by Sandra Balzo
Joy Tamarack had joined them, along with her fellow heckler, Shirley Hart.
‘I’m AnnaLise Griggs,’ she said to Dickens Hart’s first wife, putting her hand out.
‘Ah, the one known-to-be rightful heir of our mutual host,’ Shirley said, shaking it. Then: ‘Hello, Patrick. I guess I should have expected you to be here.’
‘You two know each other?’ AnnaLise asked.
‘Sure do,’ Shirley said. ‘I was county clerk, back before Patrick’s papa retired and Junior here took over the first name in “Hoag, Christiaansen and Weir.”’
The woman had a pleasant smile and a no-nonsense manner that reminded AnnaLise of her fourth-grade teacher. As Joy had predicted, the journalist liked her immediately.
‘Shirley’s the one who suggested these.’ Hoag tilted his eye glasses.
‘And don’t forget the coif,’ she said, reaching up to pat his head. ‘That was, in my humble opinion, a stroke of genius.’
‘Wait a second,’ AnnaLise said, cocking her own head. ‘Is Shirley saying you intentionally dye your hair gray?’
The lawyer shared a smile with the first Mrs Hart. ‘Just here and there to achieve the salt-and-pepper effect. With a concentration of salt, of course, nearer the temples where—’
‘And the glasses?’ Joy snatched the spectacles off his face and held them up to the light. ‘These aren’t corrective lenses, either. Just plain glass.’
‘Polycarbonate,’ Patrick corrected, more defiant than friendly as he reclaimed them. ‘Lightweight, but they do make me look more authoritative, don’t they?’ He slipped the black frames on and struck a grave, counseling pose.
‘So you’re trying to play older?’ AnnaLise shook her head. ‘What happened to earning your clients’ respect because of your ability at lawyering?’
‘I’d have been happy to take the high road,’ Patrick said, now defensively, ‘if only nature had given me that chance.’
‘Patrick’s right, if semi-pathetic,’ Shirley said, nearly joining arms with the man. ‘Despite graduating from Harvard Law School, our newly minted attorney here looked about eleven.’
‘Like Doogie Howser,’ Daisy agreed. ‘Only a little younger.’
‘Clients didn’t trust me to handle their affairs,’ Patrick lamented. ‘They insisted that my father—’
‘Who by then was a brick or two shy of a full load—’ Shirley interjected.
‘Represent them, even though he was, sad to say, beginning to falter.’
AnnaLise glanced at Daisy, who had thankfully been drawn aside by Joy. Feeling guilty for having judged Hoag the Younger, given her own parent’s cognitive problems, she said, ‘I’m so sorry. How’s your father doing now?’
Hoag used his middle finger to push the faux glasses higher on his nose. ‘He died last year.’
Now AnnaLise felt doubly sorry, even while wondering if Hoag had just subtly flipped her off. She willingly followed as the lawyer changed the subject back to the gathering at hand. ‘I’ve seen the list of invitees, of course, and I know the locals, but not the, uh …’
‘Best we leave it at “others,” dear,’ Shirley said, patting his arm. ‘So much better than pretenders to the throne and hangers-on.’
‘Do you know everybody, Shirley?’ AnnaLise asked.
Wife number one turned toward the rest of the crowd. ‘I’ve heard of Rose,’ she said, pointing to the white-haired lady. ‘Dickens loved to nettle me with how he’d been deflowered, so to speak, by her. Then there was Lucinda, of course, who marked the end of my own marriage.’
‘I’m sorry,’ AnnaLise said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to resurrect bad memories.’
‘Hey, I came here, as we all did, knowing full well what we were getting into. You shouldn’t feel like any of us need protection, my dear.’
Patrick threw AnnaLise a ‘told-you-so’ look and she felt the surface of her face flame. Apparently peacemakers weren’t going to be involved, much less blessed, this weekend. ‘So I’ve been told. I guess it’s just my way, trying to get people to play well with others.’
Joy had returned to the conversation, and proved it by pinching her hard.
‘Ouch!’ AnnaLise rubbed her stinging upper arm. ‘Why’d you do that?’
‘Somebody’s got to toughen you up.’
‘Not a bad course,’ Shirley said. ‘You have a lot to lose this weekend.’
Before AnnaLise could state, again, that she didn’t want Hart’s money, another voice rang out.
‘That bastard!’
NINE
‘Don’t shush me, Tyler. Dickens Hart is a thief.’
The strawberry blonde that Boozer Bacchus had identified as Lucinda Puckett was standing near the bar with her son, Tyler. She grabbed the cord dangling from her offspring’s neck and yanked sharply. ‘Do you see this?’
‘Mother, please.’ Tyler Puckett was leaning back like a re-calcitrant Great Dane being tugged by its leash. ‘It’s just a name badge, so …’
‘Not the badge,’ she snapped. ‘The font on the fucking—’
‘Mother!’
Startled, Lucinda dropped her pup’s leash.
Rubbing his neck where the cord must have bitten in, Tyler said, ‘Now will you explain? And calmly, please?’
Lucinda lowered her voice and turned away, forcing AnnaLise to move a bit closer to the pair. Patrick, Daisy, Joy and Shirley followed like a rugby scrum.
‘… studying graphic arts at the university,’ Lucinda was saying. ‘Hart hired me to design a custom typeface and logo for the White Tail Club.’
Tyler looked confused. ‘But I thought you were already working for Hart. As a Doe.’
‘Fawn,’ his mother corrected. ‘And I was, but this more … well, professional association meant we could spend time together without his wife complaining.’
AnnaLise felt, rather than saw, Shirley Hart rear up, but the ex-wife seemed to contain herself.
Tyler cocked his head. ‘And which wife would this have been?’
‘Shirley.’ Lucinda’s hand gestured vaguely toward the buffet crowd. ‘The really old one.’
Now Joy clapped a pre-emptive hand over Shirley’s mouth.
‘In the wheelchair?’ Tyler asked.
‘Heaven’s, no.’ Lucinda seemed to be losing patience. ‘That’s Rose and she was well before my time, I’ll have you know. Besides, Rose and Dickens never married. Shirley is …’ She was scanning the crowd for the woman who stood not ten feet behind her.
‘Never mind,’ Tyler said. ‘I’m sure I’ll run into her. But go on. You said you designed what?’
‘The whole corporate identity campaign for the White Tail Club, right down to a custom font with lower case “a”s that look like hearts.’ This time she lifted her own badge. ‘See?’
Tyler was looking puzzled. ‘There are no “a”s in your name.’
‘No!’ his mother exploded. ‘In the logo for the house, Hart’s Head!’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Tyler stared. ‘Is that a penis on the “d”?’
‘It’s the plume of a white-tailed deer,’ his mother said between clenched teeth.
Tyler shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s what you designed, but it sure looks like somebody took liberties with your … tail.’ A glance at his mother. ‘So to speak.’
AnnaLise laughed. And then slapped her own hand over her own mouth before Joy could do it for her.
Lucinda, though, had heard and pivoted on her pumps to face them. ‘You have a problem?’
‘Of course she does,’ Joy dove in for her friend. ‘Dickens Hart – just like everybody else here.’
‘Amen to that,’ Shirley said. ‘By the way, Tyler, I’m the “really” old one.’
He turned bright red. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Hey, don’t be sorry. She’s,’ Shirley tilted her head toward Lucinda, ‘the one who said it.’
‘Well, then, I’m sorry,’ the strawberry blonde said, looking genuinely embarrassed. ‘It’s just such an
odd situation.’
‘Certainly makes for strange bedfellows,’ Patrick Hoag said, earning him an eye roll from AnnaLise. Seeing it, he asked, ‘What?’
AnnaLise just turned to Lucinda. ‘We couldn’t help but overhear. You were responsible for the White Tail … what did you call it? Corporate identity?’
Lucinda was nodding. ‘The logo, permissible color palate and, last but not least, a custom-designed typeface.’
‘Which he’s still using?’
‘And, of course, never paid me for. Except in semen. I just assumed he wasn’t going to use it.’
‘Resulting in me,’ Tyler said a little bitterly. ‘Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to talk to “Dad.”’
‘Handsome boy,’ Daisy said, watching him walk away.
Lucinda glanced down at Daisy’s name badge, obviously wondering who she was.
Joy leaned in toward AnnaLise and whispered, ‘Dickens really should have included a flow chart on the badges. You know, so we could see how everybody … fit in?’
AnnaLise ignored her. ‘Lucinda, I’m AnnaLise Griggs, and this is my mother, Daisy. Or Lorraine, back then.’
At that news, Lucinda’s eyes grew speculative. ‘The only confirmed heir and her mother.’ She put out her hand to Daisy. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘You can just see the wheels turning, can’t you?’ Shirley said in a low voice as Daisy and Lucinda strolled away, chatting.
‘What?’ AnnaLise asked.
‘She’s usually quicker on the uptake,’ Joy apologized to Shirley and Patrick. Then, to AnnaLise: ‘What my fellow ex-wife means is that if Lucinda can pair Tyler and you up, then the Puckett family is assured of “payment” for Lucinda’s services, whether Tyler proves to be fruit of Hart’s loins or not.’
Joy cupped her ear. ‘Hark!’
AnnaLise hadn’t heard anything surprising beyond the nattering of the ex-wife. ‘What?’
‘It’s … why it’s,’ Joy’s head was now swiveling, ‘yes! I doth believe a giant sucking-up noise has engulfed the room.’
AnnaLise turned her attention to where her friend’s gaze had finally landed. Dickens Hart was surrounded by Boccaccios and Pucketts, the youngest of each pair intent on making a good impression. But their target’s attention was drawn to an even younger pair.
Sugar Capri and her daughter, Lacey.
‘Daisy, I happened to notice you talking to the Capris earlier.’ AnnaLise and her mother were standing to the side of where Boozer and his minions were, thankfully, finishing their work. ‘Are they,’ the wordsmith daughter was desperately searching her mental thesaurus for any ‘soft’ adjective, settling lamely on, ‘… nice?’
Daisy’s eyebrows rose. ‘Nice? Well, I suppose so. At least, for gold-diggers.’
AnnaLise, ever the contrarian, jumped to the gold-diggers’ defense. ‘Now that’s not fair. From everything I’ve heard, this is all on Dickens Hart. First the original incident – crime, really – and now, inviting them over Boozer’s objection.’
Daisy scrunched up her nose. ‘What original incident?’
AnnaLise felt her eyes go wide. There was nothing to be gained by sharing Sugar’s chronological age at the time Hart ‘had’ her. And with few exceptions, everything that went into Daisy’s ear eventually came out of Mama’s mouth.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ the journalist said.
‘What do you mean, “nothing”?’ her mom said, hands in a what’s-up-with-this posture. ‘You’re obviously privy to something I’m not, and it feels like you’re trying to spare a poor, failing parent something that might hurt me.’
‘Privy?’ AnnaLise squeaked, trying to buy time to come up with something plausible. ‘Good word, but I’m not privy to anything. I thought you were and that if you thought I knew, you’d tell me.’ Convoluted, but not entirely ridiculous. She hoped. ‘Besides, you’re the one who just called them gold-diggers.’
‘I did not.’
AnnaLise’s stomach dropped, like it always did when her mother forgot a short-term memory these days. At first she had played along or laughed it off, even pretended it hadn’t happened at all. Now she tried to spark her mother’s recall. ‘Yes, you did. Barely two minutes ago.’
Daisy rolled her eyes. ‘Please wipe that ‘“Daisy’s-gone-nuts” expression off your face, AnnaLise. What I meant was that Sugar’s the one who said they’re gold-diggers. Along with everyone else here, of course. We even had a good laugh over it.’
That just didn’t compute for AnnaLise. ‘Did Sugar also say why they’d been invited in the first place? Dickens had a vasectomy twenty-eight years ago, so Lacey can’t be his daughter.’
‘Goodness.’ Daisy seemed taken aback. ‘You seem to know more about your father than I do.’
‘I’m writing his memoirs. At your urging, I might add. Information – the good, the bad and the ugly – kind of comes with the territory.’
‘True,’ Daisy seemed to sink inside herself, and AnnaLise fervently hoped that ‘Daisy’s-gone-nuts’ expression hadn’t returned to her own features.
Then her mother seemed to come up for rational air. ‘If you’re right about the timing of Dickens’ operation, then Lacey is far too young to be Dickens daughter. But …’
‘But what?’
Daisy actually smiled. ‘Sugar isn’t.’
TEN
‘Well, I just heard a sickening possibility.’
‘What’s that?’ Joy pulled a candidate wine bottle from the rack, read the label and shoved it back. She was trying to snag another bottle of the glorious cabernet from Hart’s wine cellar before dinner was announced, which would likely be done by a butler with a bell, given the tenor of the event so far. Or, maybe, a giant gong. ‘Sugar couldn’t be Dickens’ daughter, could she?’
‘God, no!’ Another bottle didn’t make Joy’s grade. ‘There’s a limit to even his perversity. But, tell me, where did you get that idea?’
‘Daisy.’
Bent over to peruse the lower shelves, Joy swiveled her head sideways toward AnnaLise, her eyes narrow. ‘Your mother?’
‘Oh, she doesn’t know anything about Dickens and Sugar – or, more specifically, her exact age at the time.’ Happily the cellar was dim, or Joy would have seen AnnaLise color up at the thought of how close she’d come to telling Daisy.
‘Good. Keep it that way.’ Joy slid another bottle out and, straightening, blew dust off the label so she could read it.
‘But Daisy – wrong though you say she is, thank the Lord – did make me think. Someone like Dickens who doesn’t stick, sexually speaking, to his own age group—’
‘No, he’s always stuck it to pretty much any woman who’s gotten too close for too long.’ The latest bottle went back in, too. ‘Damn. I could have sworn there was a case of the cab we were drinking.’
‘I know I was raised in an all-female household so maybe I’m naïve about this stuff,’ AnnaLise continued, undeterred, ‘but isn’t there some kind of male parallel to maternal instinct? You know, a protective predisposition that would deter somebody like Dickens from … umm …’
‘Doing?’ Joy supplied, inspecting another bottle.
Good a word as any. ‘OK, “doing” somebody young enough to be his daughter, if he had one?’
‘Which he does. You, should a reminder be needed.’
‘Believe me, I’d love to forget,’ AnnaLise muttered.
‘Listen, kid,’ Joy said, ‘I’m sure some would say the only instinct males have is to propagate the species via whatever “innies” accommodates their “outies,” but you’re not going to get that crap from me. As far as I’m concerned your birth father – and my ex-husband – is a pig. The trick is to figure out how to make bacon out of him.’
AnnaLise wrinkled her nose, a brunette echo of her blonde mother earlier that evening. ‘Like you did?’
‘Exactly. Ahh, here it is.’ She held up a bottle cruddy enough to have been found in a shipwreck. ‘And now I’m heading upstairs
, where a corkscrew and our glasses await.’
AnnaLise and Joy had the wine open and were sharing it with Shirley when Dickens Hart got around to them on his grand working of the room.
He took a look at the wine in the glasses, then lifted the bottle on the cocktail table next to them, evidently reading the label.
‘Anything wrong?’ Joy inquired sweetly.
‘Not at all.’ Hart set it down. ‘In fact, I hope you’re enjoying it, because we’re having the same wine with dinner.’
Even Joy looked surprised and, to AnnaLise, a little disappointed that she hadn’t succeeded in aggravating Hart. ‘You really are going all out—’
‘Dinner is served!’
It was neither butler nor gong, but a curvy platinum blonde of about forty. She was wearing a short skirt, five-inch heels and a white coat with ‘Chef Debbie’ embroidered on the pocket. ‘Could everyone please move into the dining room?’
They obeyed, only Hart hanging back to have a word with the chef.
AnnaLise stepped aside to let Shirley precede her. ‘Leave it to Dickens to find the best-looking chef in the hemisphere,’ the older woman said.
Following her into the dining room – which, thanks to Hart’s ‘pumping up’ of the heat – was a tad too toasty, AnnaLise saw a gigantic cornucopia overflowing with apples, pears and other autumn bounty serving as the centerpiece of a wide, linen-covered table. It had been set for thirteen – six on each side and one place at the head of the table. That chair had a red cushion on it – for Hart, himself, naturally.
‘Nice little touch, eh?’ Joy said in her ear.
‘What is?’ There was nothing ‘little’ about anything in the room.
‘The Horny Plenty.’ Joy nodded to the centerpiece. ‘Kind of strikes the vibe for the weekend.’
‘I thought it was a “horn of” plenty,’ said a young voice.
AnnaLise turned to see Lacey Capri. To support the girl, AnnaLise whispered, ‘Ignore her,’ indicating Joy, who was moving to the other side of the table. ‘It is a horn of plenty. Or a cornucopia.’
‘Ohmigod, that’s just the word I was trying to think of.’ Lacey blushed. ‘I’m kind of a word nerd.’
