Neither of my Paumanok Harbor options had twenty takeout choices in three blocks, or museums and shops and strangers who didn’t want me to fix their lives. They didn’t want anything from me except maybe my purse, or to get out of their way.
No one in Manhattan gave a rat’s ass about me.
Matt did. And I didn’t want to live where he wasn’t.
Even if his coffeemaker took forever.
Matt’s new receptionist didn’t. She dragged Moses back to the house before my first cup was ready. The older woman did not look grandmotherly to me, not with her nostrils flaring and red spots of dudgeon on her cheeks. Mrs. Hargrove didn’t look like any dog lover, either, holding the Newfie’s leash as tightly as she could, with a paper towel in her other hand to wipe drool off her tailored gray trousers.
“This dog does not belong in the office. It slobbers. It will also intimidate people and small dogs.”
I pointed to where Little Red and Moses were busy greeting each other like long-lost buddies, instead of bedmates last night. “Moses is the most gentle dog ever, or you would not have been able to drag him away from Matt. And he’s the only dog Little Red tolerates.”
Her nostrils widened even further. “I trust that unfortunate creature will not be in the office, either.”
Unfortunate? All right, Red lacked a leg. He also lacked doggish loyalty, a pleasant disposition, and any belief that the rules of housebreaking pertained to him, but he had my love and the best life I could give him. His food cost more than mine. I bought him a coat. “He goes where I go.”
She stared at me. Up, down. Uncombed clown-wig pink hair, barely decent big T-shirt. Down, up. Bare feet, no bra.
“What’s that on your neck?”
I put my hand to where she pointed her perfectly manicured, politely pink finger. “Most likely chocolate.” A mirror hung over the sofa. I checked. Cripes, it looked like a hickey, with hives. “It’s a rash. Matt has one on his leg. It has something to do with the sand. We went to the beach last night.”
“I know a hickey when I see one. And I know a Bad Influence when I see one, too. I have heard all about you. Disruptive. Destructive. Unsettled and unsettling. They say trouble is your middle name.”
“Actually, I don’t have one. It’s just Willow Tate. Pleased to meet you.” I kind of hoped she had some of the truth-detecting talent, the kind that made the espers sick to their stomach when they heard a lie.
Psychic or not, she recognized the falsehood. The spots of color on her cheeks darkened. “You are not what Dr. Matt needs.”
He needed to read those résumés Mrs. Terwilliger collected for him.
“Gee, do I hear a phone ringing?”
She looked around. “I don’t hear anything.”
“That’s most likely because it’s ringing at the vet clinic, where you are supposed to be answering the calls and running the office, not running Matt’s life. But be my guest, you go tell him how you do not approve of his dog or his fiancée.”
She gasped. “You’re engaged?”
“That’s actually none of your business, either. Good-bye, and you have a good day.”
I really needed that coffee now. What I got was Harris, come to guard me before we left for the town hall meeting. He had two muffins.
I almost kissed him, until he asked, “Is it true you’re engaged to the vet? Some lady slamming doors at the clinic desk said so.”
“No, I told her that to shut her up. She must have an unmarried daughter or a couple of nieces.” I snagged a blueberry muffin that looked like one of Susan’s.
“You sure look engaged to me. A hickey that size . . .”
“It’s a rash.” I started up the stairs. I still had to change the sheets and clean the bathroom. I needed to find a turtleneck, too.
Matt barreled through the door. Before I could swallow the first bite of my muffin, Harris clapped him on the back. “Congratulations, man.”
“She told you? She didn’t tell me. My receptionist did.”
“I only said that to—”
He grinned, grabbed me up, and swung me around. My muffin went sailing. Moses caught it on the fly.
“I knew you’d see it my way after last night.”
“What happened last night?” Harris asked.
We both ignored him.
“No,” I told Matt. “I hated the woman and I’m tired and hungry, so I said the first thing I could think of.”
“But now the whole town will know. She’s related to the electrician, the school nurse, a guy with a wood chipper, and a bunch more. Do you know what they’ll say if you break another engagement?”
“We’re not engaged!”
He set me down and smiled. “You’re the one who said it, not me.”
“What happened last night?” Harris asked again. We both glared at him.
“Okay, we’re engaged to become engaged. No ring, no date set. And I don’t like your house.”
That wiped the smile from Matt’s face. “What’s wrong with my house?”
“It’s too small. Moses needs a room of his own, and I can’t work in that attic. It’s too close to the clinic where your employees come and go and it has no view. Besides, you didn’t make pancakes.”
“So you want to break the engagement? It’s been what? Ten minutes? That must be a record, even for you.”
“We are not engaged! And I told you, I am tired and hungry.”
“And cranky,” Harris added before Matt asked, “How can you be hungry after last night.”
“What hap . . .?” Harris started, then thought better of it. He ate the second muffin.
Matt ignored both of us and headed toward the kitchen. “I came back here as soon as I could set that dog’s leg, ready to make pancakes and help clean up before regular office hours. I had no idea Mrs. Hargrove would get to the office so early. She must have heard about the Dalmatian from someone in town.”
“Unless she’s a psychic.”
Matt started taking stuff out of the kitchen cabinets. “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I’m not as used to the bewitched stuff as I thought I was. Speaking of witches, I hope you don’t want me to move in with your mother and cousin?”
“Hell, no. I don’t want to live with them, either.”
Harris took a seat at the kitchen table. “You should have picked the cousin. She’s a real sweetie and she cooks.”
“And she screws around. You, out. You, pancakes. I will change the sheets.”
Matt muttered under his breath, “Maybe I should break the engagement this time.”
“We are not engaged!”
“You better tell your mother that. Mrs. Hargrove was calling her next, after your grandmother.”
“I hate that woman.”
“Your grandmother? You love her, or you would never have come back to the Harbor and we would never have met. I love her. And your mother. And your cousin, even if they can all run astral rings around me.”
“Not my grandmother, but the officious, judgmental gossip you hired. I hate your new receptionist.”
“She hates my dog. I already fired her, before office hours on her first day, so that’s another new record.”
I set the table. “Ask your kennel man about his wife. She’s on Mrs. Terwilliger’s list.”
“She has three kids.”
“Who have a doting grandmother who already watches them when Marta cleans houses. This is a better job. With benefits.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll keep you after all.”
“Maybe I’ll stay if the pancakes are any good.”
I went to make beds and get dressed while Matt cooked. I found one of his ties to wrap around my neck like a feather boa. This one had pawprints all over it.
By the time I go
t down, Harris had a full plate in front of him. My pancakes were in the toaster oven, keeping warm.
“Sorry, but we ate all the strawberries. Or squashed them.”
I thought that was more information than Harris needed, so I asked about news of my stalker.
They’d found nothing that matched his description, the prints on Mrs. Abbottini’s pocketbook, the voice on the phone messages, or the MO. The agent at my apartment had nothing to add, except that the Rashmanjaris were going to roll Mrs. Abbottini in a wheelchair to her church for bingo this afternoon. There’d been no phone calls to the apartment, and no new mail or “gifts.”
FedEx was no help, either. The last package got paid for with a money order, put in a drop box. The delivery guy checked out fine. Susan verified his description as big, blond, overweight.
Not Deni.
Russ at the police station had a monitor on my email accounts, but there’d been no suspicious incoming messages, no reply to the gag-worthy conciliatory note I’d sent Deni. We had nothing to go on.
“So we stick close to you.”
“And Susan.”
Harris winked. “No problem.”
Matt wasn’t happy. “So there’s no way of getting this creep before he gets to Willy?”
Now I wasn’t happy, either.
“The perv most likely has a juvenile file, but without a positive ID, we can’t start digging through those sealed records. We’re getting some of the clairvoyants to take a look.”
“Modern science, huh?”
“Ancient, but effective,” Harris answered, then checked his watch. “I’ll call Rosehill and tell them we’re on our way.”
“And I better get back to the office.” Matt put the dishes in the sink, said the cleaning service arrived at ten, and kissed me good-bye. “You’ll keep her safe?” he asked Harris.
The bodyguard pointed to my neck. “Better’n you.”
Matt started to raise the tie, but I pulled away. “It’s a rash!”
“And you guys aren’t engaged,” Harris said. “Got it. I’ll check outside.”
So Matt kissed me again. “We’ll figure it all out. Don’t worry.”
Easy for him to say. He didn’t know my mother the way I did.
* * *
“I knew there was something you weren’t telling me! I said so, didn’t I? But that I have to hear such news from Loretta Hargrove!” Sniff. “As if my own daughter couldn’t call me first.”
“Mom, we’re not—”
“But no matter. I’ll make plane reservations this afternoon and be there in a day or two, as soon as I place the last dog I’ve been training. Then we’ll plan a big engagement party, maybe for Halloween while everyone’s gathered together anyway.”
Sure. I’d be the one dressed up as the bride of Frankenstein. “Listen, Mom, I have to tell you—”
“Now don’t be difficult, darling. This is the best news I’ve heard in ages.”
“But Dad—”
“We’ll invite him if we have to, but I bet the jackass won’t leave his playmates for his own daughter’s engagement party. We’ll send him the bill, though. Gotta go, Willy. That new dog isn’t socialized enough yet.”
Grr.
That was me. Not the new dog.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I had a big mouth and a bad reputation and goose bumps about walking into that council meeting.
So I let Carinne and Dr. James Everett Harmon go in first.
I heard all the greetings from the door. Congratulations, good wishes, about time. Carinne halted in front of me, bewildered. I hadn’t spoken to her about the engagement, only that we were going to get her presence—and her obvious relationship to me—out in the open, all at once, then never again. I hoped.
Harris shoved me through the door. Now the good cheer turned to shock, confusion, and a little anger that they’d been shocked and confused and tricked. I stepped beside my half sister.
“Yes, Carinne O’Dell and I are related on my father’s side. Yes, Matt and I have an understanding. Yes, I have pink hair. No, I am not going to speak further on any of these matters. None of which is this council’s business.” I headed toward the empty rows of chairs facing the council. “And no, my mother does not know. I was hoping you”—nodding toward my grandmother—“would speak with her.”
My grandmother went pale, and I think she mumbled something about how nice Italy was at this time of year.
“Too late. She’ll be here midweek.”
Everyone knew who I meant. No one volunteered to pick Mom up at the airport. Mrs. Ralston, the village clerk, fanned herself. A few others had beads of sweat on their foreheads, despite the cool temperature in the meeting room.
Mayor Applebaum banged his gavel. “We have a great deal of business, people. I call this emergency session of the Paumanok Harbor village council to order.”
I guess he forgot my mother’s temper, or how she could have every dog in the Harbor running amok.
I hadn’t realized this was to be an official local government meeting, thinking it was the para-council only. All the elected officials sat at the front table, though, being filmed by a video camera on a tripod as they gave their names and positions, which never would have been permitted by the espers, lest copies fall into the wrong hands. Maybe they didn’t start filming until the mayor called everyone to order. I could hope.
Jimmie, Professor Harmon, sat between Carinne and me. “This should be informative. My first encounter with everyday American government, you know.”
Lou sat behind us with old Doc Lassiter, the cyber shrink from Shelter Island who was staying at my grandmother’s. Monteith from Rosehill sat nearby. Now I noticed Colin and Kenneth at opposite corners of the room. Harris stood at the door, checking IDs of anyone who entered, after they passed through a metal detector. Uniformed police guarded the other exits. This was not your everyday American town hall meeting. Or maybe it was, these days.
I saw why we were following more formal procedure this morning when a gray-haired man in a shiny gray suit stood up and carried a sheaf of notes to the speaker’s lectern. The mayor introduced him as a representative of an independent contractor company, working with the Army Corps of Engineers, to see if Paumanok Harbor could be declared an emergency zone due to threats of loss of income and property from the beach erosion.
We could not. Therefore, he suggested, we should consider hiring a dredging company—with which he was not and never had been affiliated—to remove the new shoal that impeded boat traffic from entering or exiting the harbor area, and use that sand to restore the beaches as protective barriers.
As if we hadn’t considered that option, and how much it would cost. Paumanok Harbor simply did not have that kind of money or any way of borrowing it after the embezzlement scandals in the summer. Now the Feds wouldn’t help us pay for the work. They might consider adding us to the list of areas needing attention, the man said. We might see them back here in three years, barring a catastrophic hurricane.
The speaker added that we could plant native grasses whose roots helped anchor the remaining sand, erect snow fences to trap it, or build revetments and rock-filled gabions to buffer it from the next storm. He referred to pages of research, with projections of tides and winds and damaging storms. He quoted statistics on ocean currents and rising water levels and damage to areas downwind of the barriers. Most people stopped listening as soon as he said no money was coming our way.
I’m sure he had graphs and charts and big scientific theories. What it all meant, I gathered from what I understood, was that we would be wasting our own time and money on a losing proposition. The ocean always won. We’d do better to think about moving the town to higher ground.
Angry mumblings came from the audience. Easy for him to say. He didn’t h
ave a home and a business, his parents’ pasts and his children’s futures here. Besides, the town needed the harbor and the beaches to survive economically. If they went, higher ground wasn’t going to matter.
The mayor banged his fist on the table in front of him. I guess he forgot he had a gavel. The amazing thing was he remembered to come to the meeting at all. Mrs. Ralston must have felt the session important enough to send the police for him. Uncle Henry Haversmith, the chief of police, had a place at the front table, too, along with the village financial officer, its staff attorney, and several others whose functions I hadn’t paid attention to. I could tell which ones were psychics because the Royce folk didn’t look worried at the dire predictions. They mostly looked in my direction and smiled.
They thought I could fix what the Feds couldn’t.
Next up was Ms. Garcia of the Centers for Disease Control. She walked past me on her way to the podium without acknowledging my presence.
She reported that her department had not been able to identify a causative agent for the rashes, although they eliminated airborne bacteria, known viruses, insect-borne diseases, water and air contaminants, plus plant emissions or poisons from the native flora. To justify her job and the money spent, she read from a list several pages long of what we did not have. The results were not conclusive, she said, because she and her staff had received little cooperation in gathering data. Even now, affected people claimed they had no rashes. She turned in my direction and pointed to the tie wrapped around my neck.
“It’s a hickey!” came from one of the board members, Mrs. Hargrove’s son-in-law, I assumed.
Everyone laughed, except Ms. Garcia and me.
Mayor Applebaum called for order.
Ms. Garcia gave more dire warnings about untreated epidemics, drug-resistant illnesses, mutant viruses. And how the government could quarantine the entire village as a health hazard. No one in, no one out.
Again, some listeners fretted. Many looked toward me for the cure. I looked at my watch, wondering how soon we could get out of here. Matt might need help at the vet office. Harris’ car might need new upholstery if I didn’t get Little Red out of it soon. I hated leaving him in the car, even with the windows cracked, a bowl of water, and a new rawhide chewie. But I couldn’t trust him with the cleaning people, and bringing him inside the meeting with me, which was outlawed anyway, made him more of a target for crazy people. Harris’ car had tinted windows. He’d made me pull up the hood of my sweatshirt anyway, but Red should be safe. The car was another story.
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