by Duffy Brown
“Dinner’s in twenty minutes. It’s roast beef, mashed potatoes and Caesar salad. I think you’ll make it.”
I sat on the teal upholstered chair with cream-colored accent pillow and took a deep steadying breath. Sutter was right in that the place was nice and the expected food delish and way better than the Cheerios I’d probably have had for dinner back at the bike shop. But jail was jail.
So, what did anyone else do in this situation? Sleep? Cry? Sing “Jailhouse Rock”? Tunnel with a spoon? My singing ability was nonexistent and I didn’t have a spoon, so I pulled out Sheldon and hit speed dial. “Mother!”
8
“Rise and shine, jailbird, it’s morning!”
Dazed and confused, I bolted upright and jumped out of bed to see Mother standing at the foot of my bed. “Did . . . did I miss the bus?”
“And that’s been the topic of conversation in our family for years, dear, but such is the life of an artist.” Ann Louise Bloomfield, aka Carman, unlocked the cell door and handed me a mug of coffee. I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “Mother? Is it noon already, and how’d you get the key?”
“I remembered that Molly’s a pushover for strawberry smoothies, and I paid a college kid a hundred bucks so I could have his seat on an earlier flight. I caught the first ferry. It’s not every day my daughter winds up in the slammer.”
Mother took a sip of coffee and sat in the teal chair, and I plopped down on the edge of the bed. The caffeine ignited my brain cells and I remembered where I was and why. As for Ann Louise, she was still in her Chicago lawyer mode of perfectly pressed black skirt and white blouse. Her brunette hair seemed longer since I last saw her at Christmas back in Chicago, and today it was pulled into a silver clip with the natural curls combed into submission. She wore a light touch of Chanel makeup, matte lipstick, barely-there perfume and sensible black shoes.
This was the flawless mother I had known for all thirty-four years of my life, until Ann Louise came to Mackinac last year and morphed into Carman. Then she went shopping for a red dress, black lace and a man . . . a once-upon-a-time gangster-type man. And parents wondered why their kids wound up in therapy.
Mother settled back into the chair. She pulled protein bars from her purse and handed over the blueberry crunch. “So why are you incarcerated in this hellhole?”
I peeled off the wrapper and took a bite. “Fiona’s accused of murder,” I said around a mouthful of crumbs, with more dropping onto my wrinkled black shirt. “I waylaid Sutter so she could get away and find the real killer, and I wound up in here ’cause Sutter didn’t agree with my waylay tactics. Fiona knows the island better than I do, so she has a better shot at finding the killer. Everyone loves her and they’ll hide her till she figures this out. She should be okay and Sutter won’t find her, you can bet on that.”
“Really.” It wasn’t a question, it was a fact. A smile tipped the corner of Mother’s mouth. “So a graphic designer outsmarted a Detroit cop.”
“Yep, I did.” I noticed the twinkle in Mother’s eyes and suddenly didn’t feel quite so cocky. “Maybe I outsmarted him?” I stopped eating the bar. “Okay, what did I do?”
Mother took a bite of her bar, not one crumb daring to mar her silk blouse. She waved her hand around the cell with the door standing wide open and us sitting and chatting. “Evie, this is not the way a normal jail is run. There are usually locks, big ones and guards, mean ones. There’s no morning coffee with Mother. You were set up, dear. A certain policeman—who we all know and love, though some of us are amazingly slow at figuring that part out—considered there was a good chance you’d call me once you got in here. He knew I’d be living with you till my office is done, and even then I’ll be a whopping ten feet from your back door. I’m not exactly the Terminator, but more of an extra set of eyes, and Fiona has the rest of the island looking out for her.”
“You’re babysitting me?”
“Nate Sutter is aware of the fact that those who kill once have no trouble repeating the deed to keep from getting caught.” Mother sipped her coffee and gazed at me from over the rim of her mug. “Anything happen to you or Fiona to give the man the impression you might be in harm’s way?”
“Someone did kind of push Fiona down the steps.” I sat up straight and stiffened my spine. “That rat! Sutter knew I wouldn’t let Fiona go to jail and that you’d come.” I wagged my blueberry bar at Mother. “Instead of going through all this drama, he could have just said, ‘Evie, you smart intelligent girl, you’ve got to be real careful.’”
“And of course that would do the trick, just like the last time you went hunting for a killer. Picking locks? Breaking and entering? Nearly winding up as flotsam in Lake Huron? Any of this sound familiar?”
“He could have tried.”
“And he could have banged his head against a brick wall and gotten the same response.”
Molly hustled down the hall, a pink smoothie mustache decorating her top lip. “I’ve got to leave. There’s a disturbance down at the Seabiscuit Café. Zo and Madonna are at it again over that Peep guy, and this time there’s a food fight. At least the tourists think all of this is part of the mystery weekend, and the pictures winding up on Facebook aren’t giving the island a bad name. The whole thing looks more like a tourist attraction. Go figure.” Molly smiled at Mother. “Nice to see you here again, Carman. I made a fresh pot of coffee, and Irish Donna should be delivering scones any time. Key to the cell is on the hook in the office, and I’m locking up the place. You two can just enjoy your visit this morning. If you need me, my cell phone number is on my desk if you can get any bars on your phone.”
Molly hurried off, and Mother arched her left eyebrow.
“All right, all right,” I conceded. “This isn’t jail. This is the Holiday Inn with iron bars and better food.”
“Zo? Madonna? Peep? What in the world?”
“It’s the Hollywood invasion, and since Molly left the cell door open we should follow her. Zo’s the mistress/secretary, Madonna’s the ticked-off wife and Peep’s the dead guy those two are fighting over alive and dead, though God in heaven only knows why. Maybe we’ll find something out at the food fight; my guess is Madonna and Zo know more than they’re letting on. Fiona can’t show her face in public, but we can.”
Mother finished her coffee, then ran her fingers through her hair, setting the shiny curls free. She undid two blouse buttons, then rolled up her skirt, shorting it above her knees. She redid her lipstick in cherry red. “Ta-da!” She held her arms wide. “Carman lives.”
“And I look a mess.” I brushed the crumbs from my shirt and tried to smooth out the wrinkles.
“Everyone knows you’ve been in jail and that you’re trying to help Fiona. You look . . . heroic.”
“A year ago you would have insisted I change before we go out in public.”
“A year ago I was married, a snob with a new boob job, and did everything by the book. Look where that got me: a rotten divorce, my ex now married to Miss Ooh La La Skinny-Pants and suing me for alimony.”
Mother closed the jail door and I hung the cell key on the wall hook next to the other one. I looked at the cell, then reclaimed the key.
“A little souvenir of your life in the big house?” Mother laughed.
“The way things are going, and they aren’t going all that well, I might wind up in here again. The next time it might not be so pleasant with doors open and local scone deliveries.” I walked over to the Pottery Barn chair and stuffed the key between the seat and the back. “Insurance.”
“That’s my girl.” Mother patted me on the back and I locked the police station behind us, and we started down Market Street. The temp hovered in the high sixties as we headed for the Seabiscuit. I filled Mother in on the Hollywood hellions and how it involved Fiona. “You really got the fudgies buying into the fact that there’s a murder mystery weekend going on
?” Mother asked me. “How’d you get Nate Sutter to fall for that one?”
“It was either go along with it or he’d have to tell everyone there was a murder at the Grand and this island would be a ghost town for the rest of the summer. I figure the killer is still on the island because he or she needs the missing phone. Whoever it is has done a bang-up job of framing Fiona.”
“Meaning they know Fiona. This isn’t a chance murder, Evie; it’s a setup, a smart person who knows Fiona had motive and opportunity. They polish off Peep and Fiona takes the fall. Or,” Mother added, a thoughtful look in her eye, “maybe they didn’t know Fiona at all, but having her around when they knocked off Peep was a happy accident. Fiona might be nothing more than a convenient patsy.”
“You’re not making this any easier, you know.”
“Murder never is, dear.”
Most of the little shops along Main were still closed at eight AM, but a few restaurants were open for breakfast. A crowd including Gabi and the Corpse Crusaders had their noses plastered to the plate-glass window of the Seabiscuit while yelling and screaming spilled out the open door, polluting the island peace and quiet. I elbowed my way past picture-snapping tourists outside and inside to Madonna and Zo squared off in the middle of the horse-themed restaurant. Molly stood between them, arms outstretched to keep them apart, and she was decorated with breakfast shrapnel. Was that part of a Western omelet on her shoulder?
“You’re crazy, you know that,” Madonna bellowed. “I’m burying him in the family plot back in Iowa, and that’s all there is to it.” Madonna hurled a sticky bun at Zo, and it landed on top of Molly’s head. If it hadn’t been sticky it might have passed for a fashion statement.
“Iowa?” Zo roared, her eyes bulging. She flung a half-eaten jelly doughnut at Madonna, hitting Molly on the shoulder. “The Peep, my wonderful Peepster, should be buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where, like, so many of those he wrote about are buried!”
“Wrote about? Give me a break!” Madonna scoffed. “Try dished dirt and fabricated lies. Peep made their lives a living hell. If you bury him there they’ll all turn into zombies, dig him up and toss his bony alcohol-infused carcass onto Santa Monica Boulevard and hope the buzzards eat his liver.”
“He, like, made their lives interesting!” Zo added. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, they all griped and complained, but he, like, kept their names in the limelight. Deep down inside they all loved him, and that’s more than I can say for you.”
“Enough,” Molly said, as a sausage link smacked her across the nose. “I’ll toss you both in jail for disturbing the peace if you keep this up.”
“And jail’s where she belongs.” Madonna glared at Zo. “She killed Peep, I know she did. He wouldn’t marry her and she popped him one on the head.”
“That’s a lie. Like, I was out biking. I even have an alibi!” Zo pointed to me. “She saw me riding around, so I was nowhere on that porch to push my poor Peep off.” Zo swiped away a tear. “We all know you’re the one who killed him.” Zo jutted one hip. “You just couldn’t take it that he liked me better than you.”
Madonna flipped her hair from her face, leaving a smear of jelly. “You were nothing but an easy roll in the hay, and there’s no way I could have knocked off Peep ’cause I was having dinner. If I’d hit him with the olive oil bottle, I would have the oil all over my white suit, and I love that suit. Besides, I was arguing with Officer Sutter when they found Peep in the bushes.” Madonna pointed to Sutter hustling through the door. “The hotel clerk called the police when you and I were arguing, remember? So, you little tramp, that makes the police my alibi. Beat that one.”
“Everybody shut up!” Sutter bellowed, and joined Molly center stage. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said, grabbing the sleeve of Madonna’s gold jacket in one hand and the back of Zo’s pink fleece with the other. “You two are leaving this place right now with me, and the next time there’s Peep combat I’m locking you both up in the same cell and not opening it till Christmas. Got it?”
“Oh, this is fantastic,” Gabi squealed, and she scribbled in her notebook with all the onlookers nodding in agreement. “Best mystery week ever. The whole island’s involved, it doesn’t get better than that.” She held up her iPhone. “I’ve been retweeted fifty times and got seventy likes on my Facebook page. I’m viral!”
“This isn’t a game!” Madonna stamped her foot. “Don’t you get it, this is for real.”
Gabi grinned. “You all are amazing actors. I think you should win awards. We’ll have a big dinner when this is over and get trophies and ribbons and maybe roll out a red carpet like they do at the Oscars,” she added, as the crowd nodded in agreement.
“Red carpet,” Sutter mumbled, his eyes starting to cross. “The show’s over, folks.” He ushered Hollywood one and two toward the door and turned to a waitress with Mable on her nametag. She looked startled and totally flustered. Actually she sort of looked like . . . Holy cow!
“Is that Fiona?” Mother whispered to me as Sutter said to the waitress in question, “You need to get a mop and broom. Do it now. People are watching.”
Fiona/Mable bent down and started scooping up breakfast carnage, and I scooted down beside her and picked up two wilted sausage links.
“What are you doing?” I whispered as Sutter and company disappeared out the door.
“Getting information like you are,” Fiona whispered. “How’d you get out of jail? And go away, you’re ruining my cover.”
“Molly left the door open. I hid the spare key in case I wind up in there again, and you have plastic red braids left over from Irma’s Raggedy Ann Halloween costume. The blown ship has sailed.”
“I spent the night at Irma’s and it was either Raggedy Ann or an orange pumpkin.”
“You should have gone with the pumpkin.”
Mother yanked me to my feet. “We need to go. People are staring.”
“Do you think Sutter knew it was Fiona?” I asked as I followed Mother outside and the two of us headed toward the bike shop.
“My guess is Detroit’s looking pretty good to him right now, and is that Rudy waving to us from the front porch of the Good Stuff? He looks sort of frazzled. It’s a morning of frazzled. And to think some people come here for a vacation.”
Mother and I waved back, and Rudy’s wave got a little more frantic. His wild gray hair stuck out as if he’d been hit by lightning, and his eyes were about the same.
“It’s Irma.” Rudy wiped his hands on his red apron with The Good Stuff scripted in white across the front. “She’s been at the brandy cordial fudge since six.”
Rudy led us inside to an old CD player blaring “I’m Gettin’ Married in the Morning” from My Fair Lady and Irma twirling around the adorable yellow-and-white shop that had the marble tables used for making fudge on one side and soda-shop-style tables and chairs on the other side.
“She got this way from fudge?” Mother asked, giving Irma a worried look.
“That brandy bottle in her hand might have spurred things along.” Rudy hooked his arm around Irma as she swept by to try to slow her down, except Irma snagged Rudy and pulled him along into the dance.
“I love this song,” she belted out in time with the music. “But it’s never going to happen. Nope, there’s no church or anything else for me and my man Rudy here. We’re doomed.”
She took a swig from the bottle and burped. “My dress is out there in the great unknown, probably shipped off to somebody else somewhere, and I’ll never get it back on time; the Butterfly Conservatory has the plague, and now Reverend Lovejoy has no more love or joy and has been hospitalized for an overdose of Viagra. Seems his twenty-something wife wanted more than just a senior moment.”
Mother looked at me. “Irma doesn’t have a wedding dress or venue or preacher?”
“It’s a sign,” Irma singsonged. “A big fat flashing sign t
hat I’m not supposed to get married. I’ve been done in by a drunk clerk, aphids and a little blue pill.” Irma took another swig, her eyes glazing over.
Rudy pulled the bottle out of Irma’s hand and passed it off to me as she swung by on another dance twirl. “Nonsense,” he cooed to Irma. “We’re getting married, we’ll figure this out.”
On the next go-round I grabbed one of Irma’s arms and Mother snagged the other. “You’re ruining my fun,” Irma protested. “And right now there’s not much of it, I can tell you that.”
“And there’s going to be even less when the hangover sets in,” I added. With one of Irma’s arms draped around each of our shoulders, Mother led the way to the back kitchen. Rudy opened the door to rows of white cabinets, crisp floral sunflower curtains at the window and two big vats of fudge bubbling on the ginormous gas stove. Little curls of steam escaped over the edge of the pots, and the scent of rich chocolate wafted through the kitchen. Rudy pulled out a chair at the wood table set for breakfast and we plopped Irma down, with Rudy holding her upright.
“I’ll get coffee.” I grabbed the carafe from the maker as Mother said, “I don’t think there’s enough caffeine on the whole island to sober her up.”
“Sober?” Irma hiccupped. “Who wants to be sober at a time like this?” She whacked a spoon on the table. “I want a dress, I want to dance, I want to get married!” Suddenly she lurched forward, landing face first in the plate of waffles.
“Holy moly! Is she okay?” I asked Rudy as he bent over her.
“Sleeping is all. Soon she’ll be snoring like a grizzly and if we wake her she’ll have an attitude to match. She’s been up all night since she got the Viagra phone call. I think it’s the stress that’s got her in a state.”
Mother held up the brandy bottle. “That and half a bottle of cherry cordial.”
Rudy took off his apron and draped it around Irma’s shoulders. He turned her face to one side and wiped a drip of syrup from her nose. “You know, I wanted to elope, but we both have so many friends on the island it didn’t seem right to just run off like that. I hate to drag you two into this since you’re so busy trying to help Fiona out of her mess.”
