“Well, I do,” I screamed. “You scared me to death. You took my dogs without permission, and you better not do it again or I’ll report you to the manager. The next time you want to ‘help’ one of the guests, you’d better check with them first and see if they want your help. Understood?” I vamoosed into the villa and slammed the door, leaving Bernardo standing on the front step, his mouth wide open.
It was a few minutes later that it dawned on me. If Bernardo had come into our villa without permission and taken our dogs out, how many other times had he secretly been inside other guests’ villas? What else had the over-helpful concierge been up to?
Chapter 34
Old age is coming at a really bad time.
“You know you’re not supposed to talk to strangers,” I said to Lucy and Ethel. “Much less go for a walk with anyone we don’t know. What in the heck were you thinking?”
I know. Some of you, who might not know me very well, probably think I’m crazy, talking to my dogs that way, expecting they’d understand what I was saying and actually answer me back. But years of living with canines have convinced me that dogs are very effective communicators if we humans know how to read their signs. Especially Lucy, who never lets me get away with anything without a comment. And if you’ve never seen a dog do an eye roll, you’re definitely not paying attention. Or you’ve never met Lucy.
So, naturally, Ethel immediately jumped up on the sofa beside me, nestled into the curve of my shoulder, and covered my face with sloppy doggy kisses. She knew she was in big trouble, and was telling me she was sorry in the only way she could. By showing me unconditional love.
Not Lucy, though. Lucy never apologizes. Instead, she yawned, turned around in a circle three times, and settled down for a snooze.
“Now that you’re back safe and sound,” I continued, “I want you to promise that you’ll never go anywhere with anyone without my permission. Or Jim’s,” I added. Sometimes I forget that he’s part of the pack, too.
“I forgive you,” I said. “I guess I overreacted. But I’m just so worried about Mike. You won’t believe what he did this morning.”
Lucy cocked her head. Mike is one of her very favorite humans, and she doesn’t get to see him as much as she’d like. She joined Ethel and me on the sofa and gave me her non-blinking doggy stare, inviting me to continue.
So I did. I talked about Mike’s burgeoning romance with Carrie, his supposed encounter with Charlie King right before he died, Claire’s possible betrayal (Lucy bared her teeth at that part and growled), and, finally, Mike’s outright lie to Deputy Armstrong. By the time I’d finished, I was crying. No big surprise there, right?
“I don’t know what to do,” I said to the dogs. “I don’t know whether to talk to Claire, confront Mike, tell Jim what’s going on, or get on the next plane back to Connecticut. I wish we’d never come to Florida! This trip is a nightmare. I miss my house. I miss Jenny and Mark. I even think I miss Paul Wheeler. That’s how upset I am.”
The dogs let me continue my tirade. They knew I’d eventually calm down and come up with a plan, just like I always did. And this time, I had the personal permission of the deputy sheriff assigned to the case to nose around and see what information I could come up with. That was a first for me. It didn’t matter that Jim had been asked to do the exact same thing, because the dead man’s daughter had also begged me to figure out what had happened to her dad. Not Jim. Not that I was keeping score, understand. But just saying.
Above all, I knew my son was innocent. Stupid, yes. But innocent of any wrongdoing.
Lucy must have sensed that my brain was starting to percolate, but I needed a shove in the right direction. So she hopped off the coach and made a beeline for the leashes. Then, she turned around and stared at me.
“What?” I asked. “You must be kidding. Aren’t you exhausted? You and Ethel were just out. Besides, there isn’t one person out there I want to talk to right now. I’m too upset. I am not taking you out again.”
Lucy dragged the leashes over to the sofa and dropped them on my feet. Then, she raced toward the door, sat and stared at me.
Oh, wow. I finally got the message. “You’re right, Lucy. As always. There’s one person here I can count on to jump in and help, no matter what. Assuming she’s finished with her real estate emergencies by now. Let’s go find Nancy.”
My BFF greeted me at the door of her villa, cell phone plastered to her ear. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think,” she said into the phone, giving the dogs an absent-minded pat and waving me into a nearby wicker chair that looked extremely uncomfortable. I settled myself as best I could, the dogs curled at my feet, and prepared to wait until Nancy was finished talking. Correction: until Nancy was finished with her phone conversation. Like me, Nancy is NEVER finished talking. Which is probably why we’re BFFs.
Anyway, I know the real estate business is very demanding (at least, that’s what Nancy always tells me), and since I figured she was still dealing with a long-distance crisis, I ordered myself to be patient.
“You’ve got that right,” she continued, the phone bobbing up and down for emphasis. “Both of them are as stubborn as mules. And neither one of them ever wants to admit that they’re in the wrong.”
Boy, this must be some crisis. Probably some seller who refused to drop the price on a listing, plus a potential buyer who’d made an offer and wouldn’t go a penny more. Good luck with that one.
Nancy eyed me, then said, “Things were bad enough when Charlie died so suddenly last night. But now, they’re even worse. Boy, do I ever wish you were here with us, Mary Alice. Maybe you could calm Carol and Claire down and get them talking to each other again.”
“Mary Alice!” I shrieked. “Give me that phone.” I yanked it out of Nancy’s hand. “Hello, sweetie. We miss you so much. And don’t believe a word of what Nancy’s been telling you. Claire and I just had a minor disagreement. We’ll work it out. We always do. Of course, it was all her fault.”
I put my hand over the phone and said to Nancy, “How did you hear about this, anyway? It just happened a little while ago.”
“How do you think I heard?” Nancy said. “Claire came here right after your argument. She was very upset.”
“Humph,” I said. “I’ll bet she was.”
“Hello? Hello? Are you still there, Carol?” Mary Alice said. “I can’t hear you.”
“Sorry. Nancy asked me a question and I got distracted,” I said. “But I’m back now.”
“Tell me what you know about poor Charlie,” Mary Alice said. “What a terrible way to die.”
“I’m sure Nancy has already given you the details,” I said, “but she may not have told you that Jim and I were actually there when the car exploded. It was horrible. And the local authorities, as well as Charlie’s daughter, have asked for my help in the investigation. It’s possible someone tampered with the car. His poor daughter is distraught.” I didn’t add anything about Mike’s possible involvement. That would only upset Mary Alice even more.
“I wish so much that I was there to help you,” Mary Alice said. “Even just for moral support. And that poor daughter. Now she’s lost both her parents tragically.”
“What do you mean, Mary Alice?” I asked, waving Nancy away as she attempted to grab her phone back. “What do you know? This could be very important.”
“If you give me my phone,” Nancy said, clearly losing patience, “I’ll put Mary Alice on speaker. That way, we can both hear her at the same time.”
I hate it when someone else makes sense.
“Hang on a sec,” I said to Mary Alice. “We both want to hear what you’ve got to tell us.”
“Charlie married a local girl named Hope Maxwell,” Mary Alice said, her voice now booming thanks to modern technology.
“Who’s Hope Maxwell?” Nancy asked. “Are we supposed to know? I never heard of her.”
“Don’t tell me she went to grammar school with us, too,” I said. “I thought I knew the names of
everyone in our class.”
“No, silly,” Mary Alice said. “But she was from Fairport. Her father owned the drug store in town. Don’t you remember Maxwell Drugs? We all used to go to there after school for ice cream floats.”
“I remember that place,” Nancy exclaimed. “It’s where I bought my first tube of lipstick. I think it was called Fire Engine Red.”
“Trust you to remember that piece of trivia, and not Hope Maxwell,” I said. Nancy retaliated by sticking her tongue out at me. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. Sometimes we’re not very mature.
“Can we get back on track here?” Mary Alice asked. “I have to get to the hospital in fifteen minutes. Private duty today.”
“I remember that Maxwell Drugs closed in the late nineties,” Nancy said. “I think there’s a bank there now.”
“I remember something else about that place,” I said, searching my memory bank. “Wasn’t there a poster of a girl on an easel right at the entrance of the store?”
“You’re right,” Nancy said. “It was sort of a shrine to someone who’d died. I stopped shopping there when the owner put it up. I thought it was too creepy for words.”
“That’s Hope Maxwell,” Mary Alice said. “She was married only a few years before she died. Her father put the poster in the store to honor her memory.”
“How come you remember this so well and I don’t?” I asked. “I didn’t realize you read the obituaries so carefully. I thought only old people did that, to be sure their name wasn’t there.”
The next thing we heard was a sound I couldn’t identify. Unless….
“Mary Alice? Are you crying? What did I say to upset you? I certainly didn’t mean to.”
I looked at Nancy, who was as mystified as I was at Mary Alice’s reaction.
“I don’t read the obituary page every day,” Mary Alice said, her voice quivering as she fought for control. “But I’ll never forget this one. The notice about Hope’s death was in the paper the same day as Brian’s. And I remember thinking how doubly tragic it was that two young families had been torn apart by a sudden death at the exact same time.”
Jim and I had been away on a trip when Mary Alice’s husband, Brian, had died suddenly in a car crash. I’d felt guilty about not being there for my friend for years. And now I’d quintupled my guilt by throwing out careless remark that had upset one of the dearest people in my life.
“Oh, Mary Alice, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Open mouth, insert flip flop. Please forgive me.”
“You couldn’t know, Carol. Of course, I forgive you. But there’s one thing you can do for me, to make things right.”
“Anything,” I said fervently. “Anything at all. Just ask me.”
“Make up with Claire,” Mary Alice said. “Right now. It doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. Just make up with her, right now. I mean it.”
The next thing we heard was the dial tone.
Chapter 35
I don’t have gray hair. I have “wisdom highlights.”
“Mary Alice is right, you know,” Nancy said. “You and Claire have to make up, and the sooner the better. What the heck are you so mad at her for, anyway?”
“Claire had the nerve to imply that Mike could be involved in Charlie’s death. She saw the two of them together for a split second when Charlie was leaving the restaurant in such a hurry last night,” I said, my face flushing. Saying it out loud to Nancy made me even madder. “And to make matters worse, someone tipped Deputy Armstrong off about a supposed confrontation between Mike and Charlie.”
“Carol, be reasonable,” Nancy said. “I’m sure Claire didn’t mean to suggest Mike was involved in Charlie’s death. And you know there’s no way Claire would tell Deputy whatserhername anything that could get Mike in trouble. She’d never do that.”
“Armstrong,” I said. “Deputy Sheriff Armstrong.” I ran my fingers through my hair in a gesture of complete frustration. Nancy grabbed my hand and commanded, “Stop that. Right now. You’re not in Fairport now, and Deanna’s not here to perform miracles with your hair, the way she always does. Even though she’s a hair styling wizard, she doesn’t have the magical power to teleport herself to Florida.”
“I guess I do owe Claire an apology,” I said with some reluctance. “I shouldn’t have yelled at her like that.”
“I forgive you, Carol,” said a familiar voice. “I’ve been eavesdropping for the last ten minutes.”
“You really are the limit,” Nancy said, as Claire joined us inside the villa. I took a close look at her. She sure didn’t look upset to me. But then, she’s a lot better at hiding her feelings than I am.
“I figured you’d head over here eventually, Carol,” Claire said, obviously pleased with herself for figuring out my whereabouts. “And you know that we can never stay mad at each other for long.” She gave me a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to say hello to Mary Alice.”
“Me, too,” Nancy said. “I think we’re always better behaved when she’s around.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Because it was true. There was something about Mary Alice that always brought out the best parts of our personalities. “She’s always calm in a crisis, that’s for sure,” I said. “I think that’s why she’s such a good nurse.”
“I wish she was here with us,” Nancy said. “But she had some interesting information about Charlie’s late wife.” She brought Claire up to speed about Hope Maxwell, and what I had said that upset Mary Alice so much.
“I didn’t realize that Charlie married a local girl,” Claire said.
“Why would you?” Nancy asked. “We’d been out of touch with him for years.”
“All right, enough of this memory lane stuff,” I said before Nancy began to wax poetic again about Maxwell Drugs and lipstick. “Mike’s in big trouble. I need your help to get him out of it. The big jerk.”
“I don’t know how you could think I’d go to the authorities with incriminating information about Mike,” Claire said, not letting me off the hook completely. “How the heck did you jump to such a ridiculous conclusion?”
“Someone told Deputy Armstrong about seeing Mike with Charlie at the restaurant last night,” I said. “She claimed that Mike and Charlie had an argument. Deputy Armstrong questioned Mike about it, and Mike lied. He said that he hadn’t seen Charlie since we all met at the airport earlier in the day.” I turned my baby blues on Claire. “I figured you were the person who snitched on Mike.” I conveniently ignored the fact that the information purportedly came from a server in the restaurant. Right now, I was a lioness protecting her cub, and was entitled to use any weapon I could think of to get at the truth. Including ignoring the truth, if necessary.
“Me? No way,” Claire protested, echoing Nancy word for word. “I haven’t even met this Deputy Armstrong. I didn’t see Charlie and Mike arguing, either. They were together for about a millisecond, and then Charlie left. He was in a big hurry, remember?”
“That’s the best piece of news I’ve heard all day, Claire,” I said. “You have to talk to Deputy Armstrong right away. Let’s go.”
I raced toward the door, the dogs at my heels. When I turned around, Claire hadn’t moved. Neither had Nancy.
“Come on, Claire. Let’s go. What are you waiting for? You have information that will clear Mike.”
“You are such a doofus,” Nancy said. “You don’t get it, do you Carol?”
“What? What don’t I get?”
“What Nancy means by her indelicate remark, Carol, is that my going to the authorities won’t help Mike at all,” Claire said. “In fact, it’ll probably make things worse for him.”
“That’s not true, Claire. How could it?” I asked.
“Because, if I say that I saw Mike and Charlie together, but not having an argument last night, that means I saw Mike and Charlie together last night. Period. And that also means that Mike lied about it when he was questioned by Deputy Armstrong. Now do you get it?”
“I suggest you go talk to your son,” Claire said. “As soon as possible to find out what the heck is going on.”
“And I suggest that you find Jim, clue him in about Mike, and involve him in that conversation, too,” Nancy said.
“I agree,” said Claire. “After all, he is Mike’s father. He has a right to know.”
“I already decided to tell Jim what was going on,” I said, “and to talk to Mike as soon as possible. I’m not looking forward to any of this.” I grabbed the dogs’ leashes. “We’re leaving. Come on, girls.” As we were headed out the door, I turned back. “Just out of curiosity, what will you two be doing while I’m having the most difficult conversation of my life with the two guys I love most in the world? Swimming laps in the hotel pool?”
I know. I shouldn’t have said that. Nancy and Claire were only trying to help.
“Very funny, Carol,” Nancy said. “I can’t speak for Claire, but I’m going to check out the late Charlie King on the Internet using my special contact group.”
Claire raised her eyebrows. “And what would that be, pray tell?”
“The Realtors Network, of course.”
Of course.
Chapter 36
I joined a support group for procrastinators. We haven’t met yet.
“Feel free to take your time on our walk,” I said to Lucy and Ethel. “As a matter of fact, you have my permission to sniff every single blade of grass and check out every bush and palm tree on the hotel property. Heaven knows, I’m not in any hurry to find Mike. And Jim is probably still hammering out a press release about Charlie King’s death. You know how he hates to be interrupted while he’s writing.”
I glanced down and realized Lucy was panting from all this unexpected exercise. It was hot outside, and she and Ethel needed water right away. I did, too. And this was a perfect excuse to waste more time while I figured out how to have The Conversation. I have a black belt in Procrastination 101.
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