Electric Blue

by Nancy Bush

  Out of my peripheral view I noticed a side building. I turned to look at it and saw that it was a playhouse. Child’s size. Its front door was bright red and freshly painted. The rest of it looked scary and decrepit. Worse than the house, even.

  The door in front of me swung slowly inward revealing a gloomy interior. I had a mad desire to sing cheerily, “Avon calling!” but managed to hold myself back.

  A figure moved into view. A slight, middle-aged man, his skin wrinkled in that used-up kind of way, blinked at me in the quickly fading light. “Yes?”

  “Hi, I’m Jane Kelly. Jasper—Jazz—invited me to meet him here?” I couldn’t help making it sound like a question. I was hoping somehow this skinny guy would help me out.

  His expression grew faintly anxious. “Here?”

  I wasn’t sure whether to go into the whole thing about Orchid and her mental condition. I thought about trotting out a lie but sensed that might get in my way in the long run. I opted for a nod and a bright smile.

  “Jazz doesn’t live here.” He glanced behind him, as if he were afraid of imparting a huge family secret.

  “He said his grandmother lived here. Should I wait outside?”

  This really threw him off. He clearly didn’t know what to do with me. After a hesitation that lasted long enough to embarrass us both, he finally stepped from the gloom onto the porch. “I’m not sure if I should have you come in. The family’s here.” He tossed another glance to the still open door.

  I got my first good look at him. He definitely carried the Purcell gene for attractiveness, even with his dried-up appearance and mannerisms. His eyes were gray-blue and his hair was thick and lustrous, only shot sparsely with gray. If he’d given any thought to physical fitness, which by his stooped posture and generally soft appearance didn’t seem possible, he would be one good-looking man. I pegged him somewhere in his late fifties but it was hard to tell. He could have been much younger. He just seemed old.

  His worry about “the family” was starting to amuse me. Or, maybe it was just relief that I didn’t have to go inside without Jazz. I leaned forward and whispered, “Should I wait in my car, then?”

  “Yes…yes…maybe…”

  “James!” a female voice called from the gloomy bowels.

  James started as if he’d been goosed. “That’s Dahlia,” he murmured.

  So, I was looking at James Purcell the fourth and waiting for his sister Dahlia to appear. I did a quick recap in my head. James was a bachelor. Dahlia was married to…Roderick…that was it. She had given birth to two children. A son and a daughter. I couldn’t recall the son’s name but the daughter was christened Rhoda before she died in infancy from SIDS.

  Dahlia clomped onto the porch. Where her brother was slight, Dahlia was large. Everything was—her body and her features. She had huge eyes and lips and there was a wave to her ash blond hair that kept it about a half-inch off her skull, all over. Where James resembled a handsome professor gone to seed, Dahlia was a stevedore whose only real physical attribute was a set of even, white teeth.

  She fixed her gaze on me through eyes that were a pale blue like a sky filled with white clouds. I almost felt sorry for her. She’d so clearly missed out on the family’s good looks.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked in a melodious voice that surprised me enough to leave me momentarily speechless.

  “Jane Kelly.” I held out my hand.

  She shook it firmly. “Yes? And what do you want?”

  “She’s here to meet Jazz,” James put in. He’d taken several steps away and was gazing toward the edge of the property.

  “What for?”

  I suddenly didn’t want to say. Dahlia narrowed her eyes at me, but before I had to confess my reasons, there was a commotion deep inside the house and the sound of voices greeting a newcomer. Dahlia whipped around and headed back the way she’d come without another word. James cast me a worried look and followed. I didn’t wait for an invitation and just took up the rear, hoping to high heaven that Jazz had arrived.

  He had. And he had a boy with him. His son, no doubt. Logan, I remembered.

  “You have a guest,” Dahlia said in a tight voice.

  Jazz saw me and broke into another brilliant smile. It was enough to make me catch my breath.

  “You went around to the front door,” he said, coming toward me. “Hey, Logan wait…”

  Logan, who’d been making a beeline for the stairs, reluctantly slowed, turning on one designer basketball shoe signed by an NBA player outside of my limited knowledge of the sport. “Yeah?”

  “This is Jane Kelly. Jane, my son Logan. Jane’s here to see Nana, so why don’t you wait downstairs with Aunt Dahl—”

  “She’s here to see Mother?” Dahlia demanded. “Why?”

  We were standing in the entry hall, which rose two stories. A gallery ran overhead between the two wings. Exclamations of surprise or disgust, or both, shot from the open doors to the main salon. Jazz glanced to his left, his expression carefully neutral. I stepped forward and looked inside the salon. A group of people were headed my way. The middle-agers. And, I guessed, Cammie.

  They collected in the doorway to the entry hall and gazed at me with varying degrees of alarm. It wasn’t what I would call a warm welcome.

  I turned to Jazz expectantly. Instead of explaining my presence to them, he seemed flummoxed by the question. He shot me a “rescue me” look. My heart suddenly went into overdrive. What was this?

  “Jazz asked me to meet Orchid,” I said slowly.

  “Who are you?” a male middle-ager demanded. I pegged him as Garrett Purcell. He, too, possessed the extraordinary good looks, but he’d let himself go and now was paunchy and soft. An overriding belligerence, which seemed to be a part of his makeup, also took away from his appearance. A few more years and his attractiveness wouldn’t even be an issue. He would just be an older man with an attitude problem.

  “I’m a private investigator.”

  The man actually reared back. He glared at Jazz. “What the hell are you doing, man?”

  “Jane is here to see about Nana’s sanity.”

  At least he’d come back to the point, but now all the Purcell gang regarded me with flat-out suspicion. “So, when do private investigators determine someone’s sanity?” another man asked in a really snarky tone. I figured he must be Roderick, Dahlia’s husband.

  “I guess when Jazz asks them to,” Dahlia answered, equally snarky.

  “Why don’t we all go in and sit down?” Jazz gestured toward the room they’d just exited, and we all trundled back inside.

  The salon was furnished in fern green and gold. The Purcell clan took their seats as if they’d been choreographed, apparently reclaiming the ones they’d just vacated. I stayed standing alongside Jazz. Logan flanked him on the left, but it was clear he didn’t want to be anywhere near any of us. I sympathized.

  “I know we’ve all been worried about Nana,” Jazz said as an opening salvo.

  “You’ve been worried,” the bullish man corrected. He had a barrel chest, a pugnacious chin and salt-and-pepper hair. “The rest of us know what’s wrong with her. Dementia.” The woman seated beside him on the green and gold striped divan—his wife, I was sure—stiffened at the word. Her head was bent and she seemed intent on her fingernails. I watched her play with them. Her hair was coiffed in that flippy style so beloved by Ann Landers, if you could still believe the picture. It was dyed an unnatural black, the scary kind that seems to absorb all light.

  “I’m Garrett,” he added, rising again to extend his hand. Steely blue eyes searched my face. “That’s my wife, Satin. Jazz said that you’re…?”

  “Jane Kelly.” We shook hands. His grip was one of those crushers. He squeezed my fingers and kept his gaze on my face, watching. I managed to keep my eyes level with his and luckily didn’t tear up from the pain. Abruptly, he released his grip and turned away.

  Geez, Louise.

  “I’m Roderick,” the other man sai
d with a nod. He was lean with hair an even brown tone that spoke of coloring as well. I smiled at him in acknowledgment, all the time wondering when I could get the hell out of Dodge.

  “And this is Benjamin,” Roderick said, gazing at a young man who sat apart from the group, flipping through a magazine. Benjamin’s head stayed bowed. There was something about his slouched posture and desire to be alone in a crowd that made me think he was a teenager, but when he deigned to look at me I was surprised to see he was closer to my age. He alone of the Purcells possessed brown eyes, a light shade, close to my hazel color, a gift from his father.

  “Benjamin, say hello,” Dahlia muttered automatically. She must have done it a million times before.

  “Huh-low.” Benjamin flicked a sideways glance my way. I got the feeling he wasn’t trying to be rude, he just had no interest in me or anything else going on among us.

  Cammie Purcell shifted position in a fawn wingback chair. I assumed it was Cammie because she was the only woman in her thirties in the room and her hair was an icy blond. Dwayne had described her as perennially unhappy. The downward bow of her lips spoke volumes. “So, what’s this all about, Jazz?” she asked. Her gaze briefly touched mine. There was something going on in her eyes. Something manipulative and determined. Dwayne’s admonitions reverberated through my brain.

  Jazz seemed a little bemused by his family’s suspicions. “I just wanted another opinion.”

  “She’s not a doctor,” Garrett pointed out. His attention appeared to be on Satin, whose gaze was fixed on the middle-distance. The smile on her lips looked permanently carved.

  Cammie said flatly, “You work with Dwayne Durbin.”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t need a private investigator,” Roderick said to Jazz. “What’s got into you?”

  “Nana won’t see a doctor. We’re all trying to figure out how to help. Nana relates better to women; we all know that. Let’s just see what happens.” A defensive note crept into his tone.

  James Purcell IV entered the room, moving like a wraith. He didn’t say anything, but hovered near the curtains, his attention outdoors to the darkening sky.

  I wanted to back out. I wanted to leave. But there was the promise of payment and I’d said I would meet with Orchid.

  And I couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Dwayne, saying, “You were right. I should have listened to you. They’re all crazy!”

  “Come on,” Jazz said to me as he turned to the door. His cheeks were flushed. Maybe he’d expected them to greet me with open arms.

  “You can give us a report when you return,” Garrett called as Jazz hurried me into the hallway. His tone was supercilious and edged with something mean. He was the oldest sibling and he wore his need to control like a cloak. Though he possessed the Purcell good looks, he pushed all my buttons. I was glad to get away from the lot of them.

  Jazz walked ahead of me up the stairs. Logan had slipped from the room a few moments before us and was nowhere in sight. I followed behind Jazz, counting the steps. It was one of those stairways that turns at a landing, then turns again another half flight up. The rail was dark walnut, ornately carved but scarred and nicked by time. I could imagine what it had looked like once upon a time. The whole place was imposing, rich, deep. But now it smelled of neglect and the passage of time. I could feel them all waiting for Orchid to die. To collect the inheritance.

  I shivered involuntarily.

  “Are you cold?” Jazz asked. “Here…” He clasped my hand and held onto it all the way up the stairs in a way that made me feel slightly light-headed. Phew. I’m normally less affected by the male sex, especially overly attractive men, but I was aware of Jazz in a way that defied description.

  Maybe I was still suffering the leftover malaise and loneliness of a love affair gone sour. It hadn’t been that long since I’d suffered my loss. In any case, I was inordinately aware of Jazz’s hand holding mine, the heat and good feelings their joining sent through me. Maybe I was ready to date again. Or, was it just the opposite? Was I still so raw and unhappy that I was reeling out of control emotionally?

  Jazz stopped at the top of the stairs and turned toward the north wing. At the end of a hallway covered in nearly threadbare cabbage roses carpet stood a pair of massive, dark walnut doors that looked as if they might not shut properly, and probably stuck if they did. I had a mental picture of someone old and bent over with witchy long nails and rheumy eyes waiting behind them.

  I put a hand on Jazz’s forearm. “I gotta be honest. I’m here because you asked me, and because I’m trying to be a private investigator—working toward it—but really, this isn’t a job for me. They’re right.” I inclined my head toward the open stairway. “You need a doctor. An estate lawyer. A professional.”

  “I want you,” he insisted.

  I tend to melt at that kind of cheerleading. Who wouldn’t? But I was determined to get a few things straight. “I’m not the person for this job.”

  “Who is, then? She won’t talk to professionals. She won’t talk to anyone but Logan and me. She distrusts the whole family.”

  “I just think this might be a mistake.”

  “Jane, I need help. Please.”

  I gazed at him. I am such a sucker sometimes. This was a fool’s errand but I was already in too deep. Drawing a breath, I acquiesced with a shrug, following Jazz down the hall to meet “Nana.”

  Chapter Three

  I was prepared for anything, given the buildup I’d received. A woman anywhere between Medusa and Mother Teresa. Okay, maybe that was stretching it a bit, but I figured she could be a grim, hard-bitten monster with a whip hand, or a dotty old lamb in search of love and assurance.

  In actuality Orchid Candlestone Purcell was, well, a disappointment. She was so middle-of-the-road that after my initial meeting, I was hard pressed to remember much about her appearance beyond the basics: hair, eye color, body size. Her behavior was more memorable, but that was only because she reminded me of my grandmother.

  Her hair was iron gray turning to white. It still had a fullness to it; no cottony fluff. It was clear she went to a hairdresser steeped in the art of spray till it hurts. The concoction moved with her head in a way that reminded me of a jockey’s cap. It stuck out in the front a little, too, as if it had a bill. Give her some silks and she’d be away to the races.

  Her eyes were Jazz’s electric blue. A little bit starey. Her skin was soft, powdery and wrinkled, like bread dough. Her mouth seemed to be in a perpetual half-smile. The Mona Lisa had nothing on Orchid.

  She was sitting in a chair and I had the impression of a body folded in upon itself like an accordion. She was wearing some kind of blue suit with a short jacket and a gray, blue and black scarf artfully tossed around her neck and over a shoulder—the kind of thing that would drive me to distraction. Her feet were clad in black leather slip-ons that looked sturdier and far more sensible than the outfit.

  Jazz stood aside to let me enter first, and I walked in and moved to the center of the room, feeling ill-at-ease, wondering once again what my role was.

  Logan sat on a stool, deep into Game Boy. He’d turned the sound down low but I could hear little whistles and blurps and tinny voices. He didn’t bother to look up at our arrival.

  “Nana, how are you?” Jazz asked, heading toward her with enthusiasm, reaching for her hands.

  She seemed to expect this because she held them out. “I’m fine. Help me up.”

  He pulled her to her feet, sliding a supportive arm around her back as she struggled with the effort. I saw that the accordion effect had been correct. Once she straightened out she was far leaner than I’d expected. The suit seemed to fit her better, too. The hem of the skirt hit her just below the knees.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, peering at me. One hand dug in the folds of her skirt and she pulled out a pair of blue-framed glasses. She put them on and turned her blue eyes into owlish orbs which looked me up and down.

  “Jane Kelly,” Jazz s
aid. “She’s the private investigator I told you about.”

  “Private investigator?” She sounded mildly alarmed.

  “I’m actually more like an apprentice,” I murmured.

  “I wanted her to meet you, Nana. You know. Like we talked about? You said you would prefer a woman?”

  She frowned, trying to recollect. “Is this about the money?” She gave me a studied examination then. “They all want my money. It was my husband’s but now it’s mine.”

  I couldn’t really think of a comment for that one.

  “A private eye,” she repeated, sounding skeptical.

  “Have a chair,” Jazz said to me. He touched my elbow and gestured to a small sofa. A white crocheted antimacassar lay across its back, which was pretty strange since the sofa was that bright sky blue so popular in the 1950s—satellite blue—and its frame and design were contemporary to the extreme. It was the Victorian age meets mid-twentieth-century space age.

  And the damned thing was hard as cement.

  I shot another glance over at Logan, envying the fact he was in his own world. The tinny music kind of pissed me off. Its little beeps and whistles started sounding a lot like someone singsonging nanny, nanny, nanny…

  In the strained silence that followed, Jazz threw a glance toward Logan, before saying to me. “Maybe we should leave you two alone,” he said.

  “Um…no…” I smiled at him through clenched teeth.

  “You afraid to be alone with me?” Orchid questioned.

  I turned my attention to her. She was smirking. I could see it. “Mrs. Purcell, you’d be better advised—”

  “Call me Nana.”

  “—to meet with an estate lawyer.”

  She folded her hands in front of her, then, with Jazz’s help, settled herself back on her divan. “What’s your name?”

  “Jane Kelly.”

  “I’d rather talk to you.”

  “Well, okay…” She regarded me expectantly, waiting, so I added, “Nana,” though it sounded false on my tongue.

  It must have satisfied her, though, because she sent me a big smile—this one full of enjoyment. “Go on, then.” She flapped a hand at Jazz.