Ladies Courting Trouble

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

  “Yes, yes, Cass has it exactly right. We’re working on an interesting problem along that line right now. An environmental matter. It’s one of our specialties, when we aren’t…well, when we aren’t working on bigger things.” And Fiona went on to blab details of the Samhain spell we’d set into motion over the sale of land around Bonds Pond to the Nature Conservancy. She threw in the plight of the red-bellied turtle, and even mentioned that Clarence Finch, with his overgrown cranberry bogs, was the holdout we were targeting. No shortness of breath in evidence there! Jean’s brownies must be harmless, after all. Or at least this batch was safe to eat. Now I would have to listen to Fiona crowing about the efficacy of dowsing.

  Still, someone had to keep a clear head and check things out in a scientific way. While Fiona had Jean’s attention, I scooped up the brownie-in-napkin in front of me and dropped it into my bag, the deep, soft leather one that Joe had brought me from Italy, which was almost as copious as Fiona’s reticule.

  Jean seemed a little surprised when I wanted to shake her hand as we parted. It’s not usual among women, who generally favor the airy wave or the just-missed kiss, but she did put forth her small hand for a limp salute. With a quick hug for Fiona, I left immediately, wanting to sort impressions quietly as I drove home. That kind of psychic exercise is not conducive to safe driving, so I forced myself to take extra care on roads that were beginning to be icy.

  On the way home, I called Phil on my cell. “I’ve been to tea at Fiona’s,” I said. “Jean Deluca brought a platter of brownies.”

  “Sweet Isis! You gals didn’t eat any, did you?”

  “It’s okay. Fiona dowsed them, and I gave them the smell test. Well, to tell the truth, I didn’t eat mine. I have it wrapped in a napkin, and I thought I’d drop it off at your place for Stone. Maybe he’d like to analyze the thing, see if it’s the same mix as the one that polished off Lydia Craig.”

  “What a good idea! But is Fiona okay?”

  “Fiona is fine. Jean said that she uses a Baker Boy mix and adds vanilla and Godiva liqueur. Smelled like artificial vanilla and a cheaper chocolate liqueur to me.”

  “Ugh. Even when you’re poisoning someone, there’s no excuse for resorting to that. Shame on her.”

  Shortly afterwards I turned into Phillipa’s driveway and dropped off the purloined brownie. Then I wasted no time in hurrying home before Joe could get anxious again. Men can be such worrywarts.

  What with one thing and another, I figured Joe would be pleased that I survived tea at Fiona’s.

  And he was. Greeting me with a big, warm embrace as soon as I got in the door, he murmured in my ear, “Sweetheart, I need some plywood and things. Mind if I borrow the wagon for a quick run to Home Warehouse?”

  A ride? Oh joy! Take me, take me, take me! Scruffy was bouncing around Joe’s legs, tail waving at top speed.

  “The Jeep is going to be loaded with bulky supplies,” I pointed out.

  Joe stepped back and looked at me oddly. “Well, of course it is.”

  “I was talking to Scruffy. He’s asking you to take him along.”

  “Oh, Scruffy. He can go. I’ll manage. Hey, you won’t mind a little chaos in the bedroom for a few days, will you? I think I can construct an addition to the closet using the space I’ve detected behind that inside wall.”

  “Wow. You’re my hero. We can sleep upstairs in the guest room.” In twin beds, what fun is that?

  After they left, Joe huddled deeply into his pea jacket, the Greek fishing hat jammed on his head, and Scruffy dancing his way to the Jeep, I found myself imagining the peace and quiet that would reign when Joe got his next assignment.

  I shook my hands briskly to shake off that negative thought.

  “Hey, I’m feeling left out,” Deidre complained the next afternoon. We were in her yellow kitchen drinking whiskey-laced tea and looking out at the cheerless backyard while I caught her up on our recent investigations. “So you got a chance to shake hands with Jean. Any impressions?”

  “Nothing definitive, unfortunately. Only a great deal of unfocused anger. Maybe because her son just had his theatrical hopes dashed at Assumption. I’ll have to wait for the analysis of that brownie.”

  “I used to know Jean’s husband, Arthur Deluca. We both went to Assumption, only he was years ahead of me, but I’d see him at church things when he was on break from Boston College. Took himself and his painting very seriously. That’s easy to do when you’re growing up in the boondocks without much competition. Wanted to escape the stifling commercialism of America and take in the art scene in Paris, but rumor had it, he got Jean knocked up and that was that. The usual story. So he settled for seagulls.”

  “I gather that the seagull business isn’t exactly booming.”

  “They’re getting by, like the rest of us. You know how it is, working for yourself. One feels freer, but it doesn’t usually support a lavish lifestyle.”

  “And Jean wants to send son Leonardo to Phillips Exeter. Harvard to follow, I don’t doubt.”

  “Some women will stop at nothing when their kids are involved. That Texas-cheerleader mom, for instance. But what about Bruce Craig’s wife, Sherry? You said she’s involved in some kind of suspicious money scheme.”

  “Yes, but don’t ask me the details. Well, actually, I think it has something to do with the Wander Inn, not the Craig fortune. I sure hope Sherry’s not actually stealing. It’s impossible not to feel sorry for that poor girl. A manikin with punkish mahogany hair. Looks as if she’s badly in need of some fresh air and vitamins. Listen, Heather’s going to set something up with Geoffrey Craig’s wife, she of the garden club. Why don’t you come along with us on that one?”

  “Oh, goodie. Will’s working nights this month, so he can look out for the kids for a few hours. And I’d just love an excuse to get out on my own.”

  From the sounds of the roughhousing going on in the living room, it seemed as if the Ryan brood would be perfectly happy with Dad. “But what about Annie?”

  “I’ll see how Will feels. If he’s too tired for Annie, I may bring her with me. But don’t be concerned. She’s such a good little girl, you’ll hardly know she’s there.”

  I remembered being conned into carrying the Ryan baby in a papoose rig while Deidre videotaped her two oldest in their school’s Thanksgiving pageant. I had to admit I hadn’t heard a peep out of Annie the whole time. For all I knew, since she was on my back and out of my view, she might have slept right through that endless theatrical event crammed with wildly applauding parents. Lucky Annie.

  “If Heidi Pryde Craig has made it into that snooty Gardeners of the Mayflower Society, they can’t be as much in need of the Craig fortune as the other Craigs. He’s a CPA, she’s a lawyer. And by the way, personal injury is her specialty. I caught her act in a TV ad for her firm, Fisch, Barter, and Dodge. She was talking about the comfort of having a woman lawyer to confide in concerning personal female matters. A convincing, sympathetic manner. A wee drop more?” Deidre lifted the teapot in one hand and the bottle of Irish whiskey in the other.

  I waved away the offer. Joe might begin to wonder about me if I started coming home every afternoon reeking of alcohol. “Professional couples with two good salaries can get themselves into financial difficulties, too. Or simply may want to move up the food chain to a richer lifestyle.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Who wouldn’t want to be a millionaire?”

  “That’s what sells lottery tickets.”

  “And every Craig in the immediate family must feel gypped by this huge bequest to Pastor Peacedale when all they’re getting is a few measly thousand. What’s he going to do with all that money, anyway?” Deidre picked up her workbag and began to stitch a Bettikins dress.

  “I think he’s still too much in shock to have made any decisions on that.”

  “Sure. But Patty’s got to be making plans for him. Real women always know how to spend money. Probably wants to start by taking out a contract on that Pynchon dame Fiona was t
elling me about. Imagine going into that tirade while poor Peacedale was still in the hospital recovering from poison!”

  “Fiona sent Pynchon and her cronies flying in short order.”

  “Good thing we have Fiona on our team, isn’t it?” Deidre took out a doll and fitted the dress to her. Bettikins, I noticed, was wearing a tiny silver pentagram under her bodice.

  Salty and Peppy came skittering across the tile floor following a soft spongy ball. Bobby, now a robust kindergartner, came giggling after, then his older sister and brother, Jenny and Willie. Deidre’s husband Will followed, holding Annie in his arms. Suddenly the kitchen was overflowing with grinning Ryans seeking sustenance. Willie and Annie had Deidre’s blond mop of curls. Bobby was a carrot-top like his dad once had been, but Jenny’s hair was straight and brown, a reflection of her quiet demeanor. Like many older children, she looked somewhat burdened with the responsibility of younger siblings.

  Crackers and various jars were brought out. Zwieback for Annie, who gummed it happily, gagging from time to time. The poodles were vigilant in their task of cleaning up crumbs, and there were lots of those.

  “Awesome,” I said as we dawdled over the last of our tea and the Ryan kids snacked at the counter. “I don’t know how you do it. I raised three, and I don’t know how I did it, either.”

  “Sure you do. The trick is, just don’t think about the big picture. Do the next thing, whatever it is. Put out small fires promptly. Jenny’s nine now already, and a genuine help to her mom. And, Annie is the positive last.”

  “I don’t know about that. You’re just a prolific gal. It’s a good thing you’re not a gardener. We’d all be swimming in vegetables.”

  “Yeah, well from now on, I’m turning my prolific nature to doll-making.”

  “So you say. Hey, I’m glad you’re getting out to the Mayflower thing, whatever it is. Your family is beautiful, but possibly you could use a break.”

  There was a crash, a scream, and a few sharp barks, as the tin of crackers hit the floor.

  “You think?” Deidre said. “Good thing I love them to pieces.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “This is simply too good to be true.” In honor of our afternoon of social aspirations, Heather was chauffeuring us in her newly washed, beautifully waxed Mercedes. The car’s back windows, usually sticky with an excess of dog drool, bore only one nose print. Heather had transported Honeycomb to my house, leaving her in Joe’s care so that the golden retriever could romp with Scruffy. The two dogs appeared to have formed an attachment, and Heather was inclined to be indulgent with Honeycomb, her genuine therapy dog. “It’s the Bonds Pond thing—you remember we worked on that at Samhain? There’s been a break in the negotiations with Clarence Finch.”

  “What? What? What?” Deidre and I chorused.

  “The ringed boghaunter, an endangered dragonfly, has found the Finch bog to its liking and moved there in droves. Ergo, the habitat of this rare insect cannot be sold to anyone but the Nature Conservancy. In fact, it was strongly hinted to Finch that he ought to donate the property, but he threatened to set fire to the place first. An ugly encounter, according to Dick. As a bird-banding member of the Center for Conservation Sciences, he was present at the Conservancy meeting.”

  “Boghunter?” Deidre’s tone was full of wonder.

  “No, haunter. Boghaunter. And that’s just what the dragonfly is doing, haunting Finch’s bogs. Reach in my handbag, Cass, and take out the snapshot. Dick loaned it to me for your edification. Some Campfire Girl took that photo on a spring field trip. She swears they were crossing Finch’s bogs at the time. But it didn’t come to light until last fall, believe it or not, right after Samhain. By and by, it got into the hands of a member of the Dragonfly Society of America. An official odonatist from the DSA was dispatched to Bonds Pond to investigate, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

  I removed the photo from Heather’s bag and studied it. “It’s a miraculous endangered living thing, but it’s a repulsive one.”

  “And I thought you were an animal lover!” Deidre took the photo out of my hand. “Gracious! What a revolting creature. Actually it looks more like two creatures. The day that insects take over the world, I’m leaving.”

  “It is two creatures,” Phillipa said. “What you’re looking at is the mating of a ringed boghaunter dragonfly with a willing damselfly. He’s grabbed her by the back of the neck and she’s curving up to collect the sperm on his abdomen. The thing is, that means there are dragonfly nymphs in the waters of the bog who may spend two years in that aquatic stage until they emerge and take wing. Isn’t nature fantastic?”

  “And isn’t it interesting how things work out?” Deidre said. “Now this is a solution we never would have dreamed of, and yet it’s perfect. Of course, we really don’t know if we had a psychic hand in this, but it is rather a coincidence.”

  “I love it,” I said. “And I’m perfectly willing to take the credit. Just among us five, of course. But what is an odonatist?”

  “Specialist in dragonflies, which are of the order Odonata. Once they start looking closely, I’ll bet the odonatists and other interested environmentalists will find additional endangered creatures in Finch’s bogs.” Heather was steering sedately into the large circular driveway in front of a handsome old mansion, yellow with a white trim, surrounded by large, well-tended trees: beech and oak, with a backdrop woodland of evergreens. “I almost, but not quite, feel sorry for Finch. Okay, get ready, gals, to meet my cousin by marriage, Violet Pickle Morgan. We’ll be sharing a coffee hour with the Gardeners of the Mayflower and hearing a talk on seaside gardens by a Japanese fellow. Violet is going to introduce us to Heidi Craig. I’ve told Cousin Violet that I have a friend who might need the name of a good personal injury lawyer, but we’d like to meet the Craig woman informally before consulting her officially.”

  “Not bad,” Deidre said. “Who’s the friend?”

  “You, dear. A malpractice incident with your last pregnancy. Try to look a little sad and wistful.”

  “Geez, Phil. Why me? Why didn’t you use Cass?”

  “Cass is here as a well-known seaside herbalist who would naturally be interested in the gardening problems thereof. You’re here as a victim. That’s the way I worked it out, so sue me. Or rather, sue your obstetrician for interfering with your fertile cycles.”

  “Don’t I wish,” Deidre said. “With me, even the pill can’t be trusted.”

  If a Boston terrier could be reborn in human form, the result would have been someone much like Heather’s cousin Violet, a small, frisky woman whose dark hair was striped with white. She had button-bright eyes and an aggressive pug nose.

  “Heather!” she barked from across the room, scampering to meet us at mid-aisle in the lecture room, “It’s about time you got yourself to one of our meetings, my dear.”

  “Cousin Vi,” Heather murmured. “How lovely to see you! You’re looking very fit and trim.” They kissed the air over each other’s shoulder.

  “You know I’d be delighted to put you up for membership anytime, my dear. With a little inspiration from us and a decent gardener, your house and grounds could be a showplace.” Violet’s little round eyes shone with recruiting zeal. “Of course, you’d have to get rid of that wolf pack.”

  “I would, I would…if only I could find loving homes for those rogues. Say, Vi, could I interest you in a sweet little Lab who’s recently come to live with me?”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle imagining the Lab, whose name was Luke Skywalker, zooming down the road with little Violet Morgan at the other end of the leash.

  Violet jumped back as if from a contagion and shook her head emphatically. “Heavens to Betsy! No dirty dogs for me, my dear. Messes on the lawn, holes in the flower beds, tulips and peonies beheaded at the height of their glory. No serious gardener would tolerate those destructive creatures.”

  “I have to admit that I prefer my ‘wolf pack’ to a perennial border any day. But let me presen
t my friends,” Heather continued smoothly. Deidre and I were duly introduced, sniffed at, and dismissed as being of negligible social value. Violet remembered, however, that she’d promised to put us together with Heidi Craig. Once that had been accomplished, she trotted away to engage the afternoon’s speaker, Professor Ishimoto, on the subject of beach roses.

  Despite her calm expression and deceptively bovine aura, there was something formidable about Heidi Craig that made her someone I wouldn’t want to encounter as an adversary in a courtroom. Her hair was brushed smoothly away from her face, a long, straight fall of pale brown, her limpid eyes a darker brown. The charcoal suit she wore was cut like an Armani, emphasizing shoulders and slimming hips, its severity broken by a glimpse of aqua silk shell and a rope of pearls.

  When we were introduced, she immediately shook hands. Hers was dry, cool, and firm. My immediate impression was unequivocal. This was one upwardly mobile lady, a social and professional climber. Obviously, she’d zeroed in on the right garden club. All around us, the Mayflower wives were circling in their Talbots classic plaid skirts, cashmere twin sets, and Ferragamo flats, exchanging gardening tips and gossip in cultivated low tones. Every one of them probably employed a professional gardener.

  With one quick, sharp glance at Deidre, Heidi said, “Vi tells me that you might be interested in my professional help in a personal matter. Call me if you’d like to talk it over. Any friend of Vi’s—”

  Subduing her usual perkiness, Deidre assumed a wan demeanor and nodded sadly, her eyes downcast in order to hide their irrepressible mischievous glint.

  “We knew your dear aunt Lydia,” I said, figuring I’d get Deidre out of the limelight. “We’re all so sorry about that sad affair.”