek Electronics and Computers, checking on how his assistant manager had been handling the prosperous business, the ladies closeted themselves in Beatrice’s bedroom and engaged in sister talk. Bea listened with intense interest to Cassie’s tale about Florence Valentine and her unfortunate daughter’s gruesome demise, and how the psychic proposed to exploit the lurid details. Cassie heard her sister’s honeymoon report, which included such details as how loudly her new husband snored, the heart-shaped mole between his shoulder blades, and further details of Andrew’s shocking revelation that Astrid had taken up the habit of eating sweets in bed. Well, that alone was enough to give one pause. But sugar-dipped and chocolate-coated strawberries—how absolutely extraordinary!
Toothpicks? The subject never came up. Evidently, Cassie had forgiven her treacherous sister.
Henceforth, it would be reasonable to presume that they would be loving, caring, sharing sisters—nothing could come between them. Not even a perfectly tanned, brown-eyed handsome man.
And so it seemed.
Beatrice, who had won a multitude of ribbons and medals for her paintings, began to plan her masterpiece. It would be a gift for Andrew.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Cassandra began to pursue plans of her own, which centered on her career. It seemed that her star was on the rise. The darkly attractive woman was, in a word, charismatic. And in two more, a hot property. Ever since her on-air, real-time vision of the cold-blooded shooting of the truck driver, the audience of her television broadcast had continued to increase.
Whispered speculations had begun to circulate and take on weight and—as those young Turks of the TV business say whilst sipping five-dollar paper cups of caffé latte—the buzz-bug grew legs and took off in a brisk trot. Clippity clop. Insiders in the local broadcast industry winked and whispered that they had the “inside word”—Cassandra Sees was going to be picked up by one of the big networks. ABC. Or Fox.
Unaware that her crafty business manager, Nicholas Moxon, was both providing feedstock and turning the crank on the rumor mill, Cassandra was quite excited about her potential future as a coast-to-coast psychic celebrity. She realized that the road ahead would be difficult. Pitfalls, potholes, gridlock—all that sort of thing. But being the trooper that she was, the star of Cassandra Sees stiffened her upper lip and called upon another proverb that has long provided steely-eyed Americans with a stiff dose of get-up and go: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way. The lady had oodles and gobs of Will. More important, she had come up with a Way. The solution had occurred to the psychic on that sleepless night while she was reading the pile of newspaper clippings about April Valentine’s death. Cassandra’s devious plot—if carried out just so—would accomplish two very important objectives. One professional, the other personal.
Moxon was surprised and delighted with his formerly languid client’s newfound energy. It was, as he had often pointed out to the TV psychic, much easier to promote a public figure who wanted to go somewhere with her career.
But Miss Spencer, like others of her gender, was a mysterious creature whose dark, roiling depths Mr. Moxon could not plumb.
Cassandra’s motive in concentrating on fame and fortune would have astonished her business manager. Her frenetic activity, both physical and mental, served to keep the lady’s thoughts from being overwhelmed by her primary objective.
Which, as it happened, was a man.
A man who was…but what adjectives could do him justice? Only a few days ago, Cassandra would have gone with “devilishly clever, drop-dead handsome.” But that was then. By now, her obsession had taken a sinister twist and turn. The mere thought of her sister’s husband engendered raw, animal lusts that were beyond desire—even jealousy. These were dark, sinful cravings that the oldest Spencer sister had never believed herself capable of. The mania that threatened to consume her was at once repellant and thrilling—and might drive a passionate woman to do anything. Anything.
To divert her fragile psyche from leaping off the precipitous cliff, the psychic focused all her pent-up emotional energies on the career. She was, for the most part, successful. There were those evenings when she would lie flat on her back in the queen-size four-poster, dark eyes wide open, heart pounding, thinking about that man. Imagining that Andrew was there…within her reach. On such nights as these, she could not sleep.
What she did was plot. And plan.
For what? Why, to get her man.
Eleven
A Few Days After the Honeymoon
Having finished a breakfast of bran muffins and orange juice, jogged on the treadmill for a sweaty half hour, and enjoyed a brisk three minutes in the shower, Andrew Turner donned blue cotton underwear and socks, a white silk shirt, ash-gray trousers and vest, and a pale blue tie with an ebony clip to match the studs in his cuffs. He slipped on an immaculate pair of black cowboy boots, did a stiff-backed West Point–cadet pose before the mirror in the master bedroom, admired the image.
Industrious Beatrice Spencer was already at work in her spacious upstairs studio, where a half-dozen mullioned windows admitted that soft northern light that would not cast stark shadows, or create vulgar glares on an artist’s delicate composition of form and color. Wearing a paint-splattered canvas smock, she was putting the final touches on her “masterpiece.” As Bea dabbed and daubed and cocked her head and held her mouth “just right,” she absorbed heavenly strains of Chopin’s Fantaisie in F Minor, Opus 49. What unadulterated bliss. But, like tumbleweeds riding on the wind, such moments pass all to quickly. This particular reverie was interrupted by the sharp clicks of Andrew’s boot heels coming up the stairway. Thus forewarned, the creative lady hurriedly cast a cast-off cotton bedsheet over the work in progress and turned her attention to an earlier creation that could do with a few brushstrokes.
The man of the house barged in like the captain of a shoot-’em-dead SWAT team about to confront a terrorist with bomb in hand, boomed out, “What’re you up to, my little Sweet Bea?”
Grimacing at this crude horticultural pun, Beatrice made a deft brushstroke. “I am touching up Wild Burros Grazing in Sage.”
“Burros?” The husband came closer to
the canvas, picking his teeth with a spruce toothpick. (Oh, but had he known how the sisters had played at pull-the-toothpick—and what the winner had gotten for fixing the game!) Try as he might, the prize did not see anything that resembled a four-legged creature. Neither could he discover any sage being grazed upon. He canted his head sideways, tried to think of something complimentary to say. “That gizmo on the left looks like a flamingo. With a monkey on its back.”
Now, despite her few faults (and none of us is perfect), Beatrice was as good a wife as Andrew had any right to expect, and the soul of patience with her secondhand husband. Since the brief honeymoon, she had endured a number of his oafish remarks on the subject of her Art, and had passed them off as symptoms of a combination of afflictions—which included a deplorable ignorance and a deprived upbringing in a family where the only visual art in the home was on a calendar from Chuck’s Corner Hardware. But one can take only so much. She turned on her husband, cast the blue-eyed, icy glare. “Andrew, do not think me unkind—but someone must tell you this: You are a Neanderthal.”
“Maybe I am.” He pointed his chin at Wild Burros Grazing in Sage. “But I could paint a helluva lot better horse on a cave wall than that.”
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