by Karen Pullen
“That’s right. He has a hard time with authority. Wish I had the clout to force Bryce to join up. He shuts down when I mention it.”
“Let me tell you, you have plenty of clout.” Our dancing slowed as I told him about Bryce’s theft of pills and the “phone taps,” evidence that had mysteriously come into my hands. “I’d prefer not to waste everyone’s time with an investigation and arrest,” I said. “Let’s get Bryce into the military.”
“How’s that?” said a rough voice behind me, and I nearly fell off my shoes, turning to see Bryce glaring at me. His thick golden hair, loose on his shoulders, looked soft and touchable, but his expression warned me he was angry.
“Hi, son,” said Wesley, “we were talking about you. Your future.”
“Oh yeah? Well, don’t bother, Dad. My future’s not your problem.” He shook his head to flip his hair back.
“You here by yourself?” I asked. I was curious who his friends were.
He looked behind him. “Uh, no, my friends are over there.” He waved his hand toward a remote corner. “That dress is hot.”
“I’ll tell Fern. She made it.”
“My mom used to sew a lot. She made me a cool fleece jacket last year, right before she got sick.”
It seemed tragic that these two men, with their common feelings of love and grief for Sunny, were so far apart otherwise. I knew how to fix it, and though this wasn’t the best occasion, it was an opportunity. “Bryce, want to dance?”
He grinned. “Sure. I don’t think I’ve ever danced with a cop before.”
We joined the other dancers on the floor. He held me tightly as he rocked from side to side. I looked him right in the eye. “What’s your plan, Bryce? What are you going to do with your life?”
“Work out, compete. Good times.” He shook his hair back.
“Don’t waste these years. Before you know it, it’ll be too late.”
“You sound like my dad.”
“He’s right.”
“I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”
“Think about this.” I pulled back from his too-familiar hold and told him how his brother, Kent, had bugged his phone; the conversations I knew about; the quantity of pills he had sold; the money he had made. He listened carefully, but when I said I’d have the recordings destroyed if he’d join the military, he got agitated and grabbed my arm, attracting attention from nearby dancers. “That’ll never happen.”
“Let go,” I hissed. When, instead, he pulled me toward him, I pressed my heel into the top of his sandaled foot. “Ow, that hurt!” he growled, and jerked away.
I whispered in his ear, “You can get some training, become a useful citizen. It’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“You can’t use those tapes,” he growled. “I know my rights.” Unfortunately he was correct. He limped slowly toward his friends. I noticed Nikki in the group, in a skimpy white halter top and low-riding jeans that exposed a foot of skin and a sparkling navel ring. She took Bryce’s hand and spoke to him, then looked over at me, frowning, her mother’s expression exactly, with that worried wrinkle between her eyebrows.
I returned to the drinks table where Wesley was talking with Fern. “What happened?” he asked.
“We had a little chat about his joining the military.”
“And?”
“He’s going to give it some thought. Right now he’s kinda negative, doesn’t want the haircut.”
It took me a few minutes to find the women’s restroom, down a deserted corridor in the back of the building. Jasmine, Hogan’s slut.com find, leaned into the mirror, applying eyeliner with the care of a Chinese calligrapher. She looked up. “Stella Lavender!” She had a loud harsh voice.
“That’s right,” I said. “How do we know each other?”
“Oh, Hogan talks about you all the time. It’s ‘Stella’s so smart’ and ‘Stella’s so brave.’ So I asked him to point you out. ‘The girl in the red dress,’ he said, and I knew exactly who he meant, everyone is looking at you. I’d be jealous if I didn’t know my Hogan!” Jasmine dabbed powder on her perfect nose and picked up her clutch purse. “Isn’t it dangerous being a cop?”
I nodded. Never far from my mind was the sensation a bullet causes as it flies by, that firm push of air, as fresh a memory as the taste of strawberries.
“He doesn’t tell me anything; so annoying! Anyway, we’re about to leave. I’m in a tennis tournament tomorrow and need a good night’s sleep.”
I wished her luck, washed my hands, and checked my appearance—same old me. Some might say I needed my eyebrows waxed, hair straightened, and makeup advice from a pro, but I liked the way I looked—like my mother.
Fern came into the restroom. “There you are, Stella. Sam is looking for you.” As if reading my mind, she said, “You look more like Grace all the time. You’ve always had her hair and eyes, but these days, when I look at you, it’s like I see her. Same strong shoulders, straight back. When you talk, you sound exactly like her. You’re taller though.”
“I’m older than she was, too,” I said. It was hard for me to fathom, that my mother disappeared when she was only twenty-five. “See these wrinkles?”
“Oh, what nonsense.” Fern kissed my cheek.
“Did you dance with Sam already?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s hunky.”
He was waiting by the drinks table and I slipped into his arms, determined to forget Hogan, forget Anselmo. Sam wasn’t only hunky, he was nice and smelled divine, like rain. Neither of us seemed to want to talk. It was during our third slow dance that we somehow ended up kissing—his idea? My move? It didn’t matter. I was transported, reliving a long-ago high-school moment, when Hogan tapped me on the shoulder.
“What?” I asked, opening my eyes and trying to focus.
“Get lost, pal,” Sam said, pulling me closer. I didn’t object.
“Come over here,” Hogan said. “I want you to see what Wesley Raintree found sticking in his cheese.”
Regretfully, I took a last sniff of Sam, pulled away, and followed Hogan to the food table. There, in the brie, was a bird’s-beak knife with a purple handle, purple blade. Like the unusual knife missing from Temple Mercer’s kitchen. Like the knife used to murder Kent Mercer.
With the discovery of the knife, the dance ended for me. I had to take it to the SBI lab in Raleigh.
Outside the mill, my car was parked next to a Mustang I recognized as Bryce’s. I was about to start my car when I heard voices and saw the Mustang’s interior light come on. I eased down in my seat.
“Leggo of my door,” Bryce said.
“When you tell me what the hell happened in there.” Wesley stood outside Bryce’s car, leaning down to talk to his son. “What did she want?”
“She’s a cop. What do they always want? Put you in jail.”
“What for, Bryce? What are you involved in now?”
“Leave me the hell alone.”
Wesley pounded on the car roof. “I care about you. Do you want to go to prison?”
“Do you, Dad? Shall I tell her what you did?”
“You wouldn’t! No one would believe you!”
“I really wanted to talk to Mom before she died. Thanks to your heavy hand with the dope, she didn’t talk to anyone.”
“Bryce, don’t go there. She was in agony.”
“The doctor said she’d live another month at least. But no, under your excellent care she went fast!” He spat. “Now leave me the hell alone! You fuck everything up!” Bryce started up his car and spun out of the parking lot.
“Goddammit,” Wesley muttered. He walked slowly back to the mill.
I sank lower, not wanting Wesley to know I’d overheard their argument. Was it significant, that he hadn’t denied killing his wife with a morphine overdose? A common accident when a caretaker doesn’t want to see a loved one suffer. But Bryce seemed to imply it was criminal. I wondered whether Kent Mercer had made the same accusation, perhaps backing it up with evidenc
e. Such a charge, added to Wesley’s bitter resentment of Kent’s influence on Bryce, maybe even blackmail threats around Bryce’s drug deals, might have been sufficient motive for Wesley to kill Kent. Though the guard gate had no record of Wesley entering Silver Hills the day of Kent’s murder, perimeter security was minimal. Wesley could have parked a quarter-mile down the road and vaulted over a fence.
I dropped the knife off at the SBI lab to have it tested. I didn’t see any fingerprints on it—it was shiny clean—but a few stray molecules of blood were enough for a DNA match with Kent Mercer’s blood. Unfortunately, it would be weeks before the lab could give me any results.
Hogan and I had questioned Wesley, but he said he didn’t know how the purple knife got there. Someone had stuck it in the cheese at the last minute, at the end of the evening. Why? Taunting the police? Trying, crudely, to draw suspicion to Wesley? Someone at the dance was directly connected with Kent Mercer’s death.
CHAPTER 20
Sunday morning
It had been three days since Emilie Soto was shot in the throat and nearly died. When I peeked into her hospital room, I was astonished to see her sitting up and eating breakfast. Granted, breakfast was liquid, and she was sucking it through a straw, but knowing she could swallow made me smile.
Bandages swathed her jaw and neck, so I couldn’t tell whether she smiled back at me. But when she winked, I felt enormous relief. She was alive and alert and communicating, even if it was only an eyelid twitch. Her curls were pulled back into a scrunchy, and her hospital gown was faded, shapeless, and wrinkled, but she looked beautiful to me.
I pulled a chair up to the foot of her bed. “Can you talk?”
She shook her finger, no, and picked up a tablet. She typed, then showed me: not yet soon
“You’ll recover then. That makes me so happy.”
Her warm brown eyes widened as she typed. me too mean-while . . . what happened?
“It was a sniper, from the graveyard. He got away. I’m so terribly sorry.”
not your fault
“I might have been the target, not you.”
not much of a marksman, then
I smiled at her joke. “I feel guilty, though. I asked you to go outside, remember?”
i would have gone out eventually right? don’t forget guilt is a useless emotion
“Oh yeah. Let’s find out who did this.”
of course
“The day of the shooting, you said you knew a secret that might be relevant to my case. The murder of Kent Mercer. Can you elaborate?”
A frown. She didn’t want to talk about anything confidential. I tried another approach.
“Just tell me—was it related to Nikki Truly? Her file is missing from your office.”
i heard you discovered the break-in quite a coincidence
“You know it. So, Nikki Truly? You remember, a teenager with long blond hair, having an affair with an older man?”
She noisily sucked on her straw. you know that much, then
“Since her file is missing, it must be important. Someone came back in the evening, after the shooting, and took Nikki’s file. Nothing else.”
Stern brown eyes over white gauze. privileged
“I can’t get a court order—I don’t know what to ask for.”
She squinted, typed, privilege belongs to the patient and how do you know her file was missing?
Mentally I squirmed. “Her aunt told me she’d been a patient. Your file drawers were disturbed, and Nikki’s was obviously missing.” A partly-true answer. I hated lying to Dr. Soto. No more. “I’ll ask Nikki, then. No need to bother you.”
would be best With her fingers she signed I love you and I didn’t feel quite so guilty. “I love you too,” I said, and it was true.
Accompanied by Merle, I drove to Temple’s to pick up Fern. We were going to the farmhouse to see how the improvements were coming along. I knocked on the door and when Fern opened it, Wesley stood close behind her. She breezed into my car as he watched her fondly, smiling.
I was in jeans and a t-shirt but Fern wore a filmy purple tunic with matching leggings. She was the butterfly; I, the caterpillar. “New conquest?” I asked, not sure I liked the thought. Wesley was too involved in my professional life.
“A gentleman’s rare these days.”
“Oh, please. You have a dozen at your beck and call. Now buckle up.”
The air was softly warm, the sky a cloudless blue. Redbud trees had burst into bloom, their pink-flocked branches reaching for the sun. “I dreamed about you this morning,” I said. “You were trying to separate me from Hogan.” In my dream, Hogan and I were in bed together—a canopy bed, draped with yards of smothering linens. He tugged at my ruffled flannel nightgown, twisted around me like a mummy’s wrappings. “You pounded on my door and told him to go home.”
“Breaking up was the wise thing to do,” Fern said. “Hogan is wonderful, but if you’d married him, he’d expect you to behave like a wife.” She implied a wife endured unreasonable expectations and irrational restrictions. I’m not sure how she knew this, having never been one. She and Grace had both skipped matrimony on their way to motherhood.
“It’s odd to be dreaming about him, though,” I said. “It’s been months.”
“You miss him?”
“I run into him at work all the time. It’s awkward.”
“Behave nicely. Otherwise you embarrass yourself. That’s one of the first things I think about when I meet someone new. How will he behave when it’s over? You want to be able to remember them fondly. Do you remember Bruce, summer of ’96?”
“Pickup truck Bruce, or short Bruce with the log cabin in Asheville?”
“The log cabin was much later, you were in high school. Bruce with the pickup truck. He still sends me roses every birthday, the sweetheart.”
We reached the farmhouse and my car jounced along the long driveway. “Let’s get this graded,” she said. “My friends don’t like walking all the way up to the house, especially when it rains.”
“Will do. Have you heard from the art appraiser lately? Joseph?”
“Zee auction iss een seeks wicks.”
“Hmm?”
“The auction is in six weeks. He sent me a fancy brochure. Oh, will you look at that.” A new tin roof shone silver, reflecting sunlight back into scattered puffs of clouds. New windows looked out of the dormers. Saws, worktables, and wood littered the yard. A pile of debris—bricks, flooring, rotted lumber—drew Merle’s interest. He sniffed around a bit, then headed for the back field.
Sam made his way toward us. From his dusty face, protective glasses, and grimy t-shirt, I could tell he worked alongside his crew. I smiled at him, remembering last night, our slow dance, the way he smelled, the lovely gentle kiss. “Sorry I had to leave so quickly,” I said.
He took off the glasses and wiped them on his shirt. His eyes were clear and friendly. “Yeah, me too.”
Fern pointed to the bricks. “Seems like you’re working fast. Thanks so much.”
“You’re welcome. You could repay me by entertaining me over dinner when it’s all done.”
“We will!” I said. An evening with Sam—all cleaned up—hardly seemed like payment. Merle bounded up, greeted him with a spasm of wriggling. Sam knelt and let Merle give him a slobbery kiss. I fished in my pocket for a tissue, and gave it to Sam to wipe his face.
“Thanks,” he said. “Come on in. I’ll show you what’s happening. Watch your step there.”
We went through the front door for the first time in years, into the living room. Something was missing. “Old Ironsides is gone!” I said. The rusted brown kerosene heater had vanished. Sam tapped a switch and gas logs lit up with flickering flames.
“Looks real,” Fern said. Her face lit in astonishment, like a child’s watching a magic trick.
In the kitchen, a new oven stood in the corner, still in its carton. “The flooring’s being installed tomorrow,” Sam said, “and the countertop will be deli
vered the day after. Sure you don’t want a dishwasher?”
“I have one,” Fern said. “Me. I can wash my cup and plate in the evening.”
“And you want to keep that sink?”
She nodded. “It’s been in this house for eighty years, and will last another eighty.” The iron sink was a single shallow basin, its porcelain worn from Fern’s daily scrubbing. The rest of the house could collapse in ruins, but that sink was always spotless.
“I’ll have it re-glazed,” said Sam. “Now come see the bathroom.” He led us through Fern’s bedroom.
“Wow,” I said, “this is beautiful. So bright.” Shiny buttercup-yellow tile surrounded a new tub. The floor was tiled in black with a yellow border, and a white pedestal sink stood in the corner. I flushed the toilet, gratified to see the bowl empty promptly.
I looked at Fern to see if she liked it. For so long she had claimed to want things the way they were, had resisted changing anything in the farmhouse. Her eyes were big with excitement and pleasure. “You know, I could never clean my old linoleum floor,” she said. “This tile will wash up well. But that sink’s too pretty for my paintbrushes.”
“Well, take a look in here,” Sam said. He led us across the hall into the art room.
Fern gasped as she saw the closet where Sam had installed a janitor’s sink and floor-to-ceiling wire shelving. A narrow, tall cabinet held a dozen drawers.
“This is wonderful,” she said. “How did you know what I needed?” She gave Sam a hug, and he winked at me over her shoulder.
“Had to do some detective work,” he said.
Let’s see—he hugs my grandmother, smells intoxicating, and lets my dog kiss him. Did I mention his biceps?
CHAPTER 21
Sunday afternoon
When I took Fern back to Temple’s house, Iggy, an aging lad with a sensuous mouth and heavily lashed eyes, was there, cleaning. He wore head-to-toe black that accentuated his slenderness and matched his spiky hair. He was the only man, much fussed-over, in Fern’s painting classes, and reputed to be a meticulous housecleaner.
“And wasn’t it a terrible, terrible thing? A young man, cut down in his prime? Leaving such a darling family? Poor, sweet girl.” Iggy swished the mop in the bucket, wrung it out, and started mopping the kitchen floor. “I love this mop. Don’t my hands appreciate it, not being in water all day? How do you do it, keep your hands so smooth?”
