“Eventually, but not right now. Tell me about watermarks,” I said.
“Ha. You first,” he said.
“Okay, we don’t have a lot of time. I had a visit from Leo Murray.”
“Of course you did.”
“Why are you always saying that to me? Am I that predictable? Never mind. Before Leo came, I entertained Jeanine Larkin.”
“Who?”
“I’m sure you’ve met her. Maddie’s baby-sitter, now a SuperKrafts employee.” Skip nodded. “She’s the one who wrote the notes to Catherine Duncan.”
I always enjoyed surprising my nephew. He looked at me intently and scratched his head. “What? I’m all ears.”
I gave Skip the short form of Jeanine’s story.
“Way too weird,” Skip said. “If this is true, Bebe needs help. If she can’t eliminate her enemies, she pits them against each other?”
“It looks that way. Are you going to check it out?”
“You bet.”
“Are Jeanine and Dana in a lot of trouble?”
“Don’t worry. You absolutely did the right thing telling us this time.”
“This time?” I asked.
“I’m assuming you saw the notes, before we did.”
I cleared my throat. “What makes you say that?”
“From the way you talked about them. You didn’t say, ‘Catherine got some notes,’ or ‘There were some notes.’ You talked about them as if you’d already dealt with the fact that the notes exist. Jeanine was telling you who sent them. Leo was just giving you information about the paper. My guess is that Catherine showed them to you right when she got them. How am I doing?”
“I told Catherine immediately that she should take them to you. I didn’t—”
Skip held up his hand. “I’m sure you tried to get her to do the right thing. We’ll check out Jeanine’s story, but it’s looking like some stand-alone unfortunate play on Bebe’s part, taking advantage of a couple of unthinking teenagers only too willing to accept easy cash. There doesn’t seem to be any connection to Palmer’s murder.”
“So all we need to do now is find out if Catherine really is guilty.”
“Aunt Gerry, when I say ‘we’ I don’t mean you and me.”
“Point taken. I’m still curious about the watermark. How did you find it?”
“Through the usual analysis, looking for prints or any distinguishing marks on the paper.”
“Why would anyone use one in the first place? I thought they were for security, like on passports or bank documents or something official.”
“Also for status. You’d be surprised how many we see.” Skip started to laugh. “Want to know what Leo’s mark was?” I nodded. “The head of a lion with his initials, L.M. making a wreath around its neck. Gotta love those proud, roaring New Yorkers.”
I tried hard not to, but ended up joining in Skip’s laughter. We were having such a good time, I almost forgot that Catherine was still in jail. Our loud glee brought Maddie running. She’d been so intent on getting the table set up perfectly, she’d forgotten she was missing something big in the atrium.
My guilty pleasure, making fun of Leo’s personality traits, was cut short when I realized I hadn’t told Maddie that Henry and Taylor were coming to lunch. I revisited my invitation to them, especially with other guests here, familiar as we all were with each other. Maybe I’d been too quick to respond, before I knew what Taylor had in mind. How sure was Henry that Taylor was ready to make up, and not simply about to make things worse with the equivalent of a Dear John letter?
“I have something to do in my bedroom,” I told Skip and Maddie. I needn’t have worried; they’d already picked up their hand-slapping game. As I passed the dining room I noticed the long table set for five. I told myself that making room for two more would be a very happy task.
I sat on the chair next to my bed and punched in Henry’s number.
“We’re on our way,” he said. “I stopped to pick up some dessert. That chocolate cheesecake that Maddie likes, from the Swiss bakery.”
“Henry, I have to ask—”
“I don’t blame you for being anxious, Gerry. But I promise. If Maddie will accept Taylor’s apology, everything will be fine. Taylor was very moved by Maddie’s letter and she wants to tell her in person. Oh, and, by the way, no young males involved. Whew.”
“ ‘Whew’ is right. Okay, see you soon.”
I hung up feeling a little better—the word “apology” sounded better at least than “discuss,” which was too much like the ominous “We have to talk.” I still wasn’t sure whether I should give Maddie a warning.
Buzz, buzz. Buzz, buzz.
My doorbell and phone were making lots of decisions for me lately. If that marked me as a faltering, irresolute character, so be it. I heard shouts of “Welcome” as I walked toward the front of the house and saw Bev and June arrive together, each carrying a sack.
“Good thing I was handy,” June said. “Bev brought enough food for an army.”
“Or for seven hungry people,” I said, causing everyone to either raise eyebrows or count or both.
I made a decision and this time it was Maddie I coaxed to the side. I led her to her bedroom, watching her eyes grow larger and more wary with each step. She sat on her bed, leaving the rocker for me.
“Taylor’s coming?” she asked. Smarter than I was ready for, every time.
“Is that okay? Uncle Henry told me she’d like to apologize.”
Now I was worried her eyes would never go back to normal. “Really?”
“Uh-huh. It might be a little tricky with everyone here, so that’s why I wanted to let you know ahead of time.”
“Wow,” she said.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Buzz, buzz. Buzz, buzz.
Maddie jumped as if we were sitting on the epicenter of at least a seven-point-five.
“You might want to wait—”
But Maddie was already on her way to answer the door. I felt like hiding in her room until peace had descended on all couples in the universe.
* * *
Coward that I am, I waited a few minutes in Maddie’s bedroom, pretending to be busy at my computer. Hadn’t I done enough for all the affected parties out there, buzzing around my house? I’d come forward with key information for Skip regarding Catherine Duncan’s notes; June and Skip thought I’d been a big help with their relationship issue; and I was providing my home for a reconciliation lunch for Maddie and Taylor. I’d earned a little respite.
I’d had about two minutes of it when Maddie, Taylor, and Henry came to find me.
“Grandma, we were looking for you,” Maddie said.
“I was just a few steps away,” I said, with what was probably a foolish grin.
Taylor gave me a big hug. “Aunt Gerry, I missed you. Thanks for inviting us to lunch.”
“Let’s go eat,” Henry said to me.
I took his arm, mock-formal, and we left the room, leaving the girls behind. So far, so good, but I expected a full report at bedtime with Maddie. Then Henry stopped to hug me, and all was well.
* * *
The lunch fairies, led by Bev, had rummaged in my cupboards for platters and bowls and had arranged sandwiches and enough sides to fill a deli counter—fruit salad, potato salad, leafy greens, a tomato and mozzarella mix, and a creamy cole slaw. In the center sat a huge chocolate cheesecake.
In the kitchen, I helped Beverly prepare the drinks. “It looks good for Taylor and Maddie, huh?” she whispered. I nodded and showed her crossed fingers.
Bev was six years younger than her late brother Ken and I, but with her fair skin and her hair a lovely shade of red, she looked at least ten or twelve years younger, as I’d often told her.
“It all comes in a bottle now, Gerry,” she’d say whenever I complimented her hair especially. “You, too, can be gray-free.”
“Maybe on my next salon visit,” I’d say, though we both knew I’d never spend the t
ime and energy on hair maintenance. I’d stick with admiring the outcome on someone who did.
Conversation around the table was understandably rife with cross-talk, making it fun, but difficult to follow one thread for very long.
“Where’s Nick?” Skip asked his mom.
Bev raised her chin and looked at me. She delivered her answer smoothly. “He’s out buying shoes.”
“Funny,” I said.
From another corner I heard Maddie and Taylor.
“Really?” Maddie had just said.
“Yeah, and I’ll use yours for a week,” Taylor replied.
“Grandma, Taylor said we can swap phone cases for a week. Hers is really cool.” She held it up for me to see. “It has all these really sparkly crystals.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, dutifully.
Skip and June, at the other end of the table from me, shared their plans with whoever was listening.
“We’re going to take a vacation as soon as the Palmer case is closed,” Skip said. June nudged him. “And also, matching the time to June’s workload,” he added.
Bev gave a thumbs-up to her son. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“Tahoe,” Skip and June said together. A good sign.
The very large Lake Tahoe, a four-hour drive from Lincoln Point, was once ranked “Best Lake in America” though I still preferred the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, where Ken and I had visited often. But Tahoe was handier, and offered all the water sports Skip and June loved.
The impromptu lunch party, which started at about two o’clock, ran into late afternoon. No one was in a hurry to leave, and I liked that. When the break came, we went off in twos and threes. Henry and the girls went in one direction, toward his home workshop where he’d been helping them make jewelry boxes. “Grandpa is going to show us how to use the sander on a piece of wood,” Taylor told me, giving me a good-bye hug. She’d been especially affectionate toward me all afternoon. I could hardly wait to get the backstory at Maddie’s bedtime.
Skip and June went in the other direction, but not before Skip whispered to me, “I’ll be ba-aaaack,” imitating a character in a movie, I thought, but couldn’t think of which one. “Will you be up around eleven?”
“For you, any time,” I said, though his visit would really be for me.
Before I knew it, Bev whisked me into her car and drove us to a mall. “At last,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in ages.”
“You have a lot going on,” I said, as we pulled into a parking spot. “Once you have your shoes, you’ll feel a lot better.” I couldn’t remember another time when I’d recommended retail therapy instead of ice cream and cookies to relieve stress.
Bev hit the buttons to lower the windows and parked her SUV. She reached around to the floor behind her and brought up a plastic bag with a shoe box inside, not saying a word. She opened the box and I peered at a pair of elegant sling-back sandals—green shoes, the same shade as her dress, as near as I could recall.
“What’s this? I love them. When did you buy these?”
“Two weeks ago. It was never about shoes, Gerry. I just needed to talk to you.”
Was I that hard to get? “What’s up? Are you okay?”
The first thing that always came to mind when Bev was fatigued or indicated that a serious conversation was coming up, was her physical well-being. Although she looked fit and healthy, she carried with her the remnants of childhood scarlet fever, which had weakened her heart. Too many times in our life together as sisters-in-law, I’d sat in a hospital waiting room with Ken after one of her episodes. We were more optimistic now because of advances in heart surgery and medicine, but the worry was always there.
Bev waved my concern away. “It’s not health-related,” she said. “It’s wedding-related.”
“Tell me,” I said, dreading what I’d hear.
“I’m getting married,” she said. I waited for real news. “I’ll have a new husband.” Still nothing I didn’t know. “My son will have a stepfather who’s a guy he used to work with on the force.” More waiting. Finally, after more obvious announcements, like “I love Nick,” Bev asked me a question. “Do you think it’s okay?”
I didn’t know where to start. Should I remind her that it had been twenty years since Skip’s dad died? No one could accuse her of being quick to replace him. Should I mention that Skip clearly loved and admired Nick? I could bring up the fact that Skip had tried to set Nick and me up before it became clear where Nick’s attention was focused.
“How could it not be okay?” I asked. “Everyone who knows either of you is thrilled.”
Bev’s eyes teared up and her voice was sad. “But I’ll be a happy wife.”
But? “And you don’t deserve it?”
Bev shrugged. “It’s hard. Skip lost his dad.”
“Through no fault of yours.”
“He’ll never get his father back.”
“He knows that,” I said. “And he’s not replacing him with Nick. You’re all adults. Skip doesn’t really need a father now. He’ll be one himself before we know it.”
Bev’s head snapped up. “Really? Do you know something?”
I laughed, in spite of the heavy air in the car. “No, I didn’t mean to imply that. I meant ‘eventually,’ not necessarily ‘soon.’ But the fact is, you’re marrying Skip’s friend, and we know he’s happy about it. He’ll have a good buddy who’s also part of his family. How great is that? Any more questions?”
Bev shook her head and ran a wad of tissues over her face. “No more questions. I guess I just needed to hear you say it.”
I couldn’t believe I’d said anything I hadn’t been saying since she and Nick started dating. But I’d do or say whatever it took, as many times as necessary, to set Bev’s mind at ease. I knew she’d do the same for me. Not that I’d ever need her to.
Chapter 18
I arrived home after a brief shopping spree during which Bev picked up the personalized jewelry she’d ordered for her attendants—too late for me to recommend watermarked stationery. The number 2 blinked on my landline answering machine. Only one message, from Maddie, came up when I turned my cell back on. I’d wanted to be fully available to Bev during our heavy conversation.
The message from Maddie was a simple notice that she’d be having dinner with Taylor and the Baker family and I was invited and please come. She sounded so happy, I thought of capturing the recording and saving it, along with the one or two (or three hundred) other precious items I’d collected over her short span of life. I talked myself out of keeping the recording, mostly because I didn’t know how to do it. I also talked myself out of joining them for dinner. Not only was I still full from the late lunch, but I needed some time alone to arrange all the pieces of information I had that involved SuperKrafts and the murder of one of its managers.
I sat at my kitchen counter and punched the button for my voice mail. As I waited for the first message on my landline, I sorted through the mail from the post office, relieved not to be searching for a letter from Taylor. Loretta Olson’s voice came through the speaker.
“Hi, Gerry. It was great to see you and Maddie at the inn this morning. You’ll have to come back for lunch some time. I talked to Amelia and she assured me that no broken glass was found in any of the rooms the day after the earthquake. Or ever, that she can remember. Hope that helps. Whatever. See you.”
No broken glass. Whatever. I dug around in my purse for The Chart. I had the older, unedited version that Maddie had printed out for our trip to KenTucky Inn, but it would do. Megan was listed as telling me that a glass broke, and I remembered that later she’d told Jeanine that “some things” broke. But so what? Megan Sutley exaggerated. We were all in trouble if a little hyperbole was a crime. Especially when we talked about earthquakes. “Nothing happened” is not a good story (though that was Leo’s); a little fiction makes things more interesting. I remembered allegedly true stories that were passed around during the meet
ing of my crafts group a few days after the last major quake to affect the San Jose area. Some anecdotes rivaled what might have been depicted in a movie version.
The only thing that concerned me about Megan was that, according to Loretta, she was scheduled to fly back to New York tomorrow. I’d have to check with Skip, but I would have thought a “don’t leave town” rule would apply to all persons of interest in an open homicide case. Maybe the police had already decided they weren’t interested in Megan.
I put on water for tea as I listened to the next message, from Jeanine.
“Hi, Mrs. Porter. This is Jeanine. Um, you probably know my voice. (Chuckle) I want you to know that me and Dana are going to the police station tomorrow morning. I also forgot to tell you that when I was waiting for you in your atrium I saw a crystal that I think is the one Ms. Sutley lost from her cell phone case. She’s been looking for it and I told her I thought you might have it. So, in case she calls you, that’s why. Um, thanks for everything today. I’m at work if you need to reach me.”
Too little, too late, as far as turning themselves in, but I was glad “me and Dana” had come to the right decision. Whether—as a result of my snitching—Skip would contact them before they got to him, remained to be seen. I couldn’t worry about it. In other circumstances, I’d have called and offered to help Jeanine if she needed help with last minute tasks before tomorrow’s informal opening. But now I had no desire to see her or talk to her in person until I knew what would transpire with the police, if it hadn’t already.
Bebe was another story, and I intended to ask Skip what he planned to do about her. I hadn’t decided what I would do about her either. She was beyond reasonable discussion as far as I was concerned. After hearing of her crazy scheme to hassle Catherine, I couldn’t put anything past her. Even murder. Her false confession might have been another scheme. Distract the police with an obviously unlikely story, so they wouldn’t look more closely.
While I let my tea sit a few minutes, I paid a visit to the blue-green bead I’d found at SuperKrafts while I wandered around the store on Sunday afternoon. I hadn’t looked closely at the bead since I’d noticed it in the dim light of the store. I picked it up now and turned it around in my hand. I saw that the bead was indeed a crystal that might have been glued to the case. Crystals were not my field of expertise, but even so, studying it now, I could tell this item was more pricey than the crystal-like beads on the racks of SuperKrafts or on Taylor’s phone case. No wonder Megan was looking for it. I placed it back in the bowl, far from my crafts room where it might not be seen again for years.
7 Madness in Miniature Page 21