I sat down slowly beside Lydia, keeping my front rigidly forward. I could feel her body turning toward mine, inviting me to face her, but I pinned my hands between my knees.
A few moments of silence passed.
My eyes flitted about the room. All the women were looking at us smiling … waiting.
I licked my lips. I needed to say something first. “Lydia, I’m so sor—”
Suddenly Lydia’s arm was around me, and her forehead was on my shoulder.
“I forgive you,” she said. “I forgive you.”
All the women began to laugh and clap.
All right, what the hell was going on?
This time I looked at my mother with as much suspicion as I could physically muster.
“Erica, darling, after you left last night, the women and I had a deep session on forgiveness.”
“Oookay.”
“We talked about the freeing power it has. How it’s a gift one gives to oneself.”
“Right,” I said, slowly looking sideways at Lydia, who had thankfully removed her forehead from my shoulder.
“I’ll admit,” she said, looking far more deeply into my eyes than I was comfortable with. “It wasn’t easy. I mean dropping me in a trust exercise? But when your mother had the courage to tell us the truth…”
“The truth?”
This was the first bit of good news I had heard in a while.
Something like happiness ran over my body. I couldn’t believe my mom had actually come clean. It was strange, being an insurance agent, that Lydia was so cool with the whole thing, but my mother could be persuasive when she wanted to be.
My shoulders eased down for the first time in days. I looked around the room at the smiling women, and actually started to smile back.
“Wow. This is great news,” I said. “It’s really amazing how supportive you women are. I thought you might be mad that—”
“Mad? Mad?” my mother cut in. “Erica, you underestimate the friendship and love your fellow sisters are capable of. When I told them what Grady Forrester and his cousin did to me … did to you … all those years ago at that wretched social, they immediately understood why you were acting so, so…”
My mother looked about the room for help.
One of the women made a cuckoo gesture, finger twirling about her ear.
“The social?” The gears in my brain ground to a halt.
“And then him showing up like that? Accusing you of all sorts of terrible things?”
I blinked a few times. “You told them about the social?”
All the women nodded and one said, “Can you imagine? Him luring you into skinny-dipping?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “He didn’t lure me. I actually wanted to go swimming because … well, because, my mother,” I said, flashing my eyes open, casting a pretty accusatory look in her direction, “was insisting on going ahead with an ill-advised interpretative dance in front of the entire town.”
My mother smiled and nodded, completely ignoring my tone. “It was going to be a beautiful performance inspired by the legend of Diana the huntress, but in my interpretation she realizes the evils of eating meat and—”
“Anyway, the skinny-dipping just kind of happened.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t a big deal, and—”
“And he ran off with your clothes.”
“You can’t trust men who are that good-looking,” Maria Franelli interrupted, nodding vigorously. “Everything comes just a little too easily to them.” Her eyes flashed through her sparkly purple eye shadow. “And I thought my husband was a bastard.”
“But your mother never told us how you got up on that stage. What happened?”
“Wait, don’t answer,” another woman piped in. “I have to go to the washroom. I don’t want to miss this.”
Another woman jumped up from the couch. “Oh! And I’ve got marshmallows. We could cook them in the firep—”
“No! No! No!”
“Uh-oh, there she goes with the nos again,” somebody muttered.
“Erica’s right. There’s no reason to rehash. I told them it’s probably why you went into psychology in the first place,” my mother said, placing her hands on the shoulders of one of the women beside her. “You needed to process the trauma. Although I’m sure you’ll disagree.”
“I do. I do disagree.”
“But sometimes you have to trust your mother,” she said brightly. “All right, ladies, get your walking shoes. It’s time for our sing-a-long through the forest.” As the women headed for the door, I made a grab for my mother.
“Are you coming, sweetheart?”
“I think I’ll pass,” I said, pulling her aside. “And don’t think we’re not going to talk about all this later, but in the meantime, I need to ask you something.”
“What, darling?”
“Did Laurie come in today?”
“No, she didn’t as a matter of fact,” my mother said, eyes shrewd. “But it was fine. All the women pitched in. We made squash stew for lunch. But now you tell me something. How much trouble are you in? I’ve called your uncle, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. Is there something I don’t know? Did you do something to break the law?”
“Really? Really?” I said, straining to keep my voice at a whisper. “Now you’re worried about the law?”
“I do wish you would work on your codependent relationship with sarcasm.”
I closed my eyes as though that would make the horror of my situation disappear. “Mom, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“Well, I’m not the one with the Ph.D.,” she said, spinning around, bangles jangling in the air. “Shall we go, ladies? Don’t wait up, sweetheart. We’re having supper in town.”
* * *
After the women left, I called the hospital to check up on Harry. He was out of intensive care, but still in a coma. His parents, now residents of Florida, had flown in and weren’t allowing any visitors. Made sense given the circumstances. I intended to spend the rest of the afternoon mulling over everything that had happened so far, but it turned out my bed wasn’t a good mulling spot, and I fell asleep. It was quarter to nine when my phone rang.
“Hello?”
A Southern-accented voice filled my ear. “Sugar plum, didn’t I tell you this would happen? You can bathe a dog in vinegar, but all you’ll have is stinky fleas.”
I took my phone away from my ear to look at the number. “Freddie?”
“Yeah, hang on. I’m working.”
I flopped back in bed.
“No, you’re welcome, Mint Julep. Just remember to come back to Madame F for all your fortune-telling needs.” There was slight pause before, “Erica?”
“Madame F?”
“Oh, stop it,” Freddie replied. “I don’t have much time. I have like eight people waiting for me to tell them what they want to hear. So listen up. I’ve got us a lead.”
“You do?”
“Remember how on that first day when you came home, you were talking about Tommy’s boat?”
I absentmindedly ran my toe along the edge of the window frame by my bed. “Yeah, it is a pretty nice boat.”
“Exactly. It got me to thinking. How could Tommy afford a boat like that? He hasn’t had a steady job, well, ever.”
I pushed myself up and crossed my legs. “Okay.”
“First I thought maybe he got a bucketload of credit, so I contacted Kevin Mutt because he took over his dad’s boat shop, and—”
“Wait a minute, doesn’t Kevin Mutt hate you?” I asked, furrowing my brow.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t hate Brandi from Montreal.”
My eyes rolled up to the beams of my ceiling. “You’re catfishing Kevin Mutt?”
“What? You thought all that effort was just for you?”
“Freddie, you can’t still be holding a torch for him. He used to throw you in lockers, so people wouldn’t think he liked you.”
“Hey! Don’t judge. The heart wants what the heart wants,” Fred
die said quickly before adding, “We’re getting off topic.”
“Sorry. Continue.”
“Anyway,” Freddie replied dramatically. “I found out that, yeah, some of it is on credit, but, get this, he put twenty grand down on it … in cash.”
“Huh.”
“Huh? That’s it?”
“I’m still thinking,” I said.
“Well, hurry up!” Freddie yelled. “Where did Tommy get twenty grand?”
I chewed the edge of my thumbnail. “I don’t know.”
“Me neither. But I do know he didn’t save it up, because he’s a moron. So that means twenty grand fell into his lap mere weeks before someone kills Dickie and someone else tries to kill Harry.”
“Huh.”
“Okay, this is painful for me. If we’re going to be a detectiving team, you need to show a little more enthusiasm.”
“I just woke up. Cut me some slack. So how do we find out where he got the money? You wouldn’t happen to be catfishing someone at the bank, would you?”
“Brandi’s not a slut.”
I flopped back down in bed. “Fine. I’m going to have to break into Tommy’s place and look for clues.”
“I’m sorry … you’re going to have to do what now?”
“Freddie, the women have started group-hugging me.”
The sound of Freddie sucking air through his teeth came through the phone. “Oh, that’s a shame.”
“Yeah, besides, what day is it? Tommy’s probably at the Salty Dawg, right?”
“I don’t think the actual day really matters,” he said. “Why don’t you wait until tomorrow, and then I can come too. I’ve got balaclavas,” he added with game show enthusiasm.
“I can’t wait. I’ve got to get out of here. If I find a bit of evidence, pointing in a direction other than me, Grady might actually let me leave town.”
“Of course, he might not be happy about you breaking into his cousin’s place.”
I rubbed my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. He had a point. “I’ll think of something.”
“Fine, but I am not happy about this. We were just starting to have fun.”
It was crazy, but despite everything, it had been a lot of fun hanging out with Freddie. There was no way, however, that I was sticking around for the social. I had thought everyone would have forgotten it by now. But obviously I was wrong.
I ended the call with Freddie, and slipped on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. I checked myself in the mirror. The outfit did kind of look like it needed a balaclava, but it would have to do.
I glanced around my room to see if there was anything else I needed to bring. A screwdriver stood out on my dresser. My mom was always starting jobs and leaving tools lying around. I slipped it into my back pocket. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would help me, but it couldn’t hurt to take it.
Right.
I rolled my shoulders a few times, tightened my ponytail, and swung the door open.
“Wah!”
Kit Kat and Tweety stood on the side. Tweety twirled a set of keys around her finger and said, “I’m driving.”
Chapter Seven
“You two are not coming.” I trotted quickly through the front door of the lodge and jumped down the steps in a single leap. “And didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to eavesdrop?”
Tweety shouted something from behind me, but I couldn’t hear what it was.
Crazy old ladies. Like I was going to let them ride along on my first—and God willing only—break and enter. I didn’t need their boat. I had—
I was midway down the stairs to the lake when I saw the empty spot where my mother’s boat should have been. Argh. Dinner in town. They must have taken both her boat and Red’s.
Doesn’t matter, I thought, resuming my steps. I could always take the canoe.
Except that was gone too.
Someone must have carted it back to the other side of the lake.
I looked over my shoulder. Kit Kat and Tweety were at the top of the stairs, dentures glowing in the darkness.
I’d swim … except it was pretty far. I’d probably drown.
My head slumped forward just as the twins stepped down beside me.
“Give an old lady a hand, would ya?” Tweety said, linking her arm around mine. “These stairs are a bitch.”
Twenty minutes later, Tweety killed the engine on the boat as we glided toward a little bit of beach about a quarter mile from Tommy’s place. Just as I figured, his boat was gone. At least we didn’t have to worry about getting caught. Even better, it was a still night. We’d hear any boats coming a mile away.
“So,” Kit Kat whispered. “What do you expect to find inside?”
“Porn.”
“Well, aside from that,” Tweety said, smacking me on the arm.
“Ow.” I rubbed the spot where she had hit me. “I don’t know, okay? This is kind of a casual thing. I just want to take a look around and see if anything jumps out.”
“So we’re going in blind,” Kit Kat mused, while staring very seriously at the dark cottage.
I sighed.
“Why are we breaking in though? It seems extreme,” Tweety said. “Shouldn’t you go question him first?”
“I will talk to him, but I figured this might help me ask the right questions. Tommy’s not exactly a forthcoming kind of guy.” I licked my lips, avoiding the twins’ gaze. “And I don’t really look at this as breaking in. We’re just having a look-see.”
“A look-see. That’s adorable. And it’s also denial. Your mother would call that denial.”
“Well, she’s not here, is she?” I stopped and inhaled deeply before speaking again. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you two waiting back here at the boat, is there?”
The twins shook their heads no.
“All right, let’s go.”
The walk was not an easy one. Tommy’s cottage sat on a more obscure part of the lake and thick brush came right up to the shore. I was hoping one or both of the twins would give up, but after twenty minutes of nonstop cursing, all three of us stood on the pathway leading up to the cottage.
I had heard Tommy had bought the place from his parents after their divorce, and it looked like he hadn’t done much in the way of keeping it up. From what I could make out, an overgrown garden ran around the outside walls of the cottage and rusted-out tools, car parts, and even an old mattress littered the yard.
“So how do you want to play this?” Kit Kat asked, looking to me.
I frowned. “Um, I don’t know.” I hadn’t really given any of this much thought, and suddenly I was remembering every bumbling break and enter I had ever recorded in court. Huh, this probably wasn’t such a good idea. We were already probably oozing DNA all over the place.
“Maybe we could try a window? I don’t want to break anything. And oh,” I said, reaching around for my screwdriver. “I brought this!”
“Honey, there’s easier ways to screw your way into a man’s place,” Kit Kat replied, before slapping her thigh at the brilliance of her joke.
I gave her a dry look. “Hilarious. Well, what do you think we should do?”
“I’m glad you asked. You see, back in the day I was pretty good at jimmying l—”
“It’s open!” a voice called out.
Kit Kat and I looked over to see Tweety standing on the back porch holding the screen door open. We looked at each other and shrugged.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We skulked toward the door. The almost full moon rising in the sky gave us enough light to see pretty well outside, but inside the cottage would be another story.
“Don’t suppose you brought a flashlight to go with that screwdriver?” Kit Kat whispered.
“Sorry.”
“Some leader you are,” Tweety added. “Next time, I’m in charge.”
I grumbled something nasty under my breath, but there was no point in arguing the probability of a next time.
For a moment, the th
ree of us stood outside the door peering in. Nobody wanted to say it, but it looked kind of scary in there.
New horrible thoughts skittered around my brain. What if Tommy was the killer? Maybe inside was where he did all of his killing … and we were walking right into his trap.
A finger suddenly poked me in the ribs.
I shot a mean look at Tweety. “I guess that means you want me to go first.”
I hiked up my jeans and tugged at the collar around my neck before stepping slowly over the lip of the threshold.
I blinked my already night-adjusted eyes several times, but I still couldn’t make out anything other than eerie shadows.
My heart hammered in my chest.
Oh, God, what if Tommy had night-vision goggles? What if he was looking at me right now in his dirty white boxers, smiling that poor man’s version of Grady’s smile!
Suddenly my toe knocked into something and a horrible crash exploded around me.
“Holy crap!”
I tried to turn around and make for the door but every movement sent my feet crashing into something else. It was a trap! A booby trap! I stumbled forward but tripped and landed on my knees hard.
My arms flew to cover my head. “Don’t do it, Tommy! I don’t want to die…”
Suddenly light filled the room. One of the twins had flicked on a lamp hanging from a chain above the kitchen table.
I looked down at the floor.
Beer cans. Lots and lots of beer cans.
I glanced over to Kit Kat and Tweety chuckling by the door.
“Oh, yuck it up,” I said, getting to my feet. “It wasn’t like either one of you was offering to go first.”
Tweety wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “That was fantastic.”
I tore my nasty look away from the women and took in my surroundings. Along with the beer cans scattered about the floor, dirty laundry and pizza boxes were piled up just about everywhere. At one time, the place must have had a cozy retro feel what with the wood paneling on the walls and the carved ducks resting on the mantel, but the now musty smell of the place was enough to kill any homey vibes.
“Do you think we should leave the lights on?” I looked around at all the windows. “Someone just has to look in the direction of this place and they’ll see us.”
Skinny Dipping with Murder Page 9