“I figured she wouldn’t be.”
She’d shot me a poisoned glance when I told her she had to stay downstairs and flounced off, but there was nothing I could do. Bringing her into Lily’s nursery was not an option. Not unless I wanted a quick trip to the doggie emergency ward to have Zsa Zsa sewn back up. Lily was nice, but she wasn’t that nice. New mothers, whatever the species, in general do not take kindly to intrusions. In fact, I was flattered that she let me in the room. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she hadn’t.
“What’s she doing?”
“Sitting on my sofa and sulking.”
“I’ll make it up to her.”
Calli plopped down on the floor next to me. “Sounds like the guys I know. Something more interesting comes along and away they go. Then they think they can make it up to you with flowers.”
“Are we talking about Dirk?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She gestured to the puppies. Two had finished nursing and were busy fighting with each other. “So what do you think?”
“I think they’re wonderful.”
“Me too.” She massaged her lower back with her left hand, then leaned against the bed. “God, I’m exhausted.”
“You still driving up North?”
“Unfortunately. Yesterday I thought I was going into a ditch for sure. I don’t know why anyone lives up there.”
“The Native Americans do it because they have to, and the others do it because they’re antisocial and like the idea of being able to do what they want.”
“I think they would use the word self-reliant.”
“Yes, white power groups would. So, how’s the story going?”
Calli shrugged. “Slowly. Everyone has something bad to say about everyone else. Checking out the facts is hard. Not that it matters anyway. Mike told me he heard a rumor they’re thinking of killing the series. But what do I know? Why should they tell me? I’m just writing the damned piece after all.”
She yawned. “Between work and the puppies, I think I’ve gotten a total of four hours sleep for the past three nights. But it’s been worth it.” She closed her eyes for a few moments and rubbed them gently with her knuckles before opening them. “Did I tell you, I prepared a whelping bed down in the rec room in the basement, just like the vet told me to do, but she liked up here better. On the carpet.”
“That’s okay. My first dog, Elsie, had her litter in Murphy’s closet. She wouldn’t let anyone in there for three weeks. Anytime anyone tried, she’d run out and nip them. Murphy had to go out and buy new clothes.”
Calli giggled.
“I thought it was pretty funny too, but Murphy didn’t.”
Calli lightly ran her fingers along the top of the carpet. “I think I might have to have this ripped up, not that I liked this color anyway,” she reflected. “What would you call it?”
“Puke yellow?”
“I don’t know what I was on when I picked it out.”
“For sure something that wasn’t very good.”
As I watched Calli, I realized that I hadn’t seen her looking so happy in a long time. Maybe there is something to motherhood after all. Especially if you can mother vicariously.
Calli reached over and stroked under Lily’s chin. Then she lifted up one of the puppies. Lily’s body tensed. Her eyes never left the pup Calli was holding. “I’m thinking of keeping one,” she told me before returning it to Lily. “Actually I’d like to keep them all.”
I recalled the chaos surrounding Elsie’s puppies. “Believe me, you won’t when they get bigger and start running around.”
“Maybe.” Calli brushed a strand of blond hair off her forehead. “We’ll see.”
“Manuel wants one. For Bethany”
“What do you think?” Calli asked.
“I think I’ll end up with the dog.”
“Zsa Zsa would not be pleased.”
“No one likes being replaced.” I took a deep breath as George’s face flashed through my mind. The pain in my chest returned.
“Are you all right?” Calli asked.
“Fine. I just got something in my eye.”
“You need a tissue?”
I shook my head.
“This is about what happened yesterday at Wilcox’s, isn’t it?”
I nodded, grateful not to have been the one who lied. Discussing yesterday was easier than discussing George. If I told Calli about George getting married, it would be real. I couldn’t deal with that yet. Maybe I don’t do well with relationships, but I do real well with denial.
Calli had been out of the office all day, so the first she’d heard about what had happened at Wilcox’s house was on the six o‘clock news. Though my name hadn’t been mentioned—I’d been called a concerned neighbor—she’ d recognized Wilcox’s name from one of our previous conversations and, being the nosy person she was, she’d called me immediately to find out what was going on. I’d been too tired to talk then. Now I wasn’t.
Even though she’d found out some of the details in the interim I told her everything anyway. When I got to the part about how Wilcox had died, Calli clapped her hands over her mouth.
“Oh, my God,” she cried.
“I know.”
“I can tell you one thing. I’ll never eat barbecue again.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.”
Calli shuddered. “You’d have to be a real sicky to do something like that.”
“Yeah. We’re definitely talking psychopath.”
Calli crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed them. “But I’ll tell you one thing. Seeing that would give me nightmares for months.”
“I don’t get nightmares,” I lied.
“What a crock of shit.”
Calli was right. I’d been plagued with them ever since my father died. Something like Wilcox just brought everything back. I watched Calli pick one of Lily’s golden hairs off her black cashmere sweater and set it carefully on the rug.
“I should have gotten a black lab. That way the dog hair wouldn’t show,” she reflected as she picked another hair off her sleeve. “I swear I could knit a sweater from Lily’s fur.” She brightened. “And speaking of sweaters, they’re on sale at Good Stuff.” Good Stuff is a high-end boutique out in Fayetteville where Calli does most of her shopping. “Let’s go out there Saturday afternoon. You could use some retail therapy.”
“I don’t have the money.” I was going to need everything I’d earned from this job to pay my bills.
“You have Santini’s expense money.”
“I have to return most of it.”
“Robin, I’m deeply disappointed in you. All those years on the newspaper. Does the phrase creative padding mean nothing to you?”
“What happened to your morals?”
“I don’t have any when it comes to clothes.”
“Or men.”
“That too. And proud of it.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
Calli is a great believer in shopping as a cure for everything—that or a pedicure. I used to think that was terminally shallow, but now I’m not so sure she isn’t on to something. You can’t control the big things in your life, but you can control the color of your nails and the cut of your skirt.
Sometimes distraction is a good thing. And anyway, I could use a new sweater. I had exactly four in my dresser drawer. When I lived in New York City, I’d had so many, I’d ended up storing some of them in my oven. I think I lost interest when I married Murphy. He hated me spending money on stuff like that and I hated buying cheap stuff, so I ended up not buying anything at all.
“Maybe you’re right,” I conceded.
“Of course.” Calli tapped her fingers on her thigh. “I always am. Wilcox,” she mused. “Is there something about him I should know?”
“I can’t imagine what.”
The manner of his death seemed the most notable thing about him.
“You’d tell me if there was, right?”
“Don’
t you ever stop working?”
“Once in a while.”
Calli might look like a Barbie Doll, but she has the mind of a Mac computer. Except, of course, when it comes to herself. I was thinking about how it always works that way when I heard the downstairs front door open and close.
“Is that Dirk?”
Calli shook her head. “No. His kid.”
“I didn’t know he had kids”
Calli held up three fingers. “By two different women.” I must have given her a look because Calli added, “Don’t worry. He’s not staying here, not that you should talk, with Manuel.”
“That’s different”
“No, it isn’t. Anyway, he just came by to get something Dirk left for him.”
“And speaking of Dirk, where is the crown prince of music?”
“Playing a gig somewhere out in Tully. Things seem to be picking up for him.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said with as much sincerity as I could manage.
“He’s even thinking of cutting a CD and distributing it himself. That stuff is so much easier to do with the web. I just loaned him some money to register his CD with ASCAP”
“Wonderful.”
Calli put her hand on my arm. “Please, Robin. Give him a chance. He really is trying. And you should see him with Lily.”
“It’s just that you’re my friend and I don’t want to see you getting hurt again.”
“I know.” She patted my arm, then smoothed down the front of the sweater she was wearing. “You have to believe I know what I’m doing.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t, but thank you for lying.”
There was the sound of something falling downstairs.
“I swear that kid can’t cross the room without falling over his own feet,” Calli told me. She leaned over. “What’s going on down there?” she yelled.
“Nothing. I tripped over the rug and knocked over a chair,” Dirk’s son yelled back.
A moment later, I heard footsteps clomping up the stairs.
“Calli, I can’t find the folder,” he said. “Are you sure my dad left it?”
The voice sounded familiar.
Then he stuck his head in the door.
It was the kid from Fayette Street.
Chapter Nineteen
The kid and I stared at each other. His nose was red from the cold. So were his hands. He was still wearing the same cheap jacket he’d had on when he came to see me in the store. It was probably the only one he had.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded when he saw me. He looked confused.
“I could ask the same of you.” I turned to Calli.
“This is the kid that was in the house where we found Tiger Lily.”
I looked at her biting her lip and knew that she knew.
“But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?”
The kid indicated me with his chin. “Calli, she a friend of yours?”
Calli didn’t answer him. She looked away. As if she hadn’t heard. As if he didn’t exist.
“Yes, I am,” I told him. “I guess she didn’t tell you that.”
He scuffed his feet on the carpet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t.”
Calli coughed. “Dirk says the whole thing was a mistake,” she said to me.
Lily whimpered softly. The tension in the room disturbed her. I put out my hand and petted her.
“What do you mean, mistake?” I asked Calli.
“A misunderstanding.”
“I see.”
Calli got busy taking more of Lily’s hairs off her sweater.
“Who paid the kid’s bail?” I asked her.
“Hey, I got a name,” the kid protested.
We both went on with our conversation as if he wasn’t there.
“I did,” Calli admitted.
“You weren’t going to tell me, were you?” I asked her.
Two spots of color grew on her cheeks. “Only because I know how you get.”
“How I get?”
“Yes. You’re always so self-righteous about everything.”
“You don’t think being lied to should upset me?”
“What I told you wasn’t a lie. Tiger Lily got out of my yard.”
“I thought you said she was stolen.”
Calli held up her hands and let them drop back into her lap. “I thought she was. But stolen or lost, what difference does it make? She was gone. I had to get her back.”
“It makes a big difference”
“The result was the same. She was missing.”
“Don’t play those semantic games with me.”
Calli glared at me.
I glared back.
I pointed to the kid. “Did he tell you where Lily was? Is that how you knew?”
Lily gave a tentative thump of her tail at the mention of her name and licked my hand. I gave her a quick hug.
“Well, is it?” I asked Calli.
Calli studied the wall, while the kid looked at both of us—not quite sure what to do. I almost felt sorry for him. He was in way over his head.
I went on. “So what was this whole business with stealing her back? Why not just go up to the front door and knock?”
Calli nodded her head in the kid’s direction. “Because he didn’t want Myra to know.”
“The woman who came to the door?”
“Yes,” Calli whispered.
“Who cares what he wanted?”
“Hey,” the kid said. “That isn’t nice.”
“I’m not in a nice mood.”
I pushed myself up and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Calli asked.
“Out of here.” And I walked into the hallway.
“Robin, please,” Calli called as she came after me. She put her hand on my shoulder. I spun around. “Robin, he was trying to help.”
I gestured to the kid, who was standing close to Calli with his hands jammed in his pockets. “I bet.”
Calli put her hand on my arm. “Robin,” she said. “He found Lily at Myra’s house. He told me where she was.”
I turned toward the kid. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“It’s true,” he insisted. “Myra found her wandering the streets. She was gonna sell her,” he mumbled.
“Why’d you come to the store?”
He shrugged. “I told you. I thought I could do something to help Myra out.”
“You’re just an all-around great guy, aren’t you?”
The kid didn’t say anything. I looked at Calli.
“You should have told me.”
She picked up her hands and let them fall.
I started for the stairs. “Myra is Dirk’s second wife. I was embarrassed,” Calli called after me.
“Friends trust each other.”
Maybe I should have been more understanding. Maybe I should have gone back up. But I didn’t. I was so hurt and angry that I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Instead I whistled for Zsa Zsa, walked out the door, got in my car, and drove home.
It was extremely cold out, and the weatherman said it would get even colder tomorrow. Nothing was moving outside. Everyone was inside keeping warm. Bethany and Manuel were cuddling on the sofa watching television when I walked in the door. The air smelled of popcorn.
“You want some?” Bethany asked. “I just made it.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” I hung my jacket up and went straight to the liquor.
“Are you sure?” Bethany said.
“Positive.”
“The lawyer said Bethany could become an emancipated minor if she wanted to.”
“Great”
“He said to think it over.”
“Good idea.”
“Well,” Manuel said as I unscrewed the top of the bottle. “Is Calli going to let us have a puppy?”
“I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.” I poured myself a
triple.
“Why not?”
I took a sip. Then I took another. I could feel the knot in my chest loosening. It occurred to me as I took my fourth sip that my drinking was moving from the “like to” to the “need to” category.
“Why?” Manuel repeated.
“I’ll tell you later.” And I took my drink and went upstairs. I could hear Zsa Zsa’s nails on the risers as she followed me.
I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment.
Chapter Twenty
Maybe I wouldn’t have dreamt about George if he hadn’t called me just as I was falling asleep.
“Don’t hang up,” he said when I picked up.
“Did you call me before at the store?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I could hear someone breathing on the line. Then they hung up. I thought it might be you.”
“I wouldn’t do something like that.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Robin, are you still there?”
I pushed Zsa Zsa off my pillow and rested my head on it. “I’m here.”
“What are you thinking?”
“That talking to you is incredibly painful.”
“I’m sorry. I just called to find out how you are.”
“Why?”
“Because I care about you. I always will. Don’t you know that?”
“You have a funny way of showing it. Why shouldn’t I be fine?”
“They mentioned your name on the eleven o’clock news.”
“Great. What did the story say?”
“Not too much. Just that you had discovered Wilcox’s body.”
“Nothing else?”
“It was, and I’m quoting, a brutal murder.”
“That’s a fairly accurate assessment.”
“What happened?”
I couldn’t help myself. I told him.
“Jeez,” George said when I was through. “What the hell did Paul get you mixed up in?”
“I’m not mixed up in anything. It’s over.”
“I hope so.”
“And anyway, I don’t think Paul knows any more about what happened than I do.”
George’s laugh was humorless. “He always knows. Is there anything that I can do for you? Anything that you need?”
I wanted to say, yes, there is. I need you to make things the way they were before.
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