by Rae Davies
That wasn’t totally accurate. I wanted to talk, a lot, but I couldn’t talk to Peter, not without putting him in an awkward position of learning where Phyllis was and being forced to out her to Klein.
Plus, Gregor had told me not to talk to him about anything, and he emphasized that meant anything. He’d been quite stern about it.
So Peter and I had sat on the couch for an hour, not talking and not doing other things, and then Jeremy, his son, had called and Peter had said he had to leave.
It had been a relief, for both of us, I guessed.
But today I was sad.
Phyllis had... I still couldn’t decide what she had done, but I knew whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and right now her “wasn’t good” was putting me in an even “wasn’t gooder” position.
There was no hope for it. I was going to have to confront her.
I loaded Kiska into the Jeep for moral support, and we headed into town.
o0o
Not wanting to show up with nothing but doubts and accusations, I stopped by the grocery store, picked up some of the items on Phyllis’s list and drove to the B&B.
Then, with the full plastic bag resolutely looped over my arm, I strode inside.
Phyllis answered on the first knock.
“Thank heavens. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”
Her chiding look made me cringe in shame, but only for a moment. Then I remembered Klein and the pill bottle and why I was here.
She grabbed the bag and wandered to the bed where she dumped out the contents and sorted through them.
“Mango tea? What am I supposed to do with that? And this isn’t Pretty in Pearl...” She let out a dramatic sigh and glanced at me from over her shoulder. “I don’t suppose the TV is in your Jeep? Do you need to run down and get it? And my laundry? Did you hand wash my pink blouse?”
I sucked in a breath and prepared to hit her with my accusations.
Simultaneously, someone knocked on the door and yelled, “Police! Are you in there Ms. Cox? Ms. Mathews, open the door.”
Phyllis’s eyes rounded, and I knew immediately what she was thinking.
“I didn’t...” I stuttered.
She turned her face away and stared at the wall. Angry. Cold. Unrelenting.
“Really. I don’t know how—”
“Now, Ms. Mathews.”
I glanced at Phyllis, but she didn’t look back. Seeing no option except to comply with the voice, I walked to the door, unlocked it and stepped back.
Klein and two uniformed officers moved in like a dark fog, filling the room with an ominous mood that made me want to shrink back against the wall and disappear.
Klein did the talking. “Ms. Cox, we’ve been looking for you, but I suspect you know that.”
Phyllis turned to look at them, her brows raised. “You would suspect wrong.”
Hands in his pockets, Klein nodded his head. “I see. Well then, let me catch you up to speed.”
He introduced himself, leaving out the bit about him being from Chicago. Maybe he didn’t think it was important.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about Missy Gill.”
“Oh?” Phyllis rounded her eyes, this time in a very good imitation of polite interest.
I’d have bought it if I didn’t know most of her tricks.
Then she cleared off a space on the bed and sat down. She motioned to the mattress and said, “I’d invite you to sit too, but I don’t think that would be appropriate.”
Her chiding didn’t work as well on Klein as it did on me. The Chicagoan didn’t even blink. “Actually, I was thinking we should have this conversation at the station.”
“The station?” Phyllis could not have looked more horrified if he’d invited her to a Monster Truck Rally.
“The station.”
Still no blinking.
Phyllis looked at me.
To say she looked annoyed would have been akin to saying Helena got a tad chilly in January.
I swallowed and stepped away from the wall. “Detective Klein found something of yours in my Jeep.”
“He did?”
She looked interested, but not alarmed.
“Yes, he wanted to know if I had put it there. I told him I hadn’t.”
She sat up a little straighter, brushed the material of her slacks smooth and addressed Klein. “Any other day, I would assure you that while her judgment is sometimes lacking, Lucy is the most honest of young women and would never have taken something of mine without my express permission. However, today she has surprised me and not for the good.”
A cold breeze of disapproval blasted over me.
I couldn’t take anymore. “I didn’t tell him you were here.”
She smiled, that smile of hers that made me check her hands to make sure she wasn’t holding a sharp object. “Of course you didn’t. That would have been a violation of my privacy.”
Klein looked from her to me. He looked... amused.
I wasn’t. I fell back against the wall.
After that, he took over, managing to get Phyllis up off the bed without touching her or ordering her to do so. He played her game instead, talking about appearances and how if she came down now, she could still pass the visit off as voluntary and part of being a responsible citizen.
Being a good citizen, or at least having others think she was, was Phyllis’s hot button. She grabbed her purse and marched out the door.
Proving once again that I wasn’t completely sane, I followed them.
o0o
Phyllis was escorted into the same gray room that I’d visited a day earlier. I had called Gregor for her on the way over, but he’d informed me representing both of us might be a conflict of interest. Instead, he’d send over a junior partner.
Junior looked every inch his title. With strawberry blond hair, a toothy grin and ears that stuck out of the side of his head like handles, he reminded me of a classic ventriloquist dummy.
Ventriloquists had always given me the willies, but the dummies... they could be collectible.
With this thought warming me to him, I introduced myself and pointed him in Phyllis’s direction.
I tried to follow him into the room, but George had apparently been put on guard dog duty. He stopped me with the wag of a chunky finger.
Cowed, I dragged myself to a bench and pulled out my phone. Two hours later, my battery was near dead and Phyllis was still nowhere in sight.
I shuffled to George’s desk.
He held up a hand. “I don’t know anything.”
I sighed and tromped back to my seat. An hour after that, Phyllis and her found–by–me attorney appeared.
She sailed past me, nose in the air, leaving nothing but a hint of floral perfume in her wake.
Junior nodded and strode out too, obviously forgetting that I was the reason he’d landed this gig.
By the time I got to the parking lot, both of them were gone, floral perfume and all.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning, Kiska and I were lounging in Rhonda’s backyard. Well, I was lounging, on my back in the grass, while Kiska rooted around looking for some forgotten nugget of something (anything) from last barbecue season.
Not that Rhonda barbecued. That whole “no eating anything with a face” thing kind of took the fun out of that summer ritual.
“She didn’t say anything to you?” Rhonda asked, obviously as dumbfounded as I was at Phyllis’s ungrateful behavior.
“Not a word, and she didn’t answer her phone last night either,” I complained.
“Maybe she didn’t go home.”
“She did. I drove by and saw her car.”
“Maybe her lawyer told her not to talk to anyone.”
That was likely, but seriously no excuse. I ignored smart professional advice all the time.
“You don’t really think she thinks that I ratted her out to Klein, do you?”
Rhonda shrugged. “I doubt it, but you know Phyllis,
she has to make a stand of some sort, to keep you humble if nothing else.”
Like I had any problem staying humble.
“What’s Betty say?” she asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I muttered, rolling over onto my stomach and immediately regretting it. I was face to face with a dead mouse.
“Nostradamus!” Rhonda chided.
Her over–sized black Persian, who was perched on the railing of Rhonda’s porch, swished his tail side to side and stared down on us completely unrepentant.
Kiska, however, was intrigued. He charged toward me, forcing me to fall flat over the disgusting prize. I lay there protecting my find, while Rhonda ran inside for a plastic bag.
Nostradamus, seeing Kiska shoving his nose into my side, urging me to roll over, hopped down from his railing, sauntered over and positioned himself delicately on the center of my back where he went about the business of grooming his nethers.
I was laying there bemoaning my fate when a voice called from the alley.
“Lucy Mathews? Is that you?”
I lifted myself enough to peer up and spy Bev, TV reporter extraordinaire. Groaning, I lay back down.
The gate creaked.
Crap.
“Do you live here?”
Amazed at her ability to act as if nothing was odd about finding me face down in the dirt with a cat licking his most private of parts on my back, I didn’t reply.
She, however, didn’t take the hint either. I could hear her pulling one of Rhonda’s heavy wooden garden chairs toward me.
“I heard the police found Phyllis Cox. Do you know anything about that?”
Her tone was chatty, like we were two girlfriends gossiping over coffee and croissants. I muttered something not fit for little ears into the earth.
Nostradamus, apparently appalled by my language, stood, kneaded his claws into my back a couple of times and flounced off.
He of much lower standards, aka my dog, plopped down in front of Bev and waited for her acknowledgment.
To her credit, she reached out and rubbed him on the chest.
Grudgingly, I rolled onto my back and sat up. As I did, the sound of someone clattering through the alley drew our attention.
“Did you find her—” Kristi, dressed head to toe in pink, including a pink visor with lace trim around the edges, ground to a halt just outside Rhonda’s fence. “Oh, there you are.”
Without waiting for an invitation, she opened Rhonda’s back gate and stomped into the yard.
Suspicious now that this was not some random coincidence, I glanced at the back door, hoping my friend would come to my rescue.
No Rhonda appeared.
“So,” Kristi said, with a smile that looked as fake as a Hummel marked “made in China.” “We heard that Phyllis has been found, but she isn’t answering her phone or her door. You don’t happen to know how we can get in touch with her, do you?”
Considering the last time I’d seen Phyllis, she’d barely let the air around her brush by me, much less share her plans for the upcoming week, I felt completely confident in my answer. “No idea at all.” I stood up and brushed the damp off my backside, or brushed at it at least.
“Uh, Lucy, you have something—” Kristi leapt backward just as the dead mouse I’d been pressed against fell off my chest and onto the ground.
I grimaced, or started to. Kiska lunging toward the creature cut off my response. I grabbed my dog by the collar and tugged him away.
At that opportune moment, Rhonda finally appeared with what appeared to be the plastic wrapping that had come around her last purchase of toilet paper.
This frugal choice explained her delay. My friend never used store bags, and I guessed a trash bag would have been too big for such a small job.
Seeing her new, uninvited, guests, she hesitated, but my incoherent yells as I held onto Kiska shot her back into motion.
After scooping up the mouse and tying a knot in the wrapping, she tossed it into a galvanized metal trashcan and brushed her hands against each other.
Relieved, I released my hound, but with the mouse gone, his energy dissipated too. He slumped off to the corner of the yard and lay down.
This left me free to chat with our visitors. Unfortunately.
With a sigh, I turned and tried to look, if not happy to see them, at least not overtly annoyed.
Kristi, who had taken a seat at Rhonda’s weathered picnic table, patted the bench beside her. I chose one of the Adirondack chairs instead.
I smiled politely as Bev and Kristi introduced themselves to Rhonda. My friend, being gracious, didn’t ask them why they’d felt comfortable barging into her yard. Maybe she just assumed I’d invited them.
I gave her a look to dissuade her from that impression, just in case.
She raised her brows in acknowledgment and sat down in the other unoccupied Adirondack. “So,” she said. “You’re here because?”
Rhonda was no push over, but then neither, apparently, was Kristi. She laughed and gestured in the air. “Just out for some steps.” She held up her arm, indicating a wristband thing that more determined people than I used to keep track of their daily exercise.
“Oh.” Rhonda, obviously not buying this at all, smiled.
“But,” Bev interrupted. “We heard Phyllis had turned up and were wondering if Lucy knew how to get a hold of her.”
All three women looked at me.
I thought I’d already answered this. Just to make sure, I answered again. Same answer. “I don’t.”
Kristi leaned forward. “Really? Because I know she thinks so highly of you. I can’t imagine she would go too long without talking to you.”
Bev interrupted her. “We also heard that the police found something in your car. Something that had to do with Phyllis?”
Her wide–eyed innocent look didn’t fool me.
We talked for another thirty minutes or so, and by “we” I mean Rhonda, Kristi, and Bev. I considered sharing how my visit with Rachel had gone, but since I didn’t feel that I’d truly learned anything of use, and I was fairly certain that I had been tracked to Rhonda’s with the clear intent of turning Bev onto me/Phyllis, I instead sat in my chair and waited for them to realize that I wasn’t going to pull Phyllis, or even any information on Phyllis, out of my pocket any time soon.
Finally, after Rhonda made a big production of uncovering and turning a compost heap that she had started the previous fall, the two uninvited women stood to leave.
Kristi stopped on her way out of the gate. “By the way, did you have time to...” She glanced at Bev and then continued in a whisper. “Stop by that business we discussed?”
My jaw clenched, I didn’t reply.
Bev leaned forward and sniffed the air in a very good imitation of a malamute onto an open bag of chips that you’ve just stashed under your car seat.
Kristi smiled and spoke louder. “If you do see Phyllis, you will let her know that it’s very important that I speak with her.”
It wasn’t quite a request, but it wasn’t quite an order either. I gave her begrudging nod.
When we were sure they were gone, Rhonda pulled the tarp back over her compost and stood up. “You know what this means.”
I did.
Time for Phyllis to talk, and this time, for real.
o0o
Rhonda and Betty helped me stake out Phyllis’s townhouse. We parked a block away. Rhonda wrapped a scarf around her red hair and got out. She walked down the street, past Phyllis’s and back again. When she was sure no one was watching the house, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed my number.
I didn’t bother answering.
Betty took the next leg. Dressed in a black coat, dress, and hat, and carrying an umbrella, she looked like a depressed Mary Poppins.
The umbrella had been her idea. She said it went with the outfit. I didn’t understand her reasoning, but I didn’t argue.
At the front door of Phyllis’s townhouse, she adjusted her hat, pu
lled out a stack of flyers that we had picked up at a gas station and rapped on the door with her umbrella.
Shockingly, there was no answer.
We hadn’t really thought there would be.
Betty opened her umbrella. My signal, I guessed, to spring into action and for Rhonda to move to step two of her role.
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I crept between two other townhouses and along their back fences. I could hear Betty rapping again.
The townhouses had apparently come standard with not only six–foot tall wooden privacy fences, but also Beware of Dog signs that were institutionally plain enough to actually be intimidating. I hesitated, but only for a second. Phyllis did not have a dog, and I was smart enough not to be fooled by such obvious trickery. I grabbed hold of the top of the fence and scrambled upward until I was balanced on my stomach on the top.
That’s when I saw the dog. He was big and brown with long ears and longer teeth, and he did not look happy.
“Lucy, what are you doing? Go over before someone sees you.” Rhonda, who had left her detail to help with mine, grabbed my ankle and tried to spin me so my body would be even with the fence instead of my current perpendicular position.
The dog bounded forward, gums and ears flopping.
I squeaked, “Stop.” But it was too late. Rhonda’s “help” had done its job. I toppled over the fence and into the yard with the dog.
Five seconds later, Rhonda landed on top of me.
Struggling to knock my best friend off my body, I umphed out a panicked warning. “Dog.”
“Shh,” she warned. “People will hear us.”
Hoping someone heard us before the hellhound I’d seen ripped our throats out, I opened my mouth to scream.
Rhonda, obviously thinking I was addled from the fall, slapped her hand over my mouth. “What is wrong with you?”
“Dog!” I yelled, twisting to a stand, just as the dog, a bloodhound I realized, bolted toward us.
Rhonda, on her feet too, let out a very unladylike curse and spun, ready to race back to the fence, which I knew we would never get back over, not at least before a pair of big toothy jaws sank into one of our legs.
