Grandma greets him with a coy finger wave. “Oh, goodie. Stanley’s here.”
I leap from the swing, causing it to yaw violently. Grandma shrieks and clings to the seat. “For pity’s sake, Allegra!”
“Sorry,” I mutter and grab the armrest to slow it down. Ignoring Dodie’s rendition of a squawking chicken, I slink into the house.
Chapter 8
Susan and I sit at her kitchen table drinking diet soda and eating warm chocolate chip cookies. Ever vigilant, I’m careful to eat only the broken ones. Nick makes a brief appearance to give me Sara’s notebook and Bible. He swoops down on the cookies, grabs a handful, and drifts away.
“So, you know about this place—the WWJD Winery?” I ask Susan.
“Yeah, I met the guy who runs it.” She breaks a cookie in half. “Weird dude named Gordon Venable. He’s a CPA. Doesn’t know jack about vineyards.”
“Why would Hunt have a guy like Venable running it? Tax write-off?”
“Could be, but they get lots of traffic on the weekends. I assume it’s making money.”
We both reach for the other half cookie. I back off.
“Maybe Reverend Hunt’s using the profit for good works,” I say.
“Possibly, if good works include living in a three-story house on Paradise Point.” Susan pauses and smiles. “And he’s probably serving the poor and needy zipping around town in his Mercedes convertible.”
I raise an eyebrow. “He sounds shady. As conservative as Vista Valley is, I’m surprised he hasn’t been run out of town.”
Susan’s eyes gleam. “Apparently it doesn’t hurt to have a police captain and three members of the city council in your congregation.”
I shake my head in wonder. “How do you know this stuff?”
“Monthly wine tasting at Quail Hollow. The boss likes us all to show up. Folks under the influence of a fine cabernet tend to run off at the mouth.”
“Except you, of course.”
Susan grins. “Just a fly on the wall.”
I take a couple cookies for the road, gather up Sara’s stuff, and head for the door. Susan walks me to my truck, a worry line creasing her forehead. I feel a tingle of alarm.
“Is Nick okay?” I ask, sliding behind the wheel.
She braces one hand against the open door and leans over. “Now don’t kill the messenger, but Harley called. He wants to talk to you.”
“Harley? Why? I’ve got nothing to say to him.”
Susan says sharply, “Maybe if you could stop being mad at Harley, you could move on with your life.”
I stare at her in disbelief. Susan is my friend. She’s supposed to be on my side. A bitter brew of outrage and frustration boils over into my words. “Move on? Are you saying it was my fault he hit me?”
She grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Of course it wasn’t your fault, honey. Harley should’ve had his ass kicked. God knows I’ve told him often enough. I’m just saying you brought some baggage into the marriage, too. If I’m not mistaken, you married Harley to please your mother.”
“But she had cancer,” I say. My voice is choked with tears. “I thought she was dying. I treated her like shit for so many years … I just wanted her to be happy.”
I’ve poured so much energy into hating Harley it’s unthinkable to believe I deserve some of the blame.
“But she didn’t die.”
“Yeah,” I say. “The nerve of the woman!”
We both giggle. I swipe at my eyes.
“Harley called last night,” Susan says. “He’s had some sort of epiphany and wants to see you when he’s home on leave.”
“What about Melissa or Melinda or Melody—or whatever the hell her name is? The one who was going to be the perfect officer’s wife?”
“Meredith is no longer in the picture,” Susan says with a smirk. “Part of the reason for the epiphany, I think.”
“I don’t know, Susan. I really like it when Harley and I have an ocean and a continent between us.”
“Think of it as a therapy session.” She brings my hand to her cheek. “Surely you realize every time a guy gets close to you, you find a reason to break it off.”
I bristle. “Like who?”
Without a moment’s hesitation she says, “Jerry Hannigan. He’s smart, good-looking, has a great job…”
“He chews like a rabbit. His nose twitches. He does other things like a rabbit, too.”
Susan snorts. “You’re too picky. We live in Vista Valley, for God’s sake. What about Michael?”
I snatch my hand back. “Not my fault. If that jerk Sloan hadn’t been fondling my underwear …”
Susan shakes her head sadly then leans over and pecks me on the cheek. “Love ya, sis. Just think about what I said. Okay?”
Not trusting myself to speak, I nod and try to swallow the walnut-sized lump in my throat. I pull slowly out of the driveway. Damn it, I know Susan’s right. I should think about what she said, and I will. But not now.
Thursday
I pictured Peggy Mooney as a round-faced, amply bosomed, jolly woman who dispensed hugs and motherly advice to the foster kids in her care. The name probably fooled me.
Using my cell phone, I try all day to get through to her. She calls back just as the dismissal bell rings to say she’s far too busy and, really, she has nothing to say about Sara anyway.
At 4:30, I’m in the waiting room of the Department of Social and Health Services, where a harried secretary guards an open door leading to a warren of offices. I’ve already spotted a blue Taurus in the parking lot.
“Is she with somebody right now?” I say to the secretary.
“Her last appointment just left. She’s getting caught up on paperwork.”
“I’ll wait.”
“But…”
I stand up and take a step toward the open door.
“No!” The woman shrieks and grabs the phone. The swivel chair spins around until her back is to me. She crouches over the receiver, and I catch “refuses to leave” and “uh huh.”
I edge closer to the door and look down the hall. About a third of the way down, a woman’s head pops out for a quick peek.
“Miss Mooney will see you now,” the secretary announces, happily back in control. “Third door on the right.”
I bound into Peggy’s office like a frisky puppy then extend a paw to be shaken. “Hi, Ms. Mooney. Thanks for seeing me.”
Frozen over her desk chair, she clutches her purse in one hand and briefcase in the other. She sets her purse down, takes my outstretched hand in her fingertips and gives it a teensy squeeze. I’d bet money she has a bottle of hand sanitizer in her desk drawer.
She sits and waves me into a chair, which I immediately pull up, cozy-like, next to her desk. She’s a tall, spare woman; her short, brown hair is parted severely and sprayed into complete and utter submission. My fingers itch to tousle it. She’s dressed in a charcoal suit that drains the color from her face.
“What can I do for you, Miss Thome?”
Her tone is clipped and icy. Once again I feel a wave of pity for Sara.
“As I told you on the phone, I’m Sara Stepanek’s teacher.”
I wait and watch. Had something flickered in her cool gray eyes?
She nods. “You’re aware she left a note when she ran away?”
“Yes, but I’m concerned about her, as I know you must be. Have you notified the police?”
She blinks slowly before replying. “Do you think a runaway teenage girl is high priority to the police? Especially a girl in foster care?”
“So you did inform the police?” I persist.
“It’s our procedure.” She stands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must go. I have another meeting.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
I hold the door open for her. “Did you know Sara was seeing her father?”
She stops and gives me an annoyed glare. “How did you come by that information?”
Peggy Mooney is very good a
t answering a question with one of her own, a skill no doubt honed from years of experience with impertinent clients.
“She told a mutual friend.”
Pulling the door shut, she locks it then turns to face me. “Well, there you go. She’s probably with her dad. End of story.”
She pretends I’m not there as we walk through the waiting room. We exit the building, and I trail behind until she approaches the blue Taurus.
“Just curious, Ms. Mooney—when did you last see Sara?”
She heaves an exasperated sigh. “I’d have to check my daybook, but Sara and I had a standing appointment on Tuesdays. Why do you ask?”
Again with the questions!
“One of my students saw Sara in a blue Taurus last Friday night. You know, the night she disappeared. I thought maybe she was with you.”
Two spots of color appear on her sallow cheeks. She snaps, “Well, she wasn’t, and I resent the insinuation that I’m lying.”
I give her a big, friendly smile and gush, “Oh, gracious, you’re taking this wrong. No innuendo intended. I just assumed you’d taken her out for a bite to eat and she ran away later.”
She makes no effort to hide the hostility in her eyes. “I don’t take clients out to eat.”
She turns and unlocks her car with a keyless remote. I watch her drive away and murmur, “I’ll bet you don’t, lady.”
I drive home determined to put the frosty Ms. Mooney out of my mind.
Instead, I savor the gorgeous, early June weather knowing I shouldn’t. Ask any teacher the ideal weather for the end of the school year and they’ll tell you, “Cold … rainy … dismal.” Kids, especially teens with rampaging hormones, go nuts as summer vacation approaches, especially if the weather turns hot. Attention spans grow shorter, along with the girls’ clothing. The boys, dazzled by the smorgasbord of female flesh, find it even more difficult to focus, and worn-out teachers struggle to keep order. With my students—times ten!
But, for now, I revel in the brilliant azure sky and verdant hills surrounding Vista Valley. By mid-July, the sky will be a pale, washed-out version of today’s exquisite color and the hills brown and sere, baking in the blast furnace of summer.
I pull into the driveway and groan. Damn! Lefty is back. In April, Vlad bounded through the cat door with a half-dead robin in his mouth. Grandma nursed the bird back to health in a shoebox. Though he was missing an eye and had a droopy right wing, Lefty, the one-eyed robin, was pronounced fit and set free.
Sadly, Lefty doesn’t want to be free. He flies from window to window and flings himself repeatedly against the pane. After scrambling his tiny brain, he perches on the sill, head cocked, staring at us with his one good eye. Dodie claims he’s in love with his own reflection.
In spite of his visual impairment, Lefty has pooped on my head three times. I run for the door, a newspaper covering my head, and find Dodie in the living room thumbing through Sara’s Bible and notebook. She looks up when I enter. “So did super kid figure it out?”
I shake my head. “Sara doesn’t like poetry but copied page after page from Grandma’s book. There’s nothing unique about the Bible. No inscription, no dog-eared corners, nothing written in the margin.”
I take the notebook from Dodie and rifle through the pages. Each poem is neatly written and uniformly spaced.
“Beats the hell out of me. Maybe she was practicing her penmanship.”
Dodie hands me the Bible. As I reach for it, Vlad leaps out from behind the couch with a hiss and a snarl. I shriek and fling myself backward into a club chair, raising my ankles skyward. The Bible skids across the hardwood floor.
“Damn you, Vlad!” I yell.
Mission accomplished, he plops down in a patch of sunlight and begins cleaning his whiskers. Keeping a wary eye on the beast, I pick up the Bible and start for the stairs when something falls to the floor with a clunk.
“What the hell?” Dodie says.
I bend over and pick up a piece of notebook paper folded around something hard.
“Must have been taped inside the spine,” Dodie says.
I unfold the paper to reveal a small key. “It has a number on it. Forty-two.”
Dodie looks it over. “Not a safety deposit box key. Could be to a storage unit.”
“Maybe it’s not about the Bible,” I muse. “Maybe it’s about the key.”
Dodie shrugs. Clutching the key, I head upstairs.
Halfway up, I hear Dodie say, “Almost forgot. Michael called. He said he’d be at the club.”
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, but he sounded uptight.”
I rack my brain in search of a reason Michael might be calling. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since the underwear fiasco.
The message light’s blinking on my phone. I press play and hear Marcy’s chirpy voice telling me she won’t be at school tomorrow. She’s exhausted and taking a personal day, but she’ll meet me at Brewski’s Pub tomorrow night for dinner at six sharp. Marcy likes Brewski’s and its abundance of horny softball players who flock around her like yellow jackets at a picnic. She occasionally tosses one of her rejects my way.
I tuck the mystery key in my jewelry case and jot down the details on a sticky note, adding it to the others. Before I can talk myself out of it, I call Michael at his club.
Michael had the foresight to start one of the first wineries in our area that, geographically, matches the wine-growing regions in Europe. When a huge wine conglomerate offered to buy him out, he jumped on it. Consequently, at thirty-eight, he’s joined the idle rich.
He answers on the third ring. “Hey, Michael, it’s Allegra.”
A brief silence is followed by a noncommittal “Hi. How are you?”
What am I doing? He probably thinks I’m calling to grovel and beg his forgiveness.
“I’m okay. Dodie said you called.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I got so bent out of shape the other day. I’d like to see you again.”
“You would?” I blurt.
“Yeah,” he says. “But what about the DEA guy?”
Good question. What about the DEA guy?
“There is no other guy. Sloan was returning my—er—the stuff he’d impounded from my car.”
“Can I call you?”
“Sure,” I say. The silence grows.
“Is there something else?” I ask.
Dodie’s right. Michael sounds uptight.
“Uh, not really. I heard one of your students ran away. I’ll bet you’re worried about her.”
Since when did Michael give two hoots about my students? “Who told you?”
“A guy in my foursome. You don’t know him.”
“How did this guy in your foursome, who I don’t know, figure out Sara is one of my students?”
“For Christ’s sake, Allegra, I’m trying to be nice. What difference does it make who told me?”
“Sorry. It’s just seems a little weird.”
“So, has she turned up?”
“Not yet,” I say. “Gotta go. Grandma’s calling.”
Damned if I’d tell him anymore.
After I call Nick and tell him about the key, I stretch out on the window seat and stare at the water spot on the ceiling, the one shaped like a question mark.
Michael wants to see me again. I’m sure his sudden change of attitude has nothing to do with my innate charm. At someone’s behest, he must have been pumping me about Sara. When I pushed him about the person’s identity, he lashed out, typical Michael style, to discourage further discussion.
He’s fishing for information. No problem. I’ll play the game. And in the process, maybe I’ll find out why Michael LeClaire’s mystery friend is so interested in Sara.
Chapter 9
Friday
after a night of jumbled dreams, I’m finally sleeping soundly when I should be up and in the shower. A phone call from Dodie jolts me from dreamland.
“You better get down here.”
S
tartled, I throw on a robe and dash downstairs imagining the worst. Had Grandma Sybil eloped with the bright-eyed Stanley? Had her night of therapeutic bliss triggered a medical condition? Had Stanley died in the saddle?
I find Dodie at the front door talking to Noe Maldonado. Grandma, looking to be in fine fettle, stands behind her, clutching a steaming cup of coffee.
“What?” I ask, trying to clear the fog from my sleepy brain. “What happened?”
“Your truck.” Dodie points at the driveway. “Noe spotted it when he was leaving for work.”
I step out on the porch, and my heart sinks. My pride and joy, my precious baby, Red Ranger, has been vandalized with black spray paint by someone who thinks I’m a NOSY BITCH and NARC times three.
“Oh, shit!” I yell.
“Who would do such a thing to you?” Noe asks. His soft brown eyes are full of concern. “You nice lady. You have rotten gang kids at school?”
I nod. “Only the semi-rotten ones. The really bad ones get kicked out.”
I try to remember recent confrontations with kids who might wish to do me harm. Then I recall my encounter with Donny Thorndyke and the odious Kelvin. Hard to believe a colleague could sink to that level, but Donny is not noted for mature behavior. He’s become increasingly unstable since his wife left him. He wouldn’t have to do the deed himself. Any number of his hoodlum friends would be happy to help him out. Yes, it had to be Donny.
“You call police?” Noe asks. He shakes his head in disgust. “Damn pendejos! Gang bangers—no good! You should call policeman.”
“Nothing they can do now,” I say. “Whoever did it is long gone.”
“If you want your insurance to pay, you’ll have to file a police report,” Dodie says. “I’ll call them for you.”
“You can’t drive it to school that way,” Grandma says. “Take the Olds.”
“Isn’t it Senior Day at the casino? Just drop me off at school. I’ll catch a ride home.”
“Melba can drive. Don’t argue.”
In truth, my heart beats a little faster at the prospect of driving the Olds. When Grandpa Mort shuffled off to the big auto parts store in the sky, he left behind a pristine 1968 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Pale turquoise with a white vinyl top, it boasts a 455 Rocket engine that springs to life on the first turn of the ignition and rumbles happily as it guzzles gas. Driving the Olds is like being aboard an untamed stallion. I’m never sure which one of us is in charge.
Rock and Roll Queen of Bedlam Page 6
