"I love you, needy though you are. If IdaClare's throwing a party, I wasn't invited."
"Meaning, no party." Jack's shoulders sagged in relief. "No hats, no horns, no confetti, no clowns, no pony rides. There
is
a God."
There was a time when Hannah prayed to Him for all those things, but would have been happy with a cake on the right day. Early or belated, a squashed SnoBall from Effindale's day-old bread store with a cigarette lighter held over it wasn't quite the same.
"Better make a wish and blow out the candle," she said. "The wax is melting like crazy, and a warm Flour Shoppe muffin is a terrible thing to waste."
So were four of them, evidently, since Jack ate three, as though he'd either returned from a desert island, or was about to depart for one. "Remind me to never retire here. Great place to visit, but I'd gain ten pounds a week if I moved in."
His eyes turned to the gift, wrapped in gold foil with a gold bow. "Really, you shouldn't have, sweet pea."
Hannah lofted her coffee mug. "To old friends. And you're the oldest one I have."
Chuckling, Jack clinked his mug with hers. "Can I open it now?"
"Rip away."
Inside, a red, enameled tin box was a miniature, remote-controlled replica of a Jaguar Mark II. By Jack's face, you'd think she'd bought him the one parked in front of the cottage. "Hannah Marie, you always buy the best toys a middle-aged boy could want."
"Thanks, but I failed miserably at finding the batteries for it. The jewelry store in Sanity doesn't carry them."
He shrugged. "Somebody in St. Louis will. I may even buy another one for Stephen, so we can race."
Spoken like a red-blooded, self-made Irish-American multimillionaire. "Gee, and to think IdaClare's in denial about your age."
"Nothing wrong with being young at heart. Especially when you get a cool car out of it."
"So, you really like it that much?"
"Are you kidding?" Jack ran the car up and down his trousers leg. "I love it."
Over the
vroom-vrooms
and tire squeals, she said, "Good, because it's also a bribe."
Errrrt.
"Let's hear it."
Vroom.
"Delete all promotion-related work from the operation manager's job description. Sign a standard agency agreement with The Garvey Group for Clancy Construction and Development, et al, to commence on or before August 31. Give me a handshake agreement that I can freelance the account until then."
The baby Jag made a pit stop. "You're starting your own agency?"
"
Started.
Yesterday. I haven't filed for a business license, or any of that yet. In fact, you're the first to know, so you have to pinkie-swear to keep it confidential for a while."
"If I sign on as a client."
Keeping her tone light but firm, she answered, "Whether you do, or not."
"Who's the 'group' in The Garvey Group?" Jack pointed his toy at her. "And one of them better not be named Clancy."
"I said you're the first person I've told. Including David."
Hannah's fingernail tapped the table, as though in the throes of a dilemma.
Let him see you sweat
was strategic. Her board of directors consisted of Malcolm Garvey and Rambo Hendrickson, but she wouldn't admit it if her linchpin client relit his birthday candle and stuck it up
her
nose.
"Sorry, Jack. I'm not in the position to disclose that yet, either. You'll just have to trust in our fifteen-year personal and professional relationship."
His bright blue eyes riveted on Hannah's brown ones. "What if you don't find a new ops manager by the thirty-first of next month?"
Okay, God, she thought, if there is a You, I'll forgive You for all those birthday parties I never had, in exchange for a tiny, swift miracle. "With four qualified applicants to interview and a couple more from Wilma on the bubble, a replacement will be on board no later than the third."
Jack's gaze didn't waver, but he smiled out one side of his mouth. "Any of
them
named Clancy?"
Scooting closer, Hannah laid a hand over his, her thumb caressing his wrist. "I want it all, Jack. To be David's wife, to have a real home, a connection to Valhalla Springs and to you, and a job doing something I'm good at. Is that too much to ask?"
Setting aside his birthday present, he gently cupped her face in his hands. In a soft voice laden with affection, he said, "sweet pea, you don't, and never have fooled me for a second. All I've ever wanted is for you to be happy."
Hannah anticipated the
but
that often accompanies such sentiments. A professed foresight of what's
best,
what's sure to reap genuine happiness, as opposed to a misguided facsimile thereof.
"The CC & D account is yours. If you need start-up cash, that's yours, too, interest-free." He smushed her cheeks into a fish face. "But if you so much as
think
about hiring my mother, all Sheriff Hendrickson's horses and all Sheriff Hendrickson's men won't be able to put you back together again."
A mental instant replay affirmed that yes, he was signing on. The Garvey Group was
real.
IdaClare was permanently off the emergency-employee list, but if push came to panic, there was always Delbert, Marge and the Schnurs.
Hannah nodded. "Ah-ay, Yack. I'ss a 'eal."
He pecked a kiss on her trout-puckered mouth. "Gotta go
not
surprise my mother. Thanks for the car, and tell David the world's second luckiest guy says hi."
* * *
Removing his white fedorathe same, exact model that Matlock wore on TVDelbert strolled into the First National Bank of Sanity's lobby at precisely 1158 hours. The lone weekend teller cut his eyes to the clock, as though willing the minute hand to snick two hash marks to the right, before he was forced to inquire, "May I help you?"
Delbert approached the counter and Clay S.whose name was written on the gold plastic tag pinned to his shirt pocketsaid to him, "That's, uh, some suit."
"Like it, eh?" Delbert flicked an imaginary dirt speck from his lapel. "This baby's a hundred percent pure seersucker with a gen-yew-ine silk lining. I guarantee, they don't make 'em like this anymore."
Clay S.'s head whipped sideward. He coughed loudly into his fist, making Delbert's ribs ache. "Hey, are you okay, son?"
The teller nodded, the flush gradually draining from his face. "Sorry. Something caught in my throat." Clearing it, he said, "Are you making a deposit? Need a check cashed?"
Delbert laid his hat on the counter, pulled his billfold from his pocket and fanned a wad of fifties and twenties across the counter. "Altogether, that's five C-notes. I want a cashier's check in exchange, payable to Chlorine Moody."
Clay S. counted the money, dividing it into equal stacks. "Five hundred dollars." He looked up, as though Delbert hadn't already told him how much was there.
"Uh-huh, that's the size of it. Now, about the cashier's check"
"Do you have an account with us?"
"No, but that's cash, sport." Delbert removed another twenty and pushed it forward. "And here's another Tom Jefferson to cover the fee for typing nine words, four letters and some hyphens on a ding-danged blank check."
Clay S. peered down his nose, which didn't appear to have yet been broken. "May I see some ID, please?"
The expletives raging through Delbert's mind ended in
two-bit whippersnapper.
He savvied that the kid had jumped the gun on tallying the morning's receipts and disbursements, thinking it'd get him out the door by 12:01. A last-minute transaction bollixed things, sure enough, but that's the way the cookie crumbled.
Timing was everything for this caper. Arriving just as the bank closed for the weekend wasn't coincidence.
"Here's the situation," Delbert said in a reasonable, but
mano y mano
tone. "You want me outa here. Me, I got better things to do, myself, but I ain't leaving without that check. Now, are you gonna get with it, or am I gonna hail whoever manages this joint on weekends when he moseys out from the back to lock that lobby door?"
Five minutes later, Delbert tipped his fedora to the foxy, hazel-eyed blonde securing the door behind him. 'Twas a crying shame that phase three of Operation: Royal Flush had to deploy tonight.
Story of a P.I.'s life, he thought. So many dames, so little time.
The next female face that eyed him through a glass door wore a pair of steel-rimmed trifocals. Her finger-waved hair was a drab bottle-brown, then hair-sprayed as stiff as a cheap wig. Delbert assumed the lick of gray brushed back from the crown was supposed to look jaunty.
The aluminum storm door opened about a foot. The escaping air smelled the same as when he'd cased the joint a few days agocool, and a little stale, but not unpleasant.
"Good afternoon, ma'am. Are you Mrs. Chlorine Moody?"
She eyed his classic summer-weight suit, white side-buckle shoes, and the metal clipboard in the crook of his arm. "Who wants to know?"
A wave of nervousness slammed Delbert so hard he thought she'd smacked him with the door. If he faltered, Code Name: Epsilon would be scrapped. He'd have put himself and Leo in danger for nothing.
He pulled his shoulders back and pasted on a confident smile. "I'm Frank Larson, of the Sanity Public Works Department."
Borrowing the name of a real city employee cadged off the municipal directory was an agonizing decision. If Clay S., or the foxy blonde at the bank, or Chlorine knew this Larson fella, it was all over. An alias would be safer in that respect, but if Chlorine got on the horn to somebody in the know, he might smell a scam. It was, of course, but Delbert had five hundred big ones invested in pulling it off.
"I've got nothing to say to anyone with the city." Chlorine's fingers tightened on the storm door's handle. "Get off my property and stay off."
The shoe Delbert surreptitiously planted at the bottom of the door held it fast. Still smiling, he showed her the cashier's checkin view, but out of reach.
Her eyeballs jittered as she read the pay-to-the-order-of line, then the amount, then the signature. Delbert didn't notice before he left the bank that Clay S. had typed C.P.D.W. under Larson's name, not C.P.W.D. for City Public Works Department. If Chlorine spotted the typo, he'd have to convince her the official designation was City Public Department of Works.
So far, the five hundred dollars made out in her name had her complete attention.
"I'm authorized to compensate you for your shrubs and fence. They're encroaching on the city's easement, but the department feels it's the neighborly thing to do."
"Neighborly?" she sneered. "Taking me for a fool is more like it. You idiots at city hall think I'm too simpleminded to see this for what it isa bribe, so's I'll drop my lawsuit against you. Well, my attorney will be hearing about this and"
"Excuse me," Delbert said, "but that's why I'm delivering this check, this afternoon." Which was true, in a manner of speaking. Banks, municipal and county offices, and Chlorine's hired shyster, judging by the answering machine at his office, were shuttered tighter than a convent.
It'd be Monday morning before she could contact anyone who'd pull the plug on his caper. If justice existed in this world, by tomorrow morning, she'd be eating breakfast off a foam jailhouse plate.
He continued, "I'm truly sorry to be the one to tell you, but right before court disconvened yesterday, the judge ruled your lawsuit null and void."
"What?"
Seeing fear widen even an alleged murderer's eyes wasn't pleasant. Nor was it protracted. Recovering her wits in a blink, Chlorine pushed past him onto the porch. "That's a
lie
and you're
trespassing.
" She shoved Delbert backward. "My attorney would've told me"
"He should have." Delbert stood his new ground. "Could be, Mr. Pratt thought he was doing you a kindness, waiting till Monday to tell you."
She started at his mention of her attorney's name. Lawsuits are public record, as any private detective knows. Well, those smart enough to do their homework at the clerk's office, anyhow.
Keeping the cashier's check in sight, but at arm's length, Delbert brandished a letter addressed to her printed on his gimcracking city stationery. "I'm further here to notify you of this alteration in the trench layout for the new gas line."
His fingertips underscored an indented paragraph. "As you can see, the project engineer is expanding the trench behind your property to install a K29-A Decompression Flange." Delbert tapped the bold-printed sentence declaring that construction would resume at 8:00 a.m. Sunday.
"You can't do that!" Chlorine blustered. "The city passed an ordinance years ago against construction work on the Sabbath. Any kind, shape or form." She pointed at the house across the street with the enclosed porch. "I've set the police on that godless heathen a half-dozen times for disturbing my peace." Her hand swept to the right. "And that one, the Sunday he started hammering a swing set together for those pickaninnies he's spawned."