Kiss of Death

by Linda Palmer

  “That’s perfect, Link!” Penny moved down the counter to check the stuffing, gave it a quick taste test, and smiled with approval at Brandi. To her guest cooker, Penny said, “Link, would you bring the turkey down here? We’ll fill it with Brandi’s delicious stuffing.”

  Link picked up the turkey with both hands—and then something happened that absolutely had not been planned. The twenty-pound turkey slipped out of Link’s grasp and fell with a colossal splat! onto the floor in the middle of the set.

  The audience gasped in shock! Brandi’s hands flew to her mouth in horror! The camera operators gawked. Link, genuinely mortified—he wasn’t acting now—muttered apologies.

  Only Penny remained unruffled. In a calm but deliberately firm voice, Penny said, “There’s nothing to worry about. Not a thing. Brandi—just pick the turkey up, take it into the kitchen backstage, and bring out the other turkey.”

  I bit into my fist to keep from laughing, but I needn’t have bothered to hide my amusement. The rest of the audience whooped with delight, as they realized that Penny was really telling Brandi to duck out of sight, brush it off, and bring back the same turkey.

  “I can cross Penny off my list of people to worry about,” Nancy whispered.

  AFTER THE TAPING, working my way through the crowd of guests to congratulate Penny, I glanced around to see if a particular someone had come to the show.

  Penny guessed what I was thinking. “Matt isn’t here,” she said softly. “Brandi and I were so nervous, we asked Matt and G. G. not to come to this first show.”

  “That’s was probably a smart thing to do,” I said, hiding my disappointment.

  “I know you two aren’t seeing each other right now,” Penny said. “Matt told me how he feels about you having more money than he has. That’s positively … antediluvian!”

  It’s also ironic, I thought ruefully. I went from having no men in my life after Ian died, to suddenly, just a few months ago, having two men courting me. Then there’s a third man—mysterious Nico Andreades, who, by any rational gauge, is completely wrong for me. Nico is somewhere out in the mist, and I’ll probably never see him again. So, with Chet wanting children, and Matt wanting me, but not my money, I’m effectively back to having no man again.

  Considering the assignment I gave Bobby Novello, it’s probably just as well that I’m alone.

  Chapter 10

  FOR THE NEXT month, events at Love of My Life were reasonably calm—that is to say we didn’t have more than one case of hysteria per week. Jay Garwood had turned out to be a team player, and seemed to be getting along with his fellow actors. At least I wasn’t hearing any complaints.

  Judging from the e-mails that were pouring in, Penny’s new TV show was doing well. The Better Living Channel had begun with a discouragingly small number of viewers, but Penny Wise was getting good publicity. A service that charted viewer numbers showed that more and more people were watching the Better Living Channel. I joked to Penny that she was doing for Better Living what The Sopranos had done for HBO, and without whacking anybody.

  Chet remained in Arizona with his father, and the news from there was good; Richard Thompson was getting stronger every day. Chet had been able to spend time with his brother before Commander David Thompson had had to return to Guam.

  There had been a subtle change in my relationship with Chet. From calling me once or twice every day, our phone conversations had dwindled to twice a week. The words were still warm—our affection for each other was real—but I knew that my not being able to have children mattered to Chet. I understood. It was an obstacle—difficult, perhaps impossible, to get past.

  Concentrating on work, I had written a small part for Monica, the girl whose mother slapped her. She’d play a friend of the child we picked to be Gareth’s daughter.

  Betty came into my office while Tommy and I were watching the video of that episode. Noticing Monica on the screen, Betty leaned on the desk to watch it with us.

  “She’s not pretty, but she’s got an interesting quality,” Tommy said.

  “Having an unusual look can be better than just being pretty,” I said. “We see hundreds of young girls with those model perfect features, and it’s sometimes hard to tell them apart.”

  When the episode concluded, Tommy turned off the set. He stood up and stretched, working a kink out of his shoulder. “I’ve got a lunch date at Twenty-One,” he said. “You two want me to bring you back anything?”

  I shook my head. “No thanks.”

  “I brought lunch,” Betty said.

  Tommy left the office, but Betty lingered. I saw her gazing at the blank TV screen, a troubled expression on her face.

  “Betty? What’s the matter?”

  She made a “hmmm” sound before she answered. “I wonder if by giving little Monica that part you’re really helping her.”

  That surprised me. “I’m hoping her mother will treat her better.”

  “What happens when we can’t use her anymore?”

  “She’ll have a good reel to show other producers.” But as I said that, I began to wonder if I might be giving Monica false hope. What if she couldn’t get any other jobs? That hadn’t occurred to me.

  Betty was watching me, as though she was reading my mind. “I’ve seen you take in strays,” she said, “like your cat, like Jay Garwood, and the stunt double who was killed a few months ago. Now this little girl with the rotten mother. You can’t protect everyone, Morgan. Sometimes strays turn on the people who try to save them.” As though making an effort to shake off her dark attitude, she forced a smile. “Maybe I should go back on the antidepressants.”

  Her mood worried me. “Are you all right, Betty?”

  “I probably just need to get laid,” she joked. As she was leaving, she paused at the door and said, “I didn’t mean that you should worry about little Magic turning on you. He’s an angel in fur. Generally speaking—at least in my experience—animals are more trustworthy than people.”

  WHILE AT THE studio things were proceeding smoothly, Nancy wasn’t doing so well. Usually the calmest and most rational person in any group, by her own admission she had lost her cool in a confrontation the day before with Veronica Rose.

  “I ran into her in our conference room,” Nancy said.

  “She was waiting for Arnold. They were going to have lunch with Didi, after Didi’s riding lesson. We were alone, and Veronica used the opportunity to taunt me about how close she and Arnold are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Nancy made a kind of “grrrrr” sound expressing her anger and frustration, then mimicked Veronica’s breathy, little-girl tone: “‘Arnold is soooo sweet. Last night, after Didi was asleep, he lighted a fire in his bedroom fireplace, and scattered pillows in front of it. We lay down on the floor, on that bed of pillows—just like we used to do when we were first married. As a surprise, Arnold brought home a tin of my favorite caviar, Beluga—that’s the real caviar, the black kind. We drank champagne, and we fed spoonfuls of caviar to each other.’”

  My reaction was, “Yuck!”

  In her natural voice, Nancy said, “The scene on the floor with the pillows and the champagne—that was just too much! In the back of my brain, I knew she was trying to provoke me, but she pushed the right buttons. I’m ashamed to admit I lost my temper. I told Veronica I thought her little game was disgusting and pathetic. I was really giving it to her—and at that moment, Arnold came into the room! It made me look terrible because all he heard was me attacking poor little Veronica. To say the least, he was not pleased. We were supposed to go to the ballet tonight, but he just broke our date with the flimsiest excuse.”

  Because Nancy was in love with him, I had done my best to like Arnold, and I’d succeeded for months, as long as he was treating Nancy well. But lately, I’d begun to wish that he wasn’t the man she wanted to marry. He was brilliant and successful, and he used to behave as though Nancy was the love of his life, but ever since Veronica Rose had come back to New
York, I’d glimpsed coldness in Arnold I hadn’t seen before, and it made me uneasy for Nancy.

  “Here’s an idea,” I said. “A revival of School for Wives opened last week off-Broadway. It’s the Richard Wilbur translation. If you’ll come with me, I’ll get us tickets for tonight. Shouldn’t be a problem for a Wednesday performance.”

  “There’ll probably be plenty of seats.” Nancy said wryly. “You’re the only Richard Wilbur fanatic I’ve ever met.”

  “He’s my favorite living poet, and he writes the absolute best translations of Moliérè.”

  “Okay, okay. I surrender,” she said.

  That night Nancy and I laughed loudly at the play’s hilarious rhyming dialogue. For two hours we forgot our own concerns. The next afternoon, Thursday, Bobby Novello called. It had been four weeks since our meeting.

  “I found your Sheriff Maysfield!”

  Chapter 11

  MY CONTINENTAL AIRLINES flight left Newark, New Jersey, at 7:40 Friday morning, landing on time at Palm Beach International Airport, in West Palm Beach, a little before eleven A.M. Bobby had tracked Sheriff Maysfield to his retirement home in this Florida city.

  The airport, a huge, modern structure, stretched over four levels. Bobby, greeting me with a cheerful grin, met me at the Continental arrival gate on Concourse B. “You got a baggage check?”

  “I just brought this duffel,” I said. In spite of my insisting that the bag wasn’t heavy, Bobby took it from me and started toward the exit.

  I followed him through a two-story concession mall that ran the length of the building. Against an immense wall of windows there was comfortable lounge seating for those who wanted to watch takeoffs and landings. Surprised that there weren’t more people in the airport, I said, “I expected to fight my way through a mob.”

  “It’s mostly the locals who stay in Florida during the summer. Winter tourists and the kids on spring break have gone home.”

  I understood why they’d left when we stepped out of the temperature-controlled terminal and a blast of hot air struck me. I felt my scalp bead with perspiration and my hair lose the hot roller-created waves.

  “Whew!”

  “They say it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” Bobby said ruefully. “But this is no worse than Manhattan in August. At least here the air is clean.”

  It was clean, much cleaner than what I was used to breathing, and a soft breeze, although hot, slightly lessened the impact of the temperature.

  Sweat was trickling down my skull, but I felt more comfortable as soon as I slipped out of my blazer. I was glad I’d worn a cotton blouse instead of silk, a khaki skirt, and strappy sandals instead of my usual jeans and ankle boots. As soon as I had the chance, I’d get rid of the panty hose.

  Bobby waved toward a light blue car parked in the line of taxis. “I couldn’t rent a vehicle fitted with hand controls,” he said, “so I hired us a car and driver.”

  “Good idea.” Because of his short legs, Bobby wasn’t able to operate a standard automobile.

  The driver of the blue car responded to Bobby’s signal by pulling out around the taxis. I saw a dark-haired man behind the wheel. Bobby said, rapid-fire, “His name is Emilio, he’s originally from Cuba, he owns a limo company with eight employees—but I didn’t want to call attention with a limo, so he’s driving his personal Caddy. He’s married, has three daughters in college, he loves America, and he hates Fidel Castro. Don’t ask him how he is, or he’ll tell you about his knee-replacement surgery.”

  I laughed. “And how long have you been here?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  Emilio nosed the car diagonally against the curb in front of us, effectively creating a parking space where there was none. He stepped out so easily that I guessed his knee surgery had been a complete success. Bobby introduced us. Emilio bowed gallantly and took my duffel to stow in the trunk.

  “I got us two nice rooms at a Marriott,” Bobby told me. “Want to go to the hotel first?”

  I shook my head. A combination of excitement and apprehension had suddenly made it difficult to speak.

  Emilio opened the rear passenger door. Bobby climbed in beside me and told Emilio, “We’re going back to that address on Flagler Drive.”

  As soon as Emilio got behind the wheel, we took off down a beautifully landscaped road bracketed by dark water that sparkled in the sunlight. Bobby said, “That’s called Crystal Lake, even though it’s no bigger than a pond.”

  “It’s is the prettiest route into and out of an airport I’ve ever seen.”

  From the front seat, Emilio said, “Thank you, Miss.” In the rearview mirror I saw him beaming as though he’d personally excavated the little artificial lake and filled it with water.

  Emilio’s car was a vintage Cadillac, perfectly maintained. The air-conditioning was sweet relief from Florida’s steamy heat. I settled back against a rear seat as soft as glove leather.

  “This is a beautiful car, Emilo,” I said.

  Another big smile. “Thank you, Miss. We are at your dis-pose.”

  THE RIDE FROM the airport took about fifteen minutes, during which Bobby chatted with Emilio about all the celebrities who had made south Florida their home because there was no state income tax. That discussion segued into one about the possibility of the Marlins winning a pennant.

  Grateful to Bobby for the wall of sound he was creating, I tried to use the privacy to sort through my tangled emotions, but it was hard to think clearly. Ready or not, the time had come to face something I’d spent more than twenty years trying to forget.

  Emilio turned the Cadillac onto Flagler Drive, a quiet residential street lined with handsome private homes. Some were Spanish-style, with red tile roofs, and framed with lush swags of red or purple bougainvillea. Others were low modern ranch houses, with an occasional Cape Cod as a kind of architectural punctuation. Further along Flagler, facing a large, curving lake, was a procession of apartment buildings and condos, a mixture of the modest and the elegant.

  At the corner of Flagler Drive and Tenth Street, Emilio slowed the car and stopped in front of a two-story multiple-family dwelling. It wasn’t a new structure, but it was freshly painted: cream stucco, dark green shutters framing the windows, green front door. On either side of the entrance, shiny green hibiscus bushes exploded with scarlet blooms the size of salad plates.

  I absorbed those details almost subliminally, because my attention was fixed on a portly, gray-haired man sitting reading a newspaper in one of a pair of canvas chairs in the middle of the shallow lawn. A red and yellow beach umbrella shaded him from the sun. At his feet were several other newspapers. A wrought iron table at his elbow held a big plastic travel mug.

  The man glanced up when he heard the car. There, separated by a pane of glass, a sidewalk, a dozen feet of grass, and twenty-four years, I was looking at the face of the man who had saved my life. Digging my nails into the palms of my hands, I willed myself not to cry. I sat frozen until I realized that Emilio had come around and opened the rear door.

  The man on the lawn stood up when he saw me get out of the car. The newspaper slipped from his hands. I stared at him, taking in every detail. The same bright eyes behind the owlish glasses, the same wild, bristling mustache, the same powerful shoulders and the Santa Claus belly that looked as though they were parts of two separate human beings. He was grayer now, but I would have known him anywhere.

  As he came toward me almost tentatively, I remembered that slow, cautious gait.

  He said, “Little Miss Morgan, all grown up …” The rasp in his voice told me he was trying to hold on to his emotions, too. The years fell away and without thinking, I threw my arms around him in a bear hug. He still smelled like coffee … I felt tears sliding down my cheeks.

  Chapter 12

  WE WERE SITTING at Walter Maysfield’s kitchen table, eating bowls of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. He’d remembered that had been my favorite when I was a child.

  “Junie and I wanted to adopt
you,” he said, “but the g-d state wouldn’t let us. Said we were too old. Instead, they put you in a foster place. Do you remember any of that?”

  Too well. Old anger seared my insides. I nodded.

  “I checked up on where you were. When I saw how bad it was, I got you outta there, pronto.” His tone was grim. “As sheriff, I knew where a couple of bodies were buried … Not the right bodies to make ’em let us keep you, but I had enough dirt on a certain judge to close down the foster house, put that foul woman in jail, and get you into St. Claire’s.”

  I told Bobby, “That’s the Catholic boarding school where I lived from first grade until I went to college,”

  Walter Maysfield asked me, “Do you remember Sister Ellen Elizabeth?”

  “Oh, yes, I do. She was wonderful!” I explained to Bobby, “Sister Ellen Elizabeth was the head of St. Claire’s. From the moment I got there she took an interest in me. She encouraged me to study, and to think of making an exciting future. When she died in my senior year, it was devastating.”

  “Was for me, too,” the sheriff said softly. “Ellie was my sister.”

  “Sister? Do you mean she counseled you, or something?”

  “No, she was my real sister.” His face split into a smile that was full of love. “My sister—the sister. We heard that joke on the old M.A.S.H. TV show—got a big kick outta that one.”

  “You were her brother … Was that how you arranged my scholarship to St. Claire’s?”

  When Walter Maysfield hesitated, Bobby spoke. “You didn’t go on a scholarship. The sheriff paid your tuition, all twelve years of it.” He turned to Maysfield. “While I was tracking you down, I managed to get into Morgan’s school records. You couldn’t adopt her, but you gave her your last name, and her education.”