by Carolyn Hart
The air was clear and clean and cool, April fresh before summer’s onslaught of heat and humidity. They sat on a wooden bench near a fountain. The soft splash was a cheerful background to Cara’s quick words. “Iris and I were both raised by our grandmothers. I wore these today for Iris.” Cara touched the necklace. “She made the necklace from beads she’d taken from some broken-up old jewelry of her mom’s and gave it to me for Christmas when we were twelve. I loved jewelry even then. Iris and I always hung around together at Christmas. Our grandmothers were friends. We didn’t have much family. At school programs, everybody else had moms and dads or at least moms. We always felt kind of hollow when everybody else had their families around. Iris was funny. Do you know one thing she really, really loved?”
Annie waited with a smile. Cara’s eagerness was infectious.
“Olivia Newton-John’s music. All because her mom loved it. ‘Magic’ was Iris’s favorite. Everybody made fun of her because that wasn’t cool when we were kids. U2 and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were big for us. But Iris said every time she heard ‘Magic,’ she thought of her mom. When she sang, I thought Iris sounded like Olivia. She would like for that to be on her poster.”
She looked past Annie. “There’s Fran and Buck. I’ll tell her you’ll look for her e-mail.” With that she was on her feet in her usual swift fashion and rushing toward the window.
Annie looked after Cara with a feeling of reassurance. Unless Cara was a superb actress, her sadness yesterday afternoon had no link to Iris.
But Cara hadn’t mentioned her visit to Nightingale Courts.
Maybe that wasn’t a good memory of Iris.
MAX WAVED AWAY A WASP CIRCLING NEAR THE FRAGRANT white blooms of the mock orange shrub. Annie always said the heavenly scent of mock orange was particularly appropriate for a shrub in the cloister between the chapel and the church. Mock orange grew to ten feet in height. He might plant the shrubbery in a crescent near their pond at the Franklin house. However, the blooming period was short lived.
He leaned against a pillar and felt at peace with the world as he waited, enjoying the tolling of the bells as parishioners strolled toward their cars. Annie had stepped into the chapel to light a candle for Iris. He looked at the massive red wooden door, pictured her kneeling in the small alcove, light slanting through stained glass to turn her blond hair to gold.
Annie was safe now.
The unexpected thought startled him. He shook his head. Billy’s grim concern obviously lurked in his subconscious. Annie wasn’t involved in the investigation. She’d found a positive outlet for her sadness about Iris’s death. She was excited about Cara’s upbeat offering for the spirit poster. He wondered if Father Patton would approve if they played “Magic” at the service.
Of course Annie was safe. There was nothing to worry about.
ANNIE MOVED FAST THROUGH THE BACK DOOR OF DEATH on Demand. She’d left Max at Nightingale Courts, whipping together a great Sunday brunch. Happily, it never took long to drive the length of the island. She wanted to check her e-mails. When she received the e-mail from Fran, everyone except Liz would have contributed to Iris’s spirit poster.
Agatha jumped up on the computer desk. Annie gently touched heads with her, stroked silky fur. “Don’t try to tell me you’re starving. I set your automatic feeder.” The latest in cat food dispensers both opened a can and dispensed dry food. It couldn’t get any better at a cat Waldorf.
Agatha purred and looked as though she was smiling.
Annie smoothed Agatha’s coat and clicked to Outlook Express:
Hi Annie,
Sorry I got upset when we talked yesterday. I remember Iris had a way of seeing things differently from everyone around her. In sixth grade, she was in the school play. It was a story about the War. The Yankees were trying to find hidden silver. Yankee soldiers threatened to kill a slave who’d stayed with the family because the men were gone and the mistress was sick and there were three kids. Iris played one of the kids. In the play, they were supposed to refuse to tell the hiding place. Instead, Iris told the soldiers the silver was in a burlap bag down in a well. Everybody was scandalized and Mrs. Tucker, our speech teacher, was irritated and said Iris had ruined the play and wanted to know why had she done it. Iris said when she looked at Walter, who was playing the slave, and thought somebody was going to hurt him, she had to speak out and save him. Mrs. Tucker gave Iris a hug and said having a kind heart was better than the best acting in the world. I thought it was funny. Maybe she never could tell the difference between what was real and what was make-believe.
ANNIE TOOK A DEEP SATISFIED SNIFF. NOTHING SMELLED AS good as their kitchen on Sunday morning, even when it consisted of a small oven and two-burner range and compact refrigerator in a rental cabin. Max was a culinary genius. Breakfast after early church was always special. Today he was topping potato and bacon pancakes with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. Max turned off the blender. He was ready to add melted butter to the mixture of egg yolk, lemon juice, mustard, and wilted watercress.
Annie straightened one of the place mats. Ruby macaws looked poised for flight on navy linen place mats Henny had brought back from Brazil. Annie put out whipped butter to soften and poured fresh orange juice. All the comforts of home. She glanced through the sliding glass door at greening marsh grass shimmering in the morning sun. Soon they’d be on the ferry heading toward the mainland, breathing the salty scent of the sea and watching dolphins.
A thunk sounded at the cabin’s front door. Perfect timing. The Sunday morning Gazette had arrived. She retrieved the newspaper, discarded the ads, and placed the front section at Max’s plate. She kept the sports section to check the scores of the Rangers and Astros. Some passions a girl from Texas never lost.
Max carried the laden plates to the table. He averted his gaze as Annie added a dash of ketchup to her hollandaise.
Annie ate contentedly, propping the baseball page against her orange juice. “Max, the pancakes are divine.” After all, it was Sunday. And Michael Young had four hits and—
“For God’s sake.” Max slammed a hand onto the table. His face was hard and furious.
Juice slopped over the edge of her glass onto a picture of the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez hitting a home run.
“Look at this.” Max thrust the front section toward her.
Annie took the paper. She saw the headline. She’d expected it, but the large black letters destroyed her pleasure in their morning, plunged her back into sadness:
MURDER MARS PAVILION PARTY;
POLICE REPORT NO SUSPECTS
Former island native Iris Tilford, 28, was strangled in the woods adjacent to Harbor Pavilion Friday night…
Max was impatient. “Not the lead story. The inset.”
Annie was glad to stop reading the lead story. She knew everything it contained. Her eyes moved to the black box with inset boldface type:
Iris Tilford’s last afternoon sparkled. She swam in the pool at Nightingale Courts with a new friend, felt the coolness of sky blue water, remembered good times and bad.
Annie Darling was Tilford’s hostess as she was at the fateful party Friday night. A local merchant, Darling, along with her husband Max, is known for community support and outreach. Darling was at Nightingale Courts, serving as manager while its owners were out of town because of family illness.
Friday afternoon Darling reached out to a young woman who’d been down on her luck but was fighting her way back to sobriety through AA and NA. Darling recalled these moments with Iris Tilford:
She was pretty…dark eyes and dark hair and a sweet smile. She’d had troubles but she said things were better since she’d joined AA and NA. I told her she was brave.
Darling was reluctant to discuss their conversation at length, but admitted Tilford said she’d returned to the island because of events in her past.
Whatever Iris Tilford shared with her new friend, Darling was quick to invite Iris to a party hosted by Darling and her husband at the harbor
pavilion.
Iris Tilford saw faces from her past Friday night, but she didn’t live to tell what they meant to her.
“Oh.” Annie looked at Max’s angry face, eyes narrowed, jaws tensed. “It sounds like Iris told me a lot about the past.”
Max’s tone was rough. “I’ll call Vince. Get a retraction.”
Annie shook her head. “That would make it worse. The old no-smoke-without-fire.” She glanced down at the bold type that shouted the importance of its contents. “Actually,” her voice was hopeful, “anyone reading it in a hurry wouldn’t think much about it. People skim everything.”
Max looked grim. “The murderer won’t read it in a hurry.” His gaze fastened on Annie. “From now on, it’s you and me together. Day and night.” His expression softened. He reached across the table, took her hand in his, held tight. “Not exactly hard duty.”
LAUGHING GULLS CIRCLED ABOVE THE FERRY, THEIR DISTINCTIVE hyena cackle rising over the water slapping against the hull. Whitecaps rippled across the Sound. In the distance, a freighter rode low in the water. Except for them, the passengers had remained in their cars. She followed Max up steep steps. They stopped at a railing, the wheelhouse behind them.
She felt the sharpness of the breeze. Only a few days before, Iris Tilford had taken the ferry to Broward’s Rock. Had she been fearful? She was embarking on an effort to discover the truth of part of her past. She must have felt the breeze and the warmth of the sun.
Iris had been alive.
Annie gripped the railing, felt the burn of tears.
Max’s arm came around her. He pulled her close. “Don’t cry.” His voice was soft.
“Iris was trying to do the right thing. Now she’s gone.”
“None of us know how long we have.” Max touched her cheek.
“I’m frightened.” It was scarcely a whisper. She felt as if she’d touched the edge of eternity. Iris had been here and now she was gone. Forever. The world seemed huge and alien and empty.
His embrace tightened. “Don’t be scared. Don’t lose faith. Or hope. Despite all evil, there’s goodness, too. Hold to that.”
Annie drew strength from his nearness. Whatever was to happen, she had set herself a good task and she drew comfort from it. She was going to create a tribute to Iris.
Once again she looked at the softly green water, glad for the breeze and its reminder of life and feeling. Annie wondered if they would be welcomed at the mission. Would Brother Doyle be willing to talk about Iris? Had he known her well enough to have memories to share? Could Annie find the peace she sought and the reassurance that life could be well ordered and safe?
She felt a tug on her arm.
Max’s gaze intent. “Penny for your thoughts?”
The mainland came into view, a dark smudge on the horizon.
She gave him a reassuring smile and made her tone cheerful. “I hope Brother Doyle will talk to us.”
Max was positive. “Why wouldn’t he? We’re going to have a good day.” His eyes told her more than the words, told her he was there, she was fine, life was good. “After we go to the mission, let’s catch the buffet at The Lady and Sons.”
“I’d love that. Although we don’t really need two fabulous meals in one day.” Annie enjoyed Paula Deen’s famous restaurant though the lines of eager customers often stretched around the block. She and Max weren’t in a hurry and it was a lovely day to be outside. The restaurant closed at five on Sundays, but a late afternoon buffet could serve as an early supper. She could already taste the deviled eggs, made with mustard as deviled eggs should be. They’d be home in time to reassure Dorothy L. that she hadn’t been deserted in the cabin.
As the ferry chugged toward the dock, Annie wondered if Max wanted to delay their return to the island as long as possible. Was he afraid her efforts for Iris’s poster might encroach on Billy’s investigation? Max didn’t need to worry. She would keep their bargain. She wouldn’t ask anyone anything that related to Iris’s murder.
THE MISSION WAS A SAGGING BUILDING ON A DOWN-AT-HEEL street that spoke of loss and despair and hard times. Kirk Doyle led Annie and Max toward a corner of the converted garage. As they walked past Exercycles and a treadmill, none in use, conversation died. Perhaps fifteen or twenty people of all ages and races, including women and small children, were seated at several trestle tables, eating Sunday dinner on plastic plates. There was a smell of braised beef and yeast rolls and apple pie. Dress ranged from neat and well worn to tattered and soiled.
Quick, wary stares accounted them strangers from a world many had never known or long ago left behind.
Doyle welcomed them to a small, cluttered office. An electric fan perched on a wooden stool stirred the air in the windowless office but did nothing to dispel a muggy undertone of mold, damp, motor oil, and rotting wood. As he closed the door, Annie tried to put away the awareness of broken lives.
The empty right sleeve of Doyle’s worn black suit was pinned up. He used his left hand to swipe at the seats of two straight chairs, perhaps noting Annie’s tropical green yarn sweater and long matching skirt with a profusion of jungle flowers and Max’s crisp white shirt and navy worsted slacks.
Doyle waited until they were seated, then turned another straight chair around and straddled it to face them instead of sitting behind the desk. The casual posture made his stiff gray hair, weathered face, and hulking presence less intimidating. “How can I help you?” His voice was gruff but sincere.
Annie saw sadness and patience in his dark eyes. She scooted to the edge of her chair. Could she make him understand? “Mr. Doyle—”
He brushed away the title. “Kirk will do.”
She told him about Iris, their afternoon in the sun, the fateful invitation to their party, and how she wanted to honor Iris.
“A spirit poster?” A smile softened his somber face. “I like that very much. I can tell you some things about Iris. I’ve known her since December.”
Annie was surprised at the sharpness of her disappointment. What could he have learned about Iris in that short time?
“The nights were cold. December’s hard for folks like Iris. Christmas is coming, but they don’t think it’s for them. Have you ever heard church bells ring on a Sunday morning when your head hurts and your guts want to spill out? You’re outside, without anybody to love you and nobody to love, not knowing that Jesus is holding out his arms for you with the greatest love on earth. Folks like Iris have lost their way. Some of them never knew the way. She came in the middle of the night. I heard a knock at the alley door. Her face was bruised and swollen. She was limping from where she’d been kicked. She had no coat. She was drunk. She said two men at the bar next door hurt her, but she got away from them. She asked if she could hide. I didn’t want to disturb the women’s section. We’ve got four bays left from the days when this was a garage. I scrounged from demolition sites and put up beaverboard so we have the men’s area and the women and children’s area. I got some blankets from the storeroom, made a pallet for her in here.” He pointed at the floor near their feet. “The next morning I brought her breakfast. She hadn’t eaten in three days. We talked. She’d come to the end of everything. She wanted to die. I told her God wanted her to live. She started to cry.” Kirk massaged a hump in his nose.
Annie wondered what long-ago bash had broken it, knew the bone hadn’t been set, wondered if cool damp weather made it ache.
“She wanted to get well. I helped her get into treatment.” He looked at them sharply. “Do you know what kind of courage it takes to fight addiction? There’s pain and sickness and panic and always the darkness inside that drove a soul to drugs and drink in the first place. Iris had that courage. She had seventy-four days when she left to go back to her island. You can put those days on your poster, proud days, hard days, but the best days she’d ever known.”
Hot tears slipped down Annie’s cheeks.
“Tears are balm to hurting hearts.” His smile was sweet. “Don’t grieve. Iris is in a bett
er place now. ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things have passed away.’”
Annie heard the familiar words from Revelation. But…“I’m crying because she had such a sad life and then when her life was better, someone killed her.”
“She lives in the hearts of those who knew her. You can put your poster where others will see it—”
Annie nodded.
“—and they can admire courage and be better for knowing Iris.”
“I’ll make a place in my bookstore, a table near the fireplace. I’ll make up a lending library and ask readers to bring books that have touched their hearts. Anyone can borrow them, return them, or keep them.”
Kirk reached to his desk, picked up a stack of cards. “And these.”
Annie took the cards containing Al-Anon’s heart-touching, life-changing Twelve Steps. “And these,” she affirmed.
Max smiled at her. He turned to Kirk. “You saved Iris’s life.”
Warmth seeped from Kirk’s craggy face. His face looked bleak. “And lost it for her. I told the police officer from Broward’s Rock, Sergeant Harrison. I encouraged Iris to go back to the island, make amends.” He picked up one of the cards, read Step Seven aloud: “‘Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to all of them.’”
Annie reached out, held Max’s hand.
“Iris got into drugs through a friend. The friend had access to them, but didn’t use them.” Kirk looked past Annie and Max, as if seeing faces they would never know. “That’s how kids get hooked. A friend has drugs, shares them. Every so often there’s a particularly vulnerable person like Iris. Once started, she couldn’t stop. She’d do anything for the drugs. She agreed to deliver drugs to other kids in school. Everyone thought she was the supplier, but there was someone behind her who didn’t use drugs. Iris took the money but it all went to her friend. She got drugs free. Then a boy died. His sister came to Iris, accused her of killing him. Iris said it wasn’t her fault, she was only the go-between. She told the sister the whole story. Iris said she was high, not thinking straight, but when she realized her own supply would be cut off, she told her friend what she’d done. She saw the sister walk with her friend and later she didn’t see them anywhere. When the girl drowned, Iris was afraid. I asked her what she thought had happened. That upset her. She’d pull away from talking about it, saying maybe she was all mixed up about that night.”
