Better Off Read

by Nora Page

  Cleo gripped the railing. It felt hot, burning into her hands, but she didn’t let go. “Confessed? To what?”

  “Sabotaging Buford Krandall’s drilling machine. She was all clammed up, perfectly lovely behavior. Then Culpepper asked about her hobbies—book clubs, social clubs, activism. It’s the kind of question police throw out to loosen up interviewees. Well, she loosened, all right! She opened her mouth and wouldn’t shut it. She admitted to destroying Mr. Krandall’s drill. She said they’d fought earlier in the day. A yelling match only, until he shot at her, aiming over her head at an empty bookshelf. After that, they got into a tussle and her pearls broke, like little Zoe said. Mary-Rose said she was so angry, she came back after dark and killed his drill. The police want to talk to Zoe as a key witness. They’re trying to get her parents’ permission. Where are they anyway? Mary-Rose did shush up again about them.”

  “Hiking in Europe,” Cleo said, purposefully vague. Zoe’s parents—Mary-Rose’s son and daughter-in-law—were on a long-awaited and scrimped-for honeymoon in Spain. They’d fly home on the first plane, frantic, if they thought Mary-Rose or Zoe needed them. That wouldn’t help anyone.

  Cleo braced herself and asked, “Surely Mary-Rose didn’t confess to murder? And what did the police find in the spring that got them so suspicious?”

  Angela had pulled keys from her purse, getting ready to go. “No, no murder confession, thank heavens! As for the spring, they found an arm.”

  Seeing Cleo’s shock, Angela hurriedly clarified. “A stone arm. Marble. Probably from one of those statues at Krandall House. It wasn’t too far into the spring. Someone could’ve easily chucked it in from the boardwalk.”

  Cleo groaned. She looked out to the park, where Zoe and Henry were swinging. Two sets of feet sailed skyward, soaring over a bobble-head pug. An orange tail twitched from a branch. “The chief will say that Mary-Rose was angry and scared,” Cleo said dismally. “If she lashed out at the machine, she might strike a man.” Especially that man.

  “Exactly what Culpepper’s saying,” Angela said. “He had his suspenders in a twist, claiming Mary-Rose should be held for murder. It’s a bluff. They’ll let her out on the minor trespassing charges until there’s firmer evidence. The bigger trouble is that the investigation will focus on her now. She does have an obvious motive, and she admitted to getting in a fight with the victim and vandalizing his property. If it turned really bad, a good lawyer could argue self-defense. Krandall did shoot at her.” Angela squared her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Cleo. I’ll help her all I can. All she’ll let me.”

  So would Cleo, and she wouldn’t give Mary-Rose a choice in the matter.

  Chapter Nine

  When Ollie was little, he often went missing. Not seriously, but enough to give his mother fits. Miki—Cleo’s first and forever daughter-in-law, whatever her flaws—might turn to the refrigerator, and in that moment, toddler Ollie would barrel toward the nearest escape hatch. In kindergarten, he’d strayed so frequently, his teacher had suggested an ankle monitor. His parents settled for a bell, until it became clear that bells attract bullies.

  By elementary school, Ollie was wandering like a romantic poet. He’d follow pretty streams or lanes, forgetting the time. He’d pick wildflower bouquets. “I just wanted a few more,” he’d explain, handing his frazzled mother fistfuls of flowers. “I wanted to see around the bend.”

  Cleo’s dear, punctual husband, Richard, tried to step in. He taught Ollie to use a compass and read maps and navigate by the sun and stars. He gave Ollie watches for Christmas and birthdays. Ollie not only lost track of time, he also lost timepieces. Richard eventually gave up, once privately confessing to Cleo, “The boy might have something loose in the head.”

  Ollie was just fine, Cleo thought, walking to his backyard cottage the next morning. He was smart and generous and appreciated beauty and nature. He just hadn’t found his calling yet, his direction. Cleo approached his door, newly painted periwinkle blue, a pretty contrast to the yellow cottage with crisp white trim. It was past nine on a Monday. Most folks would be up by now. Cleo feared it was still early for her grandson. She gave the horseshoe knocker several hardy whacks.

  While she waited, Cleo did some gardening. She tugged at a dandelion and deadheaded geraniums in the flower boxes. She put her nose to her favorite shrub, the sweet olive. The unremarkable little flowers emitted perfume so intoxicating as to be nearly overpowering. Cleo was blissfully sniffing when her eyes fell on something much less appealing. An air-potato vine hovered over her back fence, an escapee from the old citrus grove returning to wild behind her property. Cleo’s eyes narrowed. Hate was a word Cleo was loath to use, except when it came to air potatoes. The vine was like armed kudzu, its spuds dropping and sprouting like alien spawn. Spawn was another word Cleo avoided. It seemed unsavory, but then so was air potato.

  She knocked again, with a vigor instilled by the vile vine and questions needing answers. She was about to give up and retrieve her longest garden clippers, when a muffled “Coming” came from the cottage.

  Ollie, tousle haired and sleepy eyed, opened the door a crack. “Gran?” He wore cotton pajama bottoms and a rumpled T-shirt.

  “Good, you’re awake,” Cleo said brightly. She stepped inside and blinked into the dark interior. She couldn’t say she loved what Ollie had done with the place. Papers covered the sofa, along with a massive rucksack and various items of camouflage clothing. Banana peels, an apple core, and a wilted salad in a plastic container littered the coffee table. Better than junk food and beer bottles, Cleo supposed. The snake plant by the door was yellowed and wrinkly, and those were hard to kill. Cleo couldn’t stand to see houseplants suffer. She headed to the kitchen for water and realized it was already running in the shower down the hall.

  “Oh,” she said. “You have a guest?”

  Ollie likely blushed, though it was impossible to tell with the heavy drapes drawn. Cleo tugged them open, gave the plant a drink, and by the time she turned, Ollie was clearing armfuls of papers and clothes from the sofa. He stuffed most of them under the coffee table, a young man’s version of tidying.

  “Please don’t bother cleaning,” Cleo said—another polite fib. “I just need to ask you something.”

  Ollie went the few steps to the kitchen, where he ran water over dirty pans and filled the coffee pot. Down the hall, a female voice yelled about “freezing” shower water. Ollie loped off to soothe his sputtering houseguest.

  By conventions of mannerly visiting, Cleo knew she should excuse herself and leave. She disregarded decorum and settled herself on the sofa. Ollie returned and crashed about with dishes.

  “Whitney needed a place to stay,” he said, back still turned.

  “That’s nice of you,” Cleo said. “I’ll enjoy getting to know her better.”

  Ollie poured coffee, sloshing some onto the counter. He apologized for running off from yesterday’s lunch. “Whitney remembered … no, we remembered we had … uh … something urgent,” he stammered.

  The sweet boy is a terrible liar, Cleo thought, watching him bump around his tiny kitchen.

  “Whitney loved lunch,” Ollie continued in a most blatant untruth. He brought Cleo a mug and perched on the coffee table, shoving aside some mess.

  “This is lovely coffee,” Cleo said, which was true and made Ollie smile. The shower shut off with a clanking of pipes. Cleo wanted to talk to Ollie before Whitney brought her disapproving presence. She dove right in.

  “Ollie, what have you and your girlfriend been doing out at Pancake Spring?” A paper crumpled in the sofa cushions at Cleo’s side. She pulled it out and then another, all trifolded flyers.

  Ollie’s cheeks blazed hotter. “She’s not my girlfriend, Gran,” he said.

  Cleo shifted uncomfortably, recalling her own similar protests regarding Henry. “Then what have you and your friend been doing? When I saw you at the Pancake Mill the other day, you and Mary-Rose were awfully evasive. The situation is serious now, Oliver.
Murder. The police will find out, whatever it is. Tell me, is it something to do with your environmental interests? Your volunteering?”

  “That’s it,” Ollie said. He piled a stack of magazines over loose papers, making his coffee-table clutter taller. “We’re helping Mary-Rose with spring stuff. We’re, uh, getting rid of freshwater invasive weeds.”

  Her grandson was an innocent lamb if he believed invasive weeds could be gotten rid of. Cleo wondered if Ollie had spoken to Mary-Rose, if he knew of her absurd confession. A confession blurted, Angela said, when the police asked Mary-Rose about her hobbies, activities, and activism. Cleo suspected there was more to the goings-on at Pancake Spring than pulling weeds.

  She smoothed the papers retrieved from the sofa cushions and was about to add them to the coffee table piles, when text caught her eye. S.O.S. Save Our Springs. Radical action for the preservation of Pancake Spring.

  She unfolded a page. Ollie reached for the rest. “Sorry for the mess,” he said, his voice strained. “Here, I’ll take that and throw it out.”

  Cleo kept the flyer firmly in hand. “‘Save our springs,’” she read. She added a smile, hoping to put her grandson at ease. “Catchy. So this is what you’re doing? Are you taking radical action against invasive hyacinth? Alligator weed? I could help. You know my campaign against air-potato vine knows no bounds.”

  He grinned, but the smile faded with the arrival of Whitney. She stomped down the short hall, decked out in baggy camo pants and a black tank top. She shot Ollie a dark look.

  Cleo raised her coffee cup in greeting. “Good morning. I hope I didn’t stop by too early.” Her nicety wasn’t returned.

  “I was up,” Whitney said. She went to the kitchen, where she finished off the coffee pot and banged it back into the machine unrinsed. Cleo studied her, her gaze bordering on a stare as she tried to place the young woman. She got nothing except that unsettled feeling again, like déjà vu.

  “Where did you say you’re from again, Whitney?” Cleo asked pleasantly. Whitney hadn’t actually said when questioned by cousin Dot yesterday at lunch.

  “Not here.”

  “And your relations?” Cleo persisted, as Dot too had tried.

  “Nowhere. My dad moved a lot,” Whitney snapped, eyes flashing a stop-bugging-me warning.

  “She’s with S.O.S.,” Ollie offered. “Head of the southeast division, but she’s gone all over the country saving water, right, Whit?”

  Whitney’s glare could have chilled a sizzling griddle.

  “S.O.S. is an environmental group, devoted to clean water,” Ollie continued.

  “How nice,” Cleo said, in her best grandmotherly tones. She pushed herself up from the couch, tucking the S.O.S. flyer in her pocket of her light cotton slacks. “Ollie, would you mind walking me back to the house? My knees … must be the weather.” Cleo rubbed her knees for emphasis. They did ache a little in the mornings.

  Whitney sighed and reminded Ollie of the time. “We need to get a move on, like, now.”

  “Okay,” Ollie said, sounding torn.

  Cleo felt bad, making him choose. She was about to cave and tell him she was fine.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Ollie said. “I’ll walk Gran home and be ready to go as soon as I change, okay?”

  Cleo turned to say goodbye to Whitney at the door. The girl was gone. Noises of slamming doors and drawers came from down the hall.

  “I’ve disturbed your morning and your guest,” Cleo said once outside.

  Ollie assured her that she hadn’t. “Whitney’s amazing,” he gushed as they made their way to the main house. “She’s kind of shy about all she does and where she’s from. She’s not from anyplace in particular. She’s moved all over—California, Washington, Idaho. She was in Connecticut a couple years and then went down to Florida last year to protect some other springs and manatees. When she learned about the drilling threatening Pancake Spring, she shot up here, ready to help.”

  “She found out about the drilling so quickly?” Cleo asked. “How?”

  Ollie’s grip on her elbow tightened. “I think Mary-Rose found S.O.S. online and contacted them. Whitney came up to do reconnaissance. She was going to bring in S.O.S. reinforcements, but the spring looks okay now. The machine is gone and so is Krandall.”

  Cleo worried about Ollie and his happy-go-lucky tone. They’d reached Cleo’s porch. Rhett lay on the porch swing, gently swaying. The movement reminded Cleo of Buford Krandall’s rocker.

  She took her grandson’s hand in both of hers. “Ollie,” she said, “have you spoken with Mary-Rose or Angela since yesterday?”

  His headshake confirmed her suspicion. “I tried calling Mary-Rose last night, but she didn’t answer. I’ve kinda been avoiding Dad and Angela.”

  Cleo looked up at Ollie, who was taller than her by many inches and backlit by the sun. “Mary-Rose was arrested and only got out last night. The police think they found the murder weapon in Pancake Spring.”

  “What?” Ollie said, swiping at his hair. “In the spring? Like the spring is a trash bin? Nature’s dumpster?”

  It was the shock, Cleo told herself. Shock victims often talked gibberish. “Oliver, this is serious. Mary-Rose confessed to destruction of property. She said she vandalized Mr. Krandall’s drilling machine. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

  “She confessed?” Ollie’s eyes widened. “But she, we—”

  A silhouette appeared behind Ollie. Shorter, ringed in frizzy hair, and bristling. “No, he doesn’t know anything about that.”

  Cleo gave Whitney credit. The camouflage pants worked well. She’d come around the house without Cleo noticing her and stood, fists on hips, frowning intensely at Ollie.

  “No, I—we—don’t know anything about that,” Ollie said. He scuffed dusty sandals, his head down and hair covering his eyes. His tone became defiant. “Whoever destroyed that machine did everyone and the spring and wildlife a favor. That’s probably why Mary-Rose said what she said. The police will figure out that she couldn’t have done it. Mary-Rose is strong—like you, Gran—but she couldn’t lug that heavy steel bar out there, let alone jamb it through those cogs.”

  Cleo gasped. “Oliver, how do you know—”

  Her query was cut off. “Ollie, come on,” Whitney snapped, her tone glacial. “We’ve got to go. Business.”

  They left, Ollie loping alongside Whitney’s stomping stride. Cleo waited until she heard the cottage door slam and lock. She heard another sound too. Gabby Honeywell looked over their shared fence. The deputy held a dandelion, but she didn’t try to pretend she was gardening.

  Gabby gave voice to Cleo’s question and more. “How did he know how much that bar weighed? How’d he know about the cog? What’s S.O.S.?”

  Chapter Ten

  Cleo didn’t often give thanks for Wanda Boxer as a neighbor. Wanda was a meddler, a gossip, and an all-around difficult person, not unlike her nephew, Mayor Day. Now, however, Cleo could have hugged Wanda for interrupting Gabby’s questioning. Wanda, stout and stormy, with a helmet of yellow-gold, spray-stiffened hair, stomped across Cleo’s herb garden. She brought with her an air of Monday morning righteousness and the invigorating scent of crushed thyme and rosemary.

  “That bus is an eyesore!” Wanda declared. She pointed to Words on Wheels, sitting sunnily in Cleo’s driveway, mostly under the cover of trees and always beautiful. “We have rules. Rules about RVs and trailers and boats, and buses with flame graffiti on them should be included in those rules.”

  “So we do have rules.” Cleo smiled brightly, knowing she hadn’t broken any. She politely offered Wanda coffee.

  “I have acid reflux,” Wanda snapped. “You know that, Cleo. What are you trying to do, give me heartburn before work?”

  Wanda worked in Human Resources at City Hall. Cleo thought the job an unlikely fit, given that Wanda didn’t show any liking of humans.

  Gabby narrowed her eyes, looking toward the pretty little cottage in Cleo’s backyard. The per
iwinkle door and the curtains were again shut tight.

  How did Ollie know about the machine? Cleo wanted to find out, preferably before Gabby and her colleagues did. “I’d better move my bookmobile,” she said with false cheer. “I’m off to work too. I’m meeting a contractor at the library. Busy, busy.” She made motions to leave, though she did feel sorry leaving Gabby with Wanda.

  There would be complaints, many of which Cleo had already heard. The UPS man drove too fast and honked his horn too aggressively. The couple up the street turned on a questionable number of lights. Wanda was sure they were marijuana growers. Then there was the high-pitched keening that Wanda kept hearing, yet no one else seemed able to detect. Cleo thought it might be Wanda’s own head about to explode, but she kept that theory to herself.

  “I’ll need to talk with you later,” Gabby said to Cleo.

  Cleo would never evade Gabby, who was just doing her job. “Of course. Until then, you have the perfect person to speak to right here. Wanda knows everything that goes on in City Hall. Absolutely everything.”

  Wanda couldn’t help agreeing. “I do. No one knows more about City Hall happenings than me.”

  “She’s your gal!” Cleo said encouragingly. “Wanda, tell Gabby all about that Las Vegas gambling consultant your nephew hired. Jimmy Teeks. Did I hear a rumor that Mr. Teeks has mob connections?” It wasn’t a lie. There was such a wild rumor. Cleo had started it by speculating to Henry. Even if he kept it to himself, it was still a valid rumor. She spelled Jimmy’s name for Gabby, speaking loudly over Wanda’s sputtering protests.

  Gabby was making a note.

  Cleo took a breath, in preparation for dusting off her poker bluffing skills. “And then there are Mayor Day’s troubles with Buford Krandall. Didn’t those two meet several times? Three? Four?”

  “There was only one meeting with that awful Krandall,” snapped Wanda, who loved to correct. “No more! After that, the security guard was ordered to keep Krandall out. Just because City Hall is a public building doesn’t mean you have to let everyone in.”