by Ellen Riggs
It felt like I’d only been asleep for minutes when I awoke at two a.m. to find Keats upright and staring at me. I could hear him panting, although it was cool enough in my bedroom.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” I asked. “Are you feeling sick? Did Jilly slip you too much beef stew? Don’t think I don’t know about your little arrangement.”
I flipped on the light and his tail came up immediately. Definitely not sick. He had something on his mind.
I did, too. The conversation at dinner had buffeted me around like the winds of a hill country winter. Edna had come off as unhinged, which I’d often felt myself, but now I could see how she turned out that way. She’d lost her family and the love of her life, only to be shut out for decades by mean girls. These four weren’t the only ones, either: the club had a robust membership over the years, but they’d disappeared one by one. Younger people hadn’t stepped in to replace them, as they had in many longstanding Clover Grove institutions. No doubt the club’s reputation for petty bullying dimmed its appeal. Mom had been complaining about them since I was a kid.
Sitting up, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and Keats immediately started prancing. He had somewhere he wanted to go. My first thought was that someone was vandalizing the barn again, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t be wagging his tail like this was our best adventure yet.
“Fine,” I said. “I think I know what you want, and far be it from me to deny my best buddy anything his heart desires.”
Slipping into my overalls and a fleece hoodie, I crept through the silent house after Keats. He knew the old, squeaky floorboards to avoid and it wasn’t long before we were jogging toward the barn.
“This is reckless, Keats,” I said. “The kind of thing that always bites us in the butt.”
He circled me and dove at the back of my legs.
“Do NOT herd me. We’ve had this talk. I am not your livestock.” I unlocked the door to the shed. “Name another owner who’d take you on a fool’s errand in the middle of the night.”
He leapt onto the passenger seat of the golf cart and I pulled out slowly, keeping the lights out until we were far down the lane and somehow evading the worst potholes by memory. I didn’t dare use the bumpy trails at that hour, so I took my chances on the highway shoulder. It wasn’t far to Edna’s driveway and luckily we didn’t see a single vehicle. Keats braced himself on the dash, and the cold autumn wind blew back his ears and my hair. No doubt we looked crazy, but I felt strangely alive. Being trapped in my house with those women had starved me of oxygen. Now I had all I needed.
When we pulled up outside Edna’s, Keats hopped out and circled me, careful to avoid any sudden lunges that might trip me. Using my phone light, I went straight to the pot of chrysanthemums under her front window and tipped it to get the key. She’d given me access about a week ago so that I could drop off food at my convenience.
I took the liberty now of letting myself inside.
“We missed something earlier, didn’t we?” I said. “It feels like we have unfinished business.”
Keats mumbled his agreement.
“We were here every day, sometimes twice a day. Edna was healthy and she had something to live for, namely making my life miserable. I highly doubt she’d make herself a coffee and polish off a crème brûlée if she felt ill or planned to off herself, am I right? Not the Edna we knew.”
Keats mumbled further endorsement, which made me feel quite a bit better about basically breaking into Edna’s house at two thirty in the morning.
“The problem is that the police have already combed the place,” I said, pulling woolen gloves out of the pockets of my down jacket before unlocking the door. “What’s left for us to find?”
Inside, we walked from room to room without much caution about my flashlight. With the thick brush all around, Edna’s house was only visible from mine, and everyone at the inn was sound asleep.
I checked the kitchen and found the counter and sink empty, as expected. Kellan’s team would have collected everything just in case the autopsy revealed that something other than natural causes had claimed Edna.
For some reason, I suspected that would prove to be the case. Maybe it was all the animosity among her so-called friends, or maybe it was some sort of misplaced loyalty. I owed Edna nothing really, and yet I wanted to make sure she got a fair deal, at least in death.
“Oh Keats, I can’t,” I said, as we neared the master bedroom door. “Those dolls were creepy enough in daylight. Now they’re…” I directed the light at the row of girls. “Demonic.”
Oddly, facing Lloyd Boyce’s snakes had been easier, and that was really saying something.
I tried to walk away but my black-and-white sidekick nudged me forward gently.
The police hadn’t taken the dolls, so I stepped into the room to take a closer look. There were a dozen, at least. Blonde ones, redheads, brunettes, and even one with short white-blonde curly hair, that resembled Edna’s perm. The perm doll was smaller than the rest, yet tucked behind the others, as if to protect her from the bullies of life.
Pulling out the little perm girl, I examined her closely and then held her out to Keats. “Anything we need to worry about here?”
His pant sounded like a yes-yes-yes.
I set the doll on the bed so that I could take off her dress. With woolen gloves, it was challenging.
All of sudden a voice rang out in the darkness. “Hello!”
I dropped the doll with a little scream, grabbed the light and spun around. Keats wasn’t fazed at all. In fact, his mouth hung open in his sloppy grin. Laughing at me.
“Oh gees,” I said, realizing what had happened. “It’s the doll talking. Duh.”
Turning back, I picked her up. This time she said, “Don’t be sad.”
“I’ll be sad if I want to,” I said. “You do you.”
“You’re pretty,” she said.
Keats mumbled something that sounded disparaging. “I am pretty for three in the morning,” I said.
“What a nice day,” the doll said.
“That’s enough out of you, young lady. What else are you hiding?”
I turned her upside down and gave her a shake. She let out a wail that was understandable given the circumstances. But I didn’t need to hear the rattle to know it was there.
“I am so sorry to do this to you, baby girl, but you’ve given me no choice.”
Twisting hard to the left, I pulled her head off. A tiny key fell onto the floral bedspread. I immediately put her head back on, dressed her, and tucked her back behind the others. It felt like a desecration of what seemed like Edna’s private nursery. Maybe these represented all the children she wished she’d had. Or all the children she wished she’d been kinder to, in her school nurse days.
“Mission half accomplished, Keats. A tiny key like this could fit a jewel box, or a diary. Honestly, Edna didn’t seem like the type for either. I only saw her wearing a watch.”
I shone the light around the room, looking for obvious fits for the key. But I couldn’t justify going through Edna’s drawers or cupboards. At the moment, her death looked either natural or accidental, and at 80 it was a reasonable assumption. Keats and I just happened to sense there was more to the story. While I didn’t always trust my own intuition, I did trust my dog’s. For the moment, I would put this key in my pocket for safekeeping and either let Kellan deal with it later or replace it before Edna’s executor took over the estate.
Back in the living room, I perched on the puffy chair closest to the window. Staring toward my property, I thought about Edna whiling away all those hours watching life unfold at Runaway Farm. She must have been very lonely. And yes, her experiences had made her mean but my mind kept circling back to the expression, “hurt people hurt people.” I’d seen it over and over in my HR career as I counselled people on workplace issues or family problems. Aside from a small number of born sociopaths, I believed most troubled people became that way because of isolation or abuse
, and the fear, anger and loneliness that inevitably followed.
“Lately it seemed like she was mellowing a bit,” I told Keats now. “Who knows what might have happened had she lived a little longer and been seduced by our charms and Jilly’s cooking?”
He tilted his head, staring at me in much the same way Jilly did when I was taking things too far.
“Okay, whatever. I just feel bad for her. Is that so wrong? Don’t you start calling me soft, too.”
I was surprised at the sadness welling up and threatening to bring tears along for the ride. Edna was a thorn in my side, but I had come to enjoy our frequent visits. Well, almost. Sometimes I wondered if her jabs were meant to toughen me up for a rough ride. Either way, there was going to be a vacuum in my world that wouldn’t be easily filled. Good frenemies were hard to find.
“I really hope she wasn’t crushed under Wilma, Keats. That would be the last and worst indignity.” I leaned back in the chair. “Not to mention a big problem for Wilma and me.”
Sighing, I turned to the old oak trunk where Edna stored her spyware. Normally the binoculars were within easy reach under the curtains but she’d put them away. I lifted the lid and pulled out the night vision goggles that had at first appalled me, then proven instrumental in solving the most recent murder at my farm.
Keats started to pace and before long his panting accelerated past yes-yes-yes to no-no-no. He was done here and had no patience for sentimentality.
“We’ll go soon,” I said. “Let’s just take a look at the world through Edna’s eyes.” I directed the goggles toward my farm. “It’s a daunting prospect but I think I can handle it.”
I expected to see nothing. Only the llamas, alpaca and donkeys stayed out at night.
What I saw, however, made me jump to my feet. There was a light bobbing around the barn, moving steadily toward the henhouse. I couldn’t make out anything except the fact that the person with the light seemed to wobble a little as if he or she were drunk.
Maybe one of the Bridge Buddies, or their paid partners, had discovered the tangerine vodka I bought for Edna sitting on the kitchen counter.
But there was no way I wanted anyone—drunk or otherwise—messing with my livestock.
“Come on, Keats,” I said, replacing the goggles quickly, and running to the front door. “I’m going to kick some intruder butt. And you’d better be ready with your signature ear-ripper maneuver, because I want to make sure this fox never visits my henhouse again.”
Chapter Nine
Buttercup purred like the kitten Charlie had likened her to as I drove into town the next morning with Jilly riding shotgun. Our guests were fed, settled and intent on their game. The house could have fallen around them and they wouldn’t notice our brief absence. Charlie was just a shout away if they needed anything.
Jilly turned to stare at the side of my head. Somehow that look felt different in Mom’s jalopy than it did in my big truck. I was at a distinct disadvantage. Yellow had never been my color.
“So after you careened back over the rough trails from your dangerous mission, no one was even there?” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I’m glad no one was there. I’m just trying to get the facts straight.”
“It wasn’t that dangerous.” I waved my right hand. It was rather nice not to be clutching the gearshift all the time. Freeing. “Aside from the trail, of course. I had no reason to think anyone would be lurking around Edna’s house and she gave me permission to use the key.”
“Yet you’ve already stated for the record that your ‘spidey sense’ was firing and you wondered if Edna had run into a tougher adversary than Wilma.”
“We can’t give much credence to my spidey sense, can we? If it worked properly, I wouldn’t have so many close calls.”
“Exactly!” Jilly was triumphant. “You trusted your intuition that trouble was looming and ran straight into its cold embrace.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “You have a rival poet, Keats.”
“I’m not joking, Ivy. I mean, I am but I’m not. You saw someone poking around near the barn and you didn’t call me, let alone Kellan. You tried to confront an intruder on your own.”
“Not on my own. With Keats. You don’t think he can take down a drunken senior? That’s child’s play to a dog like him. Besides, he let me know that the coast was clear as soon as we got back. It was a bust.”
Keats rested a paw on Jilly’s shoulder and licked her ear.
“Do not sweet talk me, mister,” she said, flicking off his paw. “No more stew for you if you’re going to let Ivy run off on harebrained schemes.”
“It was his idea,” I said, throwing him to the proverbial dogs. “I was sound asleep and he stared me awake. He wanted to get going.”
“Keats always wants to get going. That’s a given. But last I checked, you’re the one in the driver’s seat of this relationship and you could just say no to middle-of-the-night excursions on a dog’s whim.”
“True, but we did actually find something, remember?”
“A key to Edna’s teenage diary by the looks of it,” she said. “I’m quite sure she wouldn’t want you poking around her house and snapping heads off her treasured doll collection.”
I sank a little behind the wheel. “I’m not proud of that. Those dolls seemed like her babies.”
Jilly finally deflated a little. “I know Edna’s death hit you hard, Ivy. I’m not sure why, considering how poorly she treated you, but I can see that it did. Sadly, you may be the only one who truly cares about her passing. The bridge ladies didn’t have a single nice thing to say about her and now they’re all fussing about getting their hair done for her funeral. Hypocrites.”
“The pillars of our community,” I said. “What a shame that they have the power to bring us business or chase it away. I’d like to stay on their good side, so I won’t ask who was tottering around the barn last night.”
“Kellan can do it. You wouldn’t get a straight answer and it might not be them anyway.” Jilly let Keats slink through the seats and into her lap. He had her wrapped up pretty tight these days. “Someone sprinkled nails on Edna’s driveway. Maybe it’s a local teen pulling pranks.”
“Possibly. I’m just sorry I didn’t get back home in time to see for myself. I should have taken the highway. It would have been faster than the twisty trail.”
“And safer,” Jilly said.
“On that we agree,” I said, hoping to make peace with her before we arrived for the meeting.
After a few moments of more cordial silence, she asked, “Remind me why we’re going to Daisy’s?”
“Because all of our family meetings are at Daisy’s. As the eldest, it gives these events a certain gravitas.”
She laughed. “I mean why are we going together? I’m not part of the family, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“You are my family, in case you hadn’t noticed. The rest of them are just my childhood roommates.”
Jilly laughed again. I was gaining ground. “Don’t you think it will be awkward?” she asked.
I turned into Daisy’s neighborhood on the far side of Clover Grove. “Oh, it’ll be awkward, all right. These meetings always are. We should have brought the vodka.”
“It’s 10 a.m.”
“Trust me, you’ll wish you had some when Mom gets going. I’m hoping she’ll rein things in a little with you present. Heaven only knows what she’s done this time.”
“So now the word ‘buffer’ is in my job description, too.”
“You wear many hats, Jilly Blackwood,” I said, laughing. “One day I hope your job description will include ‘sister-in-law’ and this suffering will be legitimately yours to share.”
She shook her head. “Asher and I still haven’t had a proper date, so it might be a little early to talk about my becoming a charter member of the Galloway clan.”
“Yeah, remind me to give you a night off for the induction ceremony.”
“Sounds inviting, but our schedules ne
ver seem to sync up.”
“Oh, they could sync up just fine if you wanted them to, Jilly. You’re riding the brakes.”
I was riding Buttercup’s brakes, too. The car was playing fast and loose with the rules of the road. No wonder Mom struggled with stop signs. This old girl was a bronco who required force, as well as finesse.
“Maybe I am a little,” Jilly admitted eventually. “My intuition says the timing isn’t quite right for us.”
“Your intuition? Is that something like spidey sense? Which you’ve just told me not to trust?”
She turned to shoot me a glare. “Very funny. Romance and reckless behavior are two different things.”
“Since when?” I pulled up in front of the house and took a stab at parallel parking. Without power steering and brakes, it was like maneuvering a yacht. “Both can be dangerous.”
“I suppose we’re speaking of Chief Hottie, now,” she said.
“In our case, he’s the one riding the brakes. I’d free up some time in my schedule pretty darned fast if he invited me on a real date.”
“We’ve already established that you’re a risk-taker.”
“You’ve notched up plenty of points for courage lately, my friend.” I pulled the car out again and tried some new moves. “Come on, sweetheart. You can do this.”
“All right,” Jilly said, sighing. “I’ll say yes the next time Asher asks me.”
“Perfect. I meant Buttercup but that worked out well. And there’s no time like the present, because here he comes now.”
I jumped out of the car, leaving it running. “You want me to drive that thing, you can play valet,” I said.
“You got it.” He was grinning from ear to ear as he noticed Jilly had stayed inside.
Grabbing his arm, I said, “Be good to my friend, okay?”
He nodded before squeezing behind the wheel. “I got this, sis.”
I walked into Daisy’s kitchen with only my canine backup, since Jilly was canoodling in Buttercup.
Everyone except Asher has assumed normal positions. Daisy wandered around with a spray bottle of cleanser and a cloth, wiping down anything anyone touched. Mom sat on a stool that was far too high for her, pumps swinging and clacking against the metal legs. Iris sat with legs crossed and arms folded at the kitchen table, the elegant opposite to Poppy, slouched beside her. Poppy’s hair had been red the last time I saw her but today it was an interesting shade of gunmetal blue. Meanwhile, genial Violet wandered from place to place trying to soothe everyone’s frayed nerves when hers were likely the most frayed of all.