Morning Glory Circle

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “Donald,” she said in dulcet tones to the person who answered her call. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing and bring Louise and Martina up to the lodge. My sister is having an emergency and we need you here. Call me on the cell when you get here and I’ll give you further instructions.”

  “That’s really not necessary,” Caroline said weakly, as Gwyneth ended the call and gave Caroline a critical up and down look.

  “Nonsense. Put on your coat, I’m taking you to the spa in Glencora. It’s not the Red Door, but it will have to do.”

  “Gwyneth, I can’t go. I have the lunch dishes to do, and then I have to shop for more food. They only eat breakfast and lunch, and they don’t eat that much, but there’s so many of them.”

  “My staff will see to that. Caroline, I despair of you, I really do. You need to hire people to do the menial tasks for you, so you can focus on the important things you are meant to do.”

  “What I’m meant to do?”

  “Yes, are you hearing impaired? You’re obviously near the point of a nervous breakdown and need your sister to guide you.”

  “To guide me? Oh my Goddess,” Caroline said, covering her mouth with her hands.

  “Stop blithering,” Gwyneth said. “Darling, tell me something. Would it kill you to run a brush through your hair? And I hate to say this, but you smell like a goat, and not the good, sweater-making kind. Is basic bodily hygiene against some spiritual principle you uphold, dear? Honestly. Your pores! You look like you haven’t had a facial in over a year.”

  Caroline started laughing, and laughed so hard she snorted.

  “You’re making an odd noise, Caroline,” Gwyneth said. “Please stop. It’s so unattractive.”

  “The angels did hear me,” Caroline said, raising her hands up toward the ceiling, “but you’re the last person I thought they’d send.”

  “That’s magical thinking, Caroline,” Gwyneth said. “There is no such thing as fairy godmothers or angels; there are only neuroses, disorders, social systems, and resources.”

  Caroline came forward and wrapped Gwyneth in a big bear hug before her sister could stop her. Caroline was much taller, and she lifted Gwyneth off the ground, despite her sister’s protests.

  “I honor the divinity within you, Gwyneth,” Caroline told her.

  “That’s nice, dear,” Gwyneth said. “But you’re crushing the cashmere that’s upon me. Put me down now, please.”

  Caroline put her sister back down and ran to get the ski jacket Maggie had lent her.

  “My goodness,” Gwyneth said, as she attempted to straighten and smooth out her expensive coat. “Such a display.”

  Gwyneth looked around the lodge speculatively with her inner interior decorator eye.

  “She’s going to ruin this place if I don’t take her in hand, I just know it,” she said.

  Just then, Gwyneth noticed a small man dressed in an orange robe staring at her from the hallway to the kitchen. He made prayer hands in front of his body and bowed low, smiling.

  “Oh, hello,” Gwyneth said, making a little wave.

  The man backed away from her, down the hallway, bowing the whole way.

  ‘That’s not so bad,’ Gwyneth thought. She quite liked the degree of deference shown to her in the bowing and backing, and the orange robe provided a real pop of color in the room.

  Caroline came back with her coat on and said, “I’m ready.”

  “You know,” Gwyneth said, as they went out to the waiting car, and her driver rushed to open the door for them. “I wouldn’t mind having a couple of those monks at my place.”

  “I don’t know if you can split them up like that,” Caroline said.

  “Well, at least ask them,” Gwyneth snapped, “before you tell me ‘no.’”

  Mandy left the bakery with a plate of hot ham and cheese croissants on a plate, and popped in next door to the newspaper office. Ed was sitting at his computer, working on the web site. He grinned when he saw her, and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before she sat the plate down on the worktable in the middle of the room.

  “Still working on it, I see,” she said, looking over his shoulder, her arms sliding down around him in an intimate way.

  “Yeah, but it just seems too easy.”

  “Why does a thing have to be complicated,” Mandy said, sliding around to sit on his lap, facing him, “in order to be good?”

  Ed lost himself in a long kiss, and the smell of her hair and skin, and only just remembered they were sitting in the window of the news office when someone honked their car horn outside and whistled.

  “Whoa,” Ed said. “You better sit over there, out of my reach.”

  Mandy jumped up and gave him another quick peck on the cheek before she sat down on a stool next to the worktable. Ed’s black lab got up off his cushion by the stove, wandered over, and stuck his nose under her arm, asking for some attention. Mandy rubbed his head and ears as he leaned against her in blissful ecstasy.

  “You have the same effect on Hank as you do on me,” Ed said, and Mandy gave him a wicked smile.

  “What are we gonna do Friday?” she asked. “I got the night off, remember?”

  “Well, we could go out to eat, stay in to eat, play cards or scrabble. I could rent a movie if you’d like.”

  “I want to go out on a real date,” Mandy said. “Just you and me.”

  “What about Tommy?”

  “He can stay with Delia or Bonnie. Bonnie’s got a new dog he can play with.”

  “Alright then,” Ed said. “We’ll go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do.”

  “You’re a great boyfriend,” she said. “I’m gonna put on a dress and high heels for you.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Mandy sailed out of the newspaper office, waving and blowing kisses back at him. Ed caught the reflection of his own goofy grin in the window and rolled his eyes at himself. Hank was looking out the door after Mandy with his tongue hanging out, panting.

  “I know exactly how you feel, son,” Ed said, and then shook his head. “I hope we know what we’re doing.”

  Ava was sitting on the couch in her tiny family room, watching the baby boy sleeping in the basket. She was both happy and melancholy, as the baby fulfilled some inner longing she didn’t know she’d had, but at the same time reminded her of the pain she went through when Timmy was a baby, and she’d felt so alone and afraid.

  Timmy had only been three months old when Brian disappeared. He’d said he was driving over to Pendleton to get some parts for a car they were working on at the station, and a week later he cashed a check in Miami that cleaned out their savings account. Some church people took up a collection to pay for a private investigator, but he didn’t find any trace of Brian.

  Ava and Brian had been married fourteen years when he disappeared. Brian was charming and outgoing in public, but short-tempered and demanding at home. No matter how hard Ava tried, she couldn’t seem to do anything right in his eyes. If she got 99.99 percent if it right, that .01 percent she got wrong was what he cared about most. She did everything she could to be a good wife, but he cheated on her blatantly and repeatedly, drank too much, and wore her down with his insults and allegations. He was possessive and jealous, hated it when men looked at her, and accused her of trying to elicit the attention. He blamed her for having to give up his college baseball scholarship to marry her, and for burying him alive in Rose Hill. He complained bitterly about her to his mother, and drove a wedge between the two women that had yet to be removed.

  After he left Ava was frightened and bewildered, but she was also secretly relieved. Sometimes, although she knew it was a grievous sin, she wished he was dead, so she could be free of worrying about him coming back and terrorizing her and the children with his bad moods and clever, cutting tongue. Dependant on his family and the church, with two small children and no income, Ava learned to play the part of the grateful, obedient daughter-in-law in order to please her rescuers. She’d l
eaned on Patrick too much, and knew that she was playing a dangerous game by allowing him to take Brian’s place, but she needed someone, and he was willing. They were lucky they kept their affair hidden as long as they did.

  Patrick came in through the back door into the kitchen, and then stood at the doorway to the tiny family room.

  “He looks just like Timmy, doesn’t he?” she asked him.

  “He does,” Patrick said, and sat down on the edge of the easy chair across from the couch, so close their knees touched.

  “He’s feeling better too,” she said. “He’s less congested today.”

  “I’m worried you’ll get too attached to him, and then someone will take him away,” Patrick said.

  “Over my dead body,” Ava said, in a fierce but quiet voice.

  “It may just be a coincidence,” Patrick said. “The coloring, I mean.”

  “He has the same swirl of hair on the crown as Timmy and Brian. And look,” she said, as she unfurled one tiny little hand and showed Patrick how his index finger was longer than the middle finger. “Brian and Timmy both have that.”

  “They got that from Grandpa Tim,” Patrick conceded. “Maggie has that, too.”

  “I don’t need a blood test to know,” she said. “He’s Brian’s.”

  “He has a mother somewhere who’s probably frantic about him missing.”

  “I think she must be dead,” Ava said. “I can’t tell you why I think it, but I do. He feels like an orphan.”

  “So you think Brian’s dead too?”

  “Am I awful to wish he was dead?”

  “He’s my brother, Ava, I can’t wish that. But at the same time, I’d like to ring his neck right now.”

  “I was so young when I fell in love with Brian. I didn’t know who he really was. When I did know, it was too late.”

  “Nobody blames you for what he did to you and the kids.”

  “You don’t know the whole story, either.”

  “I don’t need to know,” Patrick said. “Don’t say anymore.”

  “But I want you to know. I want you to know what happened that summer before Brian and I got married. It’s been eating me up inside all these years, keeping it a secret.”

  “I don’t want to know. That’s all in the past. Let’s leave it there.”

  “But it’s not, Patrick. The past is back, and it’s trying to kidnap my son. It’s abandoning helpless babies, and it’s stealing from the family businesses. It’s just a matter of time before it gets to me. The past is circling this house, and it will find a way in.”

  “I can stop him. I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “It’s way too late for that. And it’s more than just Brian now, way more.”

  “We can handle anything if we’re together.”

  “It’s a weakness, this thing between us, not a strength. We have to stop it.”

  “I can’t stop. I won’t.”

  “We have to, before we lose everyone we love, and everyone who loves us.”

  “I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

  “Except we need them; the family, the church, our friends, the whole town. We need them to love us in order to be safe. We have to do what’s right in their eyes so they’ll protect us.”

  “You’re just scared and upset right now.”

  “It will destroy the family if we keep on.”

  “We can keep it a secret. We’ll just be more careful.”

  “Listen to me. Bonnie knows. I don’t know how, but she knows. She can take this baby away from me just like that, and there will be nothing I can do about it.”

  “So you’re choosing him over me.”

  “I have to. He’s helpless, and he needs me.”

  “I need you.”

  “It’s wrong, and we both know it.”

  “Jesus, Ava, you’re killing me. I can’t live without you.”

  “You’ll be fine. I’m going to save this baby, and we are going to do the right thing, for everyone.”

  “If Brian were dead, then we could be together.”

  “I didn’t hear that. Don’t say it again. Don’t even think it. If he does turn up dead, we don’t want anyone looking at you for it, because of me.”

  Patrick and Ava stared at one another for several seconds, and then Patrick got up and left, shutting the door hard as he went. The baby startled and opened his eyes, screwing up his face to cry, but Ava lifted him, albeit awkwardly due to her sling, and held him against her body, rocking him and cooing softly until he fell back asleep.

  “Don’t you worry,’ she said, “I won’t let your daddy take you away, even if I have to kill him myself.”

  Delia came back to the family room, looking concerned.

  “Was that Patrick?’ she asked.

  “He just left,” Ava said, smiling at the baby, who was making a nursing motion with his lips.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” Delia said, and Ava noticed the older woman was wringing her hands.

  “A well-dressed woman with gray hair?” Ava asked in a steely voice.

  “No,” Delia said, and then lowered her voice. “He says he’s from the FBI. Agent James R. Brown.”

  “Send him in,” Ava said with a sigh. “He might as well join the party.”

  Maggie found Scott sitting in his office at the station. She let herself in and closed the door behind her.

  “You will never guess what I found out about Connie.”

  “She’s the little girl in the blackmail photos,” Scott said.

  “She is?”

  “Maybe. It’s a new theory I’m working on. I really think she’s involved in this somehow. Hannah saw her fight with Newton, and she had the best opportunity to kill him.”

  “I think she killed Newton too, just like she killed an old man at Pine Crest Manor over twenty years ago.”

  “What?”

  “I found out she worked at Pine Crest back when Delia did. Delia really dislikes Connie, but won’t say why, so I went out there and talked to the woman who runs the place. She wouldn’t tell me what happened, but she arranged for me to see a certain file concerning a lawsuit filed against Pine Crest for accusing Connie of murder.”

  “I’m not sure you should be telling me this, but go on.”

  “An old man died, and Doc Machalvie had suspicions about the way it happened, on account of the blood vessels being burst in the eyes.”

  “He tried to tell me about this,” Scott said, “but I wasn’t really listening.”

  “Connie was the last one with the man, stayed with him in his room all night the night he died. She was paid extra by the man’s son to stay with him, and when she was accused of killing him, the son paid for her lawyer.”

  “So the son paid her to kill the old man?”

  “No one knows. It ended up Pine Crest had to pay Connie a big settlement for firing her. She walked away a free, rich woman, and no one is allowed to talk about it.”

  “She killed him just like she killed Newton.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I can’t do anything. I burned my bridges with Sarah and now I’m off the case.”

  “Someone could tip her off, anonymously.”

  “It’s all inadmissible though, isn’t it?”

  “I’m telling you there is a file this thick out at Pine Crest with statements, photos, and everything. Can’t they subpoena that file if it’s for a murder investigation?”

  “I don’t know, I’m thinking.”

  “Well, you better think faster. Connie could be packing her bags for Mexico.”

  “She’s back at the inn now. They couldn’t find any reason to hold her.”

  “Do you think she could have been having an affair with Newton, killed Margie to protect him, and then when he wouldn’t leave his wife for her, she killed him too?”

  “I thought of that, but Connie has an alibi for the night Margie was killed.”

  “What alibi?”

  “Lily was with
her every minute, from the business owners’ association meeting and all night afterward. During the time we think Margie was killed.”

  “I forgot that was the same night. She was there; I was at that meeting too. We had our meeting and then worked on Winter Festival projects until 1:00 in the morning.”

  “After the meeting Connie took Lily home and her car got stuck in the driveway. She called Curtis to come pull her out, but he said she’d have to wait until morning, ‘cause he had so many other calls, so she stayed all night with Lily.”

  “So she wasn’t at the inn the night Margie was killed,” Maggie said. “And Lily would know if she left the house.

  “I asked her. She said Connie snored the house down all night and Lily barely slept.”

  “So Newton could have made the drop, killed Margie when she showed up, and come back to the inn late, and no one would have noticed.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “What are you going to do?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m going to go talk to Doc. What are you doing this afternoon?”

  “I have to do some work at my store. I haven’t paid bills or placed any orders in over a week.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  He jumped up, came around the desk, and kissed Maggie warmly.

  “I have a rain check I want to cash in tonight,” he said with a grin.

  Maggie felt her face flush warm at the thought.

  “How about you come to my place tonight,” she said, “and we won’t answer the door or the phone.”

  “Hannah okay?”

  “I think so. You know they go through this at least once every year.”

  He shrugged his jacket on and leaned down to kiss her quickly one more time.

  “I will see you later,” he said, and left.

  As Maggie stood up to leave, she noticed an envelope lying on the floor, where it must have fallen out of Scott’s jacket. She heard the front door of the station slam, so it was too late to stop him. She picked it up and turned it over. It had her name and address on it, written in a familiar hand.

  “Oh my God,” she said, and her hand flew to her mouth.

  “You okay, Maggie?” Frank called out.