‘Coffee?’ Desiree chirped, sounding artificially cheerful.
I waved the offer away. ‘Thanks, Desiree, but I’m desperate for some sleep.’
As I turned to go, she said, ‘I’m curious about something, Hannah. Earlier, Colin said Cindy was trying to murder you. When Detective Jacobs was here, you never said a word about that.’
‘A figure of speech, that’s all,’ I said. ‘Wasn’t it, Colin?’
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘A figure of speech.’
By the time Lisa, Josh and the remaining guests wandered downstairs, dragging their luggage, ready for checkout, I’d crashed, big time, sleeping off the previous evening’s ordeal under a down comforter. It wasn’t until lunchtime, ravenous and thirsty, that I got an update on the Bell House drama from Claire, running on adrenaline and eager to fill me in. Most of it I already knew, of course.
Before heading downtown with Mark, Austin had instructed Desiree to refund everyone’s money. While she kept busy with a checkbook and the credit-card machine, Marilyn managed to deliver breakfast, weeping quietly all the while on behalf of the Pawlowski brothers. In spite of the fact that they’d snatched the payroll, including her own wages, she still thought of ‘The Bad, Bad Boys’ as sons.
While we caught up, Claire and I relaxed on the patio in side-by-side loungers. Plates, empty of all but sandwich crumbs, sat on the occasional table between us, frosty glasses of cranberry spritzer – low octane – in our hands. One by one, the other guests wandered out to say goodbye. Promised to stay in touch. But would we?
As a kid, I never lived anywhere longer than two or three years. Goes with the territory in a Navy family like ours. Each time I was wrenched from my friends, my late mother used to say, ‘The people who are meant to be in your life, Hannah, will always gravitate back to you, no matter how far they wander.’
Sometimes, though, you have to pull them back.
Colin, for example. He’d already left for the airport when I remembered something I needed to ask him. I dug out my iPhone, found his name in my contacts and gave him a call.
‘Hey, Mrs Ives,’ he said, picking up at once, recognizing my number.
‘Daniel’s iPhone,’ I said without preamble. ‘Someone tried to erase the pictures.’
‘We did,’ he said. ‘Lisa and me.’
I thought I’d misheard. ‘You and Lisa?’
‘Yeah. Daniel had passed out and his phone was just lying there on the floor. ‘It was Lisa’s idea, actually.’
‘Don’t tell me. So you picked up the phone, used Daniel’s thumb …’
‘That was Lisa. I just erased the pictures. From what I know now, it was win-win for both of us. If Daniel had … well, you know.’
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
‘Wait a minute,’ Colin said, breaking the silence. ‘You said someone tried to erase the pictures?’
‘The police recovered them, Colin.’
‘Ah, I should have seen that coming. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. Lisa can be persuasive.’
‘You’re lucky he didn’t wake up.’
‘Lisa poked him first. He snorted and mumbled something but, really, the guy was wasted.’
‘I hope you mentioned this to the police, Colin.’
‘Lisa told that detective what she told me. Her eyes were closed and her hair was a mess, and she’d simply die if they showed up on Facebook.’ His spot-on imitation of Lisa’s diction made me smile.
‘No mention of blackmail?’
‘It didn’t come up, Mrs Ives.’
‘I guess it doesn’t matter now,’ I said.
‘Hey, they’re calling my flight. Gotta go.’
‘Stay in touch, Colin.’
‘See you back at the academy,’ he said, and rang off.
TWENTY-SIX
If we expect education to result in drug abstinence in the populace then we are doomed to failure. We are a drug using people. From our cigarettes to our vitamins, from coffee to alcohol, from marijuana to heroin – drugs are here to stay.
Marc G. Kurzman, ‘Drug Education: Boom or Bust?’ in Report on the Thirty-sixth Annual Scientific Meeting: Committee on Problems of Drug Dependence, Mexico City, March 10–14, 1974. National Academy of Sciences, Research Council (US), p.967.
‘When it comes to fashion, feathers are not exactly my thing,’ I complained to Claire.
Several feet away, Claire’s designer had decked her out in a strapless gown of cut-up CDs; she flashed and sparkled like a Saturday Night Fever disco ball. ‘I think you look fab,’ she said.
Yasunori Asano, the free-thinking young designer I’d drawn for the Visionary Art Museum charity fashion show, clearly agreed. ‘Sugoi!’ he announced with a broad sweep of his arm. ‘Gown is awesome!’
Wearing a blank-eyed stare and a perfect pout, I’d been rehearsing my runway walk down the hallway at home – shoulders back, hips forward, step, step, step, turn – but, sadly, the long, languid strides I’d been practicing would never work with this outfit. The off-the-shoulder, black silk sheath Yasu had designed fit so closely that my knees might as well have been glued together. I’d be mincing down the runway like a fully-kimonoed geisha with an electrocuted guinea fowl strapped to my head.
Final fittings were being held on the third floor of the Visionary Museum’s Rouse building, a whitewashed, barn-sized hall where, in two weeks’ time, the fashion show would take place. In addition to Claire and me, Tammy from the Reach for Recovery group had secured a spot, as had Bob, who, I could see, was being fitted for a three-piece outfit – kilt, jacket and headdress – that made him look like an Aztec warrior.
‘Maybe you could make the skirt a bit looser?’ I suggested.
Yasu’s dark eyes flashed behind purple-framed eyeglasses. ‘This is original Asano. Worth money someday.’
‘I’m sure that’s true,’ I told him with a conciliatory smile. ‘And I’ll take good care of it. But will I be able to sit down?’
A tendril of dark hair, dyed green, trembled over his eyebrow as he pinned me in even tighter. ‘Chrissy Teigen doesn’t sit down,’ he said.
‘If I were a top model with her kind of money, I wouldn’t need to sit down either,’ I said. ‘I’d hire people to stand around and prop me up on all sides.’
His lips twitched up around the dressmaking pins. I detected a slight smile.
‘Maybe the slit could be higher?’ I said.
Yasu stared at me, clearly horrified by the suggestion. ‘You are model. I am designer.’
‘Ouch!’ I said as a pin pricked my ankle. ‘I’m also a real person, Yasu, not a mannequin.’ Jet lag was turning me into a diva.
‘Turn, kudasai,’ he announced abruptly. He made a twirling motion with his finger. I obliged by rotating slowly in place, like a chicken on a spit. He grunted his approval, then dove into the satchel of odds and ends he’d brought to the fitting with him. After rummaging for a few seconds, his hand emerged holding a bouquet of speckled guinea-fowl feathers, dyed every color of the rainbow, leftovers from my headdress.
He considered them speculatively. ‘I could put some here,’ he said, holding the bouquet over my bustle. ‘That could be quite special.’
‘Indeed,’ I said, surrendering to the inevitable.
‘Everyone will be looking at you,’ he said as he pinned a multicolored spray of feathers to my silk-enhanced tush.
Yes, I thought, but not in a positive way.
‘I have a vision,’ he said in a low, conversational tone, as if he were afraid another competitor might overhear. ‘I see a little Japanese mixed with Hollywood glamour.’
I grinned, feeling somewhat flattered. ‘If you put it that way, Yasu, I’ll be happy to hobble.’
From the bowels of my handbag resting on a nearby chair, my cell phone began to chime. ‘Are we done now, Yasu?’
The young designer nodded, so I made a grab for my phone. I didn’t recognize the number and was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but Claire
was still being fitted – her pink jogging shoes added a certain je ne sais quoi to the disco look – so I had a bit of time on my hands.
‘Hannah? This is Josh Barton.’
‘Josh! How lovely to hear from you.’ Holding the phone to my ear, I waddled out the door to take the call on the museum’s iconic Bird’s Nest Balcony. ‘How’s Lisa?’
‘She’ll tell you herself in a minute,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to let you know that we’re back home and there doesn’t seem to be any fallout from our, uh, vacation.’
‘That’s good news,’ I said, smiling. In his voice, I could hear the quote marks around the word ‘vacation.’
‘In point of fact,’ Josh continued, ‘the Board of Visitors has just granted me tenure.’
Although nobody could see me, except for two tourists circumnavigating the mosaic egg in the courtyard below, I did a fist pump. ‘Go, Josh!’
‘But I turned them down.’
I thought I’d misheard. ‘You turned them down?’
Josh’s voice bubbled with excitement. ‘Lisa and I will be moving to Baltimore in August.’
‘Say that again,’ I said. ‘I think we must have a bad connection.’
Josh laughed. ‘We’ll be moving to Baltimore. Lisa’s already scoping out houses on Zillow. Seems I’ll be joining the biology department at Johns Hopkins as an Assistant Professor.’
‘That is the best news ever,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I’m pretty psyched. And this was all before The Scientist picked up my Drosophila article.’
‘A New York Times bestseller for sure,’ I teased. ‘What will you be working on at Hopkins?’
‘Stochastic gene regulation during the development of fly and human eyes,’ he said. ‘Among other things.’
‘Way above my pay grade,’ I teased.
‘You sound like you’re in good spirits, Hannah.’
‘Claire and I are at a museum being fitted for a charity fashion show. I’m surrounded by people wearing decks of cards and fur bustiers, all trying to pretend it’s the most natural thing in the world to walk down the street wearing a red-and-white checked tablecloth with a picnic basket tied to your head. The student designers take everything super seriously, so don’t you dare laugh.’
Josh chuckled. ‘I hope there’s a video.’
‘I hope there’s not!’
In the background, I could hear Lisa saying, ‘My turn, Josh.’ After a few more minutes, during which I described the outfit I would be modeling in the fashion show, Josh relinquished the phone.
‘I just wanted to thank you, Hannah,’ Lisa began.
‘For what?’
‘Well, I’m not in jail for killing Daniel, for a start.’
‘I never suspected you for a minute, Lisa,’ I lied.
‘I had a nightmare about it last night.’
‘Smoke a little Skywalker,’ I suggested, ‘like the budrista advised.’
‘Uh, well, as much as I enjoy it, Hannah, I’m off weed.’
‘Ah, right,’ I said. ‘When it comes to marijuana, Stafford U lacks a sense of humor, as I recall.’
Lisa made a ladylike snort. ‘That, too, but …’ She paused. ‘Although I sure could use some Chemdawg about now.’
Chemdawg, if I recalled correctly, came highly recommended for treating nausea and vomiting. Lisa wasn’t undergoing chemo, so …
On the other end of the line, Lisa began to giggle. ‘Not drinking wine, either.’
The penny dropped. ‘Lisa! You’re pregnant?’
‘Yup,’ she said. ‘We’ll be welcoming bouncing baby Barton sometime next March.’
‘I couldn’t be happier for you both,’ I said. ‘And with you living in Baltimore, I won’t have far to drive in order to spoil the baby.’
‘We’ll count on it.’
‘I suspect you’ll be much happier living in Baltimore rather than, where was it, Sulphur Rock, Arkansas?’
‘Tell me about it,’ Lisa said. ‘I wouldn’t say the school is sliding down the toilet science-wise, at least not yet, but they’ve just hired as Provost somebody with the Discovery Institute on his CV, so I fear the handwriting is on the wall.’
I drew a blank. ‘What is the Discovery Institute and what does it discover?’ I asked.
‘They promote Intelligent Design, among other wacko theories, so Josh and I are happy to be moving on before they sail off the edge of the world.’
That made me laugh.
‘Have you heard from Colin?’ she asked.
‘He’s back at the academy and leading a godly, righteous and sober life, or so he claims. They’ve assigned him to plebe summer detail. As we speak, he’s probably shepherding the Class of 2021 through medical exams, uniform issue and haircuts.’
‘Haircuts? The women, too?’
Remembering Lisa’s flowing tresses, I could appreciate her concern. ‘Hair can’t touch your collar. You can tie it up close to your head in braids or in a bun, but a lot of women simply cut it short.’
‘Ugh,’ Lisa said.
‘You should read the regulations. “Multiple braids are authorized, but each braid must be the same diameter,”’ I quoted from memory. ‘“Only two barrettes may be worn at the same time, and they must be the same color as the hair.”’
Lisa laughed. ‘I’d definitely suck at Navy life.’
‘I can’t wait for the first guy to challenge the regs with a man bun.’
‘Seriously,’ she said.
‘Anyway, Colin will keep busy being a role model for the future leaders of our nation. After he teaches them how to salute, things get serious. Plebe summer’s like boot camp. It’s not for sissies.’
Lisa suddenly switched gears, moving on to a more serious topic. ‘Tell me what’s happening with Cindy and Mark. What’s going on in Colorado isn’t exactly headline news in the Texarcana Gazette. Last I heard, Cindy was out on bail.’
‘I had an email from Mark just the other day,’ I told her. ‘They’ve charged Cindy with second-degree murder, but it’s voluntary manslaughter. Even the prosecutor is convinced that Daniel provoked the attack, so they’ve reduced the charge to a class-three felony, one of those in-the-heat-of-passion things. If convicted, though, Cindy could still get four to twelve years in the slammer.’
Lisa sucked air in through her teeth. ‘Ouch!’ After a moment, she added, ‘Just grasping at straws here, but can’t she claim that marijuana made her do it?’
‘The Reefer Madness defense? Not guilty by reason of insanity, because marijuana turned you into a homicidal maniac?’ I grunted. ‘Not likely. The scientific evidence simply doesn’t support it. THC can induce psychosis in some people, sure, but there’s no link between that kind of psychosis and violence. If you eat too much weed, the worst that usually happens is you have hot and cold flashes, then you crawl under the covers and pass out.’ I paused. ‘And I speak from experience here.’
I flashed back to Bell House and the evening of the banquet. How I’d slept off the previous evening’s ordeal in an antique brass bed, curled up like a kitten under a down comforter.
‘How did it happen?’ Lisa asked, snapping me back to the balcony in Baltimore. ‘How did you end up stoned? Was it really a mixup, like Claire said?’
‘It turned out to be the grapes,’ I said. ‘I was supposed to eat the green ones but I choose the purple instead. They were infused. That, in combination with wine, my usual drug of choice, did the job.’
‘Caution. Drinking alcohol while taking this medication may intensify the effect,’ Lisa said, quoting a common prescription bottle warning label.
‘A highly dangerous pairing,’ I admitted with a chuckle. I could laugh about it now.
‘But, I still don’t get what motivated Daniel to blackmail Cindy,’ Lisa said.
‘I wondered about that, too, so after I got home, I made some phone calls. Did a little poking around. For a guy with so few scruples, Daniel was on a crusade. Remember that brother you told us about at dinner?’
‘Josh mentioned it, yeah.’
‘There was a nephew once, I found out. A smart kid. National Honor Society. A 4.0 GPA.’
‘Damn. I know where this is going,’ Lisa said. ‘You got a healthy mind, a healthy body, a whole life full of promise and then, bam!’
‘It happened during a high-school homecoming game. A headbutt on a simple punt return. The kid dropped and never moved. Daniel was in the stands. He didn’t need a coroner’s report to tell him what happened: a cervical break. According to one of his colleagues at Churchill-Mills, Daniel never got over it. We’ll never know for sure because we can’t ask him,’ I continued, ‘but I believe Daniel recognized Mark’s condition and pressured Cindy to urge Mark to go public, use it as a rallying cry in a campaign to discourage young people from engaging in such dangerous sport.’
‘He still can,’ Lisa said reasonably.
‘For the sake of all the young players at Maryland State, I hope you’re right.’
Traffic on 295 South was unusually light for that time of day as we headed back to Annapolis with me behind the wheel. As I slowed the Volvo to take the exit for the Baltimore Beltway, Claire surprised me by switching off the radio and saying, ‘Hannah, I have to ask you something.’
‘Shoot,’ I said.
‘I’ve been thinking about the confrontation you had with Cindy.’
I stole a glance at her sideways, then returned my attention to the road. ‘What about it?’
‘Desiree described it as a cat fight, but it wasn’t, was it?’
‘No.’ I smiled. ‘I’m not the cat fight type.’
‘I didn’t think so,’ Claire said. ‘I saw what you did to Cindy’s hand. Dirty Harry in a bar brawl did less damage than that.’
‘She needed stitches,’ I added, trying not to sound boastful.
At fifty miles per hour, the Volvo was practically kissing the tailgate of an ancient Ford F150 pickup, so I pulled into the passing lane and speeded up. So far, only Colin and I – and Cindy, of course – knew the whole story. And I was still waiting for an appropriate moment to fess up to my husband, Paul, about my up-close-and-personal brush with death. Based on past experience, he was going to be singularly unamused. Claire was my friend, though, a sister survivor. I owed her the unvarnished truth.
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