“That coffee didn’t wash out the taste of Corona.” Frank squeezed Giulia. “I haven’t seen you work for quite a while. I rather enjoy you as a Stepford Wife.”
She shuddered. “That’s the scariest movie ever made.”
“Still, good call on letting her patronize you.”
“If there’s one thing I do well, it’s stealth mode. Wait a sec.” She took off her sandals. “Come walk along the water’s edge with me.”
He kissed the top of her curls. “You are such a romantic. All right, I’ll play.” He removed sneakers and socks, stuffed the socks in the toes, tied the laces together, and hung them over his left shoulder. “I’m reliving my childhood.”
“It’s a beach. It’s calling to us. Ooh, chilly water.” She opened a voice memo on her phone. “Back to business. What did Anthony have to say?”
“He was less patronizing than his wife. We talked of manly things: Basketball and scotch. Then he switched the discussion to network builds. Probably wanted free advice; doubt he was trying to see if I’m for real. There’s no reason for anyone to think we have ulterior motives.”
“I’ll make a note in your employee file. Marion holds her liquor well, but it makes her talkative. I first learned all about how difficult it is to hire competent managers.”
“Ouch.”
“I switched to full-on Barbie doll female after that. I conveyed all eagerness to receive her wisdom and experience. She gave me advice on how to choose employees and then told me how they’ve been coming here for years and recommending it to their friends, because it’s quaint.”
Frank said, “Yeah. Quaint.”
“Oh, stop. This is not a hardship. Anyway, after she impressed me with her patronage she confided they have a plan to buy their own bed and breakfast.”
“Do they now?”
“Indeed. Behind my empty smile I was measuring her for a saboteur hat. What if she or her husband put that gunk in the shower themselves?” She danced away from an aggressive wave.
Frank followed her. “You can’t capture my wisdom if you take away the recording device. Do you think she’s capable of making herself into a mess on purpose?”
Giulia tried the waves one last time and quit. “I’ve got goosebumps in places that shouldn’t have goosebumps. I’m not sure how driven she is. That’s what’s holding me back. If image is more important than acquiring what she wants, then no. But we have a few more days to get under their skins. At least one of our first possible suspects walked right into our shower.”
Frank angled them toward the lighthouse’s beach fence. “If you give that to Zane to transcribe, he’ll freak out.”
Giulia laughed. “I’ll warn him first.” She stopped recording. “I have to scrape the sand off my feet before I go inside.”
Frank sat her down on the grass. “Let me see.” He faced her feet to the setting sun. “Allow me, ma’am.” He brushed her feet clean with his hands, then started tickling.
Giulia gasped and shrieked and squirmed. “Stop—stop—stop.”
“Kiss me in public first.”
“Stop first.” She butt-walked farther up the grass. Frank sat next to her and kissed her. Giulia didn’t keep her eyes open to make sure no one was watching, either.
When Frank broke the long kiss, he said, “Honest answer: Did you check to see if we were alone?”
“I did not.”
Frank stared into her eyes.
“I only lie to catch a suspect. You know that.” She pecked his nose. “Maybe I’m mellowing.”
“Excellent.” He pulled her to her feet. “Next we’ll find a secluded corner of beach and have sex outside.”
Giulia squeaked.
Twenty-Three
Giulia ran into the sunroom, laughing, with Frank a step behind her.
The glowing twilight outside didn’t extend to inside. Frank groped along the wall and switched on the sconces.
“So what do we do here in the evening? Get the game on the radio and sit around playing bridge?”
Giulia shook her head. “You never had to make your own entertainment, did you? Not with your huge family.” She walked through to the music room and turned on the fringed lamps.
“A Dhia dhílis.”
“Frank, please don’t blaspheme.”
He brought his face closer to a floor lamp with six different crochet panels in shades of rose terminating in gold fringe. “‘My God’ is a simple reaction to unexpected events. Trust me, when I blaspheme, you’ll know it. This lamp is like something out of a time travel nightmare.”
Giulia lifted the piano’s fallboard and played an arpeggio. “If my relatives still spoke to me I could take you to visit Aunt Cherubina. The last time I saw her, six years ago, her entire house was packed with furniture like this. Gloomy old paintings of Christ Crucified and Our Lady of Sorrows covered the walls.”
“I’ve never been so glad my relatives chose to become as American as possible. The worst I remember was Uncle Fionn. He mashed Auld Country styles with kitsch from the nineteen fifties.” A shudder. “It was like a flea market dumpster unloaded in his house.”
Giulia played the opening bars to “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”
Frank stalked over to the piano and banged out the beginning of the Tarantella.
Giulia countered with “How Are Things in Glocca Morra” from Finian’s Rainbow.
Frank blew her a kiss and began “That’s Amore.” Giulia started singing by the second verse and they finished the duet together. Without a beat in between, Giulia segued to “The Wells Fargo Wagon.” Since they’d spent several weeks rehearsing and performing this musical in the Cottonwood Community Theater orchestra pit, both of them could sing it like loud karaoke.
Applause after the last chord made them both jump. Everyone except Marion and Anthony had squeezed into the music room.
“More, please,” Roy said. “Do you know anything from Hello Dolly?”
Frank tried “Before the Parade Passes By.” CeCe and Roy sang along. The instant that song ended, Mac asked for “Ten Minutes Ago” from Cinderella. Giulia played that one as well as she could with Frank holding her by the waist and waltzing in place. She glanced sideways once to see two of the couples waltzing. Not Marion and Anthony, who’d arrived when she’d been concentrating on the keyboard.
Lucy said with a slight duck of her head, “By any chance do you know the marionette song?”
Frank said, “You mean, ‘The Internet is for—’”
Giulia elbowed Frank. “I am not playing anything from Avenue Q.” To Lucy: “Do you mean ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ from The Sound of Music?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
Giulia gave her the smile she used to reserve for the students whose mouths she wanted to wash out with soap. “I don’t know that one by heart. What about ‘My Favorite Things’ or ‘Edelweiss?’”
“My Favorite Things” won the vote. Frank took the left-hand part and Giulia the right-hand. She could play this song in her sleep, so under the cover of adjusting her position on the piano seat, she sneaked glances at everyone.
Joel and Gino sang along with their arms around each other. Next to them, Marion and Anthony tried not to enjoy themselves. Giulia could tell by their facial expressions. Every year she’d taught English literature a few students fell in love with the Gilgamesh and Beowulf unit but pretended not to because it wasn’t cool.
When the song ended, Frank changed keys and vamped the opening to “Singin’ in the Rain.” Mac said something to Lucy and they both left. Before the song finished, Lucy returned with a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of glasses and Mac carried a plate of chocolate chip cookies.
More applause at the end of the song. Giulia glanced at Frank, who nodded.
“Just one more, okay?” Giulia said to the
room.
“‘Cabaret?’”
“‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses?’”
“‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare?’”
“Yes!”
“Yes, please.”
Frank started the intro and Giulia scanned her memory for the order of verses. The guests divided themselves into two groups on their own and tried a proper call-and-response but they kept messing up the order of Shakespeare plays.
Halfway through the second verse Gino pulled up the lyrics on his phone. Everyone crowded around the tiny screen to sing. By the last verse they all had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were swaying in time to the music. Even Marion and Anthony joined in.
Laughter and applause followed the final chorus.
“That’s thirsty work, everyone,” Mac said. “I’ve got lemonade and fresh-baked cookies set out on the coffee table in the living room.”
The party shooed themselves into the other room. Mac stayed in the music room. Frank went to get Giulia something to drink.
“Matthew found a long mesh bag filled with sludge in the Haswells’ shower pipe,” Mac whispered to Giulia. “It looked like one of those lint traps you see on washing machine hoses.”
In a low voice, Giulia said, “No ghost did that.”
Mac looked doubtful, but Anthony and Marion returned to the music room before she could answer.
“Thank you both for that impromptu concert,” Anthony said. “You must be in theater as well as coffee and IT.”
“Yes, we both work in the orchestra pit on occasion. We know a lot of standard musicals.”
Frank slipped a warm chocolate chip cookie into her hand.
“Thank you, honey.”
Anthony jogged Marion’s elbow. “Come on; let’s top off our coffee in our room.” He winked at Giulia and Frank. “We have a stash of liqueurs. It’s our not-so-secret vice.”
“I missed a possible drawback to this place,” Frank said when they were in their own room.
“Which is?” Giulia said from the tiny round nightstand. Her iPad took up half its surface.
“The cute element.” Without raising his eyes from his phone, he said, “That video of you only has a hundred and thirty-four views. You’ll never go viral that way.”
“I would love to wring CeCe’s neck.” She typed a set of bullet points while Frank texted one of his fantasy league rivals, from the gloating sound of his chuckle. “I can think of at least four different ways that sludge got into the shower pipe, and none of them involve otherworldly intervention. Also, I want to wangle lunch or dinner with the psychic tomorrow.”
“Sure. I’ll run out and buy you one of those big rectangular swimsuit cover-ups and you can wrap yourself in it. See if that brings out any more about the Veeeiled Woooman.”
Giulia facepalmed. “Seriously, why couldn’t she see me as my Italian great-grandmother far in the past? Lady Rowan back in Cottonwood did it too. If I’m going to give off psychic vibes to total strangers, how much longer will it take for the signals from my old life to fade?”
Frank set his phone on the nightstand next to the iPad. “Come to bed and we’ll work on it.”
Twenty-Four
“Hey, it’s eight thirty. Wake up. I’m starving.”
Giulia opened her eyes and squeezed them shut a second later against the morning sun. “It’s what?”
Frank’s voice smiled. “It’s eight thirty, breakfast is at nine, and we’re supposed to show up together, right?”
Giulia sat up like a Jack-in-the-box. “It’s eight thirty? I’ve got to shower.” She stripped everything off and ran into the bathroom.
They took the last two available chairs at the dining room table at one minute to nine. Frank got back up half a second later to pour coffee for them both. Giulia sipped and controlled her instinctive grimace; the coffee was still thin and bitter.
Breakfast made up for it, though. Fresh strawberries to start, followed by pancakes covered with sliced bananas and nuts in a spiced rum and brown sugar syrup.
Mac and Lucy served and removed plates, refilled the coffee carafe, and graciously accepted compliments on the food.
Marion set down her fork. “So, Giulia, what did you and Frank think of your first night together at Stone’s Throw?”
“We slept the sleep of the truly relaxed.”
Joel and Roy winked at each other. CeCe and Giulia rolled their eyes in the classic “men” expression.
Giulia bailed on the lighthouse tour, but Frank took his cue and played new guest. He came up to their room after and dragged her away from research with the creaking Wi-Fi.
“Outdoors with you. You want to compare lighthouse notes with me.”
“I do, actually.” She stretched her back as Frank jogged the printouts back into their envelope.
Sunshine enveloped Giulia when she stepped onto the porch. “Another gorgeous day. Let’s go around the lighthouse side of the building. Maybe the beach will be less crowded.”
“Mac gave me the full treatment,” Frank said. “Emphasis on the miniature beer cans and cigarettes in the dollhouse.”
“I got the emphasis on the dramatic and tearful story of the long-ago Stone bride. Look, the cushions are back on the patio furniture. What do you say to—”
A brick shattered at Giulia’s feet. Missile-shaped shards of red clay exploded like a starburst. Giulia blocked her face with her arms. She felt three slice into her forearms before Frank tackled her onto the grass.
“Are you okay?” His voice was breathless.
“Yes.” So was hers.
He climbed off her. “You have hair accessories.” He tugged at her curls and showed her two slivers of brick.
She felt her arms and her hands came away painted with narrow lines of blood. “Look at me.” She inspected his face and neck. “You’re clean.”
“You were half a step ahead of me. Come on. We need to wash that blood off you.”
She stood. “Is there a rectangular hole in the lighthouse?”
They shaded their eyes and looked at the rows of bricks.
“Second row from the top,” they said together.
“The ghost doesn’t want us here,” Giulia said.
“What?”
Giulia smiled. “Watch. Mac will blame it on the family ghost.”
“Not in front of me, I hope.”
They entered from the front porch. The uniformed police officer was at the office door telling Mac she could use it again. They both turned when Giulia said, “Mac, where’s the first-aid kit?”
Lawsuit terror filled Mac’s eyes before she ran for the kitchen. Frank explained about the brick to the police officer. Mac returned with a fishing tackle box stuffed with everything from alcohol wipes to three different kinds of antibiotic ointments.
“Mac,” the officer said, “I’d get your contractor back here to check his work. Looks like the last couple of freeze-and-thaw winters did a number on his mortar.”
“I’ll take care of things in my room,” Giulia said.
“You probably want pictures for insurance before you clean the mess,” Frank said.
“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll come up and check on you in a minute.” Mac scurried darn well for a seventy-four-year-old woman.
In her room, Giulia set the tackle box on the toilet lid and inspected her forearms. The cuts must have been shallow because the blood was already dry. Nothing else in her hair; nothing on her clothes; nothing on her face, thank God for small favors.
She ripped open an alcohol wipe and applied it to the crusted blood near her left elbow.
“Ow ow ow.” She checked the result. A little seeping blood, but not bad at all. She applied ointment and a long bandage created from two regular ones because of the cut’s
dimensions. The other two slices, one long and one short, reacted much the same.
“It’s me.” Frank’s voice.
“In the bathroom.”
He surveyed the debris. “Should I be concerned?”
“About these? No. The worst damage they’ll cause is messing up my tan.”
“I’ll still love you.” He kissed the back of her neck.
She closed the tackle box. “About that brick.”
A knock at their door. “May I come in?”
“Yes, please, Mac.” Giulia stepped into the bedroom and set the tackle box on the dresser. Frank leaned against the bathroom doorway. Mac looked from one to the other, then at Giulia’s bandaged arms.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I have no idea what happened.” Twittery Mac was someone new to Giulia. “Nothing like this has ever happened to the lighthouse since the restoration.”
“Some basic first aid took care of me,” Giulia said. “But if your repair work is sound, then the important question is who wants one of your guests dead?”
“The ghost. It has to be the ghost.” Mac stared at the corner of the room near the windows. “Are you watching us?” she whispered. “What do you want from me?”
“Mac? Are you here?” The call came from downstairs.
Mac’s head swiveled toward the door. “Solana’s here? She isn’t scheduled until seven.” She called at the doorway, “I’ll be right down.”
“Please come back up here when you’re free,” Giulia said.
Mac gave her a still-twittery nod and left.
Giulia waited five seconds and ran on tiptoes to the railing. Her hunch was correct: Solana’s voice carried as well as that of a trained stage actor.
When listening to the YouTube video, Giulia had recognized the diaphragm support.
“Mac, dear, you didn’t tell me a friend of Rowan’s was staying this week.”
“How did you know?”
A touch of condescension instilled itself into the professional voice. “Those few of us with the true gift form a tight cluster. We communicate often.”
Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) Page 11
