“Don’t worry. We’ve becoming rather adept at doing just that since the canonization date was set,” Ronnie said. “I’ve been getting phone calls from people I haven’t seen in twenty years wanting to meet the Pope. Somebody even offered me tickets for the Tampa Paul McCartney concert in exchange for ‘backstage passages’.” Ronnie bent her fingers in quote marks.
“Which you almost took,” Gina reminded her, her voice slightly tinged with disgust, “and don’t you dare say it would have been a fair trade.”
Allayne laughed out loud, prompting the sisters to join her. “Oh, not to be offensive, but I’d have taken the Macca tickets, too. I consider myself more a spiritual person than religious, but how often does an ex-Beatle tour? They’re a dying breed…” Her voice trailed away at that, and Ronnie smiled sadly. Everything reminded Allayne of dying, it seemed.
She turned to Gina, and could tell by her sister’s reaction that she was working in her mind some plan to explain the Faith, maybe even invite her to Mass one day.
They stood to leave and were in the middle of the obligatory farewell pleasantries when a far door down the hallway burst open with a bang. A lean, manicured gentleman with wavy blond hair, wearing jeans and a striped Polo shirt, stormed towards the women, a scowl marring his handsome features. His loafers squealed across the floor in time to Lorraine’s heavy footfalls as she hurried behind him.
“Criminy Moses,” Ronnie heard Allayne mutter under her breath.
“You get back here right now, you idiot!” Lorraine was shouting as she waved a business card at the back of the man’s head. “I’m not done talking to you.”
“I’m done listening to you, Lorraine,” the man snapped, his face still forward. He stopped directly in front of Allayne at the foyer and glanced at the two guests with a quizzical brow.
“Danny, this is Gina Hayes and her sister Ronnie Lord. Their great-aunt is the young girl being made a saint, the one I was telling you about.” Allayne then introduced Danny Cushing to the sisters. “You remember, I told you he was staying here to help.”
“He’s here to help himself to some free room and board while he sits on his rump in the house my daughter’s money built, driving the car my daughter’s money paid for with her talents!” Lorraine spat.
Danny, clearly annoyed, did not bother to turn and acknowledge the woman leering behind his back. Instead he calmly turned to Allayne and said, “I’m going to drive to Jacksonville in the car paid for by my talents. Do you require anything while I’m there?”
Allayne batted her eyes playfully. Apparently she was used to her mother’s outbursts to learn to ignore them, Ronnie observed. “If you’re near a Willson’s Chocolates, pick up some of those chocolate-covered Oreos?” the actress said. “I think I could force a few down after dinner tonight.”
Danny grinned and kissed Allayne on the forehead. “Done.” Then, with an outstretched elbow, he turned to Gina. “Shall I walk you ladies to your car?”
“What?” Lorraine cried. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to either of you yet—”
“No worries, Mrs. Witz, Allayne explained everything,” Ronnie interrupted hastily with a clandestine wink at Allayne. “We’re on our way to see what we can do. It’s an eight-hour time difference to Vatican City, so we’ll have to make the call late tonight.”
“Oh.” Lorraine calmed, then smiled. “Well, I suppose that’s fine.” She watched Gina take Danny’s arm. “Careful he doesn’t get too close to your gas tank,” Lorraine muttered. “Too much sugar can ruin an engine.”
She shoved the business card she was holding into Ronnie’s palm. “Here. That’s the number of the guy who writes for the show. You tell him I sent you. He’ll fix you up.”
Before anybody could protest, Lorraine turned a sharp heel and retreated back down the hallway. Ronnie could only stare at the raised black lettering on the unadorned card. Right, she thought. I call this guy and see how far I get when I mention Lorraine’s name.
She slipped the card into her purse and was one step behind Gina and Danny when a light touch on the shoulder from Allayne stilled her.
“Could I ask you a question, Ronnie?”
“You just did, but another one won’t hurt,” Ronnie quipped with a smile. She noticed, however, that Allayne was not smiling as the actress pulled her further away from the front door.
Allayne tapped a forefinger to her lips, as if mentally preparing her words. “I read about how you caught the person who stole St. Lorena’s body and killed that cemetery worker last year…”
“Well, I didn’t exactly catch the killer,” Ronnie countered, blushing. “I was working on a theory, and I nearly got caught myself.” She really did not want to relive that memory, particularly when she was rushed to the hospital to have her stomach pumped after telling the EMTs that her coffee creamer had been poisoned, only to learn later that it hadn’t been—the killer had been bluffing her. The plan, it was confessed later in court, was to psych out Ronnie enough to weaken her physically and mentally, then kill her. She had ingested a charcoal cocktail for nothing.
“Well, when you were facing…the killer,” Allayne continued, “did you have the feeling that your life was in danger?”
Ronnie considered the question, then shook her head. “Not really. Even when I had dropped my phone and was unable to contact L—, er Sheriff Caperton, I had the feeling I was going to get out of it okay. I mean, maybe it was just pure arrogance or stupidity on my part, but I just refused to believe I could let a weasel like that beat me.”
A smile played on Allayne’s lips. “I’m so glad to hear that, Ronnie. I hear stories like that, and it makes my spirit soar.” Her smile quickly disappeared, and her voice lowered. “I only wish I was as strong a fighter as you.”
“What? Why would you say that? Oh, my God. The cancer’s that bad, is it?” Ronnie felt her heart go limp.
A short, loud car horn drowned out Allayne’s answer, and Ronnie turned sharply toward the driveway, her heart pounding. Gina was leaning through the opened passenger side window of the Firebird. She released her hand from the horn just as Danny motored past in his Porsche.
“Look, I shouldn’t keep you.” Allayne patted Ronnie’s arm. “Danny’s probably right. I’m letting my life turn into a soap opera with all this madness going on around me. I’m sure Gina needs to get home…”
“Yeah, she left her kids with a friend. But if you ever want to finish this discussion…” Ronnie dug into her purse for her business card. “My new home phone’s on the back, but you obviously know what it is since you called earlier. Just call me whenever, you know?”
“Definitely. Thanks.”
“Not a problem. That’s a lovely ring, by the way.”
Allayne splayed her hand before them so Ronnie could appreciate the green stones set against the white gold band. “Thanks,” she said, admiringly. “It was a tenth anniversary gift. Whole cast chipped in.”
“What a nice gesture. Wonder if I could get my students to do the same thing.”
Allayne laughed and drew her into a quick hug, which caught Ronnie off guard, then guided her down the porch steps to her car. She remained on the bottom step waving as the Firebird made a three-point turn out of the driveway and down the path toward the main road. Ronnie watched her rear-view mirror as the thin, pale figure grew smaller and finally disappeared with the right turn.
Gina settled back into her seat. “What did Allayne have to say?”
“Not much.” Ronnie checked for oncoming traffic before pulling out onto the road. “It’s like she wanted to say something but changed her mind at the last minute.”
“Really? Like what?”
Ronnie shook her head. “Like she had some kind of premonition that her life was in danger.”
“Because of the cancer.”
“Yeah,” Ronnie said dully. Or maybe, she thought, something else.
Chapter Four
Because all of her cooking utensils were still packed away in
various, unmarked boxes, and because there was nothing in the kitchen Ronnie could scorch in the microwave, she elected to dine downtown. The thought of inviting herself to Gina’s for dinner was fleeting; though she would have been welcome, she did not feel like jockeying with her nephews for control of the conversation. Besides, she was certain her brother-in-law Bill would not want to listen to anything involving Allayne Witt, who dated his best friend very briefly in high school when she was still Elaine Witz, Head Cheerleader, and, according to Bill, Major Pain.
Ronnie, who once dated the friend in question as well, would have argued for the cheerleader.
Dining with Nana and Uncle Arthur, she learned before setting out in the Firebird, was not an option. The machine picked up on the fourth ring, and despite Ronnie’s pleas to have somebody answer she received no response. This could only mean that Nana was not at home and that Arthur, who could not leave, was not in the mood for company.
Where Nana could possibly be after seven in the evening on a night when no church activities were planned nettled at Ronnie the entire time she sat at her usual table at the French Bakery and Deli, picking through her hummus pita sandwich and bag of Fritos. Had something happened to the older woman after she left Ronnie’s townhome in the church’s delivery truck? Had Rick and Landon tired of sliding through on the right side of the law, hijacked the truck, and left Nana and Father Joel to die in some ditch? The thought nauseated her so much that she pushed her plate away with force. Heads around her turned.
Don’t be stupid, Ronnie told herself. How could anyone hijack a truck from inside the back?
Deli owner Loni Humphrey approached to refill Ronnie’s tea glass. “Hon, I could make you something else if you don’t like the spread,” she offered. “I think Dick put too much garlic in it, anyway.”
“Huh? Oh, no, it’s fine.” Ronnie massaged the bridge of her nose. Stop it, she chided herself, you’re getting as bad as Allayne Witt. How else can her unease be explained? “I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was. Could I get this boxed to go?”
“Sure thing.”
When Loni returned with a long, shining swatch of aluminum foil, Ronnie asked her if she had seen Father Joel that afternoon.
The foil crackled as Loni lovingly wrapped Ronnie’s mostly-eaten dinner, fashioning the leftovers into a swan. “Oh, you mean after he dropped off your couch? Yeah, he came in to buy some éclairs and cartons of milk for those boys he’s got working at the church.”
Ronnie groaned. She should have known to expect the town gossip to know about the delivery. More than likely the priest had let it slip about the couch, though it was hardly in Father Joel’s nature to talk about others, especially to Loni. No, Ronnie decided, Loni was quite resourceful and had other ways for making people talk. Therefore…
“I don’t suppose my grandmother was with him?”
Loni froze, her smile drooping down to her neck. Aha! “Have you seen her today, Loni?” Ronnie prodded.
“Of course,” Loni said uneasily as she twisted a bit of foil into a swan’s beak. “She and Mrs. Kleffner came in for coffee after morning church, like they always do.”
“I know that. Then Mrs. Kleffner nearly plowed down my mailbox trying to drop Nana off at my place.” Ronnie wondered how soon it would be before the whole town learned of that tidbit. “That was this morning. I meant have you seen her since?”
She watched Loni’s eyes, a difficult task since the top-heavy blonde with the bright blue eye shadow kept avoiding her stare in favor of the back kitchen door. “You know something,” Ronnie said. It was not a question. “You always know something, and you’re dying to talk. Spill.”
Loni pretended to check her other customers to see if she was needed. “I—I haven’t seen Miss Julie since she came in this morning, Ron,” she said, timidly, and hastily retreated to the safety of the drink station behind the counter.
“Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll find out from somebody else.” Ron crumpled her paper napkin in disgust and tossed it on the red checkerboard tablecloth. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to chat about Allayne Witt, would you?” she called across the small dining area.
Loni’s head poked out from a display of Mozart marzipan chocolates. “What about Laney?”
“You watch her show, right?” Of course Loni had; Ronnie had seen Allayne’s face fill the screen of the miniscule black and white Loni kept by her cash register more than once. “You know anything about her being stalked by a crazed fan? Or maybe that’s a current story line on her show? I’m afraid I don’t keep up on it like I did when I was in college.” Perhaps that was what Allayne was trying to tell her, that she was worried about an obsessive fan? Perhaps it was more common than Ronnie believed.
“Oh, no.” Loni rushed to the front dining area and collected the bills left behind by two departing diners. “Thanks, guys, see you next week. No, for the last two weeks Bethany’s been haunted by Brantwood’s ghost, but it isn’t really Brantwood’s ghost, you know? ’Cause Brantwood’s not really dead. See, he was pronounced dead when his family’s shoe warehouse exploded with him in it.”
“Rigged no doubt by some mustache-twirling villain,” Ronnie smirked. “Of course, they didn’t find an actual body.”
Loni nodded. “Some thug Wendell Wentworth hired rigged the place. He runs the big publishing company. Anyway, before the place blew up Wendell had the guy kidnap Brantwood and tied him up in the wine cellar of the Wentworth mansion.”
Ronnie chuckled to herself. Yes, this sort of thing happens in real life all the time. Everything was so accurate in Bethany’s world, where nobody needed to use the bathroom and it snowed only on Christmas Day.
Loni took a chair at the vacated table and collected the used plates and flatware. “Wendell’s been trying to get into Bethany’s pants for years and marry her so he can get his hands on her family’s property, because Wendell knows Bethany’s grandfather hid most of his ill-gotten treasure there.” Ronnie blinked, and Loni added, “He found this secret diary, it’s a long story. Anyway, with Brantwood out of the way, Wendell finally convinced her to marry him. Bethany was so grieved she just went along with it.”
“So why not kill Brantwood if he really wanted him out of the way?” Ronnie furrowed her brows. “Why keep him in the cellar?”
Loni rolled her eyes. “To torture him, silly! Wendell hates Brantwood. He hates the whole Maine family for what Brantwood’s father did to his father, screwing him out of his share of the Maine family’s sporting goods fortune. Wendell set up closed circuit cameras all over his house after Bethany moved in and is forcing Brantwood to watch Bethany mope around the mansion, thinking he’s dead.” She leaned over to Ronnie’s table. “He even put a hidden camera in their bedroom and made Brantwood watch them do it!”
“Ah.” Somewhere in television heaven Thomas Edison was weeping. “So this ‘Brantwood’ she’s been seeing is a doppelganger or some kind of guilty hallucination, brought on because of the supernatural bond shared between soap opera super couples?” When Loni nodded again, Ronnie added, “So, I suspect in the weeks to come some meek laundress employed by the Wentworths will happen upon Brantwood while searching the cellar for a box of Tide, thinking it’s just a regular basement? Then there will be this tearful reunion, spoiled only by the revelation that Bethany is pregnant with a little Wentworth.”
Loni shrugged. “Who knows? I got this feeling, though, that Brantwood’s going to be Wendell’s half-brother. They’ve been hinting that Wendell’s father had an affair with Brantwood’s mother, but I’ve been watching Southwest Memorial from day one and I don’t remember it.”
“Well, I’m sure some kind of memory ray was involved, but Bethany’s never been stalked on the show?”
“Not since five years ago when she and Denise were in Paris on that nurses exchange program, but that turned out to be Brantwood, who was trying to convince Bethany to come home, that Bethany’s sister Trish had tricked him into marrying her. Trish was faking a pregn
ancy, and the marriage was annulled,” Loni said with all seriousness.
“I see.” Where did Loni store all of this information?
“Why do you ask, hon?”
Ronnie bit her lip. Better not to make Loni privy to what she was thinking about Allayne, she decided. Loni would arrange a neighborhood watch to guard Two Witt twenty-four/seven. “No reason,” Ronnie said finally. “It’s, uh, been a while since I regularly watched Southwest Memorial, like I said before, and I’m just trying to catch up on the stories.”
“Oh.” Loni stood. “Well, there’s this really good Web site on the Internet that has all the info you need on Brantwood and Bethany. It also has the whole show’s history, all the way back to episode one,” she said. “Brantwood and Bethany—all one word—dot com.”
“I might just try that, thanks.” Ronnie bit some loose skin away from her thumb. Perhaps she would also check the Internet for any possible articles about celebrity stalkers, if indeed Allayne was not delusional, then call her tomorrow to get more information. If anything, she could at least alert Lew to the problem, if one existed.
Mystery Bundle (Saints Preserve Us, Pray For Us Sinners, Murder Most Trivial) Page 24