"Why?" the president asked. "They made their getaway. And to think you head up my Secret Service detail." She shook her head in disgust.
"What are you talking about, Madam President?" said Paterno.
"The vigilantes! They just left in the sleigh. Right under your nose, Agent Paterno! Merry Christmas! I'll see you after the New Year. By then all your bad publicity should be just a memory. No, you are not going to Camp David with me."
Martine took a deep breath as she walked back to her lonely digs in the White House. She offered up a salute of sorts to the defiant women known as the vigilantes and wished with all her heart that she was one of them.
"Merry Christmas, ladies!"
Epilogue
New Year's Eve!
With the clock ticking down, the guests on Big Pine Mountain threw on wraps and ran to the center of the compound, where Charles and Myra were standing, their hands full of the sleigh bells from Baron Bell's sleigh that they had brought back to the mountain.
The solid wall of evergreens and tall pines whispered and trembled, their scent intoxicating, while the blanket of stars overhead winked at and twinkled down on the happy guests.
In unison, the guests started to count down.
"Six!"
"Five!"
"Four!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
"Happy New Year!"
The happy, joyous sounds rang over the mountain as the guests slapped one another on the back, kissed each other, and wiped at their eyes.
A new year had just been ushered in.
In just eleven hours and fifty-five minutes, another momentous fete would take place: Myra and Charles's wedding.
Laughing and singing, the guests made their way back to the main building for their third and last champagne toast of the evening. They gathered around the twelve-foot-tall Norwegian spruce tree, which glowed with brightly colored lights, the angel on top of the tree smiling down on them. The guests held their glasses high as they toasted in the New Year and whatever it would hold for all of them.
Eyes misty, they sang, mostly off-key, "Auld Lang Syne."
And then it was time to call it a night.
One by one the guests made their way to their separate rooms, until the only people left in the room were Myra, Annie, and Isabelle.
"How about some coffee, girls? I'm so wired, I know I will never be able to fall asleep. I'll make it," Myra said.
"It's just us again, Annie," Isabelle said. "This isn't working for me. I guess you know that, huh?"
"I do, dear. I can't believe you missed Stu Franklin by three minutes. He was waiting right there on the curb, just like he said he would. Then those damn mounties made him move, making it impossible for us to pick him up. There will be another time, dear. Trust me on that."
Isabelle smiled. "I know. I'm just feeling blue, that's all. I'm sorry Fish's flight was canceled. The storm, the weather, it just fouled everything up. But, like you said, tomorrow is another day."
Both women stared at the beautiful tree, each busy with her own thoughts, until Myra came back with a tray filled with coffee cups, cream, and sugar.
"I am so proud of all of us. This whole week we never talked business, not once. We just enjoyed each other's company and all that wonderful food Charles prepared for us. I do wonder, though, how Mr. Bell and his friends are doing."
"I kept up on the aftermath by reading the papers online. I think it's safe to say Washington had its knickers in a knot when Maggie's headlines ripped around the world. I think it's wonderful that none of the adoptive parents would talk to the press. All they want to do is put this mess behind them and raise their families. We did good, Myra."
Myra smiled. "We did, didn't we? So many memories. I'm sorry about Fish and your young man, Isabelle."
Isabelle shrugged, as did Annie. The shrugs meant life would go on no matter what.
"We really should try to get some sleep, ladies," Annie said. "How will it look if we have dark circles under our eyes as Myra takes her vows?"
"They have makeup for that," Myra said. "You two go on to bed. I think I need some alone time. I want to...I just..."
"We understand, Myra. Come along, Isabelle."
At the door, both women turned and waved at Myra, but she was staring at the beautiful tree, her memories taking her back in time. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she made no move to stop them.
"Mummie, Mummie, please don't cry. This should be the happiest day of your life."
"Oh, darling girl, you came. I was so hoping you would. I am happy. I just wish you were here with me."
"I am, Mummie, in spirit."
"It's not the same thing. I want to wrap my arms around you, to feel the beat of your heart, to kiss you on the cheek, to hold your hand, to hear you laugh. I want to see you. I need to see you, darling girl."
"Look up, Mummie!"
Myra raised her eyes to look at the angel sitting on top of the tree. It was made of gossamer, with gold wings and a halo. She blinked when she saw the wings on the angel flutter. Then she blinked again when the angel left its perch and sailed around the room before it made its way back to perch on top of the tree. "Oh, dear God!" Myra whispered.
"I hope you don't want an encore, Mummie. That took all my energy. Go to sleep, Mummie. I'll see you at the wedding in just a few hours. I'm going to be your invisible flower girl."
Myra woke with a start. She looked around, a dazed look on her face when she remembered her dream. Was it a dream? She craned her neck to look up at the angel on top of the tree. It wasn't nestled in the top branch, the way it had been earlier. In fact it looked like someone had just stuck it there without securing it to the branch. One of the wings looked bent. Myra smiled; then she laughed as she struggled to her feet to make her way to bed to try and get a little sleep. She was gathering up her coat and boots when the angel toppled from the tree. Myra ran to the tree and caught the gossamer decoration before it hit the floor. She clutched it to her chest and somehow managed to throw on her coat without letting loose of it.
When Myra woke three hours later, the angel was back on top of the tree.
Later, after the wedding, when she told Charles about her dream, she said, "It was the most wonderful dream I have ever had in my life."
Annie was smiling from ear to ear. "It's amazing that Barbara's dress fits you, and Alexis did not need to do a thing to it. You look beautiful, Myra."
Sensing movement to her right, Myra turned to see a line of snowbirds perched outside the window. "Listen, Annie! I think they're saying I'm pretty. Over and over they keep chirping. Isn't this just too wonderful for words?"
"Sounds to me like they're saying Pritzie, Pritzie, Pritzie. Or maybe they're saying Prizzi, Prizzi, Prizzi. Isn't there some kind of cockamamie law firm in the District named Prizzi, Prizzi, Prizzi, and Prizzi?"
"I don't know and I don't care. I'm going with they're here to tell me I look pretty. Do not rain--er, snow--on my parade today, Annie. Now, tell me the truth. Do you think I'm being...I don't even know what term to use about me being married in my daughter's wedding dress. Silly maybe? Maudlin?"
"Good Lord, no! I think it's wonderful. Beyond wonderful. I know wherever Barbara is, she's happy seeing you in her wedding dress. I hear the music, so it's time to walk down the hall and out to the big room, where your husband-to-be awaits. I have to go first, so wait thirty seconds before you follow me. I have to be in place."
"Go already," Myra said, "so we can...God, I am so nervous. The worst part is I'm not even going to get a real ring until next month."
"Oh, poo, like that matters. I'm going, I'm going. Remember, small steps."
Myra heard a few oohs and ahs as she made her way to where Charles was waiting for her. Nellie, her book open in front of her, smiled. Myra tried to smile, but her lips wouldn't move. When Nellie got to the part about the ring--and later she said she couldn't remember the words--Myra felt her spirit daughter nudge her.<
br />
"I'm here, Mummie. Open your hand."
Myra looked down at her clenched hand and slowly opened it. Her knees buckled, and she would have fallen except for Annie, who reached out to take her arm. Nestled in the palm of her hand was a plain gold wedding band. She knew without reading the inscription inside the ring that it was her daughter's wedding ring.
"My wedding gift to you, Mummie."
Myra's heart soared as Charles reached for the ring and slipped it on her finger.
Nellie beamed. "You may now kiss the bride!"
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THE SCOOP,
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Chapter 1
Charleston, South Carolina
It was an event, there was no doubt about it. Not that funerals were, as a rule, events, but when someone of Leland St. John's stature bit the dust, it became one. The seven-piece string band playing in the downpour, per one of Leland's last wishes, had turned it into an event regardless of what else was going on in the world.
Then there was the tail end of Hurricane Blanche, which was unleashing torrents of rain upon the mourners huddled under the dark blue tent and only added to the circuslike atmosphere.
"Will you just get on with it," Toots Loudenberry mumbled under her breath. She continued to mutter and mumble as the minister droned on and on. "No one is as good as you're making Leland sound. All you know is what I told you, and I sure as hell didn't tell you all that crap you're spouting. He was a selfish, rich, old man. End of story."
Toots's daughter leaned closer to her mother and tried to whisper through the thick veil covering her mother's head and ears. "Can't you hurry it along? It's not like this is the first time you've done this. Isn't this the seventh or eighth husband you've buried? I'm damn glad that preacher said his name, or I wouldn't even know who it is that's being planted. I gotta say, Mom, you outdid yourself with all these flowers."
Toots rose to the occasion and stepped forward, cutting the minister off in midsentence. "Thank you, Reverend." She wanted to say his check was in the mail, but she bit her tongue as she took a step forward and laid her wilted rose on top of the bronze coffin. She stepped aside so the other mourners could follow her out from under the temporary tent, which was open on all four sides. She stepped in water up to her ankles, cursed ripely, and sloshed her way to the waiting limousine, which would take her back home. "That's just like you, Leland. Why couldn't you have waited one more week, and the rainy season would have been over? Now my shoes are ruined. So is my hat, as well as my suit. Too bad you don't know how much this outfit cost. If you did, you would have waited another week to die. You always were selfish. See what all that selfishness got you. You're dead."
"What are you mumbling about, Mom?"
Toots slid into the limousine and kicked off her sodden shoes. Her black mourning hat followed. She looked over at her daughter, Abby, who looked like a drowned rat, and said, "Of all my husbands, I liked Leland the least. I resent having to attend his funeral under these conditions. He was my only mistake. But one out of eight, I suppose, isn't too bad."
Abby reached for a wad of paper napkins next to the champagne bottle that seemed to come with all limousines. "Why didn't you just crisp him up?"
Toots sighed. "I wanted to, but Leland said in his will that he wanted to be buried with that damn string band playing music. One has to honor a person's last wishes. What kind of person would I be if I didn't honor his, even if he was a jerk?"
"Don't you mean if you didn't honor those last wishes, what's-his-name's money would have gone to the polar bears in the Arctic?"
"That, too." Toots sighed.
The woman born Teresa Amelia Loudenberry, Toots to her friends, stared at her daughter. "How long are you staying, dear?"
"I have a four o'clock flight. I left Chester with a sitter, and Chester does not like sitters. There's just enough time for me to grab something to eat at your post feast, change into dry clothes, and get outta here. Can't you hear California calling my name? Don't look at me like that, Mom. I didn't even know that guy you married. I met him at your wedding, and that's the sum total of our relationship. If I remember correctly, you said he was a charmer. I expected a charmer. I did not get a charmer. I'm just saying."
"Maybe I should have said snake charmer," Toots said vaguely. "Leland was like this gorgeously wrapped present that when opened was quite...tacky. I was stunned, but I did marry the man, so I had to make the best of it. He's gone now, so perhaps we shouldn't speak ill of him. I'll mourn for ten days for the sake of appearance, then get on with my life. I'm going to find a hobby to keep myself busy. I'm sick and tired of doing good deeds. Anyone can do good deeds. Anyone can garden and grow one-of-a-kind roses. I need to do something that will make a difference, something challenging. Something I can really sink my teeth into. That's another thing. Leland wore dentures. He kept them in a cup in the bathroom at night. I could never get used to that. He wasn't very good in bed, either."
"That's probably more than I need to know, Mom."
"I'm just saying, Abby. I don't want you to think your old mom is callous. You have to admit I did have seven happy marriages. I should have hung up my garter belt when Dolph died. Did I do that? No, I did not. I let Leland sweep me off my feet, dentures and all. Sometimes life is so unfair.
"That's enough of a pity party for me. Tell me how it's going out there in sunny California. How's the job going? What's the latest hot gossip, and who is doing what to whom in Hollywood?"
Abby Simpson, Toots's daughter by her first husband, John Simpson, the absolute love of Toots's life, was a reporter for a second-rate tabloid, The Informer, based in Los Angeles. She was a second-string runner, which meant she had to hit the pavement and find her own stories, then elaborate on them for the public's insatiable appetite for Hollywood gossip.
"Rodwell Archibald Godfrey, otherwise known as Rag to us underlings, called me into his office and told me he wants more product. I can't make it happen if it isn't out there. All the A-list papers seem to get the stories first. I think this is just another way of saying he is not happy with my work. I applied to the other tabloids, but they're full up and not taking on anyone new. I'm doing my best. I just manage to make my mortgage payment every month and have enough left over to buy dog food. No, you cannot help me, Mom. I'm going to make it on my own, so let's not go down that road. My break is coming, I can feel it. By the way, I brought a stack of future issues for you to read. I have stuff in all of them."
"I can't get used to the idea that you people make all that stuff up, then it happens. And you print weeks in advance of what's happening," Toots said.
Abby laughed. "It's not quite that way, but you're close. Well, we're home, and you have guests. You really know how to throw a funeral, Mom."
"Event, dear. Funeral is such a dreary word. It conjures up all kinds of dismal thinking."
Abby laughed as she climbed out of the limo and marched up the steps to the wide veranda of her mother's house.
Both women raced upstairs to change into dry clothing before they had to meet with the guests who would be coming by to pay their last respects.
Toots looked at herself in the long mirror in her room. Yes, she did look bedraggled, but wasn't a widow supposed to look a little bedraggled? "Black is not my best color," she muttered to herself as she tossed her mourning outfit into a heap on the floor in the bathroom. She donned another black dress, added a string of pearls, brushed out her hair, sprayed on some perfume, and felt refreshed enough to go downstairs and socialize for an hour or so.
Burying the dead was so time-consuming. Even the aftermath took an eternity. All she wanted to do was retire to her sitting room to read the pile of tabloids Abby had brought with her. Not for the world would Toots ever admit that she was addicted to tabloid gossip. But for now,
she had a duty to perform, and perform it she would. She had all evening to read her treasured tabloids and guzzle a little wine while doing so. She'd drink to Leland, and that would be the end of this chapter in her life.
Time to move on. Something she was very good at.
Chapter 2
The minute the last guest walked out the door with a go-bag of food, the bereaved Toots galloped up the stairs and headed for her three-hundred-square-foot bathroom, where she ran a bath. She made two trips to the huge Jacuzzi with the pile of tabloids, four scented candles, a fresh bottle of wine, and her favorite Baccarat wineglass. She paused a minute to decide which bath salts she wanted to use, finally settling on Confederate jasmine since the scent was more or less true to the flower. She was, when you got right down to it, a transplanted Southern belle.
Toots stripped down, and the clothes she was wearing went on top of the sodden outfit she'd discarded earlier. She'd never wear them again. Then again, since she was a stickler for protocol, maybe she'd tell her housekeeper, Bernice, to leave them until her ten days of mourning were up. That way she wouldn't be cheating. And to think she had to wear black, which really made her look washed out, for another ten days. Nine more if you counted today. Well, she was definitely counting today.
Toots sniffed at the delicious aroma emanating from the Jacuzzi. Wonderful! She lowered herself into the silky water and sighed happily. Toots leaned back and savored the first few moments of the exquisite bath before leaning forward to pour herself a glass of the bubbly that Leland had bought by the truckload for his wine cellar.
"To you, Leland," Toots said as she held her wineglass aloft. She turned up the glass and swallowed the contents in one long gulp. Now she could move on. She'd done her duty.
16. Deadly Deals Page 20