by Karen Pullen
We took a seat behind Nikki Truly, her mother, Zoë Schubert, and a man I didn’t recognize. He was lean like a distance runner, fifty-ish and bald. Zoë wore an oddly cheerful red dress and black hat. I wondered why she was there—perhaps to keep her daughter company. In front, Temple sat between Wesley and Bryce. There were maybe fifty people in the pews.
The minister’s words, full of platitudes and Biblical quotes, seemed hardly to apply to Kent Mercer’s life. Then he invited us to speak, and Bryce stood. His navy blazer was tight across his back, and he had loosened his tie. His long golden hair was pulled into a ponytail, revealing a small silver hoop in each ear.
“My brother was someone who loved life,” he said in his rusty voice. “In spite of his violent end, he was a gentle man who did many good deeds for others. I wish he had not died, but it is a comfort to me and my dad that Kent is with our mom now. Thank you all for coming.”
Then Nikki stood. Zoë flinched and tugged at her daughter’s arm, but Nikki tugged back and said, “When I first met Kent I thought he was the nicest person I ever met. He, like, paid attention to me? I loved him. I would do anything for him.” Then she wailed, “Whoever killed him is a monster!” She stamped her foot and sat down.
Responses to this outburst were mixed. Temple bowed her head, Wesley stared up at the ceiling, and Zoë exchanged looks with the lean bald man next to her. I wanted to know who he was, and was glad to hear the minister say there would be refreshments after the service, giving me a chance to talk to them.
In the church hall, Wesley handed me a cup of punch. “You look nice,” he said, referring to my indigo linen suit, giving me a bone-crushing handshake. I introduced him to Fern; the way she filled out her dress would cheer him up. She gave him her irresistible smile. “I can tell you were a military man,” she said, and I knew he would soon be another fly in her sticky web.
I noticed Nikki, Zoë, and the unidentified man drifting toward the door. I got there quickly and grabbed Nikki’s hand.
“Lovely words, Nikki, so meaningful,” I babbled. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Schubert, how nice to see you again.”
The little vertical wrinkles appeared as Zoë frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.”
“Stella Lavender. How are you?” I put out my hand to her companion.
“This is Dr. William Newell, my fiancé,” Zoë said, clasping his arm and flashing an engagement ring with an almond-sized sapphire.
“Oh!” I said, trying to remember where I’d heard his name before. “Congratulations! The ring is new, isn’t it?”
“I proposed last night,” the doctor said. “Begged and begged until she finally said yes.” He beamed at his bride-to-be.
“William is chief of staff at Community Hospital.” Zoë squeezed his arm against her side. The mention of Community Hospital triggered my memory. Dr. Newell was the doctor Clementine had talked to about Lincoln’s injuries. “We’re both on the hospital board.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in health care,” I said.
“Oh, my career was in nursing, and it’s a real concern of mine.”
The cynical me thought that snagging a chief-of-staff husband might rank higher on her agenda than controlling hospital operating costs, but perhaps I misjudged her. I wondered how Nikki felt about her stepdad-to-be. “Nikki, are you going to be a bridesmaid?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Certainly not.”
Zoë’s little frown came back. “What Nikki means is the ceremony will be a simple one, no attendants.”
“Yeah, fourth time around it better be simple,” said Nikki.
“Fourth?” asked the doctor.
“Sweetheart, third; you know how she exaggerates. Good to see you, Stella.” Zoë squeezed his arm some more and propelled her family out the door. Darn, she hadn’t invited me to the wedding.
I went to fetch Fern, and found her deep in conversation with Wesley, already Lancelot to her Guinevere. “I’m moving in with Temple for a while,” she said. “I can’t go home because of the plumbing repairs. Wesley tells me the poor girl needs some company, and I can help take care of Paige.”
In principle it sounded like a good idea, but I didn’t like it. As long as Mercer’s killer was roaming around and someone was cutting brake lines on expensive automobiles, Silver Hills didn’t seem like a safe place for my only living relative. On the other hand, Fern’s ability to ferret out information could be useful right there at the scene of the crime. I gave her a little lecture on being alert and taking care of herself. She laughed, and fluttered her fringe at me. “Sweetheart, you worry too much!” She took Wesley’s hand. “We’ll be fine! And when the new baby arrives, Temple will need lots of help.”
Temple edged between them. “Did someone mention a new baby? I predict . . .” She clutched Wesley’s arm and stood very still for a moment. “Soon.”
Fern gasped, “Oh honey,” Wesley whispered, “Oh my,” and the two of them supported her as they walked slowly out the door. I leaned against a wall, marveling at what this day would mean to Temple. Her child’s safe return, her husband’s funeral, her new baby’s birth.
She was long overdue for a breather.
CHAPTER 12
Thursday morning
Fern and I rocked on her bouncy porch, waiting for the art appraiser. Yellow forsythia and daffodils, frothy pink redbud trees, and purpley-blue wisteria had brightened her yard, but I wasn’t in the mood for Easter-egg colors. Gloomy brown better suited my headachy thoughts about Mercer’s murder, Lincoln’s “accident,” and an abducted-then-mysteriously-returned toddler.
“False alarm yesterday,” Fern said. “They sent her home, told her to rest. Poor girl’s been through so much.”
“Can she rest? Taking care of Paige?”
“Soon as I get back, I’ll take over. Oh, and she told me to tell you—she can’t find her purple knife.” I filed that tidbit away to tell Anselmo: a knife fitting the ME’s description of the murder weapon might have been grabbed from Mercer’s kitchen.
The appraiser had picked up a dozen or so paintings yesterday, Fern said—the ugly cubist ones, not her mother, Phoebe’s, delicate botanicals. “He’s Dutch and has a very strong accent. Jane says he consults for art museums.”
“Did he like the paintings?”
“Hard to tell. He didn’t seem too excited.”
The porch floor felt like a trampoline. Termites? Rot? I stopped rocking. “Maybe he didn’t seem excited because he was trying to look cool. Maybe he was all aflurry underneath the surface.”
“If we can get a few hundred bucks for them, I want a new stove.”
“While we’re waiting, this would be a good time for you to tell me what you know,” I said, not expecting anything.
“Kent Mercer was having an affair with Nikki Truly.”
Not news to me, of course, but how did Fern find out? I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Who told you?”
“June told me. June and Erwin both saw them, across the lake. They were bird-watching.”
“Who—Nikki and Kent?”
“No. Erwin and June are bird-watchers. They saw Kent and Nikki together outside.”
“So what? Nikki babysat there all the time.”
“They were naked, Stella! They were doing it on the deck in front of everyone!”
I laughed. Although an advocate of sexual freedom, Fern could be a prude. She giggled. “It sounds funny, but June and Erwin were appalled. They both watched with binoculars.”
“That sounds kinky, Fern.”
“Well, it’s their darling niece! I don’t mean they watched. I mean they looked enough to know what they were seeing. Erwin had his stroke the next day. June is certain his anger caused it.”
“Nikki’s mother knows,” I said, remembering how protective and controlling Zoë Schubert had been when I tried to ask her daughter about her relationship with Mercer.
“Yes. June told her. Then Zoë took Nikki to a psychologist. You remember Dr. So
to?”
“Of course.” Fern had sent me to Emilie Soto for counseling when I was sixteen. I’d hated the idea, of course. Fern insisted, driving me there and waiting until she was sure I was safely in the psychologist’s office. My bi-weekly visits to that sunny room, full of contemporary art, colorful rugs, and fresh flowers, became my lifeline in a year when I was nearly drowning—skipping school, getting high, making plans to drop out and travel the world with a thirty-eight-year-old biker I’d met at the state fair. Fern had found out what I was doing when the police came to the farmhouse looking for him. Chuck was wanted for a shopping list of crimes including burglary, resisting arrest, and failure to pay child support. Chuck went to jail and I went to Dr. Soto.
She was warm and sympathetic and entirely on my side in my battle with the rest of the world. I loved her straight talk, delivered in a rolling Italian rush. She called me “Biker Cheek.” She understood what a difficult time I was having, living in a small town with my unconventional grandmother and poverty-stricken lifestyle. Dr. Soto wouldn’t share what she knew about Nikki, but I would love to be a bug on her wall for any session with the teenager.
The art appraiser carefully picked his way over the ruts in the gravel drive. Joseph was androgynous, with smooth skin and a mop of curly graying brown hair. He looked at Fern appreciatively—she was wearing a silky sea-blue shift batiked with tiny fish and shells. A silver starfish dangled from each ear. He kissed her on both cheeks—smack, smack—but not me, probably inhibited by my gun.
“Yer peexters er mervlus!”
His voice was high, almost feminine, and he had such an accent I couldn’t understand a word he said. Puzzled, I looked at Fern to translate.
“He says my pictures are marvelous.”
“Yer vas not misteekin, em er Reyes un Klein.”
“I told you who painted them, Joseph,” Fern said. “I wondered whether Reyes and Klein had any value these days.”
“Zowzands, meenie zowzands.”
That I understood. “How many thousands?” I asked.
“Ee tek zeem to auction. Each zeem peexters get hunna zowzand eese.”
I was astonished. “A hundred thousand? Fern, how many did you have?”
“He took two by Mick and one by Ev. Ugly old things. Hard to believe anyone would want them.”
“Zee museums vant zem. Ver, ver valabel. Zay er zeind.”
“Zay er what?” I asked.
“Zeind. Zeind!” Joseph was impatient with my ignorance of the English language.
“Signed,” Fern whispered to me.
“Ee vel shit sem to zee auction zouse.”
“Shit sem?” I whispered to Fern.
“Ship them. He’ll ship them to Christie’s.”
“Wait a minute, please, Joseph. We need to talk this over.” I led Fern inside, into the kitchen. “Do you trust him? Do you want a second opinion? I mean, this sounds big.”
“Oh, he’s fine. I asked Harry to draw up some papers and everyone has signed them. We’re all covered. I even have insurance.”
“Insurance? When did you get insurance?”
“Um, eight years ago. I saw where one of Mick’s paintings had sold for nearly seventy thousand dollars. I thought I better insure mine in case we had a fire, you know. That old kerosene heater in the parlor could just go boom!” She laughed and the starfish danced against her cheeks.
I was speechless, too overcome to say the obvious. When she bought insurance, she had appraisals. So she knew all along what the paintings were worth. She knew she was sitting on a fortune. She let me buy her groceries, and pay someone to mow the fields? She watched the roof rust and the porch sag?
Fern knew what I was thinking. She patted my shoulder. “They were for you. I didn’t want to sell them. I thought they’d appreciate, and I was right. Don’t be angry.”
“I’m calling a contractor tomorrow, Fern. The bank will give you a loan against those paintings and you can do all the repairs you’ve put off for thirty years.”
“Can I have real air conditioning?” Fern got through the summer with floor fans that hurled dust bunnies from wall to wall.
“You’ll have central heat and air conditioning, I promise.” I too had been worried about the kerosene heater, a monstrous metal box that came on explosively, heated red-hot, and left a noxious greasy film on the walls and furniture. I suddenly felt twenty pounds lighter as the realization sunk in: Fern’s money problems were over. I was so happy I startled Joseph with a smack-smack as he left. Fern and I stayed another half hour, making a list of the necessary repairs. Roof, porch, kitchen, HVAC. Then I took her to the bank.
CHAPTER 13
Thursday early afternoon
Bad news comes in threes, but so does good. Paige Mercer was OK, Fern had resources, and now—Lincoln Teller was conscious and able to talk.
The ICU waiting room was a bustling, noisy place. Visitors and medical staff walked in and out, passing through a hall where an elderly man slept on a gurney, attached to an IV and an oxygen tank. After a while an orderly pushed the gurney around a corner. I waited for a few minutes, then wandered into the ICU. No one stopped me.
The well-lit room contained eleven beds, each occupied by a patient. Assorted machines whispered, hummed, beeped, and whooshed, an out-of-sync cacophony like a fifth-grade orchestra tuning up.
A swarm of white coats surrounded Lincoln Teller’s bed. I didn’t recognize him—his bruised eyes were slits and his ears were nearly lost in the puffiness of his swollen head. The swarm, however, knew exactly who he was, and I guessed they would be asking for autographs as soon as he could hold a pen.
A candy-striper handed him a water bottle. Lincoln took a long sip and winked a puffy eye at the teenager, who glowed happily.
“Okay, folks, show’s over,” said a white coat, Dr. Beckert according to his name tag. He had gray eyes behind rimless glasses and a patch of hair like a tarantula on his chin. “Let Mr. Teller have a little peace and quiet. He’s doing very well. No need to gawk.”
The swarm wished Lincoln good luck and a speedy recovery, and slowly dispersed, except for a nurse who examined his head bandages.
“Not much under there, I bet,” Lincoln said in a raspy voice.
“The doctor left most of it,” she said. She was a forty-ish plump woman who moved quickly and efficiently. “I’ve connected a morphine pump. The doctor prescribed it for when you woke up.” She showed him how to use it. “You can’t overdose. The pump won’t let you.”
“Here we go, then,” he said, and pushed the button. Rolling the medication cart out of the room, the nurse waved me over to his bed.
“It’s really good to see you,” I said, though he looked terrible. “Do you feel like talking a bit?”
“Hmm. Throat hurts. How long was I out?”
“About a day. I understand you have a new hole in your head.”
“Not another one!” His cheeks twitched as though he were trying to grin. It was hard to watch.
“What do you remember about your accident?”
“Nothing.” His gaze shifted to the doorway and his face lit up. I turned. Clementine stood there, a slender teenage girl behind her.
“Ooh, poor baby. You look awful,” Clementine said.
“I think he looks great,” the girl said, starting to cry. I decided she was their oldest child, Sue. She pushed her way around her mother, who had started her tapping and nodding ritual at the doorway. Knowing they didn’t need me hanging about, I left them and took the elevator to the lobby café, where I got a cup of coffee and sat down to think.
How could Lincoln’s engineered accident be related to Mercer’s murder? Mercer worked for Lincoln and they lived in the same neighborhood. Was a disgruntled employee at Clemmie’s getting even with the management, one by one? A serial killer targeting male residents of Silver Hills? Perhaps a woman, scorned and furious, one who knew how to cut brake lines.
The lobby bustled with people trotting, limping, and pushing wh
eelchairs in and out. Automatic doors wheezed open, swished closed. Outside, a group of smokers shivered in the chilly shadows while cars waited in a queue to pick up discharged patients. I watched a dad struggle to fasten an infant carrier into his car as the baby wailed and a nurse hovered, murmuring instructions. I sipped my coffee until I saw Wesley Raintree striding through the lobby.
“Hey, Wesley,” I called. “You here with Temple again?”
He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Not yet. No, I was here for a hospital board meeting. Man, what a waste of time.”
“Oh?”
“The staff tells us what they want us to hear, then certain board members ask stupid questions and get misleading answers. Mostly it’s about getting money out of my friends. I tell you, there’s nothing I hate more than a fundraiser. Everyone gets drunk and the noise gives me a headache.”
“Something tells me you miss the Navy,” I said.
“I’ll admit retirement is tough for me. I want to be useful.”
“Volunteering?”
Wesley shook his head. “Can you see me serving corn bread to the homeless? Look, here comes the rest of the board.”
They were easy to spot on the escalator, a well-dressed group, obviously not patients or staff. Zoë and her Dr. Newell led the way. Behind them I spotted Dr. Emilie Soto, my former therapist. I hadn’t seen her in ten years, but she recognized me immediately. She beamed and held out her arms for a hug. She was rounder than ever, and the mass of curls spilling onto her shoulders had turned silver, but she still wore gold ear-hoops and jangling bracelets.
Wesley put his arm around her shoulders. “This woman is a saint. When my wife was sick, Bryce was unmanageable. I think I would have killed him if Dr. Soto hadn’t helped us.”
“Well, I have a little saying—there’s nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won’t aggravate.” She laughed, a throaty chuckle, and I remembered how much fun she was. “Stella, come and see me. I want to catch up with you.”