by Linda Lovely
“That bitch,” Darlene spat. “Did you arrest her?”
Weaver shook her heard. “The kid was ranting. Probably high. There’s zero evidence to support his claims. Naturally we checked on the boy. Since Kyle refused FBI protection, we didn’t have anyone at the house. When our agent arrived, Eric was in bed. Passed out.”
Darlene stood, hands on hips. “So that’s it? You’re not going to do anything to protect Eric?”
“Simmer down. I talked to Kyle in person, suggested hospitalizing Eric. He wouldn’t hear of it—not without a court order. He claims Eric’s been through hell so he sought refuge in drugs. Kyle characterized Eric’s phone call as a bad trip. Said institutionalizing Eric would make things worse. I’m going after that court order.”
“Maybe Doc Johnson can help you show cause,” Duncan said. “He treated Eric before and after he went into a drug program in Omaha.
“Eric should go back to Omaha,” he added. “Kyle should leave, too. With Jake’s memorial service postponed, there’s no reason for any of Jake’s heirs to hang around and wait for a new death.”
Weaver nodded. “I made a similar recommendation. Kyle rejected it. He intends to stay in Spirit Lake until the coroner releases all three bodies—Olivia and the two Glastons.” Weaver cast an apologetic glance at Darlene and Julie “As long as the FBI sits on top of you, Kyle says he doesn’t need protection.
“The bodies will be released Friday. Then, he’ll head to Omaha for services and burial. Meanwhile, Kyle and Eric are staying put. So your visit to South Carolina is a good plan. Puts a couple thousand miles between you. I’ll see you to your plane.”
TWENTY
While Duncan gathered our belongings from our unused bedroom, I pulled Weaver aside. “You promise to de-bug Aunt May’s condo after this morning’s play, right?”
“It’s a deal. Just make sure you and Ross pull this off.”
“When will I hear from you again?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Sorry, but if our planned script stirs up the killers, I may be a little busy. I’ll contact you as soon as I can.”
Darlene and Julie waited for Weaver at the door.
“Guess it’s time to say goodbye.” I hugged Darlene. Until last week, my old friend had been little more than a wisp of memory. Now she felt like a sister. Tears matted my eyelashes.
She clung to me and wept. Her shoulders shook. “This will be over soon.” I patted her back. “We won’t lose track of each other so easily this time. You’ll love Dear Island. Stay as long as you like. When I return, we’ll sip rum and Cokes and drive the natives nuts. A few weeks and this soap opera will be just another chapter from our colorful pasts.”
“I hope so.” Darlene straightened. “Thanks for everything, Marley…Duncan. I couldn’t have gotten through the last few days without the two of you.”
Duncan took my hand as we watched them drive away. When the car disappeared, he kissed my tear-stained cheek. “You are absolutely right,” he whispered. “This nightmare will end soon.”
At a little after five a.m., he walked me to Aunt May’s door, all last night’s bawdy talk about breakfast nookie long forgotten. In the doorway, we whispered, making plans for the next couple of days. Not surprisingly, sleep, sleep, and deep sleep topped my immediate agenda. Dozing fitfully in a chair hadn’t improved my disposition.
Since Duncan had cleared his morning calendar for Jake’s memorial, now a non-event, he decided to take advantage of the hiatus to get some shuteye and wade through stacks of accumulated paperwork.
“Want to come over to May’s for supper?” I asked. “I’ll spend the afternoon doing her bidding to atone for last night’s desertion. But I’m sure my aunt would love your charming company tonight.”
“It’s tempting.” Duncan smiled. “But I’d suck as a companion. Think I’ll cart home Chinese takeout, park in front of the TV and watch anything that flickers across the screen. Don’t worry. I bounce back quickly. I’ll be up to snuff by tomorrow. That’s Wednesday, right? God, I’m losing my damn marbles.”
A vivid flashback to a marbles game convinced me my mental equilibrium had slipped, too. My prized cat’s eye rolled straight for one of our cast-iron floor registers and tumbled through the grate. I listened as it pinged its way down the metal chute to our cellar’s coal-burning behemoth. It’s never good to lose your marbles.
“I’m not sure I have any left to lose.”
Duncan awarded me a smile and placed a chaste kiss on my forehead.
***
The strange noise put me on alert. Then I laughed.
My aunt’s snores, louder than a buzz saw, had no difficulty piercing her bedroom door and echoing down the hall. The homey sound comforted. When she woke, May would be well rested and ready to verbally kick my butt.
Today I could promise my aunt in all good conscience that the Olsen murderfest wouldn’t impinge on our time together. Too bad I couldn’t say how or when the ordeal would end for Darlene and Julie.
Weaver had dismissed my fears for May’s welfare. She theorized that Darlene and Julie’s departure took me out of danger as well. “Who are the killers going to blame if there are more attacks? Darlene and Julie can’t be framed if they’re a thousand miles away.”
After Ross and I did our shtick this morning, my family’s involvement would end.
At seven o’clock, Aunt May woke and spouted off as expected. Once she decided I was appropriately contrite, she forgave my pigheadedness. We breakfasted on her patio. The sunshine painfully bright. I squinted at the new day.
While I didn’t divulge all of the evening’s surprises, I did reveal Darlene and Julie had flown the coop. Since I knew someone might be listening, I professed ignorance of the destination. May didn’t care. She was simply delighted they wouldn’t be drawing fire in my vicinity.
“I must say I never get bored when you visit.” May harrumphed. “I didn’t give birth to girls of my own, but you and Kay are like daughters. You know I love you. I just naively assumed my girls would play with dolls not guns.”
Though bed called to me with a siren’s song, naptime had to wait for May to exit for a date with real estate prospects and Ross to drop by at nine o’clock for our prescripted chat.
My cousin’s job was to ask questions. I mentally rehearsed my responses. Weaver reckoned panic about new evidence should prompt the murderer to act rashly. She reasoned our playacting would give the killer—or killers—a single target: Weaver. I’d paint a big bulls-eye on her back when I identified her as the sole possessor of Jake’s pretend second riddle.
The doorbell rang.
“Ross, you just missed May,” I said. “But come on in and have a cup of coffee.”
After three minutes of what we gauged to be sufficient chitchat, we got to the meat of our play. “So, Cuz, what’s new on the murder front? You didn’t trip over any new bodies last night, did you?”
“No, but the evening didn’t lack for drama,” I answered. “Turns out Darlene found yet another note from the beyond. Guess Jake figured multiple clues would ensure at least one of his evidence packets surfaced.”
“So was this new note a carbon copy of the one that led us on our Tipsy House wild goose chase?”
“Nope. According to Agent Weaver, Jake left a clue for a different hiding place.”
“What’s the clue, maybe I can figure this one out, too?”
I chuckled. “I’m sure you could have, but Weaver’s playing this one close to the vest. Darlene is the only person besides Weaver who’s seen the clue, and Darlene’s been whisked out of town and placed under guard.”
“Weaver didn’t even give you a hint?”
“No, and she claimed she wasn’t going to show the note to anyone else in the FBI either. She thinks there’s a leak so she’s going this one alone.”
“Well, good luck to her,” Ross said. “Hope she finds the hidden treasure. Oh, man, look at the time. I need to run. See you at the museum later?”
“Yep. See you this afternoon.”
I grinned conspiratorially at my cousin and patted myself on the back for our flawless performance. God, how I hoped our listeners tumbled into Weaver’s trap.
Mission accomplished, I practically shoved Ross out the door. Sleep was my sole objective.
I pulled the covers over my head and slept like a baby.
Aunt May shook me awake with more gusto than my throbbing head deemed necessary. Two cups of caffeine didn’t halt the pounding hooves in my mental carousel. Morbid thoughts circled in lazy repetition. Maybe the sugar lift of a sin cookie would help. I munched.
Inside an hour, I climbed the evolutionary ladder to humanoid, and Aunt May suggested a drive. For the next two hours, we circled blue lakes and chatted about real estate and relatives. May left her cell phone switched off. What peace.
My aunt checked her answering machine as soon as we walked into the house. It had logged loads of hang-ups. “Probably pesky reporters,” May decided. Friends and family members tended to leave cranky messages, rather than stony silences, to discourage phone possum.
Weaver hadn’t phoned. No surprise. I’d be very happy when the agent terminated all listening devices tuned to May’s condo and had no further need to phone me. I wanted life to return to normal. Boring has its virtues.
We spent the rest of the afternoon indoors. I fired up my laptop to help my internet-challenged aunt update real estate listings with photos I’d snapped on my digital camera. I’d taken a portrait of May for the site, too, but she nixed it, claiming it would “frighten a horse.”
Next we collaborated on the genealogy tree. It showed all our family nuts and fruits hanging from appropriate branches using hundreds of heirloom pictures Ross scanned last winter as a stay-indoors, frozen-lake project. For her likeness, May selected her wedding photo. A little arithmetic told me she was not yet twenty when it was taken. Her gleaming dark hair curled softly. Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. She wore a creamy satin dress and held a bouquet of calla lilies.
“Want to use your wedding portrait on your real estate site?” I teased.
“No.” May snorted. “I’m better looking now. You just haven’t captured my beauty.”
The genealogy artwork would decorate the walls at May’s birthday party and we’d hand out legal-sized copies as party favors. Working on the family tree brought to mind Mom’s cautionary tale of skeletons in the closet.
“Remember Mom’s initiation into genealogy?”
May frowned. “Not really.”
“When she retired, Mom decided to trace our roots. After retrieving her parents’ birth and death certificates, she searched for their marriage license. Couldn’t find it. Finally Mom asked Aunt Julia if she had the marriage location wrong. Julia told her to stop looking because the records had burned in a fire at an Illinois courthouse.
“A year later, Mom stumbled across the marriage license. She’d been looking in the wrong year, not the wrong county. Aunt Julia fibbed because she didn’t want Mom to learn about her parents’ shotgun wedding. Like Mom would be shocked by that news at the tender age of sixty-two.”
May laughed. “I remember now. Your mom was fit to be tied. Couldn’t believe she’d wasted all that time combing records because Julia felt honor-bound to protect her sister’s ‘shameful’ secret. People sure have funny notions about what’s proper for children of any age to know about their parents. Parents are people.”
May’s comment reminded me of Darlene’s pledge to keep Kyle from finding out he wasn’t Jake’s biological child. Silently I asked my friend’s forgiveness for urging Weaver to test the DNA of all Olsen family members. Technically I’d kept my promise. I hadn’t told a soul Kyle was a bastard. Tactically I’d forfeited the confidence.
My suggested DNA screening would cause more people to learn Jake didn’t contribute to Kyle’s genetic code. I hoped the FBI would be discrete if that finding didn’t relate to the case. Maybe Kyle would die believing Jake was his natural father.
Glaston’s mystery DNA report highlighted two DNA matches—a father-and-child and siblings. Jake and Kyle weren’t the father and son match, and they certainly weren’t siblings. But I figured either might have fathered an out-of-wedlock child. If the FBI stumbled across an unexpected genetic link, it might offer a clue about blackmail possibilities.
Could blackmail have triggered all the murders?
At six o’clock, May and I warmed our leftover chicken divan and settled in to watch the evening news. Winding up a special report on the Olsen tragedy, the anchor closed with her juiciest tidbit. “WYZK just learned that Olivia Olsen, daughter-in-law of billionaire Jake Olsen, is the latest biotech murder victim. Knowledgeable sources confirm her death was caused by the same exotic research toxin that killed Olsen’s daughter, Gina Glaston, two days ago.”
I choked on a forkful of chicken. Who’d leaked the information?
The anchor wasn’t finished. Her mascara-enhanced eyes widened as she credited confidential informants. “The same sources tell us Darlene Olsen, the billionaire’s widow, and her daughter, Julie Nauer, left Spirit Lake this morning in a private jet. Destination unknown. It’s believed the FBI continues to consider Ms. Nauer, a person of interest in the high-tech murders.”
The reporter’s facial calisthenics produced a frown. “No one knows the mother and daughter’s destination or if they plan a return to Spirit Lake.”
I wondered if Weaver might be the anchor’s source. Maybe she wanted the world to know Darlene and Julie weren’t in residence.
May and I called our yawnfest quits at nine o’clock. I tried to read several pages in my mystery but my mind went AWOL. It continually drifted back to four murders.
TWENTY-ONE
Vowing not to subject any new morning visitors to my crumb-decorated wardrobe or peanut butter breath, I set my alarm for seven a.m. Plenty of time to imbibe java and brush my teeth before a doorbell rang.
My precaution proved unnecessary. I woke at six thirty and started coffee. A peek into May’s bedroom confirmed she still slept. I eased the door shut and called first dibs on our hot water supply. The steamy shower felt heavenly.
By the time I dressed, May presided in her easy chair, coffee cup in one hand, “Des Moines Register” in the other.
“Morning,” I greeted.
“Good morning.” A chipper reply. “It’s sure nice having coffee ready. Why don’t you set an alarm every morning? Six or six-thirty would be dandy.”
“Fat chance. I’ll put a new coffeepot on your Christmas list, one with auto start. What’s on your agenda, May? Is this your day for office duty?”
“Yeah, my turn to answer phones.” She wrinkled her nose. “Nine until two. Every now and again, office duty pays with a lucrative walk-in, but mostly, it’s boring. One reason I’m thinking of retiring. My eightieth birthday’s right around the corner. Why the heck should I dance to someone else’s tune?”
I grinned. “Pardon me for contradicting, but you’re allergic to retirement. Remember, you tried it and it didn’t take? You love to crank up your charm-o-meter and schmooze with strangers. Besides your real estate broker’s wrapped around your little finger. Tell him to jump and he’ll ask how high. Ask him to take you off office rotation.”
“I could,” my aunt admitted. “Truth is, I’m not as sharp as I used to be. Sometimes I look at numbers—offers or real estate comps—and I can’t remember why they’re there, what they mean. Your mom confessed the same unease, and less than a year later, whamo! Alzheimer’s hit sis like a Mack truck. Remember? That’s when she started hallucinating about machine guns in the mall and started calling cops on neighbors she swore stole her pocketbook.”
I remembered. Oh, how I remembered. Nevertheless, May’s forgetfulness and occasional mental lapses had a very different character, and I told her so. For better or worse, May’s personality showed no sign of change.
“May, none of us is at the top of our game when we’re tired,” I offered. “You
just get weary a bit more easily. With one word, I can tell you why Alzheimer’s isn’t a worry. That word is bridge. You’ve been top dog in your bridge club for six months running. No way could you win consistently if Alzheimer’s were creeping up.
“Mom loved cards and never missed a trick. About two years before other symptoms surfaced, she started forgetting cards, losing count,” I added. “That was our first hint of trouble. You’re fine. Trust me.”
I crossed the room, hugged May and kissed her cheek. God, I prayed my layman’s diagnosis was correct. I couldn’t stand to see another bright woman—a woman I loved—mentally wither.
“Where are you playing bridge tonight?” I asked.
“At Gertie’s. June’s picking me up at six-thirty. Say, kid, want to come? The ladies wouldn’t mind a little kibitzing. You could even sit in on a hand or three.”
“Thanks, May, but I made plans with Duncan. Dinner and Okoboji Summer Theater. He has season tickets.”
May closed her eyes. A smile played on her lips. “Duncan reminds me of Bob. We had lots of fun. Maybe you’ll get all prickly when I say this, but I get damn tired of spending all my time with women. They jabber about the same nonsense. It’s nice to go out to dinner with a man…to have a man pay you a compliment…to have a man hold your hand.”
I sighed. “I understand. You know, I’ve always been a little puzzled why you never married Bob.”
May had “dated” Bob for ten years, starting at age sixty-five. The relationship ended when he died of cancer. The two had golfed together in a senior couples’ league, played in a weekly bridge group, and dined out every Tuesday and Friday. Even my doting male cousins approved of May’s charming suitor.
I smiled when I realized I’d never allowed my mind to wander to May’s sex life. Why is it that we imagine our elders live in sexless purgatory until we start to approach the same stage of life?
