The Weekenders

by Mary Kay Andrews

  Maggy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Really. Just make sure Banks doesn’t poop in the chapel, or your grandmother really will blow a gasket.”

  “Thanks, Mommy.” Maggy smiled for the first time that day.

  Evelyn pulled the golf cart alongside the porch and stared at her granddaughter. “What on earth?”

  “Mama?” Riley gave her a warning look. “We’d better get to the chapel. I need to give Father Templeton the readings.”

  “I never,” Evelyn muttered under her breath as they pulled away from Shutters. “I really never.”

  * * *

  The Chapel in the Pines had been designed and built in the 1950s by Riley’s great-grandfather from plans he’d sketched on a two-by-six piece of lumber. The foundation was of granite from a nearby quarry and the board-and-batten pine walls had been cut and milled right on the island. The large stained-glass window behind the altar had been donated by Evelyn in memory of her parents, and it depicted stylized versions of creatures found on the island—mockingbirds and herons, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and raccoons set in a border banded by native flowers; dogwood, wild rose, dune daisies, and rudbeckia.

  The altar had been carved by a local boat builder, and today it was dressed with a pair of huge silver urns overflowing with deep-blue hydrangeas and ferns.

  The nondenominational chapel could only seat sixty people, but today every pew was packed, with dozens of people standing along the side aisles.

  Parrish greeted them at the door. “Okay?”

  Riley took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “The rest of the family is up front on the right,” Parrish whispered. “Father Templeton is in the sacristy. Did you bring the readings?”

  “Right here.” Riley held up the Bible. “They’re all marked.”

  “Good. I already briefed him on what you want. If he goes any longer than thirty minutes, I’ve threatened to unplug his mike. I forgot to ask, does anybody in the family want to say a few words?”

  “No,” Riley said firmly.

  “I do,” Maggy said.

  “Oh, no,” Evelyn said, looking horrified. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Riley said. She glanced at her watch. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  * * *

  The organist played Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

  It took awhile to make it to the front of the church. People stopped and hugged them, whispering words of comfort and encouragement in their ears. Billy was sitting on the aisle in the first pew, beside Scott, who was seated beside Ed Godchaux. Aunt Roo sat at the end of the pew, resplendent in a vivid purple muumuu and flower-decked straw hat. Billy and the rest of the family slid down the pew, and the three of them sat down, with Riley seated next to Billy, and Maggy between her and Evelyn.

  “How you doin’?” Billy asked.

  Good question. She’d felt a weird sense of something—detachment—settle over her during the short ride to the church. “I don’t know why, but I feel kinda numb,” Riley said.

  Billy gave her a sly wink and patted the pocket of his sport coat. “Me, too.” He slid his hand into his pocket and showed her the top of the sterling silver flask that had been W.R.’s. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks, I’m good.”

  True to Parrish’s word, Father Templeton stuck close to the script he’d been given.

  “In the Gospel of John, we are told that, ‘in my father’s house, there are many mansions,’” the priest intoned.

  Mansions, Riley though grimly. Mansions in heaven. If that’s where Wendell was headed, and she had her doubts about that, he’d be happier than a hog in slop. But down here on Belle Isle, he’d somehow managed to mortgage their own mansion right into oblivion.

  She felt her eyelids flutter and close just as the priest was starting to remind the congregants of the fleeting nature of life. At some point she must have actually nodded off, because Billy elbowed her in the ribs.

  “Wake up,” he hissed. “We’re getting to the good stuff.”

  What followed was such a tender and glowing eulogy—for a man Riley was fairly sure the priest had never met—that Riley could only conclude it had been written by Evelyn.

  “Who’s he talking about?” Billy asked, giggling at his own humor.

  “Shhh.” Riley just managed to suppress her own giggle.

  “In Ecclesiastes, we are reminded that to everything there is a season,” Father said. “And a purpose under heaven.”

  Riley had found the verse underlined in red in her grandmother’s Bible. It was one of Nanny’s favorite pieces of scripture, and she’d quoted it so often that Riley could almost recite it from memory.

  “‘A time to live and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted … a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.’”

  Wendell’s time, Riley wryly reflected, had come, but not soon enough. How much destruction had the son of a bitch left in his wake? And what else would she discover in the weeks to come?

  Riley heard a muffled sob and looked over at Evelyn, who was softly crying into a linen handkerchief. She reached over Maggy’s lap and took her mother’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. After a moment, Evelyn squeezed back.

  The priest droned on through the rest of the verses from Ecclesiastes. “‘… And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor because it is the gift of God.’”

  This last elicited another fit of giggles from Billy Nolan, which earned him a death stare from his mother.

  Finally, Father Templeton got to the verse Riley had been waiting for. It was the one Nanny had underlined and starred in the Bible, and though her grandmother was dead and buried before Riley met Wendell, it was the verse that rang truest for her.

  “‘I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.’”

  Riley nodded in solemn agreement. Wendell’s judgement might come in heaven, but down here on earth, she’d judged for herself, and her verdict would never win him a pass beyond the pearly gates.

  “Wendell’s daughter, Maggy, would like to say a few words.”

  “Ready?” Riley asked, turning to her daughter.

  “I think so,” Maggy whispered. “Could you hold Banks?” She unbuttoned Wendell’s shirt and Riley saw that the puppy was sound asleep. She gently transferred the sleeping pug to her own lap.

  When she reached the altar, Father Templeton helped her to the pulpit, then stepped aside.

  Maggy extracted a sheet of lined notebook paper from the breast pocket of the shirt and slowly unfolded it. She took a deep breath and cleared her throat.

  Her voice was low but the words clear. “My name is Margaret Evelyn Griggs. I am Wendell Griggs’s daughter. And I know a lot of you think you know my dad, but I bet none of you know how special my dad was.

  “My dad did a lot for this island. Even before he met my mom, Dad came to work here for my granddaddy, and he helped build a lot of houses on this island. He did a lot of good things that people don’t know about, too. In Raleigh, where we live, he and I cleared a nature trail that runs through our neighborhood so that people in wheelchairs could be in nature. He and some other dads gave the money for a new soccer field at my school, and my dad drove the bulldozer when they were making the field okay for us to play on. He paid for the Big Belle lighthouse to be painted too, and hardly anybody knows that.”

  Maggy looked down at her paper. She bit her lip and continued. “My dad taught me a lot. He told me to always go to the net in tennis. He taught me how to ride a bike and how to do fractions. And he let me drive the golf cart sitting on his lap starting when I was a really little kid. Almost every Saturday when he was home, he and I went to the Waffle House or the Mercantile for breakfast so my mom could sleep late, and he taught me that scrambled eggs always need hot sau
ce. And the most important thing he told me was that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their dogs.

  “This year…” Maggy’s voice trailed off for a moment. “This year I got pretty sick and we found out that I have diabetes, and I had to go to the hospital and stuff and get shots and not have candy and Cokes anymore.” She sniffed and looked down, and then back up again. “My dad wanted to surprise me, so one day he came to the hospital, and he brought me a puppy for my very own. And the nurses yelled at him, but Dad told them to back off, so they did. And then my dad crawled into the hospital bed with me, and I decided to name the puppy Mr. Banks, because Mr. Banks was the dad in Mary Poppins, which is my favorite movie, except for Star Wars, which my dad took me to when the new one came out because his dad took him when he was a kid.”

  Maggy gripped the lectern with shaking hands. “My dad had to work a lot, so lately he wasn’t home that much, but almost every night, he called me to tell me good night, and say that he loved me.”

  She seemed to be staring directly at Riley. “I know some people are saying bad things about my dad. But they’re not true. My dad loved me, and he loved my mom, and he loved Belle Isle. And I wish he weren’t dead.”

  She folded her paper and put it back in her pocket. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

  Father Templeton put a kindly arm around the child’s shoulder. “Thank you, Maggy, for such a beautiful, heartfelt tribute.”

  Maggy nodded wordlessly and left the altar, but instead of joining her family in their pew, she leaned in without a word and took the now-awake Banks from her mother, then continued down the main aisle and out the door of the chapel.

  “I’ll go get her,” Evelyn said, but Riley shook her head. “Let her go, Mama. She just needs a little more time to grieve.”

  56

  On Saturday morning, Riley sat up in bed and met the bemused eyes of her best friend. She looked around the room. “Why am I in your guest bedroom?”

  “I certainly wasn’t going to put you in my bed,” Parrish said. “I love you like a sister, but even I have certain limits.”

  “No. Seriously.”

  Parrish handed her a mug of coffee and grinned. “There are so many ways I’m tempted to answer that question.”

  “You’re really enjoying yourself at my expense, aren’t you?”

  “Hugely.”

  “How about just telling me the truth?”

  “Spoilsport. Okay, the truth isn’t all that exciting. You managed to make it through the service all right, although Billy did have to shake you awake at one point. And then afterward, when everybody came back here for supper, you fixed yourself a plate of food and guzzled down approximately three glasses of white wine like a pro.”

  “Oh, no.” Riley flopped back onto the bed. “It was those damn pills of yours. Mama started in on me about my dress, and I just couldn’t take it. I popped two pills right before we left for church … and as soon as we sat down I started feeling kind of weird. You know, like my give-a-shit had up and gone…”

  “Good God, Riles. You took two Xanax followed by about a quart of pinot grigio? No wonder you were zonked out of your gourd.”

  “What exactly did I do? Or do I even want to know?”

  “You didn’t attempt a pole dance or pick a fight with your mom, if that’s what you’re worried about. Mostly, you just got really, really mellow and went around telling everybody how much you loved them. Including Andrea Payne and what’s-her-name.”

  “Belle Isle Barbie and Melody Zimmerman? Who invited those two?”

  “You did. Along with Father Templeton and the organist, who nobody’d ever met before, and various other random funeral-goers. Fortunately most of them had the good sense not to show up. Except, of course, for Andrea and Melody, who waltzed right in here like they were your long-lost cousins.”

  “Oh, no. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was excellent comic relief.”

  Riley took another sip of coffee. “I didn’t … say anything about Wendell, did I? Anything bad?”

  “Not that I heard,” Parrish said. “You definitely didn’t say anything the two of us were thinking.”

  “That’s a relief. But wait. Oh God! Did Maggy notice how strangely I was acting?”

  “Relax. She wasn’t here. As soon as we got out of church, Ed tracked her down.”

  “Where’d she go after she left the chapel?”

  “Ed said she was sitting on the seawall, near the marina. Just sitting there, staring out at the water.”

  “Where they found Wendell’s body,” Riley said. “I’m afraid she’s obsessed with that.”

  “Yeah. They sat and talked for a while. She was pretty emphatic about not coming back over here afterward, so Ed took her over to the Mercantile and got her an early supper, then took her back to the Shutters. We didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Mind? I’m incredibly grateful to Ed for being so sensitive to Maggy’s mood. I’m so grateful to both of you. I don’t know if we could have survived yesterday without the two of you.”

  Parrish said, “We didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done for us.” Changing the subject, she asked, “So what are you going to do with the rest of the day?”

  Riley looked around the room and spotted her clothes, neatly folded on an armchair near the bed. “I feel like doing something useful. Now that I’m starting a new job, we only have a couple of weeks to figure out how we prove Melody Zimmerman killed Wendell.”

  Parrish sighed. “You’ve got another screwball plan, don’t you?”

  “What would it hurt if we just took a ride over to Melody’s cottage and took a look around?”

  “Oh, no,” Parrish said. “I am not breaking into that woman’s house. At least we had a key to get into Wendell’s office, and he was your husband. This is an entirely different crime. It’s called breaking and entering.”

  “Who said anything about breaking in? We could just cruise over there and maybe peek in a window or something. You’ll have to loan me some clothes, though. I can’t go snooping around in my funeral outfit.”

  “What if she catches us? What if a nosy neighbor sees us? What if Ed finds out? He was not happy when I told him we’d been stalking Melody.”

  “If she’s home, we’ll leave. We won’t get caught. I swear. And since when do you have to ask for your husband’s permission to do something? Geez, Parrish, talk about growing a set!”

  * * *

  Melody Zimmerman’s cottage was a modest seventies-era, single-story redwood cottage, in an enclave of half a dozen homes from the same era, each nestled into its own thicket of live oaks, palmettos, and bay laurels.

  “Nice and private,” Riley said approvingly, as Parrish steered the cart down the cul-de-sac. She pointed to a small green fenced-off public space with a sign designating it as a dog park. “Park over there.”

  “This is crazy,” Parrish muttered as they tried to act nonchalant, walking through the steady drizzle toward Melody Zimmerman’s cottage. “We can’t see anything here,” Parrish said, pointing at two large picture windows covered with closed plantation shutters. “She’s probably got the same thing on every window.”

  “Quit being such a pessimist,” Riley said. “Let’s check in back.”

  As they turned the corner they noted what looked like a set of double windows, covered again with closed plantation shutters.

  Next, the two women darted around to the rear of the house. A set of sliding glass doors led onto a small brick-paved patio. “See, no more plantation shutters,” Riley said.

  The two women plastered their faces to the sliders, which were partially obscured by a set of sheer curtains. “Ugh. Total granny city,” Parrish said. They were looking at a combined living/dining area. The living room featured a fussy faux French furniture suite with brocade sofa and two matching tufted armchairs. There was a dining room with a crystal chandelier centered over a reproduction Early American maple dining room table an
d chairs.

  “Melody certainly has way better taste in clothes than in furniture,” Parrish said.

  “Didn’t you say the house actually belongs to a relative?” Riley asked. She pointed to a window to the right. It was located halfway up the wall, above an air-conditioning condenser, just high enough that they couldn’t see in. Not to be deterred, Riley jumped onto the condenser and pressed her face to the glass.

  “See anything?” Parrish asked.

  “Wow, talk about stuck in the eighties,” Riley reported. “It’s just a normal kitchen. For a home-wrecking slut, our Melody is a tidy little soul. Not even a coffee mug on the countertop.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Parrish said anxiously.

  “Oh, hello!” Riley said. “There’s a doggie door over there, on the side of the house.” She clambered down from the condenser.

  “Which means there’s probably a dog,” Parrish said. “Now we really gotta go.”

  “Don’t be such a fraidy-cat,” Riley chided. “If there was a dog, it would have barked by now.”

  She hurried around to the side of the house and stood looking at the dog door, a rectangular opening approximately eighteen inches high by fourteen inches wide. Riley dropped down onto her knees and looked up excitedly at Parrish. “I bet I could crawl through this, don’t you?”

  “Have you lost your mind? That’s a big-ass doggie door. Which means there is a big-ass doggie somewhere inside that house, probably a Rottweiler or a Doberman, just waiting to rip your throat out,” Parrish said. “Now let’s go.”

  “I’m just gonna stick my head in and see what’s what,” Riley said. “If there’s a dog, he’ll bark, and we’ll boogie on down the road. Okay?”

  “No! Absolutely not. I did not sign up for illegal entry,” Parrish said. But it was too late. Riley poked her head inside the door’s outer rubber flap.

  “Hellooo. Hellooo. Mr. Doggie, is anybody home? Mr. Doggie?”

  She backed out of the door and grinned up at her best friend. “There’s no dog in there that I can see. Any self-respecting Dobie would have clawed right through that door if he was home. I’m going in and taking a look around. Cover me, okay?”