I came the rest of the way down the stairs and, as Laura took another sip, she glanced up and saw me. “Hey, Mac, you remember Nicole from our front desk?”
Yesterday that young woman had pranced into Skye’s office with badly typed letters. Today tousled curls fell in front of her face and her eyes and nose were red and swollen.
“Sure. Hey, Nicole.” Her skirt was so abbreviated, I sure hoped she hadn’t paid for a whole one. “Did you get everything shut down?” I asked Laura as I took the vacant chair and waved away Tansy’s offer of coffee.
“She was great.” Nicole held a wadded tissue to her pink nose and gave a big sniff. “People were real upset, but she calmed them down.” She threw Laura the kind of look sixth-grade soccer players used to give her after a high-school game.
Laura ignored the look and gulped down the rest of her coffee. “That was good, Tansy.” She held out her mug. “Could I have a little more, please?”
Tansy refilled the cup, but only with coffee, milk, and sugar. Laura grimaced and gave her a reproachful frown. Tansy turned again to the window.
“What did Cindy say?” I asked Joe Riddley, who was busy drawing circles on the blue tablecloth with one forefinger.
“She’s coming over. Said maybe she can entice it with food and water.” Seeing Laura’s puzzled look, he explained about the ferret.
She shuddered. “I’m glad it’s not in my part of the house. Why Skell ever wanted one, I’ll never know.” She looked from me to Tansy for advice. “Do you think it would be awful of me to go up to my place for a while?”
“I think you deserve it,” I told her.
“That’s just what you been needin’,” Tansy agreed.
Nicole perked up. “Shall I come with you? I could give you a back rub.”
Laura’s voice was gruff. “Maybe another time. Right now, I’d just like to be alone.” As she stood, though, she rested one hand on Nicole’s shoulder. “Thanks. I really appreciate your coming over.” Laura could always be counted on to think of other people.
Nicole raised a soggy face. “Don’t forget what I told you, now. I want to do something with your hair before the—the funeral. You’ll be gorgeous if you give me an hour.”
Laura’s wide mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Some chance. But I won’t forget.” At the kitchen door, she hesitated, listening.
“Go on.” Tansy gave her a little shove. “I’m not leavin’ your mama. I’ll stay in the spare room a few days, like I did when she had pneumonia a couple of years back.”
“You’re great.” Laura bent to give Tansy a swift hug, then hurried out. She clomped up her own stairs like demons were after her.
“You want some coffee, Miss MacLaren?” Tansy held up the pot. I shook my head.
Nicole sat looking between the back door and the one to the rest of the house. “Do you think there’s anything I could do for Mrs. MacDonald? Mr. MacDonald”—her voice wavered over his name—“I can’t believe he’s gone. He was kind, funny, thoughtful—and I just knew him four months.” She ended on a wail. Then she laid her head on the table and just boohooed. “Four months,” she repeated through sniffs and sobs. “Four lousy months.”
My own heart was like lead, but I’d known Skye thirty years. Nicole’s four months at his front desk seemed like a watermelon seed in that patch. So what had turned on her water? Had she carried a torch, hoping Skye might be ready to trade in Gwen Ellen for a younger model?
Across the table, Joe Riddley kept sending me short, jabbing looks to say, “Do something. Make her stop.”
Before I could think what to do, Tansy trudged over and patted Nicole’s shoulder. “There, there, honey. Mr. Skye wouldn’t want any of us carrying on like that. He’s in the bosom of the Lord, now. We who are left got to bear our burdens bravely.”
Nicole sniffed and wiped her eyes with a napkin. Tansy wiped her own with a corner of her apron and headed back to lean against the counter. I decided I could be as charitable as Tansy. After all, Nicole was very young, and probably hadn’t experienced violent death this close before. I touched her arm. “I think the best thing you can do right now is go home. We’re going to leave in a few minutes, too. Gwen Ellen—Mrs. MacDonald—will be fine. And somebody will call everybody from work, to let you all know about the funeral and when the business will reopen.”
That made her toss back her hair and stick up her chin. Tears had turned her eyelashes into spiky little stars. “It’s my job to make those calls. I’m Mr. MacDonald’s
secretary.
”
I doubted that Skye ever gave her that title. “The girl out front” was what he most likely called her. And that spurt of pride made me want to jab her balloon with reality. “I think that will be handled by the funeral home or the church.”
“It’s my job.” She jumped to her feet and ran to the door. “Laura? Laura!” When Laura opened her door, she cried, “Don’t you let anybody else call everybody from work to tell them when the funeral is. That’s my job. Okay?”
Laura paused, as if trying to make sense of what she was hearing. “Okay,” she agreed in a heavy voice. “I’ll call you when we know. Leave your number with Tansy.”
Nicole came back in with purpose in her step and resolution in her eye. “May I have a piece of paper, please?” She scrawled her name and number on the telephone pad Tansy handed her and laid it in the middle of the table. “Don’t lose this. Laura is going to call me when they know about the funeral, so I can call everybody from work.”
“Fine,” I said crossly, “but go on home for now. We all need to clear out and leave the family alone.”
Her eyes slewed my way, defiant chips of blue ice. “I—”
“Easy, now,” Joe Riddley told her.
She met his gaze, and hers faltered. “Okay, but if there’s anything I can do, tell them to call me.” She turned to Tansy, anxious. “You will, won’t you?”
“Sure I will,” Tansy assured her. She’d been comfortable for years making promises she had no intention of keeping.
Nicole buttoned up her raincoat and peered anxiously out the kitchen door. When Joe Riddley offered to walk her to her car under our umbrella, I didn’t mind. When you’ve been married to a man for over forty years, you know how far he’ll go. Tenderly putting a pretty young woman in her car was as far as Joe Riddley would go.
However, Nicole had worn me out. “I need that coffee after all, Tansy.”
“You want just milk and sugar, or a tad of something extry?”
I was tempted. I wasn’t on call to go down to the jail, and Joe Riddley was driving. But the way I felt, even a nip might put me over the edge. “Just black and hot,” I told her, “to warm some of the deep cold places I’m carrying around.”
Tansy poured two cups. She handed me one and stood sipping the other. “You and me both, Miss MacLaren. You and me both. My spirit’s froze plumb to the bone.”
About the time I finished my coffee, Cindy showed up. She got Skell’s ferret back in its carrier in a matter of minutes and was well-mannered enough not to ask what it was doing in an upstairs closet in the first place. Neither Joe Riddley nor I felt inclined to explain.
“Have you ever thought about becoming a vet?” I asked as she carried the carrier down.
She laughed like I’d made a joke. “Now when would I have time for that? But I’ll keep this little fellow in our garage until you find Skell. Oh, and since Ridd and Martha are out of town, you all come over to our house for dinner when you’re done at church. I’ve already cooked a turkey breast.”
I was astonished and touched. Invitations to Walker and Cindy’s usually came in cute little handwritten notes a couple of weeks in advance. “We’d love to, honey. What can I bring?”
“A good appetite.” With a wave, she left with the ferret.
Before I left, I made Gwen Ellen promise me she’d eat a little something by and by.
“Baby Sister will be all right,” Joe Riddley assured me as we drove away.
“Of course she will.”
I sure was glad neither of us was connected to a lie detector.
10
It rained all the way home. As soon as we parked, Lulu started reminding us that she was no longer a yard dog and had spent enough time in their company. Joe squawked from the barn, “Hello, Hiram. Hello Hiram,” calling his former master.
“Ah, the peace and quiet of the countryside.” Joe Riddley handed me the umbrella. “Go get supper started. I’ll bring in the animals and feed them.”
Having spent years convincing people I don’t cook, I take care not to ruin my reputation. “Eggs and bacon enough for you?” I asked.
“If you put toast and applesauce with it. That too much of a stretch?”
“You’ll be fortunate if your eggs are cooked,” I warned. “They may come flying at you when you come through the kitchen door.”
“I’ll send in advance troops to check for enemy fire.”
I let myself in and set my pocketbook on the counter, hung my damp coat in the utility room, and went to pull out eggs, bacon, and bread. As I cooked, however, I started to sniffle. First I sniffled happily, because it felt good to be able to joke again with Joe Riddley. Then I sniffled sadly, for Skye and Gwen Ellen. Finally I started thinking about the night our neighbor found Joe Riddley shot in the head down our road, and how I could have gotten the same news they brought Gwen Ellen. By the time Joe Riddley ambled through the door with Lulu at his heels and Joe on one shoulder, I was bawlng like a baby.
He hung up his cap. “What’s the matter now?”
“You’re alive,” I said, sobbing. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”
I think he must have been having the same thoughts outside, because he sent Joe up to the curtain rod and came to hold me. Neither of us cared if supper was a bit cold.
We were eating our last bites of egg and toast when Gwen Ellen called. “I just hate to bother you all, but I don’t know who else to call.” Her voice was thick with tears.
“Are you by yourself?” Surely either Tansy or Laura was close by at all times.
“Oh, no. Tansy’s fixing supper—although I told her I can’t eat a bite. I asked everybody else to leave, though. You can only be nice so long.” She broke down and sobbed.
Gwen Ellen had always teared up at sunsets and wept buckets in sad movies. She cried at weddings, funerals, even baptisms. If our preacher gave a touching illustration in the sermon, Gwen Ellen would start wiping her eyes. But who wouldn’t cry after her husband lay dead for hours while nobody knew he was missing?
It wasn’t just Skye that was making her cry this time, though. “Skell still hasn’t come home.” She was crying so hard I could hardly make out the words. “I’m worried sick.”
“Skell’s gone away for weekends a lot of times before.” That was part of her problem, of course. Disliking Hopemore as he did, Skell was apt to take off in his car for long weekends to hear bands play, watch cars race, do anything that was lively and jammed with people. Since he’d moved into his own place, he didn’t always tell his family when or where he was going. Even before Skye died, Gwen Ellen was having a hard time admitting Skell was grown.
“Yes, but this time he didn’t go to work or tell them he wouldn’t be there.”
That was a good point. Skell had never been responsible about getting to work on time or sticking around all day, but he had never failed to show up. I scratched one ear while I thought how best to answer. “Maybe you ought to ask the police again to look for him.”
“I tried. Chief Muggins says they can’t do anything until he’s been gone longer. Tansy and Laura say the same thing you do—stop worrying, he’s just off on some trip. But I
can’t.
I’m worried sick. MacLaren . . . ?”
She used to say my name just that way when her hair ribbon wouldn’t tie, when she couldn’t solve an arithmetic problem, or when she wanted me to call her mother and ask for a permission she didn’t think she could get herself. When I didn’t jump right in to volunteer this time, she added, “Maybe he’s just gone down to Dublin.” MacDonald Motors raced a car at the NASCAR track. Skell didn’t drive it, but he liked to hang out around those who did.
“We’re not going down to Dublin at this hour. Besides, I wouldn’t know how to go about finding Skell once we got there.”
“Could you just drive around town a little bit, then, to see if you can find his car?”
Skell wasn’t driving around Hopemore. He’d have run into somebody who’d have told him about his daddy, and he’d have headed home. Only because I felt so sorry for her right that minute did I say, “Okay, we’ll go look around. If Skell’s in town, we’ll find him.”
Joe Riddley shook his head, but he laid down his napkin and slid back his chair.
Before we left, I hurried to the downstairs bathroom to wash my face, pat my hair, and put on a little lipstick. Phyllis and I keep my hair the same honey brown it was when Joe Riddley married me, and it still looked nice after her fixing it that morning for the wedding, but I hadn’t powdered my nose since I’d had several good cries and two trips through the rain. By the time I felt presentable, Joe Riddley had the dishes soaking in hot soapy water. Over the years I’ve learned how to gauge that almost to the second.
Cruising up and down the rainy streets of Hopemore doesn’t take long, even if you drive slow. What the chamber of commerce euphemistically calls “Greater Hopemore” only has thirteen thousand residents. But I found myself enjoying driving around without talking, listening to the swish of our tires on the wet streets and feeling the warm security of being together.
Joe Riddley looked over at me with a ghost of a smile. “Feels like high school, doesn’t it?”
We used to cruise around for hours on weekend nights, trying to postpone the time he’d have to take me home. I reached over and laid my hand on his, glad of its familiar comfort. “Just what I was thinking. Can we go by Skell’s once more?” I turned to peer out through the slanting downpour at dim yards and bushes that sparkled under streetlights.
“We’ve been by twice.”
“I know, but—”
I didn’t finish, because he was already turning in that direction. “We can swing by there again, but he’s not gonna be there.”