Sex in a Sidecar

by Phyllis Smallman

  “Four days,” he said, kissing my forehead. “ I’ll be back.”

  “Four days,” I repeated.

  “And then we get our lives back,” he said. “Go back to normal.”

  At eleven o’clock, I laid a long box of white Phalaenopsis orchids on the counter behind the bar with a tray of bud vases for the tables. Except for coffee and muffins, we didn’t start serving until eleven-thirty and even then people generally ordered out by the pool so this was the quiet time.

  I was looking forward to Deanna coming in and talking over buying the Sunset with Clay. She’d give me a clear-eyed second opinion. Some of her daddy’s money-making sense had rubbed off on Deanna and while people were working on her nails and hair and body, her brain was scheming on how to increase her millions. While I gave her bartending advice, she’d been giving me financial advice.

  I was cleaning off the debris from the orchids when Ethan Eames came into the bar. “Morning, Ethan,” I said.

  “Hi.” The word was flat and heavy as if it taxed him to get it out. His boundless good cheer was gone and the shine had faded from his goods looks. Even his hair looked less glossy, his skin drier and his eyes tired — Ethan had been jettisoned into the real world with the rest of us. He put three cups and saucers on a tray and began filling a thermos jug from an urn on the serving table. “Ethan, we need to talk.”

  “I know,” he told me in a flat emotionless voice without looking up. Unhappiness had entered every cell of his body. “I’m not to see Deanna Weston again. I already agreed, all right?”

  “More than that. You have to stop fraternizing with the clientele.”

  “Fraternizing?”

  “Dating. Look, what you do in your free time is your business, but when it intrudes on the club it has to stop.”

  He looked confused. The truth was everyone knew about the pool boys and no one cared unless there was some disagreement that brought it out in the open.

  “Okay,” he said and stared at me in puzzled uncertainty.

  “Okay.”

  I went to the bar fridge and took out three small pitchers of cream and added them to his tray. Ethan stared down at the tray as if wondering what else should be there. The problem occupied his total attention. I added a small bowl with packets of sugar and sweeteners and three spoons.

  “Go,” I told him.

  He picked up the tray. Then his face went white. He set the tray down hard.

  Styles and another man, a black guy built big and square, came through the arched doorway.

  A high-pitched sound, between a moan and a keen, came from Ethan. Styles walked unhurriedly towards us, stopped in front of Ethan and calmly said, “I’d like you to come with us, Mr. Eames.”

  The black guy walked around Ethan and grasped hold of him by the elbows and handcuffed him. Ethan winced but he didn’t offer any resistance nor did he ask any questions, he just looked whipped and defeated.

  The cop led Ethan back towards the terrace where the members sat in the sun.

  “Wait!” It came out loud. “Wait,” I said more quietly.

  The two policemen looked at me. “Please use the back way. There’s no reason to embarrass him more than necessary.”

  The black cop looked to Styles. Styles nodded and pointed a hand to the door to the hall. The cop started for the hall and Styles turned to follow.

  I put out a hand to stop him. “What is it? What’s happened? Why are you arresting him now?”

  “Deanna Weston was found shot to death in her condo this morning.”

  Chapter 65

  When the door closed behind Styles I picked up the coffee tray and took it out to the blue of the terrace, pausing a few seconds at the door to let my eyes adjust to the light. The turquoise of the swimming pool stretched out to where a sailboat skimmed along the azure gulf, below a Wedgwood blue sky.

  Along the left side of the pool, bubble-gum-pink-and-white-striped lounges lined the deck. On the other side stood tables with raspberry-colored umbrellas, their edges fluttering delicately in the breeze. A table of three ladies chatted under one of the umbrellas. I walked over to their table.

  I moved a pack of Camels and some matches; I even smiled as I set the tray down and placed a cup in front of each lady. Then I returned to the bar, dropped the tray and picked up my purse from its hidey hole under the counter, walked out through the members covered parking, across the hot pavement to the path cutting through some palmetto to the crushed shell parking lot for staff cars.

  I got in the Miata, placed both hands on the wheel and sat there, staring blankly ahead. I just couldn’t make sense of how someone could be sliding their ass onto the stool across from me for a little Sex in a Sidecar one day and the next day be shot dead. Life, well my life anyway, just wasn’t like that.

  I told myself it wasn’t as if Deanna and I were friends. I told myself she would have gone off at the end of the season and I’d probably never have seen her again. It happens every season, but it didn’t matter what might have happened; the only thing that mattered was Deanna was dead and nothing I could tell myself was going to stop the pain and overwhelming feelings of loss.

  I didn’t turn on the car until sweat started seeping out of my hair and rolling down my neck. That sort of got my attention. I had to concentrate real hard to start the car, lower the windows and put on the air. Then, because the car was running, I started to drive. I had no idea where I was going, didn’t know when I pulled out on Beach Road, telling myself to look both ways and be careful. Some sense of self-preservation was doing what my conscious mind was incapable of. At the little turquoise beach house, I kind of came back to reality.

  I turned off the car but I didn’t get out. I took out my cell phone to call Clay. When his phone started to ring, I started crying. By the time he answered, I was barely able to get out, “It’s me.”

  “Sherri? What’s happened?”

  I told him. “The worst of it is Jimmy and Andy and even Gina, all the sadness seems fresh, like I lost them all over again.”

  “You’ve got to get out of there. Get away from the Bath and Tennis.”

  “It didn’t happen at the B&T.” It took a while to make him understand it hadn’t happened out by the pool. I don’t know where he got that idea but in my disjointed story the pool and the beach umbrellas had come into it.

  “Go to the condo.”

  “I don’t want to go back there alone. I’ll go back when you do.” I watched out the window as a huge blue heron settled on the roof of the turquoise house. “Please,” he said, “go home.”

  Home is where the love is Ruth Ann always says.

  “Please?” I tried to laugh. “Now there’s a word I never thought I’d hear out of your mouth. You’re better at giving orders than you are at making requests. You’re asking me to go instead of telling?”

  “Please.”

  I smiled. “I will, as soon as you’re there with me.” He struggled in silence with this. “It would be better if you went now,” he finally said. “When you do,” I answered. The heron took off.

  We had double the number of people in for a late lunch that day. They all knew about Deanna’s death and their information was not only more accurate but more vicious than what was on the news.

  Deanna Weston had been shot in her condo but the murderer hadn’t entered her house.

  Her Pelican Point condo was on one of the many canals dissecting Jacaranda, which allowed people to moor their boats at a dock in their own backyards. On this particular canal, a public walkway ran along the edge of the water, connecting the street to a shabby park, just an open lot with a laurel oak and lots of burnt grass where people walked their dogs. Deanna’s curtains were open and when she moved in front of the window, sometime just after midnight, someone shot her from the walkway. Not much of a plan to just hope someone will walk in front of a lighted wi
ndow. It said something about her killer.

  Everyone knew Ethan was in custody. They also knew the gun hadn’t been found. The gossip turned to Bunny Lehre’s death and the fact that Ethan had known both women. The betting was both murders were solved. They sighed in relief. They were safe.

  And I became real popular. The members knew about Deanna’s habit of hanging at the bar for an hour or so and they thought I might be privy to some spicy inside gossip. People who hadn’t noticed my existence were now acting quite chummy. I called in Chris and left him to deal with them.

  Chapter 66

  In Terry’s cubbyhole, I reworked the schedule to cover Ethan’s hours and thought about Deanna. I tried to make sense of Ethan killing her and Gina. The phone rang. “Sherri?”

  It took me a minute to place the voice. “Hello, Dr. Travis.” “Bernice just called and told me about the murder. She seems to think it has something to do with the B&T, that there’s a murderer running around out there.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen anyone charging by with a bloody axe clenched in their fist. I think it’s safe for her to come out for lunch.”

  “But is it safe for you to be staying there?”

  “Good question.”

  “Well,” he was searching for words. For once I managed not to jump in and fill the silence. “Perhaps you should leave,” he said at last.

  “Oh, you know me, the meanest bitch on the block. I’ll be fine.”

  “It just…” I waited.

  “Well,” he said. “Bernice…you know what she’s like.”

  I did indeed.

  “She thinks you and Clay have split up. I was worried that you’re staying there because you haven’t anywhere else to go.” In a tentative voice he made his offer. “You could stay with us until you find something.”

  “Hell, yeah, that would be great, lots of fun. Me and Bernice could do some female bonding.” Why do I do it? It was just that Jimmy’s parents always brought out the worst in me and I turned into exactly what they expected, all southern drawl and cheap talk.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But we could find you somewhere else. I just want you to know that there’s help if you need it. I don’t want you to take any risks.”

  I can’t handle kindness. Be at on me with a lead pipe and I’ll be just fine but at the first sign of compassion I turn into a leaky tap. “Thanks,” I croaked. God I hoped he couldn’t hear the tears running down my face in black mascara lines.

  “Well…,” he said.

  “Look, I was thinking.” It was my turn to search for words.

  “Cordelia is doing grief counseling.”

  A Baptist minister’s wife who finds out her husband is gay knows about grief and is well placed to help others, never mind that she had a degree in psychology.

  “Bernice knows Cordelia. I think she could help but for God’s sake, don’t say you heard it from me.”

  “No. That would nix the idea for sure.” I smiled.

  “I’ve tried,” he told me. “This anger is eating her up but she won’t get help.”

  “Let me call Cordelia. Maybe she’ll have some ideas. And listen, thanks for the offer, but I really am fine.” “Okay,” he said. “I just wanted to be sure.”

  Tanya called at three. “I didn’t know who else to call. I’m alone. Can you come over?”

  I blame Ruth Ann. Her eternally nagging voice in my head, forcing me to be a better person than I ever thought of being or wanted to be, shamed me into going. Of course, the flip side of not getting involved is forever hearing “If I’d only…” playing in your head. You just can’t win with those voices.

  Their apartment was over a florist shop in a tired strip mall. Both the florist shop and the electronics store next door had heavy metal grills over their windows. Between the two retail units a battered door led to a stairs and an upper walkway over the back alley.

  Tanya was waiting. She threw open the apartment door even before I knocked. Her eyes were red and she looked childlike and vulnerable in tight jeans and a ragged tee. “Hi,” she whispered, stepping back and waving me into a tiny room. Shabby and worn, it spoke of defeat and failure, a place where hope died.

  Through a door to my left I could see an unmade bed. In front of me was the kitchen, a six-foot wall of cabinets with doors never level and now listing at odd angles. A fridge gurgled in the middle of them. The apartment probably came furnished, made up of cheap castoffs, mismatched and worn.

  The one saving grace was that the unit faced south and was full of sunlight, great for December and January but by February it would be an oven. In July it would be unbearable, even hotter at night when the parking lot out front started giving off its heat, and about midnight it would be as hot as it was outside at noon, a place where sweat dripped and tempers flared and nothing good happened. But Tanya probably wouldn’t be there come July and at the moment the sunshine was the only thing that relieved the unrelenting aura of poverty.

  “What am I going to do?” She threw herself down on the forest green futon. “We haven’t any money for a lawyer.”

  “I think they’ll appoint one for him, legal aid or something.” I stuffed my hands in my jacket. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “But you don’t understand.” She dug her hands into her hair. “I have to get him out. Ethan won’t be able to stand it. To make the cops leave him alone he’ll tell them anything.”

  “Including the truth?” Mean and spiteful words, but I figured she was worried about Ethan talking about things like his mother.

  She looked at me with a deer in the headlights look. I pulled a flimsy director’s chair with faded beige canvas over in front of the futon and sat down. “Tell me about it.”

  She hugged her knees to her chest and said, “The cops arrested Ethan.”

  “I know.”

  “Then they came and searched the apartment.”

  “What did they find?”

  Her eyes shifted away from me and she rocked herself forward and back. At last she said in a faint voice, “Some diamond earrings Ethan gave me.” “Oh,” I said nodding, “That won’t help.” Her head jerked back and her voice rose. “Ethan bought them for me.” “Did he?”

  She put her forehead down on her knees, hugged tight to her chest. “They said they were part of the stuff missing from Mrs. Lehre’s home.”

  “Did you know Ethan had stolen those earrings?”

  “Maybe she gave them to him.”

  “Yeah, right. Bunny Lehre gave him those earrings so he could give them to another woman. He’s like a bloody magpie, isn’t he? Just picking up anything bright and shiny he sees.”

  “It’s not like that. He’s weak.”

  “And you’re a fool,” danced on my tongue. But had I been any different with Jimmy, making excuses and covering up for him and always hoping he’d change? But he hadn’t changed, never would. That realization, more than any other, finally set me free. I said, “And when the cops came here for Ethan you gave him an alibi, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Call them. Don’t let Ethan drag you down with him. This isn’t just taking money out of purses or picking up trinkets. This is murder.”

  “I have to find a way to get him out of this.” She unwound herself and sat up. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll take him back north. It’ll be better there.”

  “Tanya, this isn’t just going to go away. This is murder.”

  “They can’t prove he wasn’t here with me.” She bounced to her feet. “We just have to stick together like we’ve always done.”

  “What time did he come in?”

  Her eyes flicked to me. Calculating, she worried her bottom lip and finally said, “About five.”

  “So he was with Deanna until then?” It stunned me. Maybe I’d been wrong; he just might be capable of murder. “He was there w
hen she was shot?”

  “No.” She shook her head and light danced off her dark hair.

  “Where was he?”

  She sank back on the futon. “Out on the beach, walking. He fell asleep in one of the dunes.”

  “If he tells this story to Styles, he’ll never let Ethan go. What was Ethan doing out there?”

  “Mrs. Weston threw him out and told him not to come back until he’d made his choice, her or me. He went out in the dunes to be alone.”

  “Did Ethan know Deanna was dead when he came here?” She shook her head. “No. He came here around five and left for the B&T around eight-thirty. Then the police came. They told me not to call and warn him. I was afraid if I told him the police were coming he’d panic and run.”

  “But you did call didn’t you? You told him if anyone asked he was to say he was with you all night.”

  Chapter 67

  Her eyes opened wide. “How did you know?”

  I knew because it was what I would have done for Jimmy. “It doesn’t take a genius and if I can figure that out so will the police.”

  “But they can’t prove it. They have to be able to prove it.”

  “Tanya, what if someone saw him?”

  She shook her head softly in denial, not wanting to hear it.

  “Did he go into the house when he left the dunes?”

  “I don’t think so. He just went back and got in his car and came here. He was all wrinkled and damp from being outside.” Her face brightened. “Besides, if he’d seen a dead body he would have freaked. He can’t stand the sight of blood, even his own.”

  “You have to tell the police he wasn’t here with you.” Her jaw clenched. “No. I went to the police station and signed a statement saying Ethan was here with me from eleven o’clock until he went to the B&T at eight-thirty. I’m not changing it.”