The Diva Digs Up the Dirt

by Krista Davis

  —Sophie

  “Don’t do that! I thought I hit something.” Nina had a point, though. “We’re not doing it because of Mona.”

  “Really? What if Mona planted the purse there to revive interest in Anne’s disappearance?”

  “There’s no way she could have known I planned to dig in his garden.”

  “She could have planted the handbag and the knife there years ago.”

  “Why would she have Anne’s wallet?” I pulled Wolf’s car into a parking space in front of Francie’s house.

  Nina gulped. “You don’t think Mona could have had anything to do with Anne’s death?”

  “I sooo do not want to think that. Her own mother? No! Besides, if that were the case, why would she have come around to stir things up? She would have let Anne’s mysterious disappearance quietly slip away. I think we can safely eliminate her as a suspect.”

  My own words clarified my thoughts. I’d known it all along, but somehow, everything had happened so fast that I hadn’t honed in on it until now. I stepped out of the car and locked it. When Nina and I were on the sidewalk, I said, “If we believe that Wolf didn’t kill Anne, then we need to find the person who did.”

  Nina followed me into the house. Daisy ran to us but didn’t wait to be petted. She turned and loped to the kitchen door. Troy’s voice blared. It was so loud that I suspected he was making a call from the service alley that ran along my side doors. Evidently he didn’t realize how well we could hear him. He must have thought it a private place for making calls.

  “Heath! This is your last warning. If you don’t call me in five minutes, you’re toast. Don’t bother coming to my hotel room tonight with your tail between your legs to tell me how much you need this job. I’m done with you.”

  A few seconds of silence followed.

  I pulled walnut pesto and prosciutto out of the refrigerator to make crostini appetizers.

  “Harry! Drive over to the hotel and get Heath. I don’t have time to mess with him. Tell him if he doesn’t show up in the next half hour, he’s out. I can’t deal with people who don’t come to work. He knows better than to do this.”

  Nina and I rushed to the sunroom.

  Troy strode into our view, shaking his head. Within seconds, the cameras were on him.

  “Good grief, he’s even sexy when he’s mad.” Nina leaned forward for a better look. “I hope Heath isn’t getting the boot. He looked like he rode in from wrangling cattle. Had that steamy rough-and-tumble bad-boy appearance.”

  “Think they arranged his ‘absence’ to add spice to the show?” I couldn’t take my eyes off the garage, which had magically been framed during the day. “They work fast.”

  “Told you so. What’s the rest of that concrete for?”

  The pad of concrete extended beyond the back of the garage toward my house. “I have no idea. It’s too big for a walkway.”

  We retreated to my kitchen, frazzled from the heat and the drama with Wolf.

  Nina mixed cosmopolitans and poured them into martini glasses that were hand-painted with colorful flowers. The pink drinks were just what we needed.

  We settled in the kitchen, our shoes off and feet propped up on chairs, munching on savory goat cheese, prosciutto, and walnut-pesto crostinis topped with halved cherry tomatoes.

  Nina sipped her cosmopolitan. “Ahh. Much better. Come with me tomorrow morning to see if we caught the cat?”

  “Sure, as long as it’s not at the crack of dawn. I’d like to sleep in a little now that I’m not working.”

  “So if Wolf didn’t kill Anne, who did?”

  “Could have been Audie if he had an affair with her.”

  Nina choked. “You caught that, too? Olive thought she was being so discreet, but she practically told us that Anne had been involved with Audie.”

  “I wish I had known Anne. How will we ever figure out who else might have wanted to kill her?”

  “According to Mona, she worked around here somewhere. Think Wolf or Mona would tell us where?” asked Nina.

  “We can ask. Cricket might tell us. I wonder if her mother knows that Audie was the other man in Anne’s life.”

  “We don’t know that he was.”

  “Nina! Surely you don’t think it was Roscoe.”

  Troy rapped on the kitchen door and entered. “We’re about done for the day.”

  “Care for a cosmopolitan?” I asked.

  “A little too pink for my taste. The boys and I will clean up and head out to a bar for some brews. Any recommendations?”

  “The Laughing Hound.” Nina and I said it together.

  “Then that’s where we’ll go. Has Natasha come back yet?”

  “We haven’t seen her,” I answered.

  He grimaced. “I sent her out to get estimates on fencing material. I thought she’d be back by now.”

  “That won’t give you much time to order it.” I didn’t want any delays.

  “Not a problem. We don’t need it.” He winked at me and left.

  By the time darkness fell, I had broken my diet twenty-nine ways and phoned Wolf four times. His home phone and his cell phone rolled over to voice mail.

  I was eating softened chocolate ice cream right out of the tub when Daisy whined at the door. I stuck the container in the freezer, grabbed a leash in case I needed it, and let her out. She ran to the backyard, and I trailed along in the dark. The moon lit an unfamiliar world of eerie new posts and structures that didn’t look like my yard at all.

  At least the garage hadn’t overpowered my lot or taken up too much space. I still wasn’t sure about the other posts that rose from the ground along the fence that I shared with Francie. How could she let that go without calling me and making a fuss? Of course—Troy. That man could sweet-talk bees into giving up their honey.

  “Soph?” I recognized Wolf’s voice. He said my name softly.

  I looked around. He had kneeled to play with Daisy.

  If I had been watching a movie, at this point I would have been yelling at the starlet to run into the house and lock the door. Things just weren’t like that in real life. Wolf had surprised me, and his appearance in the dark was a little bit disturbing, but I had no real reason to fear him. To be honest, I was happy to know that he was still speaking to me.

  “Hi.” Well, that was stupid. I should have said something more welcoming. Should have let him know how glad I was to see him.

  “Thanks for helping me this morning. I wasn’t sure how I would get out of there without the press following me.”

  “No problem.”

  He rose and drifted toward me. “Do you mind if I keep your car for a while? They asked me to come down to the police station this afternoon, and it was easier to go in a car no one followed.”

  “Sure. What did they want?”

  “Same old stuff about Anne. I’m officially on leave.”

  Given the circumstances, that wasn’t terribly surprising. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t dug up the purse, none of this would have happened. Where are you staying?”

  “With a friend. Only one person knows and that’s the friend. I’d rather keep it that way.”

  I was a little bit stunned. He could trust me to get him out of his house without being followed but he couldn’t trust me enough to tell me where he was staying?

  “You understand, don’t you?” he said.

  “No.”

  “I can’t stay here. Mars, Francie, and Nina were spying on us last night. Don’t bother denying it. They love you, Soph, and they would have flipped out if I had stayed with you. Nina and Mars would have insisted on moving in, too, just to be sure I didn’t go nutso with the kitchen knives. The press would have figured it out in two seconds flat. It would have been awful.”

  He was right. He wouldn’t have been hidden at my house. Everyone would have known he was there.

  “You could at least tell me where you’re staying.”

  He shook his head. “It’s better this way. Don’t look so hurt. I
… I need some time alone.”

  “I can’t even reach you by phone.”

  “Sophie,” he sighed my name. “Everything I do will be watched and analyzed. I left my cell phone in my house on purpose.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you told me what happened that night?”

  “I’ve always been completely up front with you about that. Anne took some of her things and left.”

  “Did she leave after an argument?”

  “No! I don’t know—maybe. Couples argue sometimes. You must have had disagreements with Mars. She wasn’t there when I came home from work. I thought she was still out with her friend.”

  I wanted to confirm that it was Cricket, but he was finally talking, and I didn’t want to ask anything that might make him clam up.

  “The next day, I realized she’d taken a bag and probably wasn’t coming back. Sophie, I had to answer all these questions for the cops. I’m not going through them again with you.”

  “Wolf, it doesn’t make sense. What kind of stuff did she take?”

  “Clothes, a little carry-on bag.”

  “But she buried her purse and ID?”

  He spoke slowly, his tone reflecting his growing agitation. “That’s why I thought she was alive. It appeared that she took her purse with her.”

  “Don’t get upset with me. I’m trying to understand the circumstances.”

  He clutched me to him. For a few long moments, we stood in an embrace, my head leaning against his chest.

  He finally released me. “I don’t want you involved in this.”

  “But I want to help. And you need all the help you can get.”

  “No! Do not go sticking your nose into it. There are things you don’t know about, things you don’t understand.”

  I took a wild stab. “You mean about her lover?”

  “Oh no! No, no, no. Where did you hear that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “She didn’t have a lover.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “That’s just an irresponsible rumor that sullies Anne’s memory. There’s no way she was seeing anyone else.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “You wouldn’t get it. She wasn’t like you. Anne was delicate… fragile.”

  Why did I suddenly feel like a big galumphing oaf? “I would have a secret lover?” Memories of that spark-filled moment between Mars and me came flooding back. I thanked my lucky stars that it was dark out, and he couldn’t see the blaze that I could feel flooding my face.

  “That’s not what I meant. Anne… if you had known her, you would have realized that she would never do that. She did everything she could to avoid conflict. You have moxie.”

  I guess he could see my face better than I thought because he immediately tried to backtrack. “I’m not saying you would cheat, just that you have spunk. You’re tenacious. Anne didn’t have your courage.”

  “Falling for someone else doesn’t take guts. Sometimes it just happens. Maybe it was the road of least resistance.”

  Wolf groaned like a wounded bear. “Stay out of it, Sophie. I mean it.” He stalked away from me and vanished into the night.

  Daisy and I returned to the house. I dug around in the freezer until I found a package of brownies I had stashed away. I might not be as sweet or delicate as Anne, but I could be stressed out as much as anyone. I had my own ways of dealing with it. I boiled water for a large mug of hot tea, cut one brownie, thought better of it and cut a second brownie—the one I would have given Wolf. I carried the fudgy, thawing brownies and my tea into the cool confines of my tiny den and plopped down in front of the computer. Mochie jumped onto the desk and sat like an Egyptian cat, watching me. Daisy curled up at my feet underneath the desk.

  By three in the morning, I was dragging, and the sleep sofa had become alluring. I had searched Anne Fleishman’s name every way I could imagine, trying key words like accounting, horticulture, and garden. If she ran away, she probably would have changed her name. Still, it had become a compulsion to see if I could find any information on her. The only thing of interest that turned up was her association with a local accounting firm, most likely her previous employer.

  Too tired to give it more thought, I trudged upstairs to bed.

  I woke to the sound of hammering and… humming. I rubbed my eyes and sat up.

  Someone was in my closet.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dear Natasha,

  I’m sure your house must be full of your stunning flower arrangements all the time. What do you do to make them last longer?

  —Long-Stemmed Gal in Rose, Kansas

  Dear Long-Stemmed Gal,

  I like to add a few drops of vodka and one teaspoon of sugar to the water. Remember to change the water every few days.

  —Natasha

  Frantic, I searched my bedroom for a weapon. I picked up a crystal vase, not bothering to dump the water or the black-eyed Susans. Holding it over my head, ready to slam someone, I peered into my walk-in closet.

  Mona was standing there, pawing through my dresses. “My Anne used to have pretty clothes like these. Not nearly as many evening gowns. You must go to a lot of parties.”

  “What are you doing here?” I beckoned her out of the closet and set the vase on a nightstand. How did she get into my house?

  Daisy appeared to accept Mona’s presence, and Mochie sniffed her shoes. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Nine in the morning. At least I’d gotten a little sleep.

  “Natasha let me in. Such a nice girl. A lot like my Anne. Or what Anne should have been—gorgeous, confident, successful. Don’t you envy their long, slim legs? I do. I’m surprised that Wolf dated you and not Natasha.”

  “Excuse me, but this is my bedroom.”

  “It’s very nice, dear. Perfect, really. Except the walls should be blue and those drapes are all wrong.”

  Was the woman deranged? Dark demi-moons hung under her eyes, surely from lack of sleep.

  I wondered if she could turn on me. Suspecting I would do better with her if I pretended to be sweet, I said, “I need coffee. I bet you’d like some, too.”

  “I would!”

  I had lucked out on my first try. She accompanied me down the stairs. Coffee already brewed in the kitchen. Natasha must have put it on. From the enticing aroma, I guessed it might be Equal Exchange’s Love Buzz. I poured it into two Portmeirion Botanic Garden breakfast mugs, with floral motifs painted on them, and offered Mona sugar and cream, fully intending to get rid of her as soon as possible. What had Natasha been thinking?

  Nina rapped on the kitchen door. It was only a formality—she let herself in. “Mona!” Raising her eyebrows, Nina didn’t have to say a word to express her surprise at Mona’s presence. She helped herself to a white breakfast mug with pansies on it, poured in coffee, and settled at my table.

  Mona added a tiny splash of cream to her coffee. “It’s funny. I used to scold Anne because she preferred to wear overalls and jeans. Isn’t it strange the little things you regret when someone is gone? At the time it seemed so important that she dress like a career woman. She did at work, of course.”

  I winced. Mona’s trickery had gotten the better of me. I kept forgetting that she had lost her beloved daughter, and when she said something like that, I felt sorry for her all over again.

  “I’m sorry, Mona,” said Nina.

  Immediately changing my mind about getting rid of Mona, I freshened everyone’s coffee and pulled out the waffle iron to heat. While Mona talked, I whisked together large eggs, tangy buttermilk, and melted butter for Belgian waffles.

  A jagged, suffering sigh escaped Mona’s lips. “My husband can’t take it. He won’t talk about her anymore. He’s at home, pretending like nothing ever happened. We all deal with grief in our own ways, I suppose. I won’t rest until I find her. I can’t. It would be like abandoning her.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffled. “You girls be good to the people you love. Once they’re gone, you’ll w
ish you had taken more time for them, had been kinder.”

  I poured the thick batter into the waffle iron and closed the top. Instead of whipped cream or syrup, I sliced strawberries and washed blueberries for a fruit topping.

  Nina reached out to Mona and patted her hand. “I’m sure Anne knew how much you loved her.”

  “You’re very sweet, Nina Reid Norwood. My sister had two children. I was always comparing Anne to them. Can’t you get straight As like your cousins? Why aren’t you in the school play like your cousins? You know why?” She looked at us, nodding her head. “She wanted to sew the costumes! I forced her to do everything they did. Ballet—she had no coordination, voice lessons—that was a joke, field hockey—she hated that, violin—poor child had a tin ear.” A little smile appeared. “My husband said if we went deaf, it would be because of that violin screeching off-key when she practiced.”

  A heavenly scent floated from the waffle maker. I removed the first waffle to a square Portmeirion plate with leaves that trailed all the way around the edge, then added more batter to the waffle iron. A dollop of vanilla yogurt went on top of the plated waffle, topped by a generous helping of sweet strawberries and juicy blueberries mixed together with just a breeze of sugar and the tiniest squeeze of lemon. I placed it in front of Mona.

  “Thank you, dear!” Mona searched her purse for a tissue and blew her nose. “We gave her every opportunity to excel, and all she wanted to do was stay home. She was meek. Always happiest puttering in the dirt or embroidering. It wasn’t until she was gone that I understood what I had done. It was all about me. My competitive nature, my competition with my sister, my desire to wear tailored suits and be a professional. I was trying to make her into what I had wanted for myself.”

  I delivered the second waffle to Nina.

  “Thanks, Soph. This smells delish! Mona, honey, I don’t think you should be so hard on yourself. Don’t all parents try to help their children be all they can be?”

  “You know what my husband tells me?” Mona lowered her voice to mimic a man. “‘Mona, you tortured that girl when she was alive. Why don’t you finally let her rest in peace?’” Her voice broke. “And now she’ll never know that she didn’t have to be a modern do-it-all businesswoman. I loved her for the kind, gentle person she was, but now I’ll never have the chance to tell her!”