by Elaine Viets
“Would you like a drink?” Eduardo asked.
“Club soda with lime.”
Ken held up his beer. “I’m fine for now, thanks.”
The waiter quickly arrived with her drink. “Are you ready to order, or would you like more time?”
Angela panicked at the thought of more time. “I know what I want. What about you, Ken?” Anything to hurry this along.
“I’ll have the steak fajitas. Would you like guacamole, Angela?”
“Yes.” She sounded more grateful than necessary for a bowl of mashed avocados. Guacamole and chips would be another distraction. “And I’ll have the chicken fajitas.”
After the waiter left, Ken said, “Thanks for taking the time to meet with me. I haven’t lived in the Forest for many years. I met your friend Monty when I was deposing his client. We hit it off, and he and Katie asked me to dinner. She’s a hoot and a half.”
“Uh, yes, she is.” Angela wondered if Katie had dropped any F-bombs on Ken. Maybe he thought those were a hoot, too. Or two hoots.
“I asked Monty if he knew any more girls like Katie, and he said she was one of a kind.”
“She certainly is.”
“But he mentioned Katie had a good friend who was a widow. I didn’t expect you to be so . . . uh . . . attractive.”
I’ll have to have a little talk with Monty the Matchmaker, Angela thought. “I am widowed.” That word had a fearsome, final sound. For months after Donegan’s death, she couldn’t even bring herself to say it. Every admission of her changed status seemed to reinforce her loss. “I’m a recent widow, Ken. My husband’s death was unexpected, and it’s too painful to discuss.”
“I understand.”
Angela hoped he understood that was all she was going to say about Donegan. If Ken had any sensitivity, he wouldn’t ask her anything else.
Their silence stretched on, until their server arrived with brown pottery bowls of chips and guacamole. “Your fajitas will be out soon.”
Not soon enough, Angela thought. She sneaked a glance at her watch: 12:17. The minute hand refused to move faster. Ken dragged a tortilla chip through the guacamole and crunched it.
Angela waited until he finished chewing. “What brings you back to the Forest?” she asked. Her chip held a healthy scoop of guacamole.
“I needed a change of scene. It was time to explore new horizons. I’d lived in Memphis since I graduated from law school. I was a junior partner in a firm there, until my wife divorced me. She had an affair with the senior partner, if you can believe that. While I was racking up billable hours, she was spending time in the sack with Richard the Third—Richard Q. Pershing the Third. All big-time lawyers have at least one initial and a number in their name.” He smiled to lighten the bitterness in his tone.
“Richard’s wife tumbled to the affair, but by that time, it was too late. Richard the Third wanted to marry my wife. He fixed it so she got everything—the house, the Mercedes, my 401(k). Fortunately, we didn’t have any kids. You’d think as a lawyer I’d know how to fight for a good divorce, but I didn’t handle divorces at the firm—that was his specialty. I just wanted out of the marriage and out of Memphis. Well, you don’t want to hear this.”
You’re right, Angela almost said. But before those words slipped out, she said, “So how did you wind up at Du Pres, Hanley, and Hampton?”
“My cousin Missy is a Du Pres, and she’s married to Mercer Hanley.”
He said that as if it were an explanation for how he was hired by the premier local firm. In the Forest, it was.
“Welcome home.”
Angela was grateful that their server arrived with two sizzling platters of fajitas. Good. Preparing the perfect fajita took time. She built hers slowly, spreading a little guacamole on the warm flour tortilla, next a thin layer of sour cream, then the fried red-and-green peppers, onions, and chicken strips. She arranged the contents carefully. If she overloaded her tortilla, it would squirt grease and sauce on her dress.
Ken fixed his with the same meticulous care, then took a bite. “Mm. Even better than I remembered. So tell me, how did you become a death investigator?”
She gave Ken her standard answer: “I enjoy forensics.”
“You must see some awful sights.”
Shane Mathrews, the headless motorcyclist, flashed before her eyes. “The Forest is a small place, and I’d rather not discuss people’s loved ones. What I really enjoy is visiting the retired racehorses at Reggie Du Pres’s stables.”
“Fast company.” Ken had a gentle, genuine laugh. Angela told him about shaking American Hero’s tongue and feeding Eecie carrots. She covertly checked her watch and saw it was 1:12. She could leave anytime, but Angela was beginning to enjoy her lunch. It felt good to forget the stress and sadness of yesterday.
The server cleared away their plates, and Ken asked, “Would you like coffee?”
“Coffee would be fine.”
Ken looked absurdly happy, as if she’d given him a gift. “Two coffees,” he told the server.
When he returned with the coffee, the server said, “Eduardo sent this flan for you. On the house.”
“Wonderful.” Ken grinned like a kid at a birthday party. “Okay with you, Angela?”
“Sure.” But she felt uneasy. Eduardo liked matchmaking. Did Katie tip him off about this lunch?
After the first spoonful, Ken said, “This flan is amazing. Light and sweet with the right amount of cinnamon.”
Angela nodded agreement. Her mouth was full. Then she heard the words she’d dreaded. “Roses. Roses. Roses for your pretty lady.”
Rosa the rose lady was a fixture at the Forest restaurants. A plump, white-haired woman of sixtysomething, she sold long-stemmed red roses for three dollars each. Why did she have to show up now? Red roses were Angela’s special flower. Donegan always gave her red roses. She tried to duck into the bathroom, but it was too late. Rosa was heading straight for their table. Her round, unwrinkled face was lit with a smile. Her white hair was softly waved, and she wore a bright-red blouse and black pants.
“Hello, sir.”
Go away, Angela thought. Shoo!
“Hello, miss.” Rosa held up her plastic bucket, decorated with heart decals and brimming with dark-red roses.
“Would you like to give the pretty lady a red rose as a memento of your lovely lunch? Only three dollars.”
Angela hated the woman’s sticky-sweet smile. She wished she could make her go away. No! she shrieked. The sound was so loud in her mind she was sure Ken and Rosa could hear it.
“Yes. Angela is a lovely lady, and she was gracious enough to have lunch with me today.” He handed Rosa a five, and she picked out the freshest red rose.
She smiled at the handsome couple as Ken gallantly presented Angela the red rose. A rose the color of blood. The same color as the rose she’d tossed on Donegan’s coffin. The walls of the alcove closed in on her and sucked the air out of the small space. She fought to breathe. She struggled to speak.
Ken looked at her with concern. “Angela? What’s wrong?”
Panic strangled her. She managed one word. “No!”
She stood up, stumbled against the table in her too-high heels, and ran for the door.
CHAPTER 26
Day nine
Angela couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. She had to get away from the restaurant, the roses, and Ken Rushman. As she raced toward the door, she glimpsed his stunned face and heard a bewildered Eduardo. “Angela! Angela! What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t explain. She stumbled in the doorway, unsteady without her cane, and kicked off her crippling heels. At last, she was outside. The warm spring sun was a blessing. She hurried to her car, chirped it open, and collapsed in the seat, her head buried in the steering wheel. Please, she thought. Leave me alone. Everyone leave me alone.
But when she looked up, Ken was rushing toward her, his handsome face puzzled and concerned. No! Don’t make me explain! She started her car and squealed out of
the parking lot, turning left, then right, then right again, blindly picking streets and crying so hard she could barely see. After several turns, Angela had no idea where she was or how fast she was going. At last her heart stopped racing, and she could see through her tears. She slowed the Charger to the speed limit, wiped her eyes, and drove home, relieved the early-afternoon roads were nearly empty.
She turned into her desolate driveway. Three days ago, it had been lined with spring color. Then the sleet storm froze its beauty. Now the brown blooms and ice-burned stalks rotted in the warm sun. Angela stayed inside her car, her heart pounding. What should she do next? Where could she go? She checked her phone for messages, but there was only one from Katie, her voice cheerful and confident.
“Hey, it’s me. How was lunch? Is he a great guy or what?”
He’s a terrific guy, Angela thought, and lunch was a disaster.
Katie was still delivering her message. “I want to hear all about it.”
You will, Katie. By now, Eduardo and Ken have probably both called you. Ken is wondering why you fixed him up with a flaming wacko, and Eduardo is asking why he had yet another scene in his restaurant. Oh lord! The restaurant! Did the customers whip out their cell phones and video her overreaction to poor Rosa the rose lady? Was Angela recorded stumbling out of Gringo Daze, wild-eyed and crazy? Damned cell phones were everywhere. And in this attention-getting outfit, the video of the Forest’s Gone Girl would go viral. Eduardo and Lourdes’s restaurant would become the local soap-opera headquarters, a scene for lovers’ quarrels and juicy breakups. The Forest grandees would see Angela fleeing a quiet lunch with a lawyer from a premier Forest firm as if she were running from a terrorist attack. She’d be marked as unstable. Maybe too unstable to keep her job.
Katie’s message was still jabbering on: “So that’s it! Call me when you can. I have news.”
“I have news.” That meant something was going on with Kendra’s case. Angela couldn’t call Katie at the office, and she was in no shape to talk. The answer was in her conversation with Ken. Horse therapy, she decided. I need horse therapy.
Angela slipped her high heels back on her blistered feet and hobbled up the drive to her home. Her cane was just inside the door. She used it and the stair rail to get up to her bedroom, where she fell into an exhausted sleep.
Angela woke up at three thirty, the warm sun on her face, her exquisite makeup now muddy smears on her pillowcase. One sticky fake eyelash flapped loose. In the bathroom, she peeled off both false eyelashes and creamed her face twice. She still couldn’t remove Mario’s makeup job. After four tries, her face was clean and slightly red from the vigorous scrubbing. Now the darkness around her eyes was natural. She pulled her smart hairstyle into a practical ponytail, then put on her jeans, a plaid cotton shirt, and boots. There. Now she felt like her old self.
Downstairs, she dug out another bag of peppermints and caned her way to the Du Pres stables. She felt safer walking with the cane. It was a nuisance at times, but she wasn’t ready to give up its protection. She also wasn’t ready to return Katie’s call and confess her failure. She’d deal with that after horse therapy.
Bud was unloading bags of feed into the shed by the stables when she arrived. He wiped his long, tanned face with a red bandanna, then stuck it in his back pocket. He waved her over. “Thank God you just missed him.” He picked up his soda-can spittoon.
“Who?” Angela averted her eyes while he squirted tobacco juice.
“Reggie. The old man’s madder than a wet hen at Monty—and since the lawyer’s seeing Katie, and he’s friends with you, Reggie’s mad at all three of you. He was stomping around here with his cell phone, waving his hands and screaming at his lawyers.”
“Reggie discussed his personal business in front of you?”
Bud’s laugh was like a whinny. He’d been around horses so long, he was starting to sound like them. “Hell, I don’t exist for that old man. I’m an employee. He cares more about the stained glass and brass in his fancy stables than he cares about me. I like the job, the money’s decent, and I stay out of his way. Today, the way he was ranting, he woulda taken a horsewhip to you.”
Angela doubted that Old Reggie, who was way north of eighty, could even lift a horsewhip, but he was powerful enough to run her off his property. And he could evict her. When he’d sold the guest house to Angela’s family, there was a loophole. They didn’t own the land the house was on, and Reggie could buy the house back for the same price he’d sold it for—$25,000. If he went into a total rage, she could wind up homeless.
“Don’t let him catch you here,” Bud warned.
“I’ll stay away until he calms down.”
“That may be a while. Besides, the horses like you. Tell you what—if he’s here, I’ll give you a red alert. I’ll hang my bandanna on this nail where you can see it, and you’ll know to keep on walking.”
“What’s got Reggie so upset?”
“He can’t control things the way he wants. He’s furious that the judge ruled in favor of Monty and against his cousin Priscilla and allowed a second autopsy.”
“But Kendra’s paying for that.”
“Using Du Pres money she earned on her back.” Reggie must have seen Angela’s shocked look. “Those aren’t my words. That’s how the old man sees it. He feels Kendra’s fighting the Du Pres family with their own money.”
“But he’s richer than Kendra. She has only two million.”
Did I just say “only two million?” she thought.
“Unencumbered,” Bud said. “Her money isn’t tied up in real estate, and she doesn’t have half a dozen relatives living off her. By Reggie’s standards, she’s free and clear.”
A snorting, stamping sound interrupted them. “That’s Hero, impatient for his peppermints. He’s at home. Go see him.”
American Hero looked like he was posing for a portrait in his splendid mahogany stall. His muscular body was sleek and shiny, his legs long and powerful, his noble head held high. Angela hurried over to him, and the racehorse stuck out his huge pink-gray tongue. She gravely shook it, then hugged the horse while he blew kisses into her hair.
She fed him nearly half a bag of peppermints and felt the tensions of the past few days slip into the stable’s soft shadows. She forgot about Jackie Soran and the tragic drug death of her doomed son. Even her wretched, panicked lunch with Ken didn’t seem so bad. Hero licked the last of the sticky peppermints off her hands. She patted his nose, hugged him good-bye, and said, “I have to see Eecie now.”
East Coast Express was in her stall, demanding Angela’s attention. The racehorse’s little white goat slept in the corner. Angela rubbed the tiny white star on the big bay’s forehead, hugged her neck, and covered her with kisses until Eecie nickered.
“Okay, you can’t live on love alone. How about some peppermints?”
The goat jumped up at the word peppermints and made its rusty demand. Angela fed Little Bit a treat, and Eecie nudged her hand. Angela nearly spilled the bag of candy. “Hey! Eecie! You have to share.” She gave the rest of the bag to Eecie, one candy at a time. As the horse gobbled each treat, it seemed to take a bite out of Angela’s sorrow and despair. She was down to a dozen peppermints when her cell phone rang. Katie. She shoved the candy in her pocket. This time, Angela took the call.
“I know where you are. I’m parking outside now.” She sounded angry.
Katie stomped into the stable before Angela had even stashed her cell phone, trailing bursts of rage. She hadn’t bothered changing out of her gray suit and flat shoes. “What the hell happened? You’re the most talked-about woman since Kendra got her ass slapped by Luther and he wound up dead. All you had to do was eat lunch! Just lunch! How did a plate of fajitas turn into a fuckin’ drama?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Save that for Ken.” Then Katie’s eyes narrowed. “Or maybe he doesn’t deserve your apology. Did he say something? Insult you? Hit on you? I swear, Angela, if he d
id anything, I’ll break his ass.” She looked ready to grab a pitchfork and march to Ken’s office.
“It wasn’t Ken’s fault. It was mine. He was a perfect gentleman. Eduardo decided this was some kind of date and put us in the alcove by the fountain, then lit a candle. You didn’t tip him off, did you?”
“Of course not. Quit stalling and start talking.”
“The conversation was a little stilted at first, but Ken and I were getting along fine. I was actually enjoying the lunch—so much that I decided to stay for dessert. And then . . . then . . .”
Her voice broke and filled with tears. Katie’s was soft. “Angela, honey, what happened? You can tell me.”
“Rosa came along. Rosa the rose lady. Eduardo sent her to our table, and she started in with her ‘roses for the pretty lady’ routine, and Ken bought me a rose. A red rose. Donegan always gave me red roses, and a red rose was the last thing I put on his coffin at the . . . at the cemetery.” Angela was crying now, aching sobs that wouldn’t stop. Eecie moved closer, and Angela threw her arms around the horse’s muscular neck and bristly mane. The horse blew her a kiss. Katie rubbed Angela’s back.
“There’s nothing wrong with Ken,” Angela said. “Except it’s too soon. If it wasn’t for that rose, I might have lasted the lunch.”
Katie looked contrite, her bluster and swear words gone. “I’m sorry, Angela. I’m so, so sorry. Donegan is gone, but you don’t have to bury yourself with him.”
“I’m not dead!” Angela was suddenly angry. “I’m alive. I’m working. But I’ll live on my terms.”
CHAPTER 27
Day nine
Angela was calm enough to ask Katie, “What’s your news?”
“Monty texted me this morning. The forensic experts are flying in this week. We talked about it last night. He’s worried. Kendra’s salvation depends on their findings.”