Ladies Courting Trouble

by Dolores Stewart Riccio

I shook out my hands to rid myself of those negative thoughts and looked around the room to move outside of my own concerns. Tip was leaning against the wall looking longingly at Freddie. Did she even know he’d always had a crush on her? Seeing me watching, he came over and sat beside me on the Victorian fainting couch. We both needed a change of subject.

  “I sure wished you were here two weeks ago,” I said. “I was in desperate need of a skilled tracker to follow a trail over at the Craig place.”

  “Something to do with the poisonings?” His grin brought out the Asian cast of his gray eyes. I noticed that those eyes were now level with my own. I’d not thought he would grow up to be that tall, and as graceful and muscular as a dancer. He’d always been a magnificent runner, but now, with those long legs, he must be a wonder to behold.

  “You bet. We’re on the case, big time,” I said. “Apparently the Craig greenhouse was used to house hemlock plants, which were then moved, and I wanted to know where and by whom.”

  “I suppose it’s too late now?”

  “After what I would call a cursory look for obvious footprints, Stone and a couple of his colleagues trampled all over the surrounding area.”

  “Hey, I could have a look around anyway. Never know! Maybe in a wider circle around the greenhouse.”

  “Would the sign still be there?”

  “Depends who’s looking.”

  “If anyone can find a sign, it would be you, dear. Are you still going out for track in Wiscasset? And what about the clarinet?”

  “I’ve got a few running trophies. And I still play clarinet with the school band. But I have something else going now. I’ve been fooling around with Native music, too—flute, drums, rattles—you know. There’s even a kind of fiddle. Sure wish I could find a real teacher, though.”

  I saw that Tip’s eyes shone with the inner flame, so much like love. He’s finding his vision, I thought. And I would help him with a good spell, if I could—carefully, carefully. Always allow the Universe to offer its surprise gifts.

  “You should think about music school after graduation, even if you have to pursue Native music separately. But you’ll find what you’re looking for—I’m sure of it,” I said. “And maybe even what I’m looking for. Is tomorrow afternoon okay? Come for lunch.”

  We agreed on a time just as Joe finished his call and returned to my side. I raised my eyebrows questioningly, and he shook his head as if to say, “Nothing important.” For a moment, I saw him as a stranger, looking deliciously handsome in his blue silk turtleneck and navy blazer—love at first sight all over again.

  “Do you still have that eagle feather?” he asked Tip, and they began to chat about old times. Joe had always been a good father image that Tip sought out when his own father proved a disappointing drunk. The old man was desperately ill now, in and out of the hospital with an ailing liver. I was always afraid Tip would leave school in Maine and come back to Plymouth to care for his dad. And that could still happen, my inner voice told me.

  Before I could brood on this and on Joe’s phone call—who’s he trying to kid?—Heather and Dick graciously invited all of us into the conservatory, where dinner had been laid out on an improvised long table. I noted that Scruffy was having a companionable nuzzle with Honeycomb back among the potted palms. I’d been surprised when Heather invited that rascal. But she’d said, “After all, Scruffy was a member of the wedding.”

  Many of the other original wedding guests were here tonight for the reprise. Among them were our Druid friends, Maeve Kelliher, bravely standing with two canes, and her devoted Brian, a blond, bearded giant of a man. Although Wyn was still feeling too weak to socialize, Patty was here to represent him, conferring with Fiona on the finer points of dowsing. Becky was chatting with Deidre and Will. I missed my delicate Cathy and her partner, Irene, though. “Maybe in the spring,” Cathy had said on the phone.

  It was a beautiful celebration, with much loving worship of the sacred mistletoe. And an even more beautiful homecoming later that night—after all the toasting and dancing and laughing were through. Except for the part where Joe answered me rather evasively about that worrisome phone call. “Nothing we need to worry about tonight,” he said. “Wow, that Heather really knows how to throw a party!” Fast change of subject!

  I let it go in favor of falling into bed with my handsome bridegroom. But the magic year had passed—now he would have to be called “husband.” We savored the joy of married love—knowing each other’s bodies so well, just how to give the sweetest pleasure. Afterward I lay with my head on his chest while the feeling of ecstatic oneness ebbed like a slow tide from our limbs.

  Just about the time I could tell where his legs began and mine ended—oh, that bucket of cold water—I saw where his thoughts were wandering.

  “Greece again!” I cried.

  “It’s scary to be married to you, you know—no secrets.” But I could feel Joe smiling in the darkened bedroom. “There’s a shipment of genetically engineered soyameal coming into Greece from Argentina. Most Greeks don’t want their cattle fed this stuff, but they don’t know it’s happening. Our goal is to stop the shipment, or at least to shine a big spotlight on what’s going on. The activists team particularly asked for me—I speak the language, and I understand the country.”

  “Preserving the sanctity of the food chain—a worthy goal. But you won’t have to leave right away, will you? Greenpeace is giving you a half-day off for Christmas, right?”

  He chuckled. “That ship has already left Argentina, and we have to meet it in Greece. Apparently the Argentineans are not as generous as Scrooge in regard to the holidays. So I’ll have to leave the day after Christmas, fly to Taranto, and join the Esperanza. They’re sailing south after blockading other soyameal shipments in Chioggia and Ravenna. The ship’s engineer had gone home for Natale, so I’ll be replacing him.”

  “What will the Esperanza be doing, exactly?”

  “We’ll bring a ship into the harbor at Preveza to back up the activists—Greeks, Hungarians, Germans, Dutch, even some Aussies—who are going to throw themselves in front of the Argentinean ship.”

  “But you—you will remain safely on board watching over the Esperanza and replying to orders to cease and desist shouted in Greek from helicopters? Not splashing around in dangerous waters?”

  “Of course, sweetheart. I swear it.”

  “So where is Preveza exactly? Is it far from Athens?”

  “Prevaza is on the Ionian Sea. I don’t know if there will be time for Athens this trip.”

  “The Ionian Sea! That’s not at all like the Atlantic Ocean in mid-December, is it?”

  “It’s just a job,” he said. But I caught that he was still smiling. Love, as well as clairvoyance, sees in the dark.

  Chapter Twenty

  Feeling a little wiped out the next day, I might have postponed our tracking expedition if Tip had not showed up at my door on the stroke of noon.

  “Are you the lady who advertised for a tracker?” This was a traditional greeting between us that harked back to our first meeting, when I’d advertised for a handyman and discovered a needy little boy on my doorstop.

  “I can’t get used to how tall you are now.”

  “It’s my Northeastern woodland heritage. We’re not Kiowas, you know.”

  “Okay, Uncas. Let’s have lunch and get going.”

  “Going where, sweetheart?” Joe and Scruffy had trailed into the kitchen, lured by the scent of simmering beef barley soup.

  It’s the boy! The boy who plays ball is back. Let’s go outdoors for a game. After leaping up on Tip for an affectionate tousle, Scruffy nosed around the kitchen looking for his orange spongy ball.

  Tip brightened, as always, in the presence of Joe. Having found the favorite ball, Scruffy danced around between them.

  “Sorry, Sport.” Tip took the proffered ball and tossed it gently onto Scruffy’s faux-sheepskin bed. “No time for a game right now.”

  “I’m taking Tip over to
the Craig place to look for a sign.”

  “Want us to go with you? Honor guard?”

  “No, that’s okay, honey. I know you want to finish that closet before you leave. You wouldn’t want to abandon me with that mess in the bedroom, now, would you?”

  Actually, I didn’t want anyone else trampling on the evidence, if any. I served up soup, bread, cheese, and tangerines. At the last spoonful, I suited up in my winter-survival gear and hurried Tip out to my Jeep, leaving a very annoyed dog.

  Not only was it the first day of winter, it was the coldest so far. My teeth were chattering like castanets as I clumsily followed Tip, who was moving delicately and slowly, his gaze intent upon the ground. He appeared to have forgotten everything in the world except his intention to find a track that did not belong to Stone’s team. Stepping erratically and ever so carefully, he went from one sodden, leafy patch of ground to another in widening circles around the greenhouse.

  “Here,” Tip said quietly but in a tone of great satisfaction. “None of Stern’s people were wearing these. These are Wellington garden boots. Small. Did you say this was probably a woman?”

  “Yes. And Wellingtons fit with my vision. Wellingtons and a Swiss Army knife.”

  “She used a wheelbarrow, Cass.” Tip added. “Parked it over here behind the old privet hedge. See the tire mark? Thought no one would spot the track that way. And see how this branch still has a few dead leaves on it? Tossed away, but not by the wind. I bet she used this branch to brush away footprints to and from the greenhouse. Hey, let’s go.”

  Noting that the privet hedge still held some dried berries, such as had been mixed among Phillipa’s dried cranberries, I wrapped a few in a tissue and put them into my pocket for later comparison.

  After what seemed like hours of creeping around, suddenly we were practically running toward the old tennis court. Uh oh, I thought. Will that broken concrete be the end of the wheelbarrow track?

  As if in answer to my unspoken question, “I’ve still got it,” Tip cried, moving swiftly around the court’s edge. “See how this muddy tire track just hits the edge of the concrete? Follow me.” And I did. The track led us to the main road, Route 3A.

  “Dead end?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Tip said. “Unless you want me to run after the Volkswagen that was parked here.”

  Volkswagen! More confirmation. “Could she have carried a little heater as well as potted plants?” I asked.

  “That wheelbarrow was really loaded. Made it a cinch to track.”

  “Tip, you’re a wonder. The Volkswagen is right, too. I’ll have to call Stone, but I think I’ll wait until I get home, because, frankly, I’m freezing. Would you be willing to show him the sign you’ve found? I bet he’ll wish he had someone like you on his team.”

  A cloud passed over Tip’s easy grin. “Sure. Tomorrow, though. So if I have to move back to Plymouth to stay, I should hit up Detective Stern for a job, right?”

  Tip insisted on going home immediately even though I urged him to come back to our place for dinner, or at least to talk to Stone on the phone. “The old man’s not getting around so good, and he’s all skin and bone. I’m going to get a good stew into him tonight. Brought some venison from Maine.”

  “Don’t ever tell Heather about the venison,” I said.

  Tip chuckled in that diffident way of his, half a laugh and half a cough. “I already got the picture last night when I was talking to Captain Jack. Said he never cooked for anyone so particular that a chicken had lived a good life before sacrificing itself for the dinner table. And she’s just as fussy about fish. Can’t even buy farmed salmon, the captain said.”

  “Well, you used to work at Animal Lovers, so you know where Heather’s heart is.”

  “She always overpaid, I remember. It’s a good heart,” Tip said.

  I couldn’t reach Stone, who was in court and not expected back at the Plymouth Police headquarters that day, so I decided to try him at home later. Meanwhile I’d try to bring life back into my limbs with a hot soak in the upstairs bathroom’s claw-and-ball tub—scented candles, lavender bath gel—the works! Joe was still immersed in finishing our extended closet, and Scruffy was giving me the back of his head for deserting him with Tip.

  It was candle flame that did it. I was supine in sudsy, steamy fragrant waters up to my chin, practically half-asleep and gazing into the flickering light when I simply slipped out of myself into a cellar finished in “game room” knotty pine. Could this be the Deluca home?

  Somehow I’d assumed the Delucas lived upstairs in that charming shop on the shore near Plymouth Center, but what I was seeing wasn’t the shop. There were half-size windows on one side of the cellar that looked out onto a lawn ringed with pines. An elaborate computer rig and a spider’s web of electrical cords covered the back wall. But I knew this must be Deluca’s place, because I recognized the boy at the computer, Lee Deluca. And over in the corner, near the bulkhead door, standing neatly on a rubber mat, was a pair of green Wellington boots.

  An older woman came down the cellar stairs and spoke to the boy. Not Jean—this woman had a wasp nest of knobby gray hair twisted in a mass over her slightly hunched shoulders. Lee turned and smiled brilliantly at her, and, as I looked beyond him, I saw a row of potted plants under the window. Although I strained to cross the room and look more closely at the leaves, moving in a vision, as in a dream, can be like trying to walk through water.

  And it was water pouring into my nose that woke me. I’d slipped down into the bath a bit too far—hazard of the unexpected trance! Coughing and hacking, I was beset by a swarm of puzzles. Who was the gray-haired woman? Where was the cellar? Whose Wellingtons were those? As usual, my clairvoyant episode had brought more questions than answers.

  Wrapped in an oversize bath towel, I padded into the blue guest room to call Stone. I could hear Joe still rattling around in our first-floor bedroom, cleaning up for his escape to the Ionian Sea, the very name of which evoked in me an image of sun-drenched blue waters and mythic shores where columned temples perched on sparkling white cliffs.

  Lucky bastard!

  “Beg pardon?” Stone’s voice. I was unaware that I’d spoken aloud.

  “Oh, not you, Stone. That husband of mine is off to Greece right after Christmas. But obviously that’s not why I called.” The story I had to tell, about Tip’s discoveries and my vision, wasn’t delivered in precise chronological detail, but I certainly felt I had Stone’s attention. And not just Stone’s. I didn’t need to turn around to know that Joe and Scruffy had come quietly into the room. Joe sat down beside me, listening to my fractured tale. Scruffy hopped up on the guest bed, the one near the window that was his favorite, where he often left one of his stuffed squeaky toys.

  “I’m confused about the house,” I admitted. “I got the impression that the Delucas lived at their shop—Arthur Deluca has his studio right there in a separate building. This was a different place altogether. I saw plants, but I couldn’t be sure they were hemlock. Jean’s son was there, playing with a sophisticated computer rig, and an older woman, frizzy gray hair, slighty stooped, came down the cellar stairs.”

  “‘Over the river and through the woods,’” Joe hummed. “Try ‘grandmother,’ Cass.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “Stone, Joe says maybe it’s the grandmother’s place.”

  “Okay,” Stone said finally. “See if I’ve got this. Tip will be free tomorrow morning to show me what sign he found at Craig’s, apparently a wheelbarrow and a set of small boot prints that we missed?”

  “Not your fault, Stone. The boot person erased the tracks for quite a distance from the greenhouse. But you know Tip…”

  “Yes. I remember. Next, you had a vision. Maybe the plants are at Granny’s place?”

  “Right. I just have to find out if Arthur or Jean has a living mom.”

  Stone cleared his throat. “Cass, we have our own sources. I’ll look into all of this myself. Have faith, and let me handle it. But I do thank
you for your, as usual, fascinating and useful input.”

  Joe had his ear to the phone, listening along with me. “Good advice,” he whispered, “which I only wish you would take.” His breath on my ear was a soft caress of air, a distraction I shook away for the moment.

  “You’re always welcome, Stone. Let me know what you think about Tip’s finds.”

  “I will. But right now Phillipa wants to talk to you,” Stone said before the phone was snatched away from him.

  “Awesome! That kid is awesome. And you’ve had a vision! I’m up to my elbows in plum pudding at the moment, literally, but we’ll get together right after Christmas.” Phillipa said.

  “Some of us will need to have a look at Granny’s place. So when Stone locates the grandparents, you’ll have to wheedle the information out of him.”

  Phillipa laughed her whiskey laugh—rich, deep, and irresistible.

  Christmas was a love-filled, soul-satisfying holiday, with a magical sparkle of snowflakes falling on the Eve and obligingly melting on the Day. The sense of these days being ‘time out of time’ was very powerful. All the world seemed to pause and hold its breath, waiting for the sun’s rebirth.

  Naturally, the detecting business, too, came to a standstill.

  Becky, who was at loose ends, not wanting to succumb to Ron’s entreaties to spend the holiday with him, drove to Plymouth and spent Christmas with us. The strain of her separation from Ron was beginning to show in a permanent shadow under her blue eyes. Even her hair, normally a sassy chestnut brown flip, looked limp and mousy. I resisted asking her if a divorce was in her future—besides, I already knew the answer. Offering only the quiet support of simply being there and loving her, I urged her to stay in the rose guest room after Joe left on the twenty-sixth for his rendezvous with the Esperanza. So Becky was still at the house when the dirty tricks recommenced.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Our wake-up call from the beatific Christmas season came when Fiona drove into a historic home in Plymouth Center. The victim was a sturdy 1770s Colonial that had withstood the Revolution and many other dangers. Fiona’s big old Lincoln Town Car barely penetrated its unpretentious facade, merely crumpled the clapboards and cracked the windows. Her brakes had failed as she was driving down the famously steep hill near Plymouth Courthouse, causing her to zip along at ever increasing speed and lose control where the road turned.