A Fatal Romance

by June Shaw

  I punched my volume button up even more until a refrain vibrated against my truck’s windows, and I belted out lyrics about love in the wrong places. Twisting my upper body helped suck away more of my body’s tension.

  Considering what I’d just learned, I decided where I might discover more. Besides, it was too soon to return home, and I didn’t want Eve to see me until my emotions calmed. I aimed my truck in a new direction and soon trotted inside the retirement home. Mom’s lady friends sat in a clump. One was napping. Three of them leaned toward each other while Grace drew her cell phone out from deep in her bra and then showed pictures on it. Mom was nowhere in sight.

  “You’re back already? Miriam will be glad to see you again,” one of them said.

  “Or are you the other one?” another asked.

  “Where’s Mom?” I asked instead of replying. No telling what some of them might have heard about Eve and her situation.

  “She went to her room for an early nap. But you can go see her,” Ida said.

  “No, that’s okay. I don’t want to wake her.” I sat in the place my mother normally occupied. “How are you all doing?”

  “Okay,” two of them murmured. Another one showed me her knees that ached.

  “I hope that gets better soon,” I said with sincerity and then turned to Grace. “Is the constipation improved?”

  She waved her thin arm around. “One week it’s good, the next one it’s real bad. This is a good one.”

  I smiled. “I’m happy to hear it.”

  “Do you want to see my latest pictures?” she asked, ready to thrust her phone that was surely moist into my palm.

  “Another time. I just had a few minutes to run in here. But tell me this if you don’t mind, Ms. Grace. What is it like being confined to a wheelchair?”

  She shook her head, eyes partly closing and saddened. “It’s miserable.” She gave her head a slow turn toward those in her group. “These ladies, like your momma, can walk. They might have some aches while they do it, but they can get around almost anywhere.”

  The others in her group watched her with solemn expressions.

  I clasped Grace’s outstretched empty hand. “I am so sorry. I can’t imagine how difficult your life must be.”

  She nodded and turned her face aside. “But some of those others have it much worse than me.” She eyed two immobile men asleep in their wheelchairs.

  My heart went out to all of them. And a question popped up. “Were any of you very young when you had to use those chairs?”

  “Just one woman. She’s one of the youngest people here. And she’s so bitter about it she just snaps at anybody who talks to her.”

  I sighed. “I can understand. And I really wish the best for you, Ms. Grace.” I hugged her. Sympathizing and feeling especially close to all of my mom’s friends, I said, “And all of you.” I hugged each one of them except the women still asleep. Their pleased smiles repaid me a fortune.

  “Would you all tell Mom I stopped by?” Before anyone again questioned which twin I was, I hurried out.

  My concerns about Eve multiplied since my conversation with Dave and the one I’d just had. The increased speed of my breaths while I drove toward home made me pay attention to my concerns about my twin being around. She really needed to get back to Texas.

  Suppose she had decided to walk to her house? I moved through streets a little over the speed limit. I reached my street and checked to make certain she wasn’t outside and nobody looked like a threat to her safety. Only two boys of about eight rode their bicycles on the road. Miss Hawthorne knelt in her yard, face covered by her brim while she planted yellow flowers.

  I pulled under my carport, threw my truck in park, and rushed to the door, house key in hand. “It’s me,” I called, letting myself in and not wanting to scare her while praying I’d find her there and all right.

  “Wow, you sound short of breath.” Eve spoke from my dining room, not looking up from the drawing she pored over.

  “I couldn’t wait to see you again.” I moved into the room.

  She glanced toward the kitchen. “I didn’t hear you carry any bags inside. Where did you go?”

  That thought had wrapped around in my head. If I told her Dave’s sister who was engaged to Stan lived in a wheelchair and sounded almost destitute, she’d likely complain about my going to meet him on the sly. Better not to tell her about that, I’d decided on my way here.

  “I went by the church for a little inner peace,” I said, to which she looked surprised. I really had driven somewhere near it and briefly considered going inside. “And I went to see Mom.”

  “How’s she doing today?”

  “Good.” At least I hoped so. None of her friends told me otherwise.

  “And you needed peace.” She set down her pen. “Am I too much for you here?”

  “Of course not. I love having you close, just not when you’re in danger.”

  “I’ll be fine.” She lifted a charcoal pencil and added leaves to the stem she’d drawn.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She stared at me. “It’s a rose. Can’t you tell? Is it that bad?”

  “Of course I can tell what it is. What I mean is who does it represent?”

  Her eyes went sad. Shoulders dropped. “No one.”

  “Have you done any other drawings?” I skimmed the first pages of her pad and found them blank. She didn’t need to answer. Certainly she lacked inspiration at this time.

  I pulled out my cell and contacted Detective Wilet. Eve looked at me when she heard me giving my name and asking for him.

  The moment he got on the phone, I said, “I brought you some possible evidence and gave you information that might help guide your office toward the man trying to hurt my sister. Now what can you tell me? Are you getting close to arresting the person who attacked her?”

  Eve’s eyes went wide, more hopeful.

  “Ms. Taylor, we do have some leads, and we’re advancing on the case.”

  “Great.” I squeezed my twin’s shoulder. Maybe she was safe. “Who’re you looking at? What are you finding?”

  A second passed before his long exhale. “Not anything I can share with you right now. I hope it won’t be long. We’ll let you know.”

  Eve’s fallen expression matched mine. She looked back at her sketch sheet and lifted a pencil.

  “I’m going outside to hit on some wood,” I told her.

  She pushed up to her feet. “I’ll come with you. It’ll be fun.”

  “Whacking a hammer against something might get frustrations out, but you know we can’t do it together.” To her withered look, I said, “Go on and design more pretty things in here. Maybe when I come in and fix supper, you can go out there and smash nails.”

  It took a moment for her to decide and sit back down. “What kind of flower do you want me to do now?”

  “As long as it’s not an azalea, I’m good.”

  She gave me a tight-lipped half smile. As she resumed her art project, I proceeded out the door, surprised to find the wind had picked up. Rain might be nearing, but lately I seldom checked the news or forecast.

  My double carport held only my truck and a wilted hydrangea plant one of my favorite lingerie customers once gave me, and I hated to throw away. From my large storage room, I pulled out a pair of plastic sawhorses and set them a couple of feet apart.

  Reentering the room, I chose a couple of scrap pieces of two-by-fours and set them across each other on the sawhorse stand. Returning for the final items, I selected a mason jar of large nails and admired my treasure in a basket on the bottom shelf. It was the tattered tool belt my daddy gave me when I did some jobs with him as a teen. With the intensity of gazing upon a sacred item, I admired the stains, some of them put there by me, some by my dad. No way was I going to wash the cotton fabric. I’d gotten a seamstress from Fancy Ladies to stitch the ripped side of the pocket that held the hammer and the frayed right s
ide of the belt. Other than that, nobody messed with this important item from my family.

  It really was okay that Mom had given Eve our dad’s tiger-eye ring that I had never seen on his finger. I had seen him wearing this tool belt many times before he’d passed it on to me.

  I tied the belt on, adjusted tools inside it, and walked out. With no plan for creating anything, I held the tip of a nail at the juncture of the crossed wood, and smashed it in with my hammer. I smiled, knowing my power-driver tools would never provide such an outlet for my tension. I set another nail beside the first one and punctured the wood as though I was puncturing the whole problem about who was after my sister. With the next nails, I raised my hammer much higher than I needed to, imagining the forceful swing and punching down like I was hurting the man threatening her.

  “What are you making, Sunny?”

  The voice startled me. I hadn’t noticed a person trotting out from around my truck. Seeing Miss Hawthorne also took me aback. I recognized the voice as a woman’s, but when she came around my truck, she resembled a man with her stance and the brim of her wind-blown hat pressed tight against her head.

  “Hi, Miss Hawthorne.” It took me a second to calm from my swings. She left her yard again? I certainly wasn’t going to invite her inside, where she’d see my twin. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I heard you hammering and thought I’d come to see you. What are you making?”

  I hadn’t meant to make so much noise. Or maybe she’d already been walking this way when she heard me. I looked over my woodwork. What could I tell her it was? Total frustration? A smashed killer?

  “I’m just fooling around. Sometimes I just like to swing a hammer.”

  She studied my creation. “That looks like a large cross. Maybe you could start selling them.”

  I’d be glad to if anyone wanted to pay me to get my frustrations out. “Maybe so,” I said. “Were you just going for a walk?”

  “No, I thought of something else you might want to know.”

  I took the moment to relax my right arm, noticing a slight pinch in my shoulder. Since her step-grandson told me about her making up stories, anything this woman might say would probably be statements I wouldn’t believe. But maybe like some of my mom’s friends who seldom went anywhere, she just needed to babble to someone. I could be kind for a little while and listen.

  “Oh, really? Thanks for coming to tell me.”

  “It’s concerning a man I believe you and your sister are troubled about. A Mr. Snelling.”

  “That’s right. Did you know him?”

  “No, but I did know his grandpa. He lived in New Orleans back when I did.” She leaned close and shielded her mouth with her hand. “He was a handsome man who was supposedly involved in the mob.”

  “Really?” Now here was news I cared about. Possibly the info was important.

  She leaned even closer so that I captured a hint of crayfish from her breath. Was I the only person not eating any now? “And that grandpa supposedly didn’t wear briefs or boxers. Of course that’s only gossip.” Her face pulling away from mine now wore a blush on her cheeks. “Not that I’ve actually seen anything.”

  I let her news I almost believed and the part I didn’t sink in. I probably shouldn’t believe anything she said.

  “I’m glad you came to tell me about it.”

  “That’s no problem. I thought you might want to know.” She took steps away and then turned back. “Oh, and your twin’s daughter should be having her baby soon, won’t she?”

  “Fairly soon.”

  “I’d have thought she’d be in Texas with her by now.”

  Concern made my back tight and straight. “What makes you think she isn’t?”

  “I saw her in your window back there.” She pointed to the front of my house. “Tell her I hope everything goes well with the baby.”

  She toddled away, alarm making pinches of distress grab every muscle down my back. Other people also would know Eve was here. Staying around would increase the threat to her. I rushed inside, needing to make her leave.

  Chapter 23

  “Miss Hawthorne saw you,” I said as an accusation while dashing into the dining room where Eve sat.

  “I saw her through the kitchen window when I was getting coffee.” Not looking concerned, Eve tilted her head toward an empty cup on the table.

  “But now people will know you’re here. You need to go back to Houston.”

  “Sunny, one person saw me. Who’s she going to tell? She never goes anywhere.”

  “Did you ever hear of the phone? There’s also Facebook and Twitter.”

  The chuckle in her throat sounded deep. “You don’t really think she went home and picked up her phone and dialed everyone. She doesn’t seem to know anybody, except maybe whoever sells her the mulch and the flowers. And her on a computer? Come on. You told me about her ugly green bra and antique girdle.”

  Which I shouldn’t have done. People’s undergarments, or lack of them, should have been private when I made those sales. At least my sister was the only person I’d told.

  “So why did she come here? I thought she just about never left her yard.”

  I told her everything my neighbor said about Zane Snelling’s grandpa. “Of course I think she just makes up things about men without underwear.”

  Eve wore a naughty grin. “Don’t be so sure.”

  “Well, I can’t believe she was intimate with the man,” I continued, making my houseguest’s grin widen. “But maybe there’s some truth to the part about his involvement in the mob.”

  “Who knows?” Eve lost interest in him and lifted her pen.

  “I’m going to call Detective Wilet and tell him what she said,” I said, walking out of the room.

  “And I’ll want to hear his reaction to an old man barking orders to his crime gang about who to steal from and who to kill while he’s running around commando.”

  Wearing a frown, I went for my phone and called the detective. The person who answered put me through to his desk, where a recording in his voice told me I should leave a message. After a click, I told his voice mail the things Miss Hawthorne told me about Zane’s grandpa who’d lived in New Orleans being connected to the mob, leaving out the part about what may or may not have been under his slacks. “I just thought this might help y’all some way to move closer to solving the case involving my sister. I hope you’re discovering much more. As I said, this is Sunny Taylor.” With finger ready to disconnect, I heard his voice.

  “Wait,” he said. “We already knew about his involvement in organized crime.”

  “You did? Well good, then it’s true.”

  “Yes. But you need to leave the investigating to us. I know, it’s your sister, but you resemble your twin so much, if you’re seen snooping around, you could be mistaken for her.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “You could get badly hurt. It’d be much safer for you if you could stay in your house as much as possible until this thing is solved.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not. In fact it would be much better if you’d stay a distance away, maybe join your sister in Texas until this is over. She’s still there, right?”

  Lie to him? Sure, if it would save Eve. “Houston is where her heart is,” I replied without needing an untruth.

  “Good. Make sure she stays with her daughter. You consider going there, too.”

  “I will.” I hurried to click off before I heaped on untruths.

  Eve had her sketch going in a wide circle. “What did he say?”

  “He said you need to be with your daughter. I made it sound like you’re there now.” She grinned, and I placed my finger under her chin, making her face tip up toward mine. “Please go. You’ll be safe.”

  “And miserable.” She backed her chin out of my grip. “I’ll go when the baby’s born. But don’t you start doting on me.
That’s what they did.”

  “Then maybe you won’t want to stay here in town.”

  “But I do.” She pulled back the chair next to hers. “Come draw with me.”

  I sat but smirked. “You know I can’t draw.”

  “It’ll help calm you down. Remember how nice it was coloring with each other?” She ripped the sheet she’d been sketching on from her pad and shoved it in front of me. “You know how to draw circles. Just keep making this one smaller and smaller.” She pushed a pen in my hand.

  “You’ll probably have me drawing something dirty.” I grinned at her.

  “Nope, not this time. Look, this time we’ll do something we’re both interested in. This will be the Meditation Path the city has talked about wanting.”

  Tilting my head, I realized that’s what she had begun to create.

  “It doesn’t have to be perfect. Be like a kid drawing pictures.” She gripped my hand and moved it so the point of the pen pressed on the page. “We’re just starting an idea. I’ll see if I can come up with how a pavilion beside it might look.”

  I added to the outer circle, a slow, hesitant move on my part. “You know they won’t consider letting us bid on this project unless all of the mess about Zane is way behind us.”

  She nodded, staring at her new empty sheet, making the first marks at the bottom of the page. Her jagged lines looked like tall grass. “Right, if nobody proves that our work on the pavers where he sat didn’t cause his death, no amount of sketching and coming up with low bids will help.”

  I didn’t care that my artistic ability didn’t match hers, or maybe it did and I just wasn’t used to doing it. Sitting here beside my sister, glancing at her pensive face involved in what she drew, feeling her warmth and her strength, I imagined a serene veil wrapped around my shoulders. It didn’t matter how crude my drawings were since we wouldn’t sell from them. I was right here beside her.

  What we were doing was good, healthy, much better than being outside or even in here with hammer and nails. Quiet didn’t attract attention.

  Making my bumpy swirl continue around the page and round and round in smaller circles, I became a girl again, content to lose myself in color and lines. Beside me, my twin’s arm moved up sometimes and then drew a line down. She lifted her drawing instrument and made marks on the other side. I didn’t concern myself with the efficiency of her drawing, only glad she remained intent on it as I did with mine.