Lilac Avenue (28 page)

She checked her special file and there was one text from Sloan, from earlier in the day.

“Nice try,” it said.

Deflated, Claire lay her head down on her arms on the bar.

“Hey,” Patrick said as he approached. “Are you okay?”

“Just peachy,” Claire said.

“You want a drink?”

“I do,” Claire said, as she raised her head. “Vodka and pineapple juice, with a sword, a lime, and an umbrella.”

“Coming right up,” Patrick said.

Banjo wandered down the aisle, tail wagging. The dog sniffed Claire’s leg, sat down, and looked up expectantly.

“I have no treats,” Claire told him
.

Banjo got up and went back to the other end of the bar, where he circled around three times before laying down in his bed.

Scott found her there, after having looked everywhere else in town, and finally trying Ed’s office. After Ed heard what happened to Courtenay, he called the Pendleton Press to give them the info for their Saturday edition. He told Scott he’d follow him to the Thorn later.

Scott’s voice shook as he told Claire what had happened.

Claire looked ill.

“That poor stupid girl,” she said. “I warned her. I told her these were evil people she was playing with. They’re going to get away with it, too, aren’t they?”

Scott nodded.

“I’m afraid so.”

“But isn’t there something Sarah could do, or the feds could do?”

“Knox planned it out perfectly,” Scott said. “So far nothing leads back to him.”

“But she told Pip.”

“It’s all hearsay, and it’s Pip. You know?”

“Do you think Trick knows Knox killed Mamie?”

“Yeah, I do,” Scott said. “And I think he’ll probably drink himself to death over it by the end of the year.”

“What about Phyllis Davis?” Claire said. “Where is she in all this?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said. “I don’t think she knew about that bequest. Think about it; if she had known about the money everyone else would have, too. When she’s drinking, which is every day, she can’t help herself. That’s how I found out who killed Theo Eldridge. Her being at Mamie’s that day may have just been a coincidence.”

“No,” Claire said. “She was in it up to her neck, and Trick was worried about her. She’s the weak link. We can break her.”

“I don’t see how,” Scott said. “She doesn’t trust me, and she’s afraid of them; probably even more so after she finds out about Courtenay.”

“Poor old Pip,” Claire said. “How’s he taking it?”

“Hard,” Scott said. “He really seemed to love her.”

“Pip has no trouble falling in love,” Claire said. “Deeply, passionately in love. The problem is he also has no trouble falling right back out again. The minute things get difficult, or uncomfortable, he’s long gone.”

“I feel like I let Mamie down,” Scott said. “And I hate Knox thinking he got away with it.”

“Let’s tell him that we know,” Claire. “At least we’ll have the satisfaction of him knowing we figured it out. He thinks he’s so smart.”

“He’d just spit in my face,” Scott said. “I’m afraid I might hurt him if I see him any time soon. I can’t go to jail right now; I need to get married tomorrow.”

“We can’t let him get away with it,” Claire said. “I’ll think of something.”

“Be careful,” Scott said. “You said it yourself; these are evil people.”

“Wait’ll you read the paper on Sunday,” Claire said. “Anne Marie is gonna get hers, at least.”

Claire told Scott all about the seminars, and what Ed was going to publish.

“You may need police protection,” Scott said. “Remember your own advice to Courtenay.”

“I’m not going back to that Inn,” Claire said. “Tomorrow is all about your wedding, and Sunday will be reactive-mind-karma day for Anne Marie Rodefeffer.”

“What?”

“You’ll know all about it after you read the article.”

“I’d at least like to walk you home,” he said. “Let’s be prudent.”

“Ed will walk me,” Claire said. “He’s coming around later.”

“I’ll keep you company until then,” Scott said. “I’m not supposed to see the bride now until the wedding.”

“Aw, sweet,” Claire said. “Let me buy you a drink. This can be your bachelor party.”

“This is going to be his bachelor party,” Patrick said. “Thanks for ruining the surprise, Claire.”

“You really don’t have to,” Scott said.

“Nope,” Patrick said. “We really do.”

Sam and Ed walked in together.

“I’ve got the movie,” Sam said.

“Oh, Patrick,” Claire said. “Not porn.”

“You think so little of me,” Patrick said, “when I am but as innocent as a child.”

Claire took the DVD case from Sam.

“Really?” she said. “This is what you all think of as a good time at a bachelor party?”

“The Dude abides,” Patrick said.

“Smoky, this is not ‘Nam,” Sam said. “This is bowling. There are rules.”

“Careful, man,” Scott said. “There’s a beverage here.”

“That rug really tied the room together,” Ed said.

“Not you, too,” Claire said to Ed.

“Times like these call for a Big Lebowski,” he responded.

Claire took the DVD out and loaded it into the player, which was kept behind the counter.

“No girls allowed,” Patrick said. “That means you, Bear.”

“C’mon, let me stay,” Claire said. “I’ll be good, I promise.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Patrick said. “If you can come up with one quote from the movie that you didn’t just hear from us, I’ll let you stay.”

“She’s out,” Scott said. “
The Big Lebowski
is not a chick flick. Claire is no Dudeist.”

“Wait,” Ed said. “At least let her try.”

Sam just smirked.

“You all think you’re so smart,” Claire said. “Well, listen to this: her life was in their hands. Now her toe is in the mail.”

“She did it,” Ed said, as he hugged Claire. “You can stay.”

“But do I really want to?” Claire asked him. “I have a feeling I may regret this.”

By the time Ed walked Claire home it was two in the morning and they were both a little drunk. Claire tried to be quiet as she opened the door to her parents’ house, but she stumbled in and almost knocked over a lamp. Her mother had once slept through a tornado, but Claire was afraid to wake her father, who was now sleeping in the guest bedroom.

“Shhhh,” Ed told her, as he righted the lamp he had caught, and then closed the front door behind him and locked it.

He followed Claire into the kitchen and sat at the table.

“I’ll make us some coffee,” she said.

She meant to drop her handbag on the table but she missed, and it tumbled to the floor, spilling the contents.

“I’ll get it,” Ed said.

He began picking up the various items and putting them back in the handbag.

“What’s this?” he said, pointing to her notebook, which he lay open on the kitchen table.

“My lists,” she said. “I can’t get anything done without my lists.”

“Why is my name on here under things to figure out?” he asked.

Claire felt her face grow hot.

“What is it you need to figure out about me, Claire?”

His voice was soft and Claire was tongue-tied.

“Um, uh,” she said. “Hmmm. Well?”

He looked over the list again, a smile playing about his lips.

“Things to figure out: Home, Work, and Ed,” he said. “What’s that about?”

“I’m a list maker,” Claire said. “I like to research every option before I make a decision, and if I put it down in writing it helps keep me organized. You’re so smart and sensible I guess I thought you might help me decide what to do about the other two.”

“I’ll be glad to help you figure things out,” he said.

Ed stood up and walked over to where Claire stood with her back to the counter. He reached out, put his arm around her waist, and pulled her close.

“Here’s some data for your research,” he said, and kissed her.

Warmth spread throughout Claire’s body as she lost all sense of place and time. When he finally let go, she felt dizzy and disoriented.

“Let me know if you need any more help figuring things out,” he said, his voice low and husky.

He gave her a look with real heat to it, and then went out the back door. As he closed the door behind him, Claire cleared her throat and reached out to steady herself against the counter; her knees were suddenly, mysteriously unable to hold up her body. With her other hand, she touched her lips, which still tingled from his kiss.

“That answers that question,” she said, and then giggled.

Her heart thumped, and her face felt warm.

“Oh my,” she said. “Oh, my.”

Her phone tweedled and she plucked it off the table where Ed had put it.

“Sorry, love,” the text from Carlyle read.

She waited awhile, but he didn’t write anything else, and she didn’t respond.

Scott had followed Ed and Claire at a distance, and made sure they were safely in Claire’s house before he turned his attention to the Davis house next door. The light was on in the kitchen and Phyllis was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking, and drinking straight from a bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Well, well, well,” she said, as she opened the screen door. “Will you look at what’s come prowling around my back door?”

“Hello, Phyllis,” Scott said. “Can I come in?”

“Sure, sweetie,” Phyllis said, and made a big show of putting her cigarette out and fanning the air.

The kitchen was acrid with smoke and the smell of trash. Scott could see a sheaf of official-looking paperwork on the table, but there was a tabloid magazine on top of it.

“What can I do for you?” Phyllis said, and offered him the bottle of whiskey.

“No thanks,” he said. “Celebrating something?”

“You might say that,” Phyllis said. “My ship done finally come in, sweetheart, and about damn time, too.”

“How’d that happen?”

“None of your beeswax,” she said. “But I will tell you that it’s enough so I can finally get out of this loser town and have a life, and that’s all I’m sayin’.”

“Well, you be careful,” Scott said. “If some of those friends of yours catch wind of your good luck, they might want a piece of it.”

“Hah,” she said. “What do you want?”

“I want to get you caught up on the case,” Scott said.

“What case?” Phyllis said.

“The murder of Mamie Rodefeffer,” Scott said.

“You can’t prove that,” Phyllis said.

“Let me tell you what I know,” Scott said, and he laid it all out for her, from the beginning, the day Mamie was murdered, all the way up until today, when Courtenay’s body was found.

“I don’t know anything about anything,” Phyllis said, trying to sound undisturbed, but her eye had started twitching at the mention of the tea, and her hands were shaking by the time he described Courtenay’s dead body.

“You know a lot more than you’ve told me,” Scott said. “And I know this all leads back to Knox.”

“Whatcha doing here, then?” she said. “Shouldn’t you be arresting Knox?”

“Aren’t you the least little bit worried?” Scott asked her. “I gotta tell you, I was a little afraid I’d find you here with your neck broken.”

Phyllis’s eyes widened.

“But I didn’t have anything to do with any of that,” she said. “I was just doing the glasses.”

“The glasses?”

“Trick was trying to get Mamie to turn over her finances to him and Sandy, on account of he didn’t trust Knox. He took the old bat to the eye doctor a few weeks ago and she got new glasses. So then Trick got this idea that he would convince Mamie she was going much worse blind, so she’d have to move into a nursing home and he could take over.

“So Trick waits a week and then goes back to the eye doctor, and tells the guy Mamie says the reading glasses were too strong, but she doesn’t want to come back in. Well, the doctor doesn’t want her to come back in again on account of Mamie’s being, well, being Mamie. So the doc makes a new pair of glasses a little bit weaker, and when Mamie goes to the restroom at the depot in the morning, like she always does, she leaves her reading glasses on the table, and I switched ‘em. Then a week later, we do the same thing; the doctor makes them a little weaker, and I switch ‘em again.

“We did it four times. We didn’t mess with her walking glasses
’cause we didn’t want the old bat to get hit by a car or anything. We just wanted her to think she was going blinder so she’d ask old Trick to help her out.”

“So when you went back in the room, it was the reading glasses you
were after?”