by Lee Hollis
“Is everything all right, Marla?”
“Yes, fine. I’m just going to take a quick bathroom break.”
Marla stood up and slowly walked away from her desk, glancing back once and shaking her head as if pleading, demanding, Hayley not trespass on what she clearly considered her territory.
“Anyway,” Aaron said. “If you’d like to go—”
“I already have plans,” Hayley said, the words falling out of her mouth.
Wait.
She couldn’t leave it like that.
That sounded like she was turning him down. “I mean, some friends of mine, the Garbers, are having me over for dinner before the ball. They said I could bring a . . . friend if I wanted, so I’m sure you’d be welcome. . . .”
“And then you would accompany me to the ball after dinner?”
“Uh, sure, yes, that would be lovely.”
Lovely. Did I really just say “lovely”?
She might as well be wearing a hoopskirt and white gloves and bow to him at this point as if he were Mr. Darcy and she were Elizabeth Bennet.
“Excellent. I’m sure Marla has your address in Leroy and Blueberry’s files. When is dinner?”
“Seven.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at six forty-five. I’m really looking forward to it, Hayley.”
“Me too,” Hayley said, trying not to bubble over with too much euphoria and say something silly or stupid like she was usually prone to do.
She felt her mouth opening.
No, don’t.
Just keep your lips shut tight and don’t blow this incredible moment by talking.
Marla careened back around the corner at that moment, saving Hayley from herself.
“Do you have Hayley’s home address, Marla? We’re going out tomorrow night.”
“Oh yes, I . . . Yes, I do. I’ll make sure to text it to your phone so you have it,” Marla said.
Marla looked like she was going to throw up.
It was a good thing Hayley didn’t think to record Marla heaving her lunch on her iPhone camera. She just might be tempted to post it on YouTube in order to take the heat off herself.
Suddenly the YouTube humiliation didn’t seem so important.
She had a date with a handsome, sexy doctor.
Things were definitely looking up.
Chapter 23
Hayley felt incredibly foolish combing through Mark and Mary Garber’s medicine cabinet while dressed in a vintage rockabilly blue-and-white floral huge sweep-circle swing dress, with a frilly white apron tied around it, and matching blue clogging shoes. And then there was the woven-straw Minnie Pearl hat, complete with the price tag dangling off it. She didn’t have much of a choice. This was the night of one of Bar Harbor’s most popular winter events, the Hayseed Ball. So there was no point in showing up in a simple black cocktail dress.
Hayley didn’t find much in the bathroom, so she tried to move quietly to the bedroom, but it was impossible to be quiet in clogging shoes. Luckily, downstairs the Garbers were on their third round of drinks, so the volume of the chatter and laughter was reaching earsplitting levels, which drowned out Hayley banging around upstairs searching for clues.
Her date for the evening, Dr. Aaron Palmer, was probably wondering what was taking her so damn long just to powder her nose, but this was Hayley’s one and only chance to see if she could drum up some kind of tangible evidence besides the lawsuit linking the Garbers to the murder.
If, in fact, it was a murder.
She still had no concrete proof, and all the current evidence went against her theory of foul play. But Hayley had a strong feeling, a persistent intuition, and she was determined to prove herself right.
She wished she could just forget it. Accept the facts as they appeared. It would be a lot easier. She could just enjoy her first of what she hoped would be many more dates with the handsome, new vet.
When he showed up at her door, the vet was wearing a brown-and-green long-sleeved flannel shirt, jean overalls, and black boots. He was chewing comically on a hayseed. In Hayley’s eyes he might as well have been wearing a stylish black Carlyle tuxedo.
He even playfully used a country drawl as he remarked how “dang pretty” Hayley looked in her smock as he took her by the hand and led her to a weathered, old pickup truck with bales of hay stacked in the flatbed.
Man, he went all out preparing for this ball.
And it did the trick.
Hayley hadn’t experienced a hot farmer/hick fantasy since she drooled over Tom Wopat, one of the beer-guzzling, fast-riding, sweet-talking brothers on that old Dukes of Hazzard show, which she caught in reruns when she was in high school.
Aaron opened the squeaky passenger-side door of the truck and held it open for Hayley, who curtsied before climbing in and straightening out her dress. The hoop kept rising up; so to keep from revealing her white silk panties to Aaron, she had to force it down with her hands as she sat there.
He hopped into the driver’s seat and tried three times to start the truck before the engine finally sputtered to life.
The Hayseed Ball was established in 1894 and hosted by forty Hayseeders, most descendants of the local men who started it. The only way to get an invitation was to be a guest of one of the Hayseeders. The origin of the event began as a way for locals to blow off steam in midwinter after all the wealthy colony people, like the Rockefellers and the Fords, had locked up their summer estates after the season and were long gone. A lot of locals were resentful of being treated like “hayseeds” by the rich folks, so the ball was a creative way for them to thumb their noses at the well-to-do when they weren’t around. The attendees mocked the rich folks’ impression of the locals, who fished and gardened and generally looked after the upper-class residents’ every need.
Mark and Mary Garber were new to town and had no familial connections to the Hayseeders. However, Mark was so gregarious and likeable, one elderly Hayseeder, who had no children or brothers to pass his membership onto, willed his to Mark after Mark painted his house the previous fall for no money. So now Mark was a bona fide Hayseeder, and this was his first ball. A celebratory dinner beforehand for his personal guests to the ball was a must.
“Hayley, what the hell are you doing?” Mary Garber slurred, sloshing a glass of bourbon around, her hand on her hip. She was wearing a red blouse with puffy sleeves and a skirt with two mini-tiered ruffles, trimmed with ricrac in navy, green, and red and layered with white eyelets. She couldn’t have looked more adorable.
Or accusatory as she stared at Hayley rifling through the dresser drawer in her bedroom.
“I . . . I was looking f-for . . . ,” Hayley stammered.
She was caught red-handed.
It would be fruitless to lie at this point.
It was better just to confess and take her licks. “I knew you were having a lot of problems with Bessie Winthrop, and I’m still not entirely convinced she died of natural causes, and so I thought since I was here, I could take the opportunity to look around and see if—”
“You think Mark and I bumped her off?” Mary’s eyes widened.
Hayley shook her head emphatically. “No, not at all, it’s just that—”
“You do! You think we killed her because she was suing us!”
Hayley’s mouth was open, but no words were coming out.
She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what.
“That is so . . . exciting!” Mary squealed, swigging the rest of her bourbon and then grabbing Hayley by the hand and dragging her back down the stairs. “Everyone, you have to hear this! It’s hilarious!”
“Mary, please, I don’t think we should tell people. . . .”
But it was too late.
Mary had a viselike grip on Hayley’s wrist as she pulled her into the dining room, where her other guests, including local lawyer Ted Rivers, a Hayseeder himself, his wife, Sissy, along with Aaron, Mary’s husband, Mark, and another couple Hayley had just met, were seated at the lo
ng table.
“Mark, you’re going to love this!” Mary said, still grasping Hayley. “We all know Hayley is Bar Harbor’s very own Jessica Fletcher, amateur sleuth at large, investigating murders and keeping the bad guys off the street. . . .”
Mark nodded, smiling.
Aaron watched, curious about where this was going.
“Well, it seems that Hayley thinks we did it! You and me! We somehow knocked Bessie off because she was giving us such a hard time about our renovation plans!”
There was a stunned silence.
The guests just sat in their seats, digesting this revelation.
“I caught her going through our drawers, hoping to find some kind of incriminating evidence the cops could use to arrest us! Isn’t that the funniest thing you ever heard? How wonderful! Come on, admit it! You’ve all wanted to be murder suspects in an Agatha Christie novel. Am I right?”
More silence.
And then Mark chuckled.
Which paved the way for the rest of the guests to join in.
Pretty soon everybody was laughing.
Full-on belly laughing.
Hayley was not so naive to think they were laughing with her.
They were definitely laughing at her.
And at the absurdity of her actually believing the Garbers were a pair of coldhearted killers a la Bonnie and Clyde.
In hindsight it did seem a tad foolish.
The laughter was building, mostly because all the guests were feeling no pain from their cocktails. In fact, Mark’s guffawing was so infectious that pretty soon the entire room was filled with an explosion of cackles and giggles and howling.
Only one person wasn’t doubled over, roaring with laughter.
Aaron stood up from the table, crossed to Hayley, and whispered in her ear, “Is this the only reason you agreed to come out with me tonight? So you could snoop around the Garbers’ house?”
“No, Aaron. I swear. I mean, yes, it did cross my mind that while we were here, I might find a moment to excuse myself and look around. But in all honesty, I was looking forward to spending time with you and getting to know you.”
Aaron nodded, but he was frowning.
Not entirely convinced she was telling him the truth.
Chapter 24
Hayley tried her best to put her faux pas at the Garbers’ house out of her mind as Aaron escorted her into the Masonic Hall for the Hayseed Ball. The room was decorated with pea brush and enough red, white, and blue balloons for a Republican convention. There was also sand on the dance floor.
Hayley hoped no one would slip and fall and break a hip.
There was a big banner draped across the entrance with the names of the dances, waltzes, and quadrilles, with deliberate spelling mistakes, since Hayseeds were obviously much too stupid and uncultured to be good spellers. A four-piece band played old-school dance music from the Great Depression era. Off to the side was a cash bar and a food table that only offered traditional Hayseeder snacks, such as doughnuts, dried salt codfish, and a cheddar-cheese plate. An old newsreel from the 1930s with clips of breadlines and Shirley Temple was projected on the back white wall of the hall.
Mary made a beeline for Sabrina, who was decked out in a tight-fitting pink lace “Puttin’ on the Ritz” flapper dress and a black feathered headband and matching boa. She was on the arm of her husband, who was in a smart gray pin-striped suit, looking nothing like a Hayseeder but rather the reviled enemy. In fact, he looked exactly like the slimy lawyer Richard Gere played in the movie musical Chicago. Sabrina must have put the kibosh on dressing like a poor farmer and his wife, despite how out of place they would look.
Hayley watched as Mary chatted with Sabrina.
Sabrina’s smile slowly faded.
Hayley knew in her gut what they were talking about.
Especially when Sabrina turned her head in Hayley’s direction and did a slow burn, with her eyes boring into her.
“I’ll go get us some drinks,” Aaron said, crossing to the bar.
Hayley didn’t want him to go. Aaron was probably her only protection from the furiously vindictive Sabrina, who was now marching over to her.
“Sabrina, let me explain,” Hayley mumbled, defensively putting her hands up in front of her face in case Sabrina tried to take a swing at her.
“You just can’t let it go, can you, Hayley? You are obsessed with your nonstop campaign to smear my good name!”
“This has nothing to do with you, Sabrina—”
“This has everything to do with me, and you know it!”
The band suddenly started playing “Turkey in the Straw” and a dozen couples lined up and began dancing the Winter Solstice, forming a big square with one couple dancing in the middle.
The music drowned out Sabrina, who at the moment was wagging a finger in front of Hayley’s face and rattling off a litany of complaints about Hayley she had harbored since high school.
This did not bode well for their reunion, which was scheduled for next summer.
In a gesture of sympathy, Sabrina’s husband, Jerry, finally took Hayley’s hand and bowed to her. “May I have this dance, madam?”
Hayley glanced at Sabrina, who stopped yelling at Hayley and spun around to glare at her husband for so rudely interrupting her.
He avoided eye contact, whisking Hayley out onto the dance floor to stomp and whistle and clap with the other couples in the country hoedown.
“That was my attempt to defuse the situation!” Jerry yelled into Hayley’s ear over the music.
“I’m betting you pay for that later,” Hayley shouted, “dearly!”
“She’s just threatened by you, that’s all.”
“Me? How could she be threatened by me? She’s a doctor!”
“Yeah, a doctor who can’t cook or write. Those are skills you excel at. The one thing she’s good at is finding answers to how or why somebody died. And ever since you started becoming this amateur sleuth—with a pretty good track record, I might add—she feels you’re encroaching on her hallowed territory. And it’s driving her nuts!”
“I never thought of it that way,” Hayley said. “I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t do anything like that intentionally, Hayley. But there is one thing you always need to remember about my wife.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s crazy. I’m not talking about eccentric or weird or quirky. I mean one hundred percent all-out ‘someone get a straightjacket’ bat-shit crazy! But that doesn’t mean I don’t love her,” Jerry said, laughing.
A man tapped Jerry on the shoulder. “May I cut in?”
It was Cody Donovan.
“No!” Hayley screamed over the music.
But it was too late.
Cody pushed Jerry aside and took Hayley into his arms, sweeping her around the dance floor. She tried to struggle free, but his grip on her was too strong. The more she wiggled, the tighter his arm fastened around her back and he squeezed her hand.
“I didn’t mean to scare you the other day, Hayley. I just had to get my feelings for you off my chest.”
“Cody, I can’t breathe—”
“Just hear me out. I haven’t been happy in my marriage for a long, long time. I’ve forgotten what being happy even feels like. That is, until I see you. And then I’m like one of those animated Valentine’s Day e-cards, where the little brown bear is dancing in the meadow and all those little pulsing hearts come flying out of him when he sees the cute-as-pie girl bear in the pink skirt, looking all shy and demure.”
“I’ve never seen an e-card like that, Cody. Now let go.”
But he didn’t let go.
He was afraid if he did, this would be his last chance to try and win Hayley over, since she was not cooperating with his plan to rekindle a fiery romance.
Suddenly they were in the middle of the square, with all the other dancers stomping their feet and clapping around them. Cody tried to spin Hayley in a circle, but she nailed him in the boot wi
th the heel of her shoe.
He howled in pain, finally letting her go. The band kept playing, but the Hayseeders stopped dancing as Cody hopped around on one foot, moaning.
All eyes were fixed on Hayley.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not a very good dancer,” Hayley said to the crowd, shrugging.
“I think it’s time we called it a night,” Aaron said.
Aaron.
She had forgotten all about him.
He had gone to get them some drinks and then she just left him on his own.
“Aaron, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Then, without warning, like a flash flood, a torrent of red liquid came gushing out of nowhere, splashing Hayley and Aaron. It was sticky and messy and matted her hair and stained her dress. She fished a lemon wedge out of her hairdo, which now looked like a rat’s nest.
“Stay away from my husband!” Kerry Donovan bawled as tears streamed down her rosy-red cheeks.
She was holding an empty punch bowl.
Aaron wiped the fruit punch off his face with a handkerchief from the pocket of his overalls and didn’t say a word.
Kerry then hurled the punch bowl at Hayley, who ducked sideways. It sailed past her and smashed to pieces on the floor.
The band finally stopped playing to investigate the commotion.
A despondent Kerry Donovan ran out of the Masonic Hall, her high heels clicking.
No one else dared to move.
Aaron finished wiping off his face and then, without saying a word, walked out of the Masonic Hall. Hayley followed him to apologize, but he was in no mood to hear it. He motioned for her to get in the truck and then drove her home.
There was very little conversation on the way.
A halfhearted “Are you warm enough?”
A clearing of the throat.
Within minutes he was dropping her off on her doorstep.
There was a mumbled thank-you and a goodnight.
Definitely no kiss on the lips.
Or cheek.
Or anywhere for that matter.
Hayley knew that was pretty much it.
They were done.
So much for the handsome, new vet.
