Family Jewels

by N.L. Wilson

  But a lily pad gift? As a show of affection from Frankie the frog? That would be assuming a lot, most particularly that Frankie really had become a frog.

  This was just getting too weird.

  “Let me see it,” I said.

  She held her palm out, but didn’t hand over the little piece of greenery. It was kind of heart shaped. It could very well have been a lily pad. But one thing for sure — it was a clue.

  “Hang on to that, Mother,” I said. “Put it … put it in the fridge to keep it fresh.”

  She looked at me strangely, a look to which by this time I was immune.

  The toilet flushed and a few seconds later, Mrs. Presley emerged from the bathroom.

  “I don’t know, Katt,” Mrs. Presley was said as she tucked her flowered shirt into her Capri pants. “You’d think Frankie would be showing up with something a little more substantial. Like an apology for being an ass. An apology, flowers and dinner for two.”

  Oh, God, dinner for two from the swamp.

  Mother said, “Frankie’s not cheap. He is one for flowers and candlelit dinners, Jane. Oh, and did you see that watch he got me? It’s beautiful.” She pushed up her sleeves and touched her left wrist first before then touching her right. “I must have set it down somewhere. I love that watch,” she said worriedly. “I certainly hope I didn’t lose it.”

  “That would be a shame, Katt,” Mrs. Presley said. “It’s a beautiful watch. I’ll help you look for it.”

  “No!”

  My head shot up as my mother raised her voice. It wasn’t an angry raising of voice so much as a panicked one.

  “Sorry, Jane,” she said. “Didn’t mean to shout. I just … I just don’t want your visit to Florida to be all about my troubles and woes and looking for misplaced watches.” She rubbed her wrist again, as if willing the watch back on her arm. “You and Dix go out and get those things you wanted for the boys. See some sights. Play tourists. That watch will turn up somewhere.”

  “If you’re sure, Katt….”

  “Mother, why don’t you come with us?” I really did want her to come along now. If she were traveling along the malls with Mrs. P, I could check in with Dylan and see if he had any more information, maybe even check in again with the Deputy. If I could drop these two at the mall and do a little checking at the local pawn shops, it would save me from having to go back later. But moreover, I was worried about my mother. She looked tired to me. Worn and worried. God, for the first time in … ever … Katt Dodd looked old to me.

  “Yes! Come with us, Katt. You know how stuffy and boring Dix can be. I’d love some real company.”

  It wasn’t to be.

  “Dix,” Mrs. Presley said when we were out the door, “you know we don’t have to go. I mean, your mom’s looking pretty miserable back there.”

  I sighed. “She’ll want the time alone now, Mrs. P. She’ll sit for a bit, and think things through, and then, if I know my mother, she’ll be up doing the dishes and putting on her dancing shoes.”

  “And looking for that watch,” Mrs. Presley added.

  “Yeah.”

  I was taking Mom’s BMW, of course. I’d opened the passenger door for Mrs. Presley, who’d adjusted the seat and belted herself in. I walked around the car and was just about to open my own door when I heard a, “Hey there, Dixie!”

  “It’s not Dixie … just Dix.”

  Big Eddie Baskin grinned from ear to ear. “Oh sorry, Dix. Me and my old brain … not what they used to be. I’m terrible with names.” The multiple charms/chains on his neck jingled as he raised an arm to point to his head (as if I needed a visual on where his brain was located). He was standing by the garden, making a half assed attempt at horticulture (half assed being there was a clump of lime at his feet and a overturned lily looking for attention.)

  Mrs. P rolled her window down and called, “Hey, Eddie.”

  “Well, hello, Jane. You’re looking lovely this morning.”

  “As always,” she answered.

  Big Eddie smiled back at me. “Just wanted to let you know that with all the troubles we’ve had, we’ve hired an extra security person. I’m telling all the folks I see out and about this morning. I’ll introduce him to everyone officially at the rec room later this morning, but he’s right here. Just give me a minute and I’ll introduce him.

  I fidgeted with my keys. “We’re kind of in a hurry this morning.”

  “Oh, it’ll just take a second.” He turned to face one of the other Wildoh buildings (Complex A, which from the outside was identical in every way to Mother’s B Complex). I looked at my watch and reminded myself I was posing as an erotica writer. Not a PI with a ‘tude against people who said ‘this will just take a second’ when clearly I was in a hurry. Grrrrrrrrr.

  “Hey,” Big Eddie called. “Hey … hey, New Guy.”

  He turned back to me and pointed to his brain again.

  “Yeah, I get it. You forget names.”

  I waited. I stomped my right foot a few times. I — I said “Holy shit!” as Dylan Foreman came jogging around the corner. So this was what he’d meant when he’d said he had an early day tomorrow. But … holy shit. I mean, I knew Dylan was smooth, but to land a job so fast?

  And just wait until the ladies at the Wildoh got a load of him. Six foot four and hot as hell. And those jeans….

  Whoops. Guess those early morning fantasies hadn’t departed so very far after all.

  But nor had the early-morning … regret.

  Dylan beamed a smile when he looked at me, with a little bit of something extra behind it. Those sexy brown eyes were sparkling. And when he shook my hand he squeezed it with suggestion. I pulled away.

  Nothing that anyone but the two of us would catch. And of course Mrs. P who had leaned over to look through the driver’s side window (she was laughing in there, I know damn well she was).

  “The name’s Dylan,” he introduced himself.

  “Got a last name, Dylan?” I asked. I had to play the part. Did not want Big Eddie thinking we knew each other.

  “Sure do,” said Dylan. He waited. I waited. Big Eddie … kind of waited too.

  “Why don’t you tell her what it is,” suggested Big Eddie.

  “What what is?”

  Eddie threw his hands up. “Your last name!”

  “Oh, that! It’s Hardy. Dylan Hardy. Heavy on the “har”. Get it? Har, as in laughing.” He put his hands on his flat belly and mimed a head-tossed back, har har har of a laugh.

  Oh God, that was awful.

  I smiled. He’d not used that cover name before. Chances were that by now he even had a fake Florida ID with it. “Well, nice to meet you, Dylan Hardy.”

  He flashed me one last grin before he looked to Big Eddie again. “Want me to patrol that C place again, Big Eddie?”

  “Sure, sure kid,” he said. “You go right to it. Oh, and you know, why don’t you vacuum around while you’re there? Polish the mirrors and shine up all the buttons on the elevator.”

  “Do security guards do that, Big Eddie?” Dylan asked.

  “Oh, yeah, all the time.”

  With a salute to Eddie and a golly-gee kind of wave to me, Dylan jogged off.

  “Heavy on the ‘Har’,” Eddie echoed watching Dylan head off to the C complex. “Thick as a brick.”

  But I had to smile as I watched him go. He truly was a genius.

  Chapter 7

  I am not stuffy and boring, contrary to what Mrs. P might claim to my all-too-agreeable mother. I’m a PI, for God’s sake. Posing as an erotica writer, no less. How is that boring?

  Okay, maybe it didn’t help my image that the only two things I bought at the mega-mega mall were a turtleneck sweater and some granny panties. But I look great in turtleneck sweaters. And honestly, what woman doesn’t really love her granny panties?

  Speaking of the mall, I’m here to tell you that no one on the planet can outshop Mrs. Jane Presley. Not outshop as in who can spend the most money the fastest, but as in bargain h
unting. Mrs. P could find steals like nobody’s business. And she was quick about it, which was good. Both of us wanted to get back to Mother as soon as we could. But not too soon. I really think Katt Dodd needed some time alone for a damn good cry. Get it out of her system, and step up to the plate again.

  No, Mrs. P was not the dallying type. More like a general with a battle plan. She got in, she got out, and she invariably got what she came for at bargain-basement prices. Which was great with me. My traipsing through the granny panty aisle notwithstanding, I’m not the shopping type. Though Mrs. Presley did dither once. She spent more than a few minutes pondering a completely tacky Florida Gators bobblehead collection. She kept tapping their little plastic helmeted gator skulls and setting them … well, bobbling.

  She didn’t buy them (thank God!). But she did get great buys on the perfect jerseys for the boys, which had her smiling from ear to ear. And for a moment, Mrs. Jane Presley really did look like a sweet little old lady to me, standing in line to pay for the shirts for her boys. Family. Strange, the warm feeling that gave me.

  Which lasted all of two minutes. Right up until Mrs. P led me to the men’s underwear section.

  The underwear she held up to her waist went around her twice. She nodded her head knowingly. “These’ll fit Craig all right. He’s lost a little weight. Probably lost more since I’ve been gone.” Apparently Craig was a boxers man (which raised every man a notch in my humble opinion). Mrs. Presley stretched out the waist of the underwear; she pulled at the crotch. She examined the stitching at the hem and she rolled the fabric between her fingers. Okay, this was just a tad much. Truthfully, I was growing a little impatient as she started humming and hawing through the multi-colored packages.

  “Well, this is the style and size. But which do you think Craig would like, Dix?” she finally asked. “Think he’d like the white, green or red?”

  Well, everyone knows white underwear is the dumbest invention known to humankind. And green always seems well … just too damn grassy. Craig wasn’t the Tarzan type. “I think red would be best, Mrs. P,” I answered, hoping like hell we’d be moving along now.

  “Red it is, then!” She tossed six pair of red men’s boxers into her shopping cart. “I’ll tell Craig you thought the red underwear would suit him best.”

  Lovely. Gee, thanks. And thanks, too, for saying it so loudly.

  I couldn’t see the smart-assed smile on her face as she walked ahead of me pushing that cart (past all the inquisitive underwear-buying gentlemen who were staring at me now), but damn, I knew it was there.

  It wasn’t too far to the sock aisle. Mrs. Presley pulled onto her hands a few pairs of the display socks (they went up to her armpits). Three pairs later she found the ones she wanted for Cal.

  “Cotton, Mrs. P?”

  “Cotton, Dix.”

  With a satisfied nod to the cashier, she pulled the money out of her fanny pack and paid. Then she shoved the parcels at me to carry.

  “All set?” I asked.

  “Just a quick stop at the magazine store for my crossword books. Were you hoping I’d forget?”

  “Of course I wasn’t.”

  Of course I was. Crossword books … yeah right! My three letter word for derri�re.

  I had every confidence Mrs. P was buying more circle-a-word books under the ruse of crosswords to have some more fun with Dylan and me on the way home (yeah, like I’d be talking dirty on a fully packed jumbo jet).

  All in all, it was a good morning out. And then we were set for the good morning in. We were back in plenty of time for the mid-morning gathering in the Wildoh Recreation Room.

  So was everybody else.

  ~*~

  There was still a worried look on my mother’s face, but I was glad to see that at least it was behind the Pinch-Me Pink lipstick.

  Mother was dressed in a soft brown, long-sleeved caftan blouse, crisp white Capri pants (at least one Dodd woman can iron) and open-toed sandals. She’d painted her toenails to match her fingernails — a pretty pink that perfectly matched her lipstick. Mother wore antiqued gold half-moon earrings, and a matching necklace. Actually it was the set I’d sent to her last Christmas, the one Dylan had helped me pick out. But Mother’s wrists were still watchless. And I knew she was conscious of the fact as she kept her arms straight down at the sides, thus the sleeves falling down over her wrists at all times.

  But leave it to Katt Dodd to look like a million bucks as she stared down the suspicious gang that would be gathered in the Wildoh Recreation Room. Leave it to her to get the crying over and done with, then throw back the shoulders, and go face them all. She wouldn’t be wilting in the corner. No way in hell.

  But that was a woman for you.

  No matter who was saying what — loudly or in whispers — Katt Dodd would face them all.

  And she damn well did.

  The hush was absolutely complete when we — Mother, Mrs. P, and I — swung open the doors to the rec room. The silence was short-lived, of course, but damned obvious. As were the quick turn-away snubs and the curt smiles and nods delivered by others. I read people — I read people very well — and these few seconds after entry were more than a little telling of what was on the minds of the Wildoh residents.

  Beth Mary gave half a wave to Mother without a full half glance. Yes, she was heading toward the kitchen and moving at a pretty good clip when we came in, but still, there was no warmth whatsoever in that greeting, only caution.

  Tish did a little snort-huffy thing and bobbed a hand to her perfect hair. “Hello, Katt,” she said, every fucking syllable breaking down and standing out on its own. “Any sign of Frankie Morrell yet?”

  Bitch.

  “Afraid not, Tish,” Mother answered. “But if you’re back out trolling the swamp later, let me know if you see him, okay?”

  Harriet Appleton apparently had another great big stick up her butt this morning and didn’t bother to pivot on it to so much as look in Mother’s direction. And Wiggie was looking, well … Wiggie-ish … as he slouched in his tracksuit beside her. He glanced up at us, and gave the barest of smiles. All in all, there were more than a few cold shoulders turning toward my mother.

  And a couple very warm ones.

  “Hey, over here!” called Mona with a great big wave and smile from her crib-playing corner, and we headed in that direction. From the look of woe on Roger’s face, he was already set back a bit. Roger, ever the gentleman, stood when we approached the table. His smile to Jane was genuine, but to me and Mother, less so. Not that it changed from one of us to the next, but that it didn’t as it moved along the row. It was just that plastic … just that forced. Mother took a seat beside Mona. Mrs. Presley sat opposite her and I sat between them, again so that my back was to the wall.

  “That’s it for me, Mona,” Roger said.

  “Are you sure, Roger? I’m up for another game.”

  I didn’t like the desperation in Mona’s voice. The flash of it in her eyes.

  “Quite sure,” Roger answered. “I’m down twenty on the week. Besides, I want to get my hands on Beth Mary’s buns before everyone else does.”

  Ever the gentleman? What kind of place was this? Retirement home for geriatric pervs?

  “Close your mouth, Dix,” Mother said. “He means her sticky buns.”

  I blinked. “And that makes it better?”

  “The sticky buns that you bake, Dix,” Mother said dryly. “You know … that thing people sometimes do with their ovens?”

  “Geez, Mother!” I rolled my eyes appropriately. “I figured that.”

  I hadn’t figured that. Sticky buns?

  “Beth Mary makes them a couple times a week,” Mother said. “She cooks them in the oven down here so we can enjoy them hot. And they are just to die for.”

  Huh. I couldn’t picture denturally-challenged Beth Mary eating sticky buns. (Then I could picture it and I shuddered.) But from the group gathered around her in the kitchen now as she was taking two pans out of the oven, and
the group just outside the door waiting with napkins in hand, she must be pretty good at making them. There were a few abstainers, notably Tish — wearing stilettos and a pair of pants so tight they were biting back — standing in the corner talking to Big Eddie. No wonder she wouldn’t wait in line for a bun. One bite of sticky bun and the seams would rip. But food was probably the last thing on her mind. Currently, she was finger-walking (somehow I always hurt the guy whenever I tried this) her way along Big Eddie’s shirt — right from his custom-made state of Florida belt buckle to the start of his he-vage (we’re talking maybe a 3-inch trip here). Eddie was so giddy he full-body giggled. I could hear the charms around his neck rattling clear across the room. Like a life-sized bobblehead.

  Mona got up. She’d seen what was going on. Hell, everyone had. And she’d been a damn site more patient with things than I would have been. “Well, guess crib’s over for awhile. Want me to grab a sweet for you ladies?”

  “Grab one for all three of us,” Mother instructed.

  “Oh not for me thanks,” I began. “I’m—”

  I’m … shutting up now thanks to that good kick in the shin!

  “Sorry,” Mother continued. “Yes, Dix, Jane and I would each love one. Could you grab napkins too while you’re up? We’ll take ours to go.”

  “Sure I will….” Mona walked away, holding her hand to her pocket as she went. She looked to Tish and Eddie flirting in the corner but walked right on by.

  I looked at mother questioningly as I bent down to rub my shin. “What was that all about?”

  Mother leaned over to me and spoke just low enough for Mrs. P and I both to hear. “Mona’s having a hard time these days. Financially, that is. I always ask her to get me a bun … or whatever else someone might be having, and then conveniently forget to take it with me. She takes it with her, calls later, and I tell her not to bother bringing it over. It’s not much, but it’s a little something for her.”

  “That seems like a lot of … well, running around to give Mona an extra sticky bun.”