2 On the Nickel

by Maggie Toussaint

Rafe scooped up my golf bag and caught my hand. At the casual contact, electricity arced between us. I wanted to jump him, but that was poor course etiquette. Definitely not allowed in the Rules of Golf.

  He stowed my clubs in my trunk and pulled me close for a lingering kiss. We drew wolfish whistles from men loading carts in the parking lot. I didn’t care. My blood sang a happy tune.

  “When can I see you again?” Rafe’s fingers combed through my hair, which had somehow come out of its customary pony tail.

  “Tonight. Come over tonight. I’ll figure something out.”

  He kissed me again, long and slow. “Tonight.”

  After he left, I sat in my Volvo, thoughts humming in my head. I loved him. He called me his woman. I trusted him. Did that mean we were becoming a family? It sure felt like that was the case.

  And that made me happy.

  Very happy.

  I rummaged through my purse, looking for my calendar, to double-check that my schedule was clear today. I’d crossed out my personal training session with Evan to make the golf lesson appointment with Rafe. I’d called the gym yesterday to cancel today’s session.

  Cars whizzed by on the highway, but I sat rooted in place. Poor Evan. His family had imploded. His sister had killed his mother, and his sister didn’t want anything to do with him. He had no one. For years he’d lived under his big sister’s shadow. Living with Erica and Eleanor must have been awful.

  Britt said Eleanor had yelled at Evan in the police station. About what a big disappointment he was to the family. Had his mom and sister expected him to rake in the dough?

  If not for my nosing around, I could be in Evan’s shoes. Without that new evidence, Mama would be looking at prison. I would have spent every penny I owned on her defense. For her freedom, I’d have given up my house and financial security. Luckily fate had intervened.

  But fate had dealt a rough blow to Evan. How was he holding up? He must feel like a broken man, bereft of family, isolated by shame. Poor, poor Evan. He was alone in the world now. I bet he could use a friend.

  I needed food. Wouldn’t it be nice if I got enough for two and dropped over to cheer Evan up? He was my personal trainer, after all. I might be the closest thing he had to a friend.

  My stomach growled urgently. I needed food and I needed it fast. At the drive-through window, I got two big breakfasts to go. With juice. A health nut like Evan probably drank juice with every meal. Even if he turned his nose up at the greasy food, he’d go for the juice.

  I drove to Evan’s apartment and knocked on his door.

  Loud Jimmy Buffet music pulsed through the opening when Evan opened the door. Surprising musical choice, given Evan’s hard-work philosophy. I would never have pegged him as the Caribbean party type. He was more the poster child for a health infomercial.

  Nor would I have guessed he owned a Hawaiian shirt, bright red shorts, and flip-flops. The definition in his leg muscles drew my eyes down to his tanned feet and nicely trimmed toenails. I’d never seen Evan’s toenails before, but they were trimmed as if he’d had a pedicure. The man was full of contradictions. I couldn’t imagine Rafe or Charlie going to a nail salon.

  “Cleo! What a surprise.” A dark look crossed his face. “I didn’t forget your session today, did I? The gym said you cancelled our appointment.”

  “I did. But I need to talk to you about that.”

  In the background Jimmy crooned about fins to the left and right. Evan’s shoulders moved to the feel-good Caribbean beat. A wall of heat and coconut oil wafted out through Evan’s doorway. He was really into this tropical thing. I half expected a parrot to fly up to his shoulder.

  “I’m sorta busy,” Evan admitted.

  His personal inconsistencies intrigued me. Why was he in tropical mode? My curiosity flexed its muscle, and I waved the paper bag of food at him. The aroma of fresh, hot fries encircled us. “I brought food. Breakfast. I hope you’ll share it with me.”

  Evan hesitated, so I waved the bag of food again. My stomach growled at the enticing smells. “All right,” Evan said “Come on in.” He cut the volume on his stereo and invited me to sit in his living room.

  When he disappeared into a hall closet, I took stock of my surroundings. Precision-aligned black-and-white artwork decorated the plain white walls. A cluster of coconut-scented candles flickered on the walnut coffee table. A leather sofa and chair faced off against a massive entertainment system.

  The National Anthem of Margaritaville filled the air. Curious. The austere furnishings fit with what I knew about Evan’s personality, but I liked the laid-back, less intense Evan better. Was he taking antidepressants to combat stress? With all he’d endured, poor Evan deserved the lift.

  The good vibes from the stereo infected me. I sank happily into the overstuffed buttery-soft leather sofa. My toe tapped along with the fun music, while my brain danced around the paradox of Evan.

  From outward appearances, he was the perfect male. Handsome, successful, single. Why hadn’t some woman snatched him up and married him? Did Evan date? I couldn’t remember his name being linked with anyone recently.

  Evan returned with two TV-dinner tables. Sturdy and walnut-toned, they matched his gleaming coffee table. The glossy tropical brochures next to the flickering candles struck me as odd. But what did it matter? I’d hate for anyone to analyze the things on my coffee table.

  I set out the food, my brain refusing to settle. A litany of data streamed through my thoughts. Travel brochures. Jimmy Buffet music. Tropical atmosphere. Fun things. Vacation things. “Going somewhere?”

  Emotions flickered across Evan’s face as he sat down across from me in the matching overstuffed chair. “This has been such an ordeal. I need to get away for a few days.”

  I nodded, sympathy welling. “This week hasn’t been easy for any of us.”

  We shared a look of understanding over our egg sandwiches. I wolfed my food down too fast. Evan ate his food deliberately, as if he were savoring each bite. With a buff physique like his, this meal must be a real departure from his standard diet. I hoped I wasn’t leading him too far astray.

  On the stereo, Jimmy Buffet switched to a Cajun tempo and sang about gypsies in the palace. In the song, some house-sitting friends threw a wild party. Chaos ensued.

  I couldn’t help but draw an inference to the festive mood in this place. Evan’s apartment had a celebratory feel to it, not one of mourning and despair. My curiosity kicked into high gear.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” Evan asked.

  Now that my stomach was full, I felt positive I was doing the right thing. “I’m canceling my personal training sessions and giving up my gym membership. I wanted to tell you in person.”

  He glanced up sharply. “Because of mother and Eleanor?”

  “No. It isn’t them. It’s me. I thought physical fitness would help my golf game. Only, I need to practice my golf game to get better at golf. I don’t have time for both activities. This has nothing to do with you or your family.”

  Evan folded the waste paper into flat rectangles, every corner perfectly square. “You got something good going with the golf pro?”

  Did I ever. But I wasn’t here to talk about my hot sex life. Jimmy Buffet sang about a volcano blowing up. The reference to hot molten lava in the midst of thinking about Rafe and sex made me blush. “We’ve been dating for a couple of months.”

  Evan started gathering up the trash.

  I beat him to it. “I’ll take care of this. Where’s your trash can?”

  “Under the kitchen sink.” Evan folded up the TV tables and headed back to the hall closet.

  I dashed into the kitchen, intending to deposit the trash and get the heck out of here, but Evan’s calendar lay open next to his phone. I slowed on my way past it, observing his extensive color coded notations on various recent dates. That stopped me altogether. I flipped back to the previous month and saw similar markings. Mama’s name was there. So was Eleanor’s.

  Warm
th fled and a hard chill filled the void. I shivered against the cold. The hair on the back of my neck snapped to attention. My brain seized on one thought: Why would Evan record Mama’s schedule?

  The date of Erica’s murder was circled in red ink.

  A bitter taste pervaded my mouth. Air leaked from my lungs. Think, I told myself. Think this through. There’s probably a rational explanation.

  But what if there wasn’t anything rational about this? What if the calendar notations were the blueprints for murder? If that were true, I was in big trouble.

  Was Evan Eleanor’s accomplice?

  I couldn’t imagine her letting him walk. Her reaction had been the polar opposite. She’d wanted nothing to do with him.

  That brought up another, more chilling possibility. Eleanor wasn’t the killer at all. Evan was.

  My heart stopped for a long minute.

  Lord, Lord.

  I’d stepped in it now.

  My brain kicked back on. I had to get out of here. Fast. Get out of here and call Britt. He’d know what to do.

  Air seeped in my lungs. That was a good plan. Quickly, I shoved the remains of our breakfast in his trash can and whirled on my heel to leave the kitchen.

  What I saw pushed my elevated heart rate into overdrive.

  An aquarium on steroids occupied the entire interior kitchen wall. The wood-framed glass structure had a hasp and combination lock securing the mesh top. Two lights were mounted in the rear corners of the aquarium. The entire bottom of the glass case was filled with a multicolored snake.

  Loops and loops of big, fat, slithery snake.

  Enough snake to hurt someone.

  A scream boiled out of me, the shrill sound piercing my eardrums. I clapped a hand over my mouth. I didn’t hate snakes, but I didn’t like them either. Afraid, I checked the floor for more snakes. The spotless white floor gleamed.

  No snakes in sight.

  “What is it? You okay, Cleo?” Evan poked his head in the door.

  “S-s-snake.” I pointed across the room. The jumbo reptile opened his slitted eyes and studied me. “What kind of snake is that?”

  “Monty is a Burmese python.”

  Monty looked like he could crush me and swallow me for a midmorning snack. I took a step backward. The sharp edge of the kitchen counter pressed into my lower back.

  Knees trembling, I tried to hold it together. Bad enough to be cooped up in here with a Hodges who might be a murderer. The snake added another dimension to my fear. Seeking solace, I shoved my hands in my pockets, palming the golf ball I found there. My fingers traced over the familiar dimpled surface. “How’d he get to be so big?”

  “I’ve had Monty since I was a kid.”

  I shuddered.

  I couldn’t imagine having a reptile in the house with my kids. How had Eleanor and Erica tolerated Monty?

  Evan joined me by the sink. He casually closed his appointment calendar. His action reminded me he’d had my mother’s whereabouts on his calendar.

  I was so unnerved by the huge man-eating snake that words babbled out of my mouth. “God, Evan. That thing is huge. How do you keep him from eating you?”

  Evan’s spine stiffened. “Monty is tame. He’s not dangerous. What is it with women and snakes? Mother and Eleanor were scared to death of him.”

  “Because he’s a predator. A reptile. Women are predisposed to dislike snakes. That Adam and Eve thing, you know. It’s not our fault.” No wonder Eleanor had perfect attendance for everything. She didn’t want to stay home with the monster snake.

  Inside his glass cage, Monty shifted position, his coils bulging and squishing as he moved. His oblate head cruised the top half of the cage, as if testing for an exit point. In the silence, I noted the music had ended. Now the place felt hot and close and oppressive. A thick musty smell filled the air.

  Keeping one eye on the snake and another on the door, I asked, “He can’t get out, can he?”

  Evan regarded me steadily, much like the snake had done. “Monty is quite an escape artist, but I’ve got him locked in there pretty tight right now.”

  I couldn’t imagine perfect Eleanor sharing a house with a supersized snake. I exhaled slowly. “Have you always kept him in the kitchen?”

  “No. I had to keep him in the basement when I lived at home. Otherwise, Mother and Eleanor would flip out.”

  “You didn’t like them very much, did you?”

  Evan’s eyes narrowed. “They hated Monty. Mother kept trying to kill him by turning off his light while I was in school. So I let him have free range in my room.”

  I gasped in a puff of snake air. “I bet that went over real big.”

  “Kept them out of my room and off of my back. You have no idea what it was like to grow up with them belittling everything I wanted to do.”

  “Hey, I went to school with Eleanor. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Teachers constantly compared us to her. It was annoying, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded and rubbed his buzzed head. “It used to drive me crazy. If I got a ninety-eight on a test, Eleanor got a hundred. No matter what I did, it was never good enough.”

  He was opening up to me. More questions bubbled out. “So you stopped trying? Is that why your mother disinherited you?”

  “She hated me because I didn’t do what she wanted. I was supposed to grow up to be a banking whiz like Grandfather Crandall. She cut me out of her life when I didn’t stay the course. I’m the only Crandall ever to work their way through college.” He snorted. “Get this. She said fitness wasn’t a career. It was a rich man’s hobby.”

  “That’s harsh. It’s obvious you like what you do at the gym.”

  “Thanks. It wasn’t an easy choice.”

  “You stood up to her though. You kept your snake and studied the career you wanted. I had no idea you’d struggled so hard to be yourself.”

  “Mother had no respect for anyone. When she found out she couldn’t manipulate me the way she could Eleanor, she wrote me off.”

  “Didn’t that put a wedge between Eleanor and you?”

  “We were never close.”

  His statement clunked in my head like a rock stuck in a tire tread rolling down the highway. “Funny. I thought she had dinner here the night your mother died.”

  He shot me an inscrutable look. “How’d you know about that?”

  “Britt told me. Did she tell you about her brilliant plot to frame my mother?”

  Evan barked out a harsh laugh. “Eleanor’s never had an original thought. Mother told her what to think, night and day.”

  Another inconsistency. And his neck was bright red. I recklessly plunged ahead. “I disagree. Eleanor’s plan was brilliant. It must have taken weeks to plan the frame job.”

  Evan shook with emotion. “Eleanor is not brilliant. She’s a stupid bitch, and she’s going to rot in prison the rest of her life.”

  I’d hit a nerve. The snake’s tongue flickered in the glass cage. I ignored the snake and concentrated on the new information. The schedules I’d seen on his calendar. Evan knew them. Eleanor didn’t. Evan couldn’t stand Eleanor being smarter than him. I seized on that. “She is quite clever. It took a keen mind to coordinate the schedules so Mama took the blame. How did Eleanor know about Mama and Bud anyway?”

  “All she had to do was to follow them around.”

  “Follow them?”

  “Yeah, follow them,” Evan said. “People do the same dumb things over and over again. They’re stupid cows.”

  “It must really gall you Eleanor figured that out.”

  Evan’s hands clinched into tight fists.

  Interesting. He didn’t like it when I pushed him a bit more. I used that. “I wonder what it must have been like to sit in that big powerful Olds and aim it at your mother. I wonder what Eleanor thought as she punched the accelerator.”

  A faraway look came into Evan’s eyes. Like he was in the zone. The killing zone. “Die bitch. You can’t hurt me any longer.”

&nbs
p; An icy chill ran through my blood at the smoldering rage in his voice. I’d gotten it wrong. Evan killed his mother. Not Eleanor. I knew it sure as I knew my name but I couldn’t prove it. Britt needed proof. “How did it happen? What did Eleanor see as she drove at your mother? Would your mother have been blinded by the approaching headlights? Did she roll up on the windshield?”

  Evan slid deeper into the weird zone, his body quieted in an almost hypnotized trance. “She stood there, shielding her eyes. She called out, Delilah, why are you stopping out there? Why did you ask me to meet you here? The car rammed her, and her head struck the hood before she fell to the ground. One of her sequined gold shoes flew through the air like a sparkling firework.”

  I thought of the discarded shoe I’d seen beside the body. That information had not been released to the public. I sensed victory. “And then Eleanor drove off?”

  “No. The car backed up and ran over Mother again.”

  “She struck her twice?”

  “Three times. The car hit her three times.”

  Britt would be keenly interested in how Evan knew these details. “I don’t understand why Eleanor killed her. Your mother would have given her the money to save Crandall Brain Clinic.”

  “Not hardly. Mother gambled our fortune away. When Daddy tried to stop her, she killed him for interfering. She said she’d kill us if we ever told. Eleanor and I have been afraid of Mother our whole lives.”

  My eyes rounded in horror. What a terrible burden to carry for a child to carry. “She can’t hurt you now, Evan. She’s gone.”

  Evan blinked. His eyes focused on me, the same way Monty’s had. Like I was dinner.

  Oh, shit.

  Think, Cleo.

  Get out of here.

  I edged sideways, slow and crab-like. “I have to go.”

  “I don’t think so.” Evan moved between me and the door. The muscles in his arms flexed. “You know too much.”

  I tried to downplay what I knew. “You had a terrible childhood. But your Mother can’t hurt you now. Eleanor, either.”

  “Damn it.” He smacked his palm on the granite counter. “You know. How did you figure it out?”

  I eyed the distance to the front door. Could I escape? I was not in top physical shape. Evan was. In a foot race, he’d beat me. In hand-to-hand combat, he’d beat me.