Under the Skin

by Vicki Lane

  Blaine put down the clipboard and leaned closer. He kept his voice low. “Listen, Hawk, it’s none of my business—except that I don’t like having my number two guy distracted by personal problems—but it sounds to me … sounds like someone’s having second thoughts.”

  A silence hung between the two men. At last Phillip ran a hand over his bald scalp. “If it wasn’t for—” he began but Blaine waved aside his explanation and stood.

  “Like I said, none of my business. You doing any good finding out about this Lombardo character? If I can help—”

  “Thanks, maybe later. So far I can’t find anything against him. He appears to be a legitimate businessman but evidently there’ve been some investigations into his operations. Some of his associates have been nailed but he’s got a Teflon hide—nothing seems to touch him.”

  Phillip reached for a printout that lay beside his computer screen and handed it to Blaine. “Here’s one thing that might be significant: Lombardo’s first wife—woman he’d been married to for years—died in a hit-and-run accident back in ’03 and the driver was never found. This was right before he got together with Gloria—who, by the way, was a very, very rich widow at the time. Lombardo had always maintained a pretty lavish lifestyle but in recent years he’s had some setbacks. I suppose Gloria could have been the answer to his problems. ”

  Blaine scanned the page, then looked up. “Tampa, you said? You know anyone down there? Anyone you can trust?”

  “Afraid not.” Phillip glanced at his watch and pushed his chair back. “I’m done here for now. I’m due in court to testify in that drunk driving case. Should be back in plenty of time for our little expedition. I told Lizabeth I might be late.”

  As he sat in the crowded courtroom, awaiting the call for his testimony and half hearing the lawyers’ opening statements, Phillip’s mind skimmed the surface of his memory like a flat pebble skipping over a still pool. The Navy years, the training camp where he met Sam … must have been the end of the sixties … Sam showing him the picture of the dark-haired girl with the amazing blue eyes … Sam’s Liz … now his own Lizabeth … or so he hoped.

  The younger lawyer—hardly old enough to shave, that kid—was addressing the jury. “The settlement of the insurance claims …”

  The awkward beginning … she with all her defenses up … the necessary lies … Please, God, don’t let that shit come back to bite me in the ass … the deepening emotional involvement … her clueless bravery in the face of evil.

  “We will show that my client could not have been behind the wheel as the state has stipulated but rather that …” The kid’s got the moves, though. Looks like he’s spent a little time watching courtroom TV.

  Then they had become lovers … but she had evaded his offers of marriage with a dogged determination to remain unattached … eventually revealing that she’d taken Sam’s death as a kind of betrayal and feared that a second marriage would leave her vulnerable again.

  The plaintiff was on the stand now, denying up and down that he had been behind the wheel of the wrecked car. A skinny, grinning clown of a Marshall County good ol’ boy, he had been outside the courthouse earlier, laughing and joking with his cousin, the defendant—who also claimed not to have been driving.

  Both men had been injured, or so they had claimed, when the vehicle left the mountain road and plowed into a tree. Phillip had been the first law officer on the scene. He and the EMS had arrived within seconds of each other to find that the injured pair had crawled away from the car and were sprawled side by side in the dimming glow of the shattered headlights.

  Like my daddy always told me, the good Lord protects drunks and fools, the EMT had muttered as she strapped the neck brace on one semiconscious victim. I believe these two qualify on both counts—they got double protection. Ain’t no other reason they ain’t both of ’em dead.

  The thought came to him that Lizabeth would enjoy this story—two good old boys, each trying to get the other’s insurance company to pay for his injuries … and each with the identical defense: “No sir, Your Honor, I know for certain sure that it weren’t me driving that night. I was way too drunk to drive!”

  I guess she’d enjoy it … I don’t know if she’s enjoyed much of anything since Gloria’s phone call. All the cleaning and commotion—the dogs had to be bathed, every last spiderweb vacuumed up, god knows what else. Plus the usual farmwork. Wearing herself out and for what? Women! What is it with them that they always—

  He was being summoned to the stand now. As he walked to the front of the courtroom, he was struck with the realization that this was the first time he’d thought of Lizabeth that way—as one of that vast and unknowable sisterhood summed up by the quasi-expletive “Women!”

  The thought of home was like a beacon light at the end of the tunnel of the day. Home, a shower, and a beer … maybe put his feet up and finish that paperback. He’d had to stop just when the wisecracking hero was in a hell of a fix. Phillip knew it would be okay because the hero had left his concealed cellphone on with his psychotic, preppy sidekick on the other end and, no doubt, on the way to provide a little lethal backup.

  He grinned in anticipation. Reading murder mysteries wasn’t usually something he enjoyed—too easy to nitpick over proper procedure and implausible coincidences. But this series—something about the blend of smart-ass humor and breakneck pace allowed him to just read for the fun of it without analyzing everything. Still, he did wonder about that stunt with the cellphone … would you really be able to hear what was going on if …

  The house was all alight as his SUV crawled up the road. Phillip glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten-twenty—later than he’d expected to be. But that last-minute task of transferring a prisoner to a neighboring county had fallen to him. Then on the way back, there’d been an accident and he’d stopped to lend a hand. Good thing he’d called and left a message. Normally Lizabeth would have gone to bed by now. But there were lights on in seemingly every room so that as he looked up the road, the house appeared to float above him. Like the mother ship in that movie—what was it, Close Encounters … something like that?

  As he turned into his usual parking spot under the big pear tree, Ursa and Molly padded out to meet him. The shaggy black dog rubbed against his leg like a cat but the elegant red hound merely stood in front of him, presenting herself to him for a patting opportunity. He could hear James’s shrill howl a little way off.

  “Hey, girls, what’s up? Thought everyone’d be in bed by now.”

  The dogs were noncommittal but they followed as he made his way up the path and climbed the now familiar steps to the porch, where James was waiting and wagging. From within the house he could hear Gloria’s voice, raised in a nonstop harangue. My god, but that woman can talk.

  Squaring his shoulders, he opened the screen door and stepped in.

  “I tell you, I know what I saw—Hold on a minute, Brice.”

  Gloria, cellphone in hand, swung round to stare at him. “Well, you sure put in a long day. If I were Lizzy—”

  Thank god, you’re not, he thought. Summoning a smile he said, “Hi, Gloria—has Lizabeth already gone to bed? I left a message and told her not to wait up—”

  “I’m still up.” Elizabeth emerged from the office and came toward him. “Did you have something to eat on the road? I can fix you a sandwich …”

  She hesitated, then brushed his cheek with a kiss as Gloria moved back into the dining room to continue her telephone conversation.

  “Hey, Lizabeth,” he whispered, “c’mere.” Catching her wrist, he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “I’ve missed you, sweetheart.”

  Did her body stiffen briefly at his touch before she melted into his embrace? Was there just a moment of hesitation before she laid her head on his shoulder and whispered back, “I’ve missed you too.”

  “Well, Elizabeth, if you can spare Phillip for a moment, I’d like to tell him about what happened today in Asheville.” Gloria was stan
ding in the dining room doorway, hands on hips and glaring at the back of her sister’s head.

  Elizabeth pulled away from him instantly like a guilty teenager. The beginnings of a blush showed under the tan of her cheeks. “I think you should hear this, Phillip. I can go fix you a sandwich while Gloria tells you what happened in Asheville—”

  “Thanks, but that’s okay—I ate a burger a while back and it’s riding pretty heavy.”

  Dropping his briefcase into a chair, Phillip sank down on the love seat and propped his feet up on the old cedar chest. Elizabeth came and sat beside him while Gloria ostentatiously swept invisible dog hairs from the sofa before arranging herself decoratively on its cushions.

  “Well, so there I was and at first I thought it was just some guy flirting with me and I made a big point of letting him know I wasn’t interested, thank you very much, by looking away, but then I took out my compact to check that my lipstick wasn’t smearing—oh, I should have said—I was in a Starbucks grabbing a skinny latte and I’d gotten a pastry—way too greasy, by the way; you would think—”

  “Glory,” Elizabeth interrupted, “could you get to the point? It’s been a long day and Phillip and I need our sleep.”

  Phillip tried to keep his face expressionless as the sisters looked daggers at each other.

  Gloria backed down first, turning away and waving her hand as if to break the spell. “Anyhoo,” she went on, as if there’d been no pause, “I was looking in my compact mirror and I could just see this guy who’d been watching me. He’d taken off his sunglasses and was cleaning them and then I saw the eyebrow and knew that I’d seen him before. So I—”

  Phillip interrupted. “I’m not sure I’m following you. What’s this about an eyebrow? One of those pierced jobs or—”

  “Oh, heavens, no, this is a man in his forties, maybe older. When I said eyebrow, that’s what I meant—all one eyebrow—like a mustache across the top of his face. Eleanor and I used to laugh about it.”

  I think my brain is going to explode. Phillip took a deep breath. “And Eleanor is …?”

  Gloria sighed and spoke very slowly, as if to a not-very-bright child. “Eleanor is my best friend. Back in Tampa. But Eleanor doesn’t have anything to do with this, Phillip. You need to focus on what I’m saying. The point is, this guy with the eyebrow is one of my husband’s so-called associates. I never actually met him—I’ve only seen him from a distance. There’d be a call for Jerry and Eyebrow Man would be waiting in a car parked out on the street. Jerry would go out and sit in the car and talk to him. When I asked why he never had his friend come in the house, Jerry just said that he didn’t like bringing business home with him. But I saw the guy a couple of times when the light was right and you can’t miss that eyebrow. It was him, I’m certain, there in Starbucks and watching me.”

  There was a snorting sound at Phillip’s side and Elizabeth stood up, abruptly dumping a surprised James to the floor. “I’m going to bed,” she said.

  That too sounded like a snort.

  Chapter 7

  Getting Jesuitical

  Wednesday, May 16

  I gotta say, your sister has more sense than I would have given her credit for.”

  It was after midnight when Phillip finally came to bed. I didn’t look up from my book but I could hear him pulling off his bathrobe and tossing it onto the hook fixed to the bedroom door. With Gloria in the house, he’d had to abandon his habit of padding around in the wee hours bare-ass naked. The bed creaked as he lay down beside me and the usually enticing aroma of freshly bathed male filled my nostrils.

  “She was lucky that there was a back entrance near the ladies’ room,” he continued. “And that she was so near the parking garage. She said she was pretty sure that no one had followed her out here to the farm.”

  “If there was actually anyone following her in the first place.” I turned a page. I could feel his eyes on me.

  “Lizabeth, you want to put down the book and tell me what’s going on here?”

  He was speaking very softly now. The guest room is just across the hall but as I could hear the sound of some high-pitched voice wailing about tomorrow, tomorrow, I didn’t think there was a chance Gloria was listening to us.

  I closed the paperback but kept a finger in it to mark my place. “How do we know,” I said, looking down at him over the top of my reading glasses, “that she’s not just making all this up? Believe me, she’s capable of it. Anything to be the center of attention—”

  Capable. Phillip’s soft brown eyes are capable of making me feel weak in the knees on certain occasions. Now they made me feel ashamed. I knew what I sounded like—a sharp-tongued bitch—and I hated it.

  He lay there with his head on the pillow beside me. One hand reached for my braid and tugged at it.

  “Lizabeth, let’s save Gloria till tomorrow. Come here.”

  It’s that scent of soap that does it every time.

  Only when I was drifting off to sleep, did I remember I’d meant to straighten out the matter of Aunt Dodie … Aunt Dodie … and the Hawk … circling and circling, its tail flashing red … red as blood against the clear blue sky.

  “Well, sleepyhead, I thought you were always up before dawn. Phil said to tell you that he had to go in early but since you were sleeping so hard he didn’t want to wake you.”

  Phil? I watched in something like amazement as Gloria plunged her rubber-gloved hands into the dishpan and began to wash a mixing bowl.

  “What are you doing, Glory?” I managed to say, even though it was, of course, obvious. I hadn’t slept well—weird, troubled dreams and then a long period of lying awake in the dark, listening to the regular sound of Phillip’s breathing punctuated by the occasional snore from Ursa. And when at last I’d fallen asleep, it had been that hard, almost drugged sleep that leaves you exhausted in the morning. I was pretty sure that there were dark circles under my eyes and sleep creases on my face.

  Gloria, on the other hand, was as perky, cheerful, and immaculately dressed and made up as … as one of those smiling female hosts I remembered from morning TV, back in the days when I had time to watch TV.

  “Well, I got up early—you know I have a lot to do today—and since there was poor Phil with no breakfast, I just fixed him some beignets.”

  She waved a foam-frothed purple glove toward the stove. “I put some in the oven to keep warm for you. And Phil fixed the coffee. I found a shop in Asheville with some really good Ethiopian dark roast—Phil was just over the moon about it.”

  Was he. How nice.

  I realized that I’d been breathing the delectable country fair smell of fried dough and sugar coupled with rich deep coffee undertones and, rather than question a miracle, I pulled open the oven door.

  A dozen small plump brown squares sat on a paper towel, each covered with a drift of snowy powdered sugar. The aroma—was that a hint of cinnamon?—wafted out with the oven’s heat. My mouth began to water.

  I turned to get a cup of coffee—Ethiopian coffee, not that crap you always fix, Elizabeth—but Gloria was already taking down my largest mug.

  “There’s some milk on the stove,” she chirped. “I’ll just heat it up—you need to have café au lait with these.”

  The words No, I don’t need anything of the kind were on the tip of my tongue when I realized that a big cup of strong coffee and hot milk was exactly what I needed to accompany those seductive little indulgences.

  “Thank you, Gloria,” I managed to say as she handed me a plate. “That would be great.”

  I sat myself on the cushioned bench and watched my sister bring the milk just to the edge of a boil and then pour it into the mug along with the coffee.

  “They’re delicious, Glory.” I swallowed the last airy bite of the first beignet and reached for another. “When did you learn to make them?”

  “Oh, Lizzy, you know me—they’re from a mix I bought the other day.” She handed me the steaming mug and plopped down on the other bench, letting out
a little involuntary sigh as she did so. For a moment she slumped and I could see the pallor behind the makeup and the small signs of aging at her neck. Then she straightened and flashed a bright smile.

  “I guess all that walking yesterday caught up with me. You know, Lizzy, as women get older, they should guard against making those little tired sounds like I just did. Sophia Loren said that nothing ages a woman more—I remember reading that somewhere years ago.”

  A snarky observation concerning Sophia Loren and her pronouncements was hovering on my lips but I restrained myself and took a sip of the fragrant coffee. It was a revelation! I’d gotten out of the habit of milk in my coffee but this … this was perfect. And I had to admit …

  “Glory, the coffee’s wonderful. Where did you say it came from?”

  Her face brightened and I was reminded of how thrilled she’d been when I’d praised the kimono she bought for me. Suddenly I saw myself through her eyes—grumpy, hard-to-please, self-righteous, opinionated older sister. As I looked at her, scenes from my childhood—our childhood—flashed into my mind. Me, barricaded in my room with my books and my record player, shutting the door against my little sister who wanted me to play dolls with her; me, making a gagging sound and pretending to throw up when she danced into my room to show me the frilly pink dress she was wearing to a birthday party; me, ignoring—

  “… Ethiopia,” the here-and-now Gloria was saying, unaware of my guilt trip into our mutual past. “I think it’s grown by some kind of monks or something. I’m so glad you like it, Lizzy.”

  We were smiling at one another in an unexpected moment of sisterly regard—a moment cut short by the buzz of my telephone. As I stood and started for the office, Gloria grabbed at my arm.

  “It could be Jerry!” She was whispering as if I’d already picked up the phone. “I just realized … if the Eyebrow told him he saw me in Asheville, Jerry knows you live in the area. He might … maybe you shouldn’t answer it … or you could screen it.”