Authors: Blair Bancroft
I was helping a mother convince her hysterical three-year-old daughter that the pony wasn’t going to bite her when my cellphone rang. Again.
“Gwyn!” Mom barked. I winced, but this time was different. “Come on back,” she said. “There are people here to see you.”
I rushed back to the Administration Tent and found Letty, accompanied by two fine specimens of manhood, father and son. Marshall and Eric Johnson. Breathless as I was, I gave them my best sharp perusal. I had to admit they were easy to look at. Handsome devils, the both of them. Marshall was medium height, maybe five-nine or ten; Eric, a couple of inches taller. Both had thick chestnut brown hair, wavy, and neatly combed. Marshall’s had the distinguishing gray above the ears that added that certain something to a man who would never see fifty again. Maybe even sixty. Although dressed in Florida casual—Marshall in khakis and Eric in jeans, each topped by a designer polo shirt—they looked as if they could be dropped into any boardroom from Miami to New York and adapt with ease, thank you very much. Their matching gray eyes reflected both amiability and supreme confidence. Their firm handshakes and direct eye contact were right out of the executive handbook.
Wow! No wonder Letty was flattered by their attention
.
The question was, why were they hanging out with Letitia Van Ryn? I wanted to think it was altruism, but, come on, that just wasn’t realistic. Unless being kind to little old ladies was some kind of penance dictated by their pastor, or maybe their parole officer, for previous misdeeds.
You’re fantasizing again, Gwyn. Not smart.
But surely that idea was more fair than supposing two men who had been kind to Letty were actually con artists out to separate her from her money.
We managed about five minutes of conversation, during which Marshall and Eric Johnson displayed superior social skills and excellent manners, before Mom had me off and running again. A dispute between buyer and seller at our resident wood sculptor’s table. I made my apologies to Letty and her companions and dashed off, with visions of wooden angels and dolphins flying through the air, hurtling toward someone’s head, falling on a baby in a stroller. I increased my speed.
Talk about a tempest in a tea cup. The buyer had just forked over two thousand seven hundred dollars for a heavy five-foot free-form I wouldn’t have had as a gift. On second look, I decided it might be considered phallic, if seen from the right angle. The sculpture was definitely proof that art is subjective, beauty in the eye of the beholder.
The problem was, the buyer wanted to bring his car right up to the booth and load the art work immediately, while the sculptor considered the work his
pièce de resistance
and wanted the buyer to wait until the barbecue was over and the crowds dispersed. Not to mention that the rules of the event prohibited cars outside the parking lot.
“We drove all the way up from Naples,” the buyer, a towering country club type, said to me, while his attractive honey-headed wife hovered beside him. “A two-hundred mile round trip. It’s time to head home. You going to carry that thing all the way to the parking lot, young lady? I don’t think so. So what’re you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” said an authoritative voice from behind me. Just one word, but I recognized the voice. The cavalry had arrived. Mom must have called Boone Talbot too.
The
C
hief introduced himself. The couple reciprocated. They were John and Evie Baird.
“We were in town on business,” Baird said, “and just stopped by the fair on our way out of town.”
“My former husband specified a few things that were to be mine after his death,” Mrs. Baird explained softly. “We came here today to pick them up. Now I’m tired,” she added. “I just want to go home.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Boone said. “Was his death recent?”
“Recent and horrible,” she said. “I imagine you know about it. Martin Kellerman.”
“You were married to Martin?” I blurted out.
Oh. My. God
. Martin’s widow, ex-girlfriend, and ex-wife were all
here
. At the same time.
“For many years.” Evie Baird sighed. “John”—she looked up adoringly to her giant of a husband—“and Martin were business partners. Very successful. Both were able to retire early.” She paused, searching for words. I noticed I wasn’t the only one gaping at her. Even Boone looked stunned by this unexpected disclosure. “Martin was a genius at business,” she said at last, “but we had . . . problems. John was kind enough to pick up the pieces.”
Now there was a statement that could cover a multitude of sins.
“I’m sorry to ask,” Boone said, “but I really need to talk to you before you leave town. I was about to suggest we bring a golf cart around to the back of the booth to load up the sculpture, so why don’t we do that, then maybe you’ll both spare me a moment or two to talk about Martin.”
The Bairds agreed, if reluctantly. The sculptor had backed off his high horse the moment he saw Boone’s uniform. If he ever again wanted a booth at a craft fair in Golden Beach, he knew enough not to piss off the Chief of Police.
I watched Boone and the sculptor load the heavy, possibly phallic, sculpture into the golf cart. Heroically, I refrained from trying to follow them to the Bairds’ car and the upcoming interview. If only I could shape-shift and be one of Florida’s ubiquitous little lizards, sunning myself on the hood of the Bairds’ car. I mean, Boone was bound to learn something valuable about Martin’s past. Things I wanted to know. I couldn’t see Martin as an abusive husband, but I’d been way wrong about men before. And not just in the past. Chad Yarnell was a shining example. Or maybe the business partners had had a falling out, something serious enough, or lucrative enough, to spawn murder. Maybe Baird was set to inherit Martin’s share of the company . . .
That did it! Mentally shrinking myself to the size of a lizard—I could have used some of Crystal’s smoke and mirrors—I slunk after Boone and the Bairds. I mean, with all those SUVs and pick-ups in the parking area, there ought to be something to hide behind, right?
For shame, Gwyn. That curiosity bug has got you bad
.
And not a cure in sight.
Chapter 12
There I was, sneaking along the backs of the vending tents, trying to make like a shadow, when the scene shifted to farce. The Chief and the Bairds had encountered a problem fifteen feet short of the parking lot. The golf cart was stopped. Boone and Evie Baird, seated in front, had angled their bodies to watch the show behind them, where a screaming-angry Vanessa Kellerman towered over John Baird, who was perched on a rear-facing seat, clutching the giant wooden phallus and looking like he’d welcome a bolt of lightning. Anything to make the furious widow go up in a poof of smoke.
The gathering crowd fluctuated between those who openly paused to eavesdrop and parents dragging their children away from the virtuoso duel of profanity spilling from the antagonists’ mouths. Turning my back on the manners my mother taught me, I elbowed my way to the front of the crowd in time to hear Vanessa shriek for what was probably the tenth time, “You want it all, is that it, you blood-sucking bastard? A few knick-knacks weren’t enough. You want the whole fucking company. How sneaky can you get? Coming to town t
o pick up ‘a few personal items’
and, oh by the way, filing a lawsuit while you’re here. I couldn’t believe my ears when my lawyer called.
“Do you think Martin was
nuts
?” Vanessa continued after hauling in a rasping breath. “He’d never promise you his half the company. It’s mine, you hear me, all mine. You don’t get a cent! And I don’t give a shit how you feel about it!”
Wow! No wonder the crowd was swelling rapidly. Even the rock band shaking the bandstand and the bull riders at the mini rodeo couldn’t compete with this.
John Baird opened his mouth several times during Vanessa’s diatribe, but each time a glare from Boone kept him quiet. After his initial profane exchange with the widow, silence seemed a wise choice.
“Mrs. Kellerman,” Boone interjected, clearly operating in cop mode, “please leave matters to your lawyers. Nothing is going to be accomplished here. And you’re attracting quite a—“
“You bitch!” Sherry Lambert erupted from the crowd, charging straight for Vanessa. “I just heard I don’t get a penny, not one damn Honest Abe. After all I did for that man. He
promised
, I swear he promised. You must have tricked him into changing his Will. Just pushed, pushed, pushed ’til the poor guy finally caved.” Sherry proceeded to add her own bit of color to the epithets bluing the air at the Hospital Auxiliary Fund-raiser. Vanessa topped her verbal pyrotechnics with ease. I expected them to escalate to hair-pulling at any moment. John Baird looked like he’d make a run for it if only he could get rid of the sculpture.
Golden Beach’s Chief of Police unfolded himself from the golf cart, stalked around the rear without glancing at the purple-faced John Baird. Boone struck a cop pose in front of the two quarreling ladies, his hands hanging loosely, the fingers of his right hand twitching as if eager to reach for his gun. “Ladies,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard over the names they were calling each other, “you will kindly be quiet or I’m throwing you in a cell, where you can duke it out without disturbing anybody but the guard.”
I shot a quick glance at Evie Baird, the first Mrs. Kellerman. She appeared to be as agape as all the rest of the audience.
“Whore!” the widow roared. It’s
me
he married.”
“Gold-digger!”
“Trollop!” Vanessa swung her purse straight for her opponent’s face. Sherry leaped back, the purse bouncing ineffectively off her shoulder.
“Murderer!” Sherry screamed. “You killed him, everybody knows you did it.”
Vanessa charged, red-tipped witches’ claws stretched out in front of her.
Boone Talbot grabbed both women by the backs of their designer shirts and peeled them apart, muscles rippling under his dark blue chief’s uniform. “Last warning.” His ominous tone boomed into a sudden breathless silence. Even the crowd seemed to be holding their breaths.
Sherry Lambert gave in first, her tense body sagging like a deflating balloon. “I’m sorry, Chief,” she murmured. “You can let go now. I’m heading home.”
Vanessa’s tension level stayed at max, her lithesome body still quivering with rage. “Nothing! Not a penny,” she hissed as Sherry headed for her car, head high, her pace supremely deliberate.
“Mrs. Kellerman”—Boone dropped his grip on the back of her striped knit shirt—“I need a promise from you. You are not to go near . . .” He shot a questioning look in my direction.
“Sherry Lambert,” I supplied. “She works for Wallace Realty.”
Boone turned back to the Widow Kellerman. “You are not to go near Sherry Lambert. You are not to speak to her. You are not to write to her. Your only communication will be through your lawyers. Is. That. Understood?”
Between the Bairds and Sherry Lambert, I didn’t envy the Kellerman’s attorney.
“Do you think we can go now?” John Baird inquired, sounding more plaintive than angry.
“Mrs. Kellerman,” Boone said, “please return to the Admin Tent. We’re done here.”
Vanessa made an elaborate job of brushing Sherry contamination and police cooties from her designer clothes and exposed flesh. Then she stalked off in a grand imitation of Sherry’s dignified exit.
Before returning to the golf cart, Boone gave me a nod of thanks. As he drove away, I heard John Baird declare, “Black-hearted witches, the both of them. May they tear each other apart.” He tightened his grip on the sculpture, whose suggestively rounded top projected at least two feet above his head.
If the whole thing weren’t so tragic, I’d laugh.
Golden Beach, Florida. God bless.
Later that night, I stared at my cellphone. Its glassy surface stared right back.
Coward
! Just because I suspected feminine charm didn’t work as well over the phone as in person didn’t mean I was a coward for not calling Boone Talbot. Truth was, I kept hoping he’d call me. I wanted his take on what happened this afternoon so badly that I couldn’t think of anything else. What did it mean? Did John Baird arrange Martin’s murder to gain control of the company? Did Sherry kill him out of pure spite? Or did she think she was in the Will and she, too, did it for money? Or were local rumors right, after all—Vanessa Kellerman was a lethal black widow spider, devouring her mate?
Let’s face it—I hesitated to call Boone because I was afraid I was going to babble it all out like some featherbrained idiot and make a complete fool of myself.
But I wanted to
know
. I mean, what was pie-in-the-sky speculation this morning had blossomed into truly intriguing possibilities. A plethora of suspects. I suppose I should have felt overwhelmed or horrified. Instead, I radiated excitement.
So pick up the blasted phone! Talk to the man.
I was in my bedroom, leaning back against a stack of pillows, wallowing in the comfort of being off my feet at last. I’d showered, washing away, along with layers of dust, the tantalizing smell of roast pig, the sharp tang of horse manure, and, alas, the revivifying whiffs of salt breezes swirling in from the
G
ulf. The excited chatter of the crowd, the bawl of a tired baby, happy smiles, and sudden bursts of laughter faded away, leaving only exhaustion behind. And the devastation on Evie Baird’s face when she realized she and her husband were going to have to talk to the Chief of Police before they began the hundred-mile trip back to Naples.