Piper took another scarf, got up and waved it around. “Well, once Freddie and I lasted till dawn. I never put it together, but the next day a quake measuring over six struck the border of Panama. That could have been us.”
Lily rose. Her heart lifted at the sight of the bookmobile, alive with swirling color and energy. “If seismologists could track romantic foreplay on the Richter, they might develop a technology that would send out pre-tremor warnings.” She reached for the third scarf and let it drift and fall in a soft wave motion.
Without a knock, the door handle turned and a tall man entered through the front entrance of the bookmobile. He stood on the step of the door well. “I’m Detective Hugh Jamison, here to talk to Ms. Lily McFae.”
The scaves stilled, as the women plunked down in their seats.
Lily took a deep breath when she saw it was the attractive man from the Hopper. “I’m sorry, but we’re in the middle of a book club meeting.”
“But you are Lily McFae? Is that correct?”
“Of course, I am.”
“Then I’ll wait.” He stepped up into the van, loose and casual.
Lily took in his blue oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the neck. She was intent on the imagined pulse of his throat. Her lymph nodes sent ecstatic messages to the tips of her toes. To calm herself, she reached for a book.
Piper returned her scarf to the seat back. She ruffled her curls. “This is a private club. Aggie and I were here first, and we’re waiting for the reading. Couldn’t you come back later?”
“No, I’ll wait.” He leaned against a bookshelf.
Lily paged through the book to find a passage. She threw him a look. “Then, let’s make it interesting. I’ll read aloud as usual and start here.
She, being hotter than wine than cool with chastity, unreservedly undressed herself before Pericone … She had never before known the horn with which men —”
“What in blazes are you reading?” He frowned.
Lily glanced up. “Boccaccio. The Decameron.”
He pulled out a badge. “Well, forget that. Since this is the radical book club, I’m here to ask about the subversive actions you’re engaged in. Then we’ll proceed to the crimes you may have committed. Ms. McFae? If you are in fact, Lily McFae.”
His harsh words squashed her silvery sensations. “I beg your pardon. I am Lily McFae and this is not a Radical Book Club. It’s The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies.”
A puzzled look flashed across his face. “What?”
“Someone evidently misheard the name of our club,” Piper said.
“We were looking for reading that’s…” Aggie let the scarf in her hand fall gently to the floor.
“We were curious and I asked Lily to guide us toward some spicy reading.” Piper looked down.
Lily turned the page. “Pardon me, while I go on, if I can recapture the moment.
…find and then lose and find again the hooded little center that is her.
“Oh, this is ridiculous.” His voice deepened. “Not Radical? but Erotica?” He stepped down into the well. “I’ll leave and you go on with your meeting, listening to Boccaccio. By no stretch of the imagination am I finished with this. I have questions for you, Ms. McFae. And the rest of you too. Stay in town.” The bookmobile door closed behind him.
“He said, ‘stay in town.’” Aggie tugged at her braid. “Where would we go?”
“He had a badge.” Piper wrinkled her brow. “Are we suspects of some kind?”
Lily put Boccaccio back in the closet. “I’m not sure, but we’ve had enough of The Decameron for now. We’ll move on to something else. Piper, you had something to tell us?”
“After that man bursting in here, I’m too spooked to talk about anything personal. But I have a favor. My appointment book is crammed full, so could we meet tomorrow evening? I’ll talk about that important thing then, I promise. And Lily, go see Freddie, if you want.”
Lily nodded. “Aggie, you had something to talk about too.”
“Not a good thing, but something I must tell you. Someone took monkshood and belladonna leaves of poison from my garden and broke off several stalks of lovage. I don’t know who did it. Or what to do next. Except to ward off poison, I gave you the red ribbons that gypsies wear for protection.”
“Oh Aggie, maybe an animal ate them.” Piper played with her empty cup.
“No, I could tell. Some were stripped by hand. Others snapped off.”
“Could it be Griffo?” Lily said.
“He swore not. But this is important. We must be careful. Eat and drink only the things you or I prepare. That’s why I gave you the sandwich. When you get hungry, it is safe to eat.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” Piper cried, “and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Too many things are happening too fast. Now someone’s going to poison us? Who’d believe that?”
“We could ask the sheriff and find out.” Lily fiddled with the red ribbon on her wrist.
Aggie reached down for the scarf she’d dropped earlier and arranged it on the seat back. “We can decide about that. For now, let’s be cautious. And remain so as we go about our daily lives.” She packed the cups and almost empty tea jar into a sack. “What else can we do?”
“Let me help you get your things to the pickup,” Piper said. “Then I’ll go to Cut & Curl for my next appointment. You’re right, it can’t hurt to be careful.”
“We must stay in touch.” Lily watched them go. She slowed her breath to stay calm.
After she tasted the last drop in her cup, she put the sandwich on a shelf in the closet.
To forget thoughts of poison, she revisited the appearance of the detective, his seductive throat, and perfectly shaped ears. She considered his eyes, and although his tone was harsh, the memory of his voice made the pit of her stomach waver.
As she locked the bookmobile and stepped outside, she noticed that the woman sitting in the square was gone. She sensed someone watched as she climbed on the moped and drove off toward the farm. Down the road, she heard noises and snapped her head around. No one was there. Later, she heard a vehicle behind her, but it did not pass. She kept twisting her body around, trying to figure out if she was officially under surveillance by the man who intrigued her, or some other dangerous person. The car moved closer. Her knees went weak. Her hands lost their grip on the steering wheel. As the vehicle neared, she almost drove into the ditch. She looked around again and saw the car turn into a driveway.
Under the dying plum tree, Aggie drank the remaining drops of lively tea and thought about the Book of Cures. If it were meant to be, the magical book would return. She went inside to the bedroom, locked the door, and unlocked the closet. She fondled the beat up fedora that rested on the top shelf, a hat still carrying the scent of a ghost she now called Cim.
That night in the dark, she wore only his hat. When the clouds parted, Aggie lit a candle to think about gypsy moon baths, known as taboo by many of her people. There were those who worried about the evil effect of falling asleep while gazing at the full moon. If her gypsy family cared about anything, it was taboos and legends and hauntings. She pulled the lace curtains aside and opened the window. Moonlight washed over her wrinkled body. She yearned to wrap herself in the stolen dark cape, but that was no longer possible.
She grabbed the tambourine on the dresser. Dancing around the room, metallic disks shaking, the old woman relived the bedroom shake-ups she’d experienced with her companion of more than fifty years. She raised her hands above her head and clapped, recalling heartbeats in tune with love’s escapades. The clashing of their bodies. Fast. Tumultuous. Wild. Then gentle. Slow. Sweet. The tempo of past lovemaking shook her body like the quaking tambourine until she was exhausted.
“Cim and dear ancestors, keep me and my friends safe from monkshood,” she whispered and put the fedora away. The flame gobbled up the candlewax. She climbed under three quilt coverlets. Her lids drooped and she found a few restful hours before it was t
ime to wake and feed the goats.
Fred took the package out of the toolbox, glanced at the moon, and went into the Hopper. “I believe this belongs to you.” He placed the plastic bag on the counter.
“Naw, belongs to Aggie,” said Jeremy.
“Well, I got it from Piper and threw it in the bed of the truck. She thought it was yours. Luckily, the dog food kept it dry.”
“I’ll give it to Aggie next time she delivers milk.” Jeremy put the package next to the bar’s old issues of girlie magazines. The cover of the lightly clad figure on the top magazine grabbed his attention. “True classics never fade, do they?” Spreading the other magazines across the counter, he admired the golden girls and their poses.
“Gimme a Jack.” Fred reached for a cover that featured a blonde beauty who flaunted her upper torso behind two crossed sledgehammers. “Make it a double, in honor of Piper.”
“Yeah, that girl has advantages.”
Fred set the jigger down and flipped through the pages. “Wow.”
Jeremy held up a foldout. “Make that two wowzers.”
A few customers overheard their comments and gathered around. Eventually each man grabbed a magazine of his own. Hoots echoed to the rafters as they compared tops and bottoms and backsides of semi-clad and non-clad models. They rooted through every dog-eared issue, seeking out old time favorites.
Even the plastic bag was checked and a corner of the newspaper ripped further to see if a special edition lurked inside the plain wrapper. With no female parts visible, they cast aside the newsprint package.
The men whiled away the hours with erotic commentaries of their own, telling stories filled with sexual humor and prowess, a literary seminar of the pool hall kind.
Later, alone in the bedroom, Fred leaned against the pillow with the dog nestled at his side. He buried his nose in the high school album he’d found on the bed stand. Piper’s handwriting on the page stopped him cold.
I was here but now I’m gone. I’ve left this note to turn you on. Those who knew me knew me well, those who didn’t go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks!!! Love, and xxx, Piper.
“Always fun and always feisty,” he said to Jaxon. Then he noticed that underneath she’d scrawled.
Hey Fred, I always knew I’d look back on the tears and that would make me laugh but I didn’t know I’d look back on the laughs and it would make me cry.
He didn’t remember her writing that and wondered when she’d done it. And why. “Holy Christmas, I miss the way things used to be.” Gradually his moans expanded to swamp the bedroom with melancholy and other expressions of personal activity. From his lazy, drinking mood, he thought of going to the spare room to nuzzle against her, but while he was planning the reunion, he dropped off.
The man in the moon looked down on Nolan.
Detective Jamison watched the woman in the gray windbreaker limp across main street to sit on the park bench. He meandered through the square. “Nice night,” he said as he strolled by.
She looked up. “I guess, but I don’t talk to strange men.”
“Good decision.” He walked on, but he’d seen her face and it matched the police photo. He could think of no reason to take her in for questioning. Minnesota Fiddler had the right to sit on a park bench in any town she chose. But he used her presence close to the bookmobile and his knowledge about the coin theft to requisition a search warrant for Lily’s van.
He looked at his watch and headed to his motel room. When he dozed off, his fingers reached for the red-haired Lily. A horn sounded as his body covered hers and found her center…. He woke in a cold sweat, recalling the words from Boccaccio’s Decameron. Reacting to an old classic was ridiculous, he told himself, and a fatal flaw for a member of the police department. He slid the image of the dream woman to the back of his brain and concentrated instead on the stern photo of the driver’s license. He’d wait for her to make a mistake.
Piper lay in bed, worrying. Tomorrow, while she held her breath, an x-ray machine would squash her nicely rounded assets into pancakes. She thought of her love life with Freddie. The dating. The wedding. The sex. The earthquakes. She thought of someone mixing up poison to dust on her donuts or slip into her coffee. “Oh, Freddie, damn it, I need you.” She crept to the master bedroom door and inched it open to enter, but his whistling and rasping snores sent her creeping back to the spare room.
Lily dreamed a long, erotic escapade about a shadowy figure who locked her away in a cell. He questioned her all through the night about poison, then moved close to touch her. At that point, she woke up with a start.
CHAPTER 29
Early the next day, Lily stopped by the gas station, filled up the moped, and went in the office to pay. “Piper told me she gave you a package. To deliver to Jeremy.”
Fred put her money in the register. “But I dropped it off.” He turned and smiled. “Hey, how are things working out for you?”
“Fine, far as I know.”
“You sure everything’s okay? A woman asked me some stuff about the bookmobile. And a man too. Thing is, he had a badge.”
“I see.” Lily gave a quick wave and scooted off to the Hopper. She stood at the door. The bar was empty, no one in sight.
“Hello,” she called toward a back hallway.
“Just a minute,” Jeremy hollered from the storage room.
She spied the girlie magazines on the corner of the bar. “Taverna erotica.” She picked through a couple of them. On the bottom of the pile, the corner of her eye caught the look of newsprint. Peeking out from torn paper, she saw faded lettering against a scarlet background. It looked ancient. And authentic. In a flip of her hand, she slipped the package into her tote bag.
“Never mind,” she yelled. Moving across the square, the walk to the bookmobile seemed endless. She remembered the book behind glass at the library, when she’d not been able to touch it. Now, through a crack in the universe, she possessed it. Unlocking the van, she entered, bolted the door behind her and collapsed next to the stacked books of erotica on the table.
She sat alone in the bookmobile and reverently removed the newspaper. She stared at the cover, memorizing the design. Then she opened the book.
“I salute you, dear reader.” That was the way the Book of Cures began. And the world stopped for Lily. As she absorbed the aged handwriting and drawings, she fell into a secret place of “once upon a time,” a place interwoven with leafy greens and herbal fragrances. Her soul blossomed as she closed her eyes for one brief moment, grateful for the history, beauty and magic of the old pages.
The doorknob jiggled against the lock of the bookmobile. Someone was twisting it to enter. With a jerk, she rose and slipped the manuscript into her book bag under the driver’s seat and unlatched the door. “Sorry. I’m not open yet. Straightening up.”
The tall man stepped in to unnerve her again. “Let’s start fresh. I’m Detective Hugh Jamison and I’m here to question you.” He stared through the pupils of her brown eyes to the back of her skull.
She responded by gazing into his gray-green eyes, then blushed from last night’s dreaming. She reached down to pick up one of the erotica books and carried it to the closet shelf.
“Consider the place now open for business,” she murmured.
“I confess, for some time I’ve tracked your movements. A bookmobile taking off from Groverly to Nolan. If a butterfly flaps its wings, watch out for –”
“A hurricane.” Her eyebrow lifted. “A typhoon in Saipan. Ice meteors in Spain.”
“Interesting. Other than scientists, not many people are intrigued by the chaos theory.”
“Oh, plenty others. Movie makers, novelists, library board presidents.” She studied his throat taunting her above the yellow oxford cloth shirt. “And today you’ve blown across my doorstep. Was it some current from Madrid?” She couldn’t look away.
He shrugged, then grinned, showing even white teeth. “Closer than that. I come to you from the Groverly Police Department, and my business o
f capital crime usually involves chaos in one form or another. I’m here to ask you about a stolen manuscript called the Book of Cures.”
She slipped another book of erotica into the closet and checked her watch. “I see. I wish you’d made an appointment. I’m happy to discuss any subject with you, if it can be tomorrow. I have a very real commitment. Book club meets soon, and I’m in charge as usual. It might not seem critical to you, but I assure you, it’s very important to the members. Piper has a problem, a serious one. And Aggie, hers is even worse and might affect us all. It’s confidential, but if you’ll wait until tomorrow, I’ll give you as much time as you need. I may even ask for your help with Aggie’s problem.”
He moved closer and looked at her, never blinking. “I understand why the women might be enthusiastic about your readings, having heard a phrase or two of them myself, but I need to talk now.” He produced his ID again. “Look, this is official. A rare book was stolen. It’s a criminal matter.” His voice was crisp. “I need to know your part in its disappearance. Two events collided. The book disappeared. You left town.”
His intensity disturbed her. Her mind wavered when she looked at his long, tan fingers on the identification. A twist of fate was sucking her into its vacuum. First, possessing the Book of Cures. Then, a handsome stranger and the flash of his badge. Now, the possible confiscation of the book. Could the unread ancient book disappear that quickly from her grasp?
“Okay, this is a short account of what happened. For years, I worked at the Groverly Main Library as Assistant Librarian. Although I wrote the actual email that brought the tour, that book wasn’t on the list sent by the Global Antiquarian Society. Also, I left town before the exhibit arrived to stay in Nolan. I did go back to the library to see the books on tour and to say my last goodbyes to the library, but I had no part in the theft. I was unaware that the book was missing when I left Groverly. I heard later that it disappeared.”
The Erotica Book Club for Nice Ladies Page 23
