“Don’t say that, Mama,” Laura cried. “Chief Muggins thinks you
did
know. That’s why he came. He thinks you found out who Nicole was and killed Daddy.”
“If he’s dumb enough to believe I’d kill your daddy over something that happened twenty years ago, he’s dumb enough to believe anything. I certainly wouldn’t—if it happened at all, which I refuse to believe. What kind of fool does Chief Muggins think I am?” She began waving her arms like an orchestra conductor gone wild. Startled, I wondered if she’d taken a pep pill or something. I’d never seen her so animated. “Would I give up all my happiness, all my love, because some little tart came prancing in here claiming your daddy was also hers? You notice she didn’t make that claim when Skye was alive. He’d have sent her packing, I can tell you that. He’d have sent her back to wherever she came from so fast her head would have spun completely off its scrawny neck. Your daddy was a decent man. Don’t you ever let anybody tell you different, honey. Your daddy was a decent man.”
She sat on the couch like a lump of reasonable self-righteousness. To me, she looked about one inch this side of crazy. I could see why Laura was scared. I was a little scared, too.
I’d never seen Laura so upset, either. “I know he was, Mama. I know he was.” She was crying and shaking. She collapsed into the green chair closest to the sofa and buried her face in her hands. I moved over and stroked the exposed nape of her neck, which looked vulnerable and very white.
Gwen Ellen looked over at me and said in a perfectly level voice, “I am going to kill Chief Muggins, MacLaren. I’m going to shoot him five hundred times. You wouldn’t believe what he’s been saying to me, with my daughter standing right there.” She spoke as if shooting Charlie was the reasonable solution to all her problems.
I sat down beside her. She smelled strongly of peppermint, which I knew she hated. That’s when I suspected what the matter was. Giving her a hug—from which she tried to turn her face away—was enough to confirm it. She had found Tansy’s secret ingredient. Gwen Ellen MacDonald was drunk. Not stagger-and-fall-down drunk, but drunk enough to lose the gentle inhibitions that governed her life. I saw now why liquor is called Dutch courage. I didn’t know about the Dutch part, but Gwen Ellen sure had courage she hadn’t had before.
Knowing what the matter was, I knew how to handle her. “Calm down, honey. Calm down. You know Charlie loves to get people upset. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
She sat up straighter and held her head high. “I won’t.” She turned to Laura. “He’s just looking for a reason to arrest me. He’s always hated your daddy, and he’d do anything to bring down our family. That is one vicious, mean policeman.”
Laura gave me a frightened, startled look. I held up one hand and patted the air, hoping she knew I meant things weren’t as bad as she’d imagined. Laura frowned, but at least some of her terror subsided, so she could sit up and lean toward her poor inebriated parent. “You aren’t going to shoot anybody, Mama, but you don’t have to pay him any attention. I’ve called our lawyer. He said to call him back if Chief Muggins returns.”
Gwen Ellen looked at me, solemn as a cat. “I won’t have that tacky policeman spreading lies about Skye. I saw you talking with that girl today. What did she and her mother tell you? We need to know so our lawyer will know how to fight them.”
I could not lie, but wished I’d decided beforehand what to say. I also wondered how much Gwen Ellen could absorb in her condition, and how much Laura ought to hear. I tried to stall. “We’ll discuss it later, honey.” But Gwen Ellen pressed me until Laura signaled me to answer. I took a deep breath and admitted, “They both say Nicole is Skye’s child.”
“It’s a lie. A vicious lie.” Gwen Ellen’s eyes were pools of angry chaos.
“I’m afraid it’s not. They claim they can prove what they’re saying. But they’ve gone back to Augusta, and I don’t think they’ll bother you again unless you make a fuss. Why don’t you all go away for a week or two and rest—maybe to the Bahamas or the Virgin Islands? You enjoyed Nassau before. By the time you get back, everybody will be thinking about something else. Charlie was trying to bluff you, to scare you. He knows you didn’t kill Skye.”
Gwen Ellen hadn’t heard a word past my first sentence. “What kind of proof do they say they have? They can’t have proof, because it isn’t true.”
I heaved a sigh and wished it could fill a sail and carry
me
to the Bahamas. “Skye paid for Nicole’s birth and sent support checks to her every month until she turned eighteen.” I didn’t mention the life-insurance policy. I didn’t want to drag in Joe Riddley. He could do what he had to and then wash his hands of the whole mess.
Laura gave a grunt of surprise and pain. Gwen Ellen lifted her chin. “Nonsense. They must have forged those checks, or stolen them. Maybe they found one of his check-books.” She whirled to Laura. “Have you missed any checks from the motor-company account? I’d have noticed if any were missing from ours.”
Laura’s eyes met mine, and she gave her head a slight shake. We both knew Gwen Ellen never kept track of checks in her life. Skye used to joke that he got his exercise running down to the bank to keep their account a few dollars ahead of the checks she wrote. In recent years he’d given her a fistful of credit cards instead. He could have written all sorts of checks on their personal account and she’d never have known a thing.
Gwen Ellen was still waiting for Laura’s answer. Laura shrugged. “I might be able to find them now that I know what to look for. Where did you say they lived?” Her last question was for me. I noticed she hadn’t even considered her mother’s theory that the checks were forged.
“Augusta. Your daddy opened an account in a bank over there for Nicole’s support.”
Gwen Ellen bent her head over her hands in her lap and twisted her large new diamond around and around. “I’d have known,” she insisted. “I would have
known
. When was it this woman claims my husband was carrying on with her?”
“Back when you were so sick and Skye was . . . lonely.” It wasn’t Skye’s coffin I was pounding nails into; it was hers.
“Lonely?” Her face twisted with pain. “Don’t you think I was lonely, lying in that bed day after day? But Skye was here. He brought me roses and candy, and he rubbed my back. He called me his precious baby. . . .” Her voice sank to a whisper.
I reached for her nervous fingers and rubbed them to take away the chill. “You were, sweetie. You always were, and you still are.”
She shook her head and said fiercely, “Everything we had is dirty, now. I won’t share Skye with a tramp.” She clutched her stomach, jumped up, and ran to the bathroom.
“She always throws up when she gets too excited.” Laura’s voice was weary.
I reached over and laid a hand on her arm. “I know, honey. I’d give my eyeteeth to have kept you from going through this. What happened back then is between your mother and daddy. It had nothing to do with the way he felt for you.”
She nodded, but she did not say a word. She reached to her neck for a strand of hair, then gave me a wide, lopsided smile that nearly broke my heart. “I haven’t learned yet how to suck my toes.”
We both jumped when we heard the medicine-cabinet door slam shut. Laura’s face went white with fear. “She’s found pills. She’s taking something. She could kill herself!”
I hurried to the powder-room door and grabbed the knob to rattle it, but the door wasn’t shut. I literally fell into the room. Gwen Ellen’s hand slipped, and pink lipstick went down her chin. I jerked open the cabinet and saw a bottle of foundation, a powder compact, blusher, mascara, and several bottles of perfume. No pills whatsoever. She reached for a tissue from the counter and asked as she scrubbed the smear, “What do you want?”
“I . . . uh . . . wanted to make sure you were all right.” Prepared to rescue her from downing a fistful of medicine, I didn’t know how to apologize for barging in on her while she was fixing her face. Thank goodness I used to baby-sit her. I don’t think I could have stood the embarrassment if I hadn’t.
Her eyes met mine in the mirror as she put the lipstick back in the cabinet and reached for a hairbrush on the next shelf. She pulled the brush through her hair and curled it under at the ends. “Did you all think I was killing myself in here?” Her laugh was high and brittle, but her eyes were genuinely amused. “I’m not. If that’s why Laura hauled you over here when you ought to be in bed with that cold, you can go back home. I need to be alone. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. I need to find out the whole truth; then I need to figure out how to live with it. I can do it, though.” She set down the brush and turned to face me. “I’m not weak, you know. I know people used to say Skye treated me like porcelain—I’ve heard them. But I’m stronger than they gave me credit for. Go home, MacLaren. I am going to be fine. I just need a little time.”
I backed from the bathroom and closed the door behind me, relieved.
I heard Laura at the front door; then she came back to the living room with Ben. He’d changed his suit for a tan polo shirt and brown slacks, but he still looked handsome as all get-out. He also still looked like a totem pole—a totem pole with brown curls. It was hard to picture him laughing and talking up in Laura’s apartment.
“Hello, Judge,” he greeted me woodenly. “I . . . uh . . . stopped by to see if . . . uh . . . they needed anything. You all okay, Laura? Anything I can do for you folks this afternoon?”
She gave him a wide, sad smile. “No, but I appreciate you asking. Mama’s had a rough time since the people all left. I got so worried about her, I called Mac.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” His voice was rough, almost angry.
She stared at him in astonishment. “I couldn’t bother you. . . .”
His eyes were hard and morose. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I told you, anything you need, call me.”
She looked away. “I know, but I hated to bother you.” They towered above me like two awkward giants. Finally she asked, “Do you want to sit down?”
Ben was Laura’s problem. I’d solved mine. I bent to pick up my pocketbook. “I’ll go on home now. Your mother’s freshening up her makeup and brushing her hair. Everything’s going to be fine. I promise.”
Mama used to say, “Never make promises you don’t have the power to keep.” I should have listened.
26
Sunday, I rested. I didn’t see anybody, and I didn’t call anybody. I ate the sandwich Joe Riddley put together and didn’t even point out he’d forgotten the mustard. I did a lot of thinking, though, and my thoughts were real poor company. By the time I turned off my light, I was pretty sure I knew who had run over Skye MacDonald. I just wasn’t sure what to do with what I knew.
Monday was sunny. I went back to work and paid bills while Joe Riddley went to the nursery for the morning. A new shipment of seed and fertilizer would occupy him awhile, because our forklift operator was out sick and Joe Riddley loved to operate the forklift. He also had to supervise our staff in shifting azaleas and other shrubbery, to make space for new ones that would come in later that week.
I waited until he and Joe pulled out of the parking lot before I called Laura to see how she was doing. With the funeral behind them, I figured she was beginning to think about how she and Skell could best work together as partners. I wanted to offer to sponsor her for our local business owners’ association.
To my surprise, she was real subdued. When I asked about Gwen Ellen, she sighed. “She spent all day yesterday going through Daddy’s things to give them away. She says he’d like for other folks to be getting use out of them.”
“You think it’s because of that Nicole thing? I hope she’s not doing something she’ll later regret.” I’d have expected Gwen Ellen to keep Skye’s closet, dresser, and den the way he’d left them for weeks or even months before she could face getting rid of them.
“I do, too.” Laura sounded forlorn. “I told her to wait a little longer, at least, but she said I don’t have to sleep in the same room with them and look at them all day long. She says they make her so sad she can’t stand it.”
“Well, honey, widowhood is funny. In my experience, it takes every woman differently, and we all have to deal with it in our own way. Your mama has a good head on her shoulders, and if she can bear to part with some of the things already, I wouldn’t give her any grief over that. Just be sure to ask her for anything you particularly want to have.”
“I took the mugs from his office, and his collection of Ford tie tacks. I’m going to have them framed. Skell asked for the furniture from his den.”
“How is Skell today?”
She gave a huff of disgust. “Came strolling in late again this morning. Only half an hour, and I know he was tired, but still, we can’t run a business like that. So I sat him down and told him we are now partners in this firm, and he needs to either start pulling his weight or, if he wants to go do something else, he and Mama can pay me a salary to run the place.”
“That sounds fair. What did he say?”
“Said he’d think about it. Then Isaac James called, wanting one of us to come down to the station to talk about the mess over at Sky’s the Limit, so I sent Skell. It’s his problem—it wouldn’t have happened if he’d kept an eye on his people.”
“Good for you. Joe Riddley’s daddy told us when we came in as partners that you have to start with people the way you mean to go on. But you sound awful gloomy. Is anything else the matter?”
“I’m fine.” She paused, then added casually, “Ben’s quitting.”
“Quitting?” I felt like somebody had hit me in the midriff—which, now that I thought about it, is exactly how Laura sounded.
“Yeah. He came in while Skell and I were talking, and Skell told him right off that he and I are now co-owners of the place. I wish he’d waited for us to talk about how to let people know, but Skell’s mouth gets ahead of his brain sometimes.”
“Occasionally,” I agreed. “Around ninety percent of the time.”