by Misty Simon
Was he going to make me spell it out? “I…well, I wanted to make sure you still wanted me in your life.” Duh. How dumb could I be?
“Ivy.” He grabbed my hands from the refrigerator door and put them against his chest. “I love you, babe. You’re more than enough for me.” He kissed my fingers. “I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. Don’t you trust me?”
And bingo, we had a winner. I did trust him, so I needed to back down and deal with this on my own. This wasn’t his problem, I guess. It was mine, and I had to ignore the women or lose the guy.
I ended up making him Egg in a Hole along with some bacon I found that hadn’t expired yet, and had myself some yummy strawberry Pop-Tarts. I hadn’t had those in ages and mentally added it to my grocery list for the next time I went to the store. Or I could stay here and eat Ben’s. Hmmm.
But as tempting as that sounded, I did have a mystery to solve. And since my relationship was back on the right track, it was time to figure out what had happened to Horace, and why the trumpet player was dead.
“Are you up for a little investigating?” I asked over coffee that Ben had definitely mastered.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I need to find out what happened with the widow of the trumpeter. I also need to figure out who tried to poison Horace. Want to come along?” I leaned my elbows on the table and gave him my very best smile. I was so happy things were back to normal, I could have sung. But then I probably would have broken a few windows, so that wasn’t an option.
“I have time today. I don’t have to be in to the office until this afternoon. Do you have any idea where you want to start?” He polished off the last of his toast with egg in the middle and patted his flat belly. “Thanks for that, sweetie. It was wonderful.”
He kissed me on the head when he got up, making the moment feel very domestic. I found myself reveling for a little minute and liking that I liked the way it felt.
“My pleasure, snookums.” He gave me a look over his shoulder as he put his dish into the dishwasher. “Honey buns?” Another look as the silverware was placed into the little basket in the door. “Sexy bastard?”
“Much better.” He took the frying pan off the stove, squeezed some soap onto the sponge, and went to town scrubbing the heck out of that pan.
Is there really anything sexier than a man doing housework? I almost jumped him again.
All right, all right! I did jump him again, which got us a little bit of a late start on the mystery, but we did get started. Eventually.
****
Eventually actually turned out to be perfect timing. Ben called his friend at the police station as we walked out to my car, and the autopsy report had just come in. Turns out Mr. Trumpeter, who was Nathaniel Burling, I finally found out, had not necessarily died of a gunshot wound. They needed more time and more tests before they could be sure.
And, in fact, I was handed the phone and a very friendly Detective Jameson came on the line to ask me if I would put my ear to the ground. They wanted me to try to find out some more information for them.
It was a sharp departure from the standard line of “keep your nose out of our business,” but I wasn’t going to be petty. I could essentially kill several birds with one stone here, and I wasn’t looking an all-clear gift horse in the mouth—to mix my metaphors.
“Let’s start with Horace again.” I cringed as I said the words, but I needed to begin somewhere. It might as well be the most irritating man first, to get the hard portion of the day over.
We arrived at Martha’s to a house in full-on chaos. The windows were open despite how incredibly cold it was outside. I could hear the yelling even before we made it to the porch. Several voices joined in the cacophony (excellent word), so I couldn’t tell who was yelling what at whom, but it was pretty intense. Did I want to walk into that?
“Why don’t we start somewhere else? We could go track down the police—or the caterer, since she had the glass and water Horace drank from.” I pulled hard on Ben’s hand. He didn’t take my hint. He kept on walking like nothing else was happening, as if I weren’t ready to try gnawing through my wrist to get away from this situation. Me and confrontation do not go together, in case this is your first time with me. “Please?”
“Nope.” He pulled me along, though I was doing my damnedest to dig my heels into the ice-slick sidewalk. “This is your family now, and sometimes you have to wade right into the thick of it.”
“But I never wade into the thick of anything. I prefer my situations really thin.” Which made no sense at all, but it did get him to pause.
His green eyes zeroed in on me and he stopped, grabbing both my hands. “You’re right, Ivy, I won’t drag you into this. In fact if you want to leave right now, go for it.”
I’m not dumb, I sensed the undertone here that said I could leave but things wouldn’t be the same anymore. “I can leave right now, no entering the fray?”
“Yes.”
“And nothing will happen?” I wanted to clarify my choices here. Yes, I knew I was going to go into the house eventually, but I wanted to see what he would say.
“No, nothing won’t happen. Something will atrophy if you decide to turn your back here and be safe.” His spiky hair moved a little in the brisk wind coming up onto the porch.
I stared at him as I tried to figure out what I wanted.
I guess I took too long responding because he said, “Do you want me to spell out what will atrophy? And that was a good word, by the way.” The smile I gave him was a little weak, but he’d tried.
He rubbed a finger over the back of my gloved hand. “You say you want to be part of this town. You say you want to be accepted as if you’ve been here for years, but then you won’t really get involved. How do you expect that to work? You have to do one or the other, and until you decide to really be a part, you’ll always be on the outside.”
He walked up the first step and waited for me while I wrestled internally. Oy! I won’t take you through the whole process of how I came to the decision because it’s A) boring, and B) way too jumbled to actually make any sense. I knew, knew in my heart, that I wanted to be a part. And if that meant stepping into all the chaos, then guess what I was about to do?
My response here should have been to run, especially when I found out how treacherous all this sharing and caring could be. But I did go in, and I didn’t bring my wading boots, and that’s how I got blamed all over again.
Chapter Seventeen
“All right, people.” That was not me yelling, but I wished it had been. The whole group fell silent in an instant. Four sullen faces turned to Ben and me. I discreetly pointed to Ben to make him the culprit.
He grabbed my finger and kissed it without even looking at me. It sent shivers up my spine that had nothing to do with how cold it was in the house, almost colder than it was outside, and everyone was standing around in short-sleeved shirts. Even Dad. Yikes.
“What is it you want, boy,” Horace said with a deep V furrowing his brow. His toupee was on half cocked, looking like a dead bleached-blond rat. Nice.
“Ben, this isn’t any of your concern,” Martha said with her hands fisted at her side. She never looked away from Doris. Horace lay on the couch, and my dad stood behind Martha trying to massage her shoulders. It didn’t appear to be making her any less tense, unfortunately.
“I know that, but we could hear you clear out to the street. Why are the windows open?” Ben stood with his arms crossed and his legs spread, feet planted firmly on the floor. Ooh, forceful Ben had come back out, and seriously, it was so hot to watch I almost threw him to the floor. I refrained. Not only because of all the people in the room, though. There was an all-encompassing, God-awful smell in the air that turned my stomach.
But Martha must have sensed I was not paying attention to the conversation and was instead daydreaming. She snapped her fingers at me as she stood with one hand fisted on her hip.
“Tell them, Ivy,�
� she said.
Of course, I had no idea what they were talking about and was not going to try to muddle my way through guessing. “Tell them what?”
“Are you here, or aren’t you?” my dad asked, beetling his bushy eyebrows together.
“Yes, Ivy, tell us.” Doris sat down on the couch under Martha’s gimlet eye, but I thought she got the silent message because she stood up just as quickly.
“Tell you what?” I asked again. If I guessed, I knew I’d say the wrong thing and probably end up making the argument even bigger. Not the best idea.
“Tell us how you saw Horace walking out of the bank with a wad of money, even though these two,” Martha sneered the words, if that were possible, “have been bilking us and saying they have no money.”
“I never said I didn’t have money,” Doris protested. She stood next to the couch where Horace lay with his hand over his eyes.
He hadn’t said much of anything, yet, and I wondered if he thought he was found out, or if he thought it was no big deal.
“He,” Martha pointed an imperious finger at Horace, “said there was no way for the two of you to pay for all your bills with him laid up this way. So we had to shelter him until he was back on his feet again. And then, yesterday, I found out not only has he been on his feet, but he went to the bank and had enough funds to draw out quite a bit of money. Now, what the hell is going on?” She was shouting by the time she was done.
I was embarrassed to be standing there involved in a moment that really had nothing to do with me. I mean, have you ever had an argument erupt in front of you and all you want to do is duck and hide because you don’t want to get caught in the crossfire? Well, then you know what I was feeling.
But I’d come in. I was going to prove to Ben I could be involved. I could get into the fray and be a part of what was going on around me. I didn’t have to stand back and watch it all go by without getting my hands dirty.
But what exactly was I going to say? I had no idea until the words popped out of my mouth.
“I have no idea what’s going on.” Yeah, not exactly brilliant, and it led to a huge uproar with everyone yelling at the same time and Ben looking at me as if I’d grown an extra head.
Martha whistled one of those high piercing sounds, bringing the whole room to a silent halt. She turned to fix her beady eye on me. “You tell these people what you told me the other day. Let’s get this all out on the table.”
Personally, I had wanted to talk with Horace one more time to make sure he didn’t have anything else to add to the very little information he’d already given us. I’d only told her about the money to give her something to work with to get them out of her house. I hadn’t planned on being part of the conversation. But it was time to step up to the plate or get out of the kitchen, apparently.
“I saw you in the bank the other day, Horace, and watched you walk jauntily out of the bank with a handful of cash. Obviously, you didn’t see me.”
“No,” Doris butted in. “Obviously, you have no idea what you saw. Horace hasn’t gotten up from this couch since he was nearly killed at these people’s wedding. Trying to do his job, might I add.”
“You may add that if you want,” Martha said. “But we didn’t have anything to do with him getting that glass of water with the lemon in it. It’s ridiculous for us to have to put the two of you up when you have money and Horace is well enough to get up and go to the bank. Without a car, I might add.” Martha glared at Doris, visually challenging her to deny it. “I can easily call one of the tellers at the bank and have her come over to verify Horace was at the bank.”
“Now, now, now, let’s not be hasty.” Horace finally joined the conversation. “It’s all an honest mistake, I’m sure.”
If he thought he was going to get me to recant my having seen him in the bank, he was in for a rude surprise.
“Ivy did see me in the bank, if she said she did. But the money I took out was to pay for business cards we’re having made for the band. We’re more popular than ever, but that doesn’t necessarily mean money directly in my pocket. We might be in demand, but any proceeds are split between the members or go for new uniforms.”
Uniforms? I didn’t remember the guys being in any kind of uniforms. But I didn’t get to say anything else because Doris started yowling like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. “What do you mean we don’t have much money? You bought me this brand new ring and told me I could pick out a new car!”
Horace got dragged off the couch by his ear and taken into another room where we could still hear them, but not as clearly. I turned to Martha and my dad with my eyebrows lifted in question, while I fingered Horace’s jacket draped over the arm of the couch.
“I don’t know what the hell that was,” my dad said. “But thank God we can’t clearly hear her normally strident voice anymore.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
“What are you doing here, anyway, Ivy? Not that I don’t appreciate it, but what’s up?” Martha pulled one of the windows closed in the living room, then continued around the room closing each in turn.
“What’s up with the windows all being opened?” No one had explained it, so I felt left out.
“Doris tried to be a culinary expert in the kitchen and was telling Martha how to make she-crab soup. Didn’t go over well, and they ended up arguing while the soup boiled out of control and set off the fire alarm. You missed the fire trucks being here. Everyone was very concerned, since Martha has never burned anything in the kitchen in forty years.” Dad smoothed his comb-over, and I thanked my lucky stars he had never tried to go the toupee route. “Then the firemen looked at Doris for an explanation, and she blew a gasket, because I guess some of their buddies in the next town over had to come out to her place once for a grease fire she’d started in the kitchen, so they’d heard about her.”
Martha picked up the story. “So then things kept rolling along. You know how, when you’re in the middle of an argument, things can get off track and all of a sudden you’re yelling about something that happened years ago? Well, she used me to impress her in-laws twenty years ago, and she’s never forgiven me that they knew automatically it was my cooking. My aunt, Horace’s mother, gave me her recipe for stuffing when I was fifteen, and it’s the only kind I ever make, so she knew it was her own recipe even though it was done my way.”
And what stuffing it was! My mouth began watering just thinking about how it was so tasty at the diner I could barely tear myself away. Once, I’d had to unbutton my jeans to keep clearing my plate.
“So then she started yelling about everything that has ever gone wrong in her life, and how it’s all my fault, while I pretend to be perfect, and who did I think I was, marrying at my age.”
Oh, not good. One lady in town had tried that and hadn’t been talked to in three days. People stood up for Martha and looked at her as a great part of the community. You did not tell her what to do, or how to do it.
“And you didn’t hit her?” Ben asked.
My dad laughed. “Martha wanted to. She went after her with one of the cake beaters she’d promised me I could lick. I took it from her and tried to diffuse things, but they only escalated and came into the living room.”
“And that answers the question of open windows how?” I was at a loss. Too much information was coming at me way too fast.
“She made me burn my she-crab soup, and that stuff is stinky, stinky, stinky. I might have to live with those two bozos in my house, but I will not have this house smell worse than Horace’s awful cologne.”
****
“So we don’t really have anything new after that nice little visit,” I said on our way back out to the car.
“That’s not completely true.” Ben handed me into his Explorer, then hurried around the hood of the car.
I was freezing and couldn’t wait for him to turn the car on and get the heater cranking. He jumped in, turned on the car, and gave me a deep, long kiss, all in rapid succession. I hadn’t b
een expecting the kiss but got into it immediately. Tongues dueled, hands wandered, and I broke it off so I could draw an actual full breath. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” He smirked at me. “You were pretty impressive in there.”
“Really?” I thought I had been completely ineffectual.
“Oh, yeah. You stood right in the middle of the murk and told the truth while getting your feet dirty. It was a definite turn-on.”
“Really?” Had my vocabulary narrowed to one word?
“Absolutely.” And then he proceeded to do that kiss all over again.
My hair was nearly standing on end by the time he was done with me, and we were still sitting out in front of Martha’s house. No matter what I had done, and if I had done it right, I did not want my dad to come out and find us necking like a couple of teenagers after curfew.
“Let’s go,” I said. “My house is empty, so I can have my wicked way with you.”
He glanced over at the clock on the dash. “I can’t. Damn. I have to get over to the office today and do some work.” He flicked the tips of my hair over my shoulder. “Hold that thought for tonight?”
“Really.”
****
I ended up back at my house by myself but with a bunch of questions without real answers. What was up with Horace? Who had he really lied to? His wife thought they had tons of money. He had walked out of the bank with some serious cash while whistling, but he was trying to say he had bought some business cards with the money. I didn’t know anyone who got that excited about business cards. What I needed was a way to verify what he had said, but how was I going to do that?
I called Bella to brainstorm. When she finally picked up the phone, she sounded breathless, and my poor little brain went into overdrive. “Is Jared there?”
“Hello to you, too, and no, he isn’t. Why?”
“You sounded so out of breath I wanted to make sure I hadn’t interrupted anything.”
She laughed, that loud bawdy laugh that had drawn me to her in the first place. “Seriously, Ivy, I don’t know how your life runs, but there is no way I would answer the phone if I was hot and heavy with my man.”
