“Thanks.” He sounded a wee bit chagrined. “I was afraid I’d crush them if I put them down, and those are the last of this year’s asters and yellow buttons. We struggle to keep the church garden filled with native wildflowers.”
Proud of the churchyard that perennially won the Natural Public Garden Award from the local Rotary Club, he puffed his chest like a bantam rooster; then, remembering why he’d brought the flowers, he raised one bushy gray eyebrow and lowered his voice. “How is Augusta doing?”
“Needing a prayer or two with Delia dead and all,” Augusta rumbled from the doorway.
I hurried to her side and tried to steer her back to the living room and her comfortable chair, but she jerked away with a strength that contradicted her size. “I can sit right here, thank you.”
She pulled a chair out from the dining table and plunked down hard on the seat. “Glad you’re here, Pastor. We got work.”
Pastor John struggled to express his condolence, but Augusta brushed him away like a swarm of no-see-ums. “Lots to do. We need to get Delia’s funeral service exactly right.”
Not one to give up, Pastor tried to hand her the large yellow and white spray of flowers, but Augusta pushed them off to me and started outlining her plans.
As I took the flowers to the kitchen, I heard Augusta telling Pastor to have the organist practice “I’ll Fly Away.” I smiled. As if practice would be needed. I’d listened to that plaintively joyful hymn at nearly every funeral I’d attended since coming south.
I puttered around the kitchen, checking supplies and making lists until I heard another knock at the door. Augusta boomed, “Come on in.”
John’s wife, Jocelyn, opened the screen door, and I was surprised to see that she was carrying a straw basket covered with a gaily striped dish towel.
“The muffins weren’t quite ready when John came over with the bean salad so I had to stay behind for a bit.” She sounded contrite, as if not showing up with two courses of a meal at the same time was a severe failing. However contentious Jocelyn might be at book club meetings, when circumstances required, she habitually slipped right into her role as docile pastor’s wife.
“I wanted to bring everything at once, but John was in such a hurry. Pastoral duties and all. Still, a clergyman’s wife gets used to having to rush when the unfortunate happens.”
“What’s all that whispering out there?” Augusta banged her hand on the table like a schoolteacher demanding silence.
Jocelyn startled. “It’s me, Miss Augusta. I brought some muffins.”
“Thanks for your kindness, but Pastor and me have plans to make. We need quiet.”
I nearly giggled at the stricken look on Jocelyn’s face. She was having trouble staying in her clergy spouse role. I pushed her into the kitchen and closed the door.
“If we keep it low, we should be able to sit in here. Can I get you a glass of tea?”
Jocelyn set the muffins on a placemat in the center of the scarred wooden table and sat gingerly on the edge of a rickety chair. She glanced at the door as if she feared Augusta would barrel through and toss us out into the road if we disturbed her again. I moved the pitcher of sweet tea right in front of her and she nodded.
I set out glasses, poured the tea and sat, grateful for the opportunity to relax for a few minutes.
Jocelyn took a sip or two and then leaned back in her chair. She pulled a bright blue fan out of her purse and slid it open, revealing a large white ibis holding its head high, with its long, thin beak pointing majestically to an orange sun. She flapped the fan in front of her face while using a tissue to tap at her brow.
She dropped the tissue on the table and gave a wry smile. “Soon enough, Sassy. Soon enough you’ll be flashing and sweating and wondering where your waistline has gone. Count your blessings for the years between now and then. The day will come when an hour in the kitchen with the oven on is like working in a blasting furnace.”
I nodded in sympathy. I’d often heard these same complaints from my mother. I bit my tongue before I said that out loud.
After a moment of silence in memory of her declining estrogen, Jocelyn folded her fan and leaned across the table whispering as though we were coconspirators.
“I know you were close to Delia. Tell me what happened?”
My mind sifted through the bits I’d picked up from Cady and sorted what I could comfortably say. “Well, the mail carrier found her this morning. She was . . . she was already beyond help.”
I hesitated, still trying to decide what to reveal, but Jocelyn heaved a loud, impatient sigh. “That’s old news, Sassy.” With a flutter of her fan, she dismissed my reluctance to say more. “I want to know how she died.” She snapped the fan shut and tapped my forearm sharply. “Everyone knows you’re on the friendly side with the newspaper reporter.” She arched her eyebrows to let me know her definition of “friendly.” “If he knows something, you know it, too. Now tell me.” And she rapped my knuckles with the fan.
Much as I cherished living on this island paradise, the lack of personal privacy often drove me crazy. If you sneezed in Bowditch Point Park, people as far south as Lovers Key were soon calling to say Gesundheit.
Searching for a response less vague than Cady’s just a friend. Why would he tell me anything? I was saved by Augusta’s summons. She had me call Fern to let her know that she and Pastor were ready to leave for the funeral parlor, but Fern was finishing up with another client and said she’d call Pastor as soon as she was free.
Back in the kitchen, Jocelyn had drained her glass and was standing by the table smoothing her beige linen skirt with both hands; the fan was no longer in sight, which, since I was starting to view it as weapon, was fine with me.
“Never let it be said that a pastor’s wife is less than honest. You may be tight with information, but I am obligated to tell you what I know. That skull man? The itinerant? He’s been hanging around Delia’s house more often than not. Does your news-writing beau know about that? And the sheriff? Did anyone bother to tell the sheriff? I’d say you have some work to do, Sassy. You owe it to Delia.”
And she turned on the clunky heels of her open-toed tan sandals and charged through the kitchen door. I followed in time to hear her say to the pastor, “See you at home, John.” It sounded more like a threat than a welcome. Poor man.
I was wiping the kitchen tabletop when Augusta called me back into the dining room. Her face was sunken as if she had suddenly lost all her back teeth, and there were cavernous shadows under her eyes. In the few hours since Cady and I told her about Delia, Augusta had aged ten years. I prayed the next few days wouldn’t kill her. Augusta asked Pastor to give us a few minutes alone. He excused himself, saying he’d be on the porch if we needed him.Augusta offered me a chair.
“Sassy, you’ve been a true friend and I’m sure going to call on you again, but me and Pastor have to make the tough arrangements with Fern and Mr. Beech down at the funeral parlor. I’m going to be busy, so I need you to take care of things for me.”
I squeezed her hand and nodded gently. I would do whatever she needed to help her get through these trying times. Of course I was still thinking more in terms of notifying folks and keeping the house neat and the kitchen well stocked during the wake and funeral. But Augusta continued to focus on finding the killer, or killers. Worse, she was sure she knew exactly who they were.
“Find me them wish-we-were-wrecker boys and the man that’s running them on these islands. They’re looking for treasure, no matter it’s not theirs to find or to keep. Delia knew a lot about the old days and where things are hid. I think them boys tried to find out from her and the talking moved to pushing and shoving.”
I gasped. If Jocelyn had left me unsure of what to say, Augusta left me downright speechless.
From the porch Pastor John called through the screen door, “I spoke to Fern. They are ready to see us, Miss A
ugusta.”
She put her hands on the table and pushed herself up with the exhaustive effort of a crew hoisting a beached whale back to the sea. She grabbed on to me so suddenly that I feared she’d lost her balance. I leaned in to steady her. Then she whispered in my ear.
“Find them wreckers.”
Chapter Seven ||||||||||||||||||||
I walked Augusta outside and handed her over to Pastor John, but not before I insisted she lock her front door. After they drove away I sank down on Augusta’s front steps for the second time in a few short hours. I pulled my cell out of my pocket to check the trolley schedule. Like magic, as soon as I touched the phone, it rang. Bridgy’s face popped on the screen. She must be having quite the day with me MIA and Miguel in the hospital. OMG, Miguel’s surgery. I tapped the line open and started talking.
“How’s Miguel? I forgot—”
“He’s doing better. I ran over to see him about an hour ago. He’s thrilled to have family members around and he’s loaded with pain meds, so he thinks he’s in Miami and no one wants to tell him he’s not. His cousin came down last night, his sister arrived this morning and an aunt is on her way from Orlando.”
Aunt! I thought of Ophie. “Speaking of aunts, how did—”
Bridgy cut me off, told me she was ready to pick me up and asked when I would be able to leave Augusta’s house.
My “now” was so forceful that I was both surprised and dismayed by my overwhelming relief that Pastor John had slipped into the job of “helper of the bereaved,” leaving me free to move back into my own life, even if only until tomorrow. I needed a stress break.
Back in my Brooklyn days, life was frantic, frenetic even.
Our first months in Florida were even more chaotic. Finding a place to live. Opening the Read ’Em and Eat. We had to decide which books our clients would be dying to read, not to mention developing a menu that would bring folks back time and again. I remember a day I was feeling like Dorothy tumbling through the tornado on her way to Oz, when a teenager wearing oversized sunglasses and an undersized tank top came in to ask if we had a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale. We’d made a decision not to stock merely the usual “beach reads,” and I was excited that, apparently, the word was beginning to spread. Vacationers who can’t quite let go of their need to be productive often want to exercise their brains while their bodies recline in pillowed lounge chairs. Even with a “thinking person’s book” in hand, most readers often wound up nodding off to the sound of waves cresting no more than a few feet west of their blankets and umbrellas. As long as they felt they were doing something purposeful with their lounge time, they’d buy lots of books, heavy in both content and size.
I led the girl to the corner shelf where I had stashed the dystopian novels a few days before. Awwk! In my unending quest to make the books orderly and accessible, I must have moved them. Now that shelf was filled with various texts on learning to speak foreign languages. My head swiveled, eyes wide and searching.
The teen flipped her sunglasses atop her sun-streaked hair. “Don’t get all cray-cray. You look like you’re trying out for a remake of The Exorcist. If you don’t have the Atwood book, it’s no biggie.”
I kept searching but I couldn’t find the book, and I felt myself shredding like confetti right in front of the poor child.
I was astonished when she grabbed my shoulders. “Chillax. Take a breath. Now another. Slow. Your. Breathing.” I felt myself relax even as I was wondering—who is this kid?
Now sitting on Augusta’s steps, I thought about the enduring lifeline Holly, the girl I met that day, and her yoga instructor mom, Maggie, had tossed to Bridgy and me during our first year in Fort Myers Beach. I closed my eyes, turned my face to the sun and slowed my breathing.
By the time Bridgy pulled up in front of the house, I was calm enough to start thinking about Augusta’s final command. She wanted me to find the wreckers. And then what?
We’d barely walked through the door of the Read ’Em and Eat when Aunt Ophie began hovering, her hands fluttering around me like butterflies searching for a welcoming branch to sit on.
“Why, gracious me, you poor chile! How did you survive all these hours dealing with such an awful, awful tragedy? Come sit down over here. This eye-catching gentleman has been fraught with worry waiting for you.”
And she led me to the Alex Haley table, where Cady sat hunched over his laptop. He folded the top down, stood and pulled out a chair for me, asking precisely the right question as he did so.
“How is Augusta?”
I told them everything that happened at Augusta’s house. Hearing about my being set out on the front porch, so to speak, Ophie clicked her tongue and opined that law enforcement officers should be taught decent manners right at the start of their career and get refreshers from time to time. When I mentioned Jocelyn, Bridgy rolled her eyes and said, “For all the virtuous works he does, John’s passkey to heaven will actually be earned by living with that woman.”
After more questions and answers than I thought the situation required, my interrogators finally ran out of steam. Bridgy and Aunt Ophie began the usual close-down tasks, leaving me to sit, restfully and conversationless, with Cady. After a few golden moments of silence, he gently patted my hand and asked, “Are you okay?”
I nodded and then looked around to see how much privacy we had. Bridgy and Ophie were cleaning the kitchen. Still, I decided to whisper for fear that if they heard us talking they’d come back to the dining area afraid to miss any gossip.
I reassured Cady that I was fine and then shared my concerns about Augusta.
“She is set on bringing Delia’s killer to justice.”
Cady leaned in to pat my hand sympathetically.
“The thing is . . . she wants me to help her find the killer.”
Cady pulled his hand away as if mine had turned into a burning coal.
“Of all the scatterbrained ideas! You and Augusta trying to find a murderer! How would you even start?”
Even though I knew the question was rhetorical, I lowered my head ever so slightly until I’d arranged my features to look like a puppy pleading for one more treat. Then I raised my head and looked him straight in the eye.
He got my message and rejected it instantly.
“Absolutely not. There is no way I am going to help you put yourself in danger. And Augusta! At her age she shouldn’t be considering anything more strenuous than . . . than . . . a book club meeting.”
His face was bursting with finality, but I wasn’t one to give up easily.
“We wouldn’t actually investigate. I thought that with your help and Ryan’s we could let Augusta know how the inquiry is progressing so she would know things before she read them in the paper.” I watched him soften. “And when she has a question, I’d ask you or Ryan and get her the answer.”
His eyes were hardening again.
“Unless the information is confidential. Naturally we couldn’t expect to learn any confidential information.”
As I watched his face, always transparent, I could see the side of his brain that labeled my plan foolish and ridiculous wrestling with the side that strived to be Boy Scout helpful.
I held my breath, then his expression changed and I knew the Boy Scout had won.
I exhaled even before he started laying out ground rules. Half listening to Cody’s safety list, I haphazardly nodded now and again while preparing to casually ask what he knew about any wrecker crews working in the area. I was willing to bat an eyelash or two if it would help get the information I wanted.
Cady wrapped up with, “I mean it, Sassy.”
I lowered my eyelids as meekly as I could and planned to gaze through my lashes while I agreed to obey, thus lulling him into a false sense of security before I brought up the wreckers.
Aunt Ophie came bursting through the kitchen door, shattering the mood I wa
s working so hard to build.
“I think this awful day has left every one of us worn.” She stood with her hands on her hips and rocked back and forth on the impossibly high heels that she’d pranced in on so many hours earlier. “I told my darlin’ niece that a relaxing dinner would do us all a world of good. And she agrees. We’re going to enjoy a leisurely meal at that gorgeous restaurant with the great seafood. You know, the one set right on the water.”
Unaware that she had described most of the restaurants in Fort Myers Beach, she gave a “that settles that” clap of her hands and turned back toward the kitchen, untying her long white chef’s apron as she walked.
The always logical Cady opened his mouth, and I could see the question coming. He’d be asking which seafood restaurant Ophie was planning on visiting. I shook my head to stop him. He threw me a quizzical look and I explained.
“No point in starting a Q&A. Ophie’ll only confuse you. She’ll play some combination of Charades and Twenty Questions for the fun of making us dizzy. Besides, I’m too tired for dinner. I want to go home.”
Cady stood immediately and offered to drive, but that wasn’t what I wanted.
“You are sweet but I need exercise. I think I’ll walk, and if I want to speed things up, I’ll jump on the trolley.”
I tiptoed across the room, barely slowing at the kitchen pass-through to declare my intention. Then I slipped out the front door before Bridgy and Ophie could delay me with a barrage of objections and/or questions. Poor Cady—they were sure to hold him accountable for my vanishing act, but I needed to spend time by myself.
I turned off my cell phone as I crossed Estero Boulevard and zipped along until I found myself on the sun-bleached sand bordering the always vibrant Gulf of Mexico. I slid out of my sandals and buckled them around a belt loop on my shorts. I meandered around the late-day sunbathers and a few energetic volleyball players, until I reached the wet sand at the water’s edge. Peeking out of the foam-encrusted seaweed dropped by a fresh wave was a pink twirled seashell looking for all the world like a spiral of strawberry frozen yogurt curled up in a Menchie’s cup. I was fairly certain it was a tulip shell. I shook it to make sure that it was empty and put it in my pocket for Bridgy, who was becoming quite the expert on all things related to mollusks. As the salty water stroked my feet, I stood and looked across the Gulf to the sun floating above the horizon. It didn’t take a brainiac to anticipate a magnificent sunset was on its way. Dazzling southwest Florida sunsets are as predictable as shells and seaweed along the beach.
Well Read, Then Dead (Read Em and Eat Mystery) Page 5