“And then I’ll know if we have all the aces and can bid a grand slam?”
“You’ve got it.” Linda smiled. “And six weeks ago you were telling us you were hopeless at cards.”
Well, six weeks ago I’d assumed I was hopeless at almost everything. These three ladies, though, had shown me just how wrong I’d been. True, my life was far from perfect. But at least it was mine. Although it would be nice if life could be like bridge and I could ask for aces so I’d have some idea if I held all the cards I needed to make my very own grand slam.
Sunday morning found me not out in the backyard pulling the last remaining weeds, but on my way to Cumberland Farms & Stables to negotiate for the exercise and feeding of Cupcake. Part of me knew I was sacrificing too much to hang on to the past the horse represented, but another part of me didn’t know if I could live with the guilt of telling Courtney that Cupcake had to go. If nothing else, it was a beautiful morning for a drive, and so I headed south, grateful for a reprieve from my worries over the Cannon Ball and avoiding Will, the love-struck cop.
I’d known Greta Price for years, since the day Jim bought Courtney her first pony without consulting me. He’d gotten the hugs and kisses and sparkling looks of adoration from a young Courtney. I’d gotten the task of chauffeuring her to and from the stables several times a week. As I pulled into the gravel driveway, Greta, fresh-scrubbed with hair stuffed into a ponytail, appeared from around the corner of one of the barns and gave me a jaunty wave.
“Morning, Ellie.”
I returned her greeting and joined her in the sunshine. “How are you?”
“Can’t complain.” Greta was one of those women who was either drawn to horses because she resembled them, or she had come to resemble them after spending so much time around them. She wasn’t unattractive. On the contrary, she glowed from the combination of sun, wind, and work-induced sweat.
“Thanks for taking the time for me.”
She smiled. “No problem. How’s Courtney? College going okay?”
“Well enough that she only calls home when she needs money.”
“Good.” Greta turned and started walking toward the barns, and I fell into step beside her.
“I guess you know Jim and I are divorced.”
“He mentioned it when he called.”
“Neither of us really has the means right now for Cupcake’s upkeep.”
Greta nodded sagely. “Do you want me to let folks know he’s for sale?”
“Well, actually, I was wondering if we could trade services, so to speak. I think Jim mentioned that to you.”
“He did. What is it your new company does?”
“It’s called Your Better Half. We do all the things you’re too busy to do yourself.”
“Like muck out stables?”
It took me a moment to realize she was kidding. “I’m afraid not,” I said with a laugh. “More like errands, shopping, hostessing events, things like that.”
She stopped and turned toward me. “I’d like to help you out, Ellie. You and Jim have been good customers all these years. But I just don’t need that kind of help.”
My stomach fell to the tops of my ancient running shoes. “You sure?”
“Yep.” We’d reached the door of the nearest barn. Greta opened it and motioned me inside.
The interior of the barn was cool and dark. No horses whinnied here, though. Instead, it was more of a carriage house. “What’s all this?”
Greta led me down the center of the barn toward a lighted room at the back of the building. “Carriages, wagons, pony carts. I started collecting all this stuff a few years back. Don’t get much call to use a lot of it. Folks will hire out a wagon for a hay ride or a carriage for a wedding. Pony cart for a birthday party. That kind of thing.”
“There must be twenty of them in here.”
Greta ducked her head sheepishly. “Guess I went a little bit overboard. But I’m just partial to horse-drawn travel.”
“Oh my gosh. That’s it!” The idea kicked me in the head like one of Greta’s horses. I turned toward her, and my face was probably bright enough to light up Nashville. “Do you have enough horses to pull all of these?”
“At the same time?” Greta’s brow furrowed.
“Yes. Do you have enough horses?”
She smiled. “Well, what I don’t have I could probably borrow or rent from some of the other stables in the area.”
“How much?”
“To do what?”
“To rent all of these for one night.”
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind, and maybe I had. But I was giddy with excitement.
“I don’t know. Including drivers? And would you use them here on the farm?”
“No. In town.”
Greta thought for a moment and then named a figure that stole the color from my cheeks. The number was sky high. It was also almost the exact amount of the check I’d received from Henri in the FedEx envelope yesterday.
“Could I book them for next Saturday night?”
“Are you kidding me?” Greta’s eyes darkened. “This isn’t some kind of weird joke?”
“No. I want to book all of these for next Saturday night. Could you find drivers in time?”
“They might not all be professionals. Maybe some of my experienced older students, too. Would that be okay?”
“That would be fine.”
“Well, okay. Sure. It’s a deal.”
The knowledge that it would take all the money I’d made in the last six weeks to underwrite my crazy scheme scared me, but I also knew never to look a gift horse in the mouth. So to speak.
“And about Cupcake—”
“Are you kidding?” Greta started walking toward the office again. “If you’re serious about this, Cupcake can be my guest for a couple of months. Think of it as a free gift with purchase.”
’Thanks, Greta.”
I followed her to the office where she filled out a contract. I signed my name in big, bold script. And then I thought about how even if you know when to ask for aces, you don’t always know where to ask for them. Sometimes you can find them in the most surprising places.
After all the times I’d told Jim to quit calling me, I was delighted when he phoned that evening.
“You sound happy,” he said. I laughed and told him about my conversation that morning with Greta.
“Brilliant. Although the wagons may be a bit of a stretch for some of the high-end folks.”
“I’m going to cover the benches in them with some old satin sheets and buy some fancy throw pillows. They’ll think they’re traveling in a sedan chair with a sultan’s harem.”
“You did it, Ellie. You saved Cupcake.” He actually sounded proud of me.
“Just for the short term. You’re responsible for the two months after that.”
He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “I guess I could sell my Harley. That ought to keep old Cupcake in oats for awhile.”
If I hadn’t been sitting on the couch, my knees might have buckled under me. Jim considering selling his Harley? Was the world coming to an end?
“You’d really do that?”
“I’m pretty sure Greta’s not doing this for free, and I doubt the Cannon Ball budgeted the kind of money we’re talking about for shuttle buses. You must be forking out a pretty penny.”
“I am. Now if I can just round up some more valet parking attendants.”
“How many do you need?”
My heartbeat accelerated. “About twenty. I’ve already hired most of Connor’s friends who still live here. Why, do you know where I can find some?”
“I can probably swing some of the boys from my fraternity at Vandy. I’m on the alumni advisory council.”
“They’d do it just because you’re on the advisory council?”
Jim’s sigh wasn’t one of exasperation—more like one filled with resignation. “They will when I tell them how much I’m going to donate to their house renovation fund
.”
“I thought you were broke?”
“Well, if I don’t need the Harley, I probably don’t need the boat, either.”
Okay, the world was definitely in danger of coming to an end. Jim loved his high-priced toys like Courtney loved her horses.
“You’d really do that?”
“I told you, Ellie. I’ve been a fool. If selling the Harley and the boat convinces you I’m sincere, it’s not much of a price to pay.”
I was so, so tempted to let down my guard at that moment. Even after all that had happened, I was still vulnerable to him. That thought both terrified and electrified me.
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I actually called to see what color dress you’re wearing to the ball. Thought I’d get a tie and cummerbund to match.”
I swallowed against the sudden lump in my throat. Because this man on the phone, whoever he had become, was sounding more and more each moment like the man I had married. Not the man I’d been married to.
“I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t have a dress? I gave you carte blanche at Elliott’s.”
“I know. Tomorrow. I’ll swing by there tomorrow. And I’ll let you know about the color as soon as I pick something out.”
Jim chuckled. “You really must be busy if you can’t take time to buy a ball gown.”
In the months before Jim walked out, a chuckle like that would have provoked me into a defensive outburst. Now, I could hear the affectionate bemusement in his tone.
“I guess priorities have a way of shifting.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Yes, they do. And sometimes they have a way of shifting back.”
I wasn’t ready to offer any olive branches quite yet, though. “Pick me up at five on Saturday. I need to be out there early.”
“Five?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No. No, no problem.” Although I could tell from his tone that clearly it was. Still, he didn’t balk. “Just need to reschedule a few things.”
“Okay. See you then. And Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for your help with the parking attendants.”
“My pleasure,” he said. And for the first time in a long time, I could tell that he really meant it.
I finally got to the last of the weeds in the flower bed late that afternoon. Except for Red Hat meetings, I’d studiously avoided Grace. I kept waiting for her to show up on my doorstep, exhumation order in hand, furious that I’d implicated her to Will McFarland. Instead, she showed up in my backyard carrying a long garment bag.
“There you are. I rang the bell twice and you didn’t answer.”
“Sorry.” I rocked back onto my heels and brushed the dirt off my gardening gloves. Then I leveraged myself to my feet. “Just trying to get the last bed finished.”
Grace’s gaze swept around the yard and the now-immaculate flower beds. “A good layer of mulch and you’ll be done with this first go round.”
First go round? My head swam. “There’s more?”
Grace smiled. “A real garden takes years. But you’ve got the good bones for one now.”
“So to speak.” Oops. I really hadn’t meant to bring up Marvin Etherington. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
I brushed away her question just as I’d brushed the dirt from my gloves. “What’s that?” I asked, nodding toward the garment bag in her arms.
“You said Saturday night that you didn’t have a dress for the ball.”
Oh, dear. And now she’d come to offer me the loan of one. Probably a mother-of-the-bride dress from one of her children’s weddings. I was going to have to handle this very delicately.
“That’s very thoughtful, Grace. Why don’t we have a glass of tea and you can show it to me?” I didn’t mean to sound like a teacher patronizing a student who’d brought her first show-and-tell to school.
We went inside and I poured us both iced tea in my nicest glasses, plastic tumblers that said, WORLD’S BEST BARBECUE on the side. “Okay. What have you got?”
Grace looked like the cat that ate the canary. “Something you might not be expecting.” She snagged the hanger on the kitchen door frame and then unzipped the bag. I could see a glimmer of very pale pink underneath black tulle. Grace slipped the bag from around the dress and then shook out the skirt, spilling yards and yards of the luxurious materials.
The glass of iced tea slipped from my suddenly nerveless fingers and hit the floor with a thud and a splash. “Oh my God.” The dress was magnificent.
“I wore it years ago to the Cannon Ball myself.”
“You attended the ball?” I didn’t know whether to grab a mop or grill Grace immediately. She’d been a socialite? Why hadn’t she ever mentioned it?
“Don’t move,” she ordered me, and I was still stunned enough to obey. She grabbed a dish towel from the counter and threw it over the spilled tea. Then she wiped it up and threw the towel into the sink.
Finally, though, my paralysis dissolved. I grabbed a roll of paper towels and attacked the liquid the towel had missed. “When did you go to the ball?”
“Fred Lewallen, my second husband, was a widower. His late wife had been involved in the Cannon Ball for years. We went once, after we married, but neither of us was much interested in that kind of thing.”
“And you wore this?” I rinsed off my hands, dried them thoroughly, and went to inspect the dress more closely. It was as beautiful up close as it had been from across the room. The strapless pink satin sheath was covered with rows of black tulle that stood out like little ruffles. “Wait a minute. Is this—?”
“Chanel? Yes, it is.”
I had thought the robin’s egg blue suit deserved to be worshipped and adored, but clearly it was only a minor deity in the pantheon of fashion. Before me at this moment was the true goddess.
“You’re going to let me wear your vintage Chanel?” And then the guilt returned. “I can’t.”
Grace frowned. “What do you mean you can’t? It should fit.” Then she smiled. “I used to be taller. And have a little more meat on my bones.”
If only the mess I’d made for Grace was as easy to clean up as the spilled tea. I swallowed the lump in my throat and summoned my courage. “I don’t think you’ll want to loan me this dress when you hear what I have to say.”
And so I confessed my sins to the Queen of Spades.
How I’d unwittingly made Will McFarland suspect her. How he was going to be showing up with an exhumation order in his hand any day now. How I’d embroiled her in a murder investigation without meaning to. And to my surprise, she laughed.
“Grace? This isn’t funny. It’s very serious.”
“Ellie, I’ve known for weeks where that policeman got his information. And he delivered the exhumation order several days ago.”
I blanched. “And you’re not mad at me?”
Grace walked toward me and patted my cheek. “I know you didn’t mean any harm. And to tell you the truth, I wasn’t at all surprised when you found Marvin’s remains.”
“You weren’t? Why not?”
“Why not?” She smiled sadly. “Because I helped put him there.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Making a Slam
You what?” Surely Grace didn’t mean what I thought she meant.
“I helped put Marvin Etherington in that hole.”
“You mean you killed him?”
Grace waved an impatient hand. “No, of course not. Flossie did that. I just helped her bury him.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” And why didn’t she look more concerned? Or anxious? Or guilty?
“She didn’t mean to kill him when she threw the spade at him. He’d just knocked her around pretty good, and she thought he was going after the girls next. I guess she didn’t know her own strength. He told her he had no intention of giving her a divorce, and if she tried, he’d make sure the girls were taken away from her
.” Grace shivered. “She knew what would happen to those girls if they were left alone with Marvin.”
“But—”
“I told you this before, when you first moved in. Things were different back then. Marvin had no family to mourn him, and no one was going to miss him except the string of floozies he carried on with.” For the first time, emotion colored her cheeks. “I was not going to let those little girls grow up without their mother. She made a mistake—a terrible one—but there was no battered wife defense in those days. Flossie would have been thrown in jail and left there to rot.”
I sagged against the counter, all the fight drained out of me. Grace had a point, but she’d also just confessed her role in helping to cover up a murder. “What are we going to do?” I asked.
“Do?” Grace took a sip of her tea. “Well, you’re going to go try on this dress, and then I’m going to alter it so you can wear it Saturday night.”
“Grace, we can’t pretend like all of this never happened. You have to tell Officer McFarland the truth.”
Grace reached up and unhooked the hanger from the door frame. She carefully draped the gown across her arms. “I don’t have to do any such thing. It wouldn’t make a bit of difference to anyone at this late date.”
“But Marvin’s daughters?”
“They both died young, God rest their souls. One to cancer, the other in a car crash. At least they didn’t spend the years they had burdened with the knowledge of their mother’s crime.”
“And you still think that’s best? Keeping it a secret?”
Grace nodded. “I’ve seen a lot of life, Ellie, and I know one thing for sure. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.”
Was she right? And if I didn’t think she was, what was I willing to do about it?
“Come on, now,” Grace said. “Come try on this dress.” And since I didn’t know what else to do, I followed her out of the room.
Jim? It’s me.” I twirled the phone cord around my finger as I’d done when we were dating. If I’d been sitting on the bed in my dorm room instead of standing in my kitchen on Woodlawn Avenue, it could easily have been the Ellie of thirty years ago calling her new boyfriend.
The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue Page 18