Crazy, Stupid, Dead

by Wendy Delaney

  Reaching out, she took my hand. “But that’s not why I’m here. Your grandmother also mentioned the very sweet welcome-home soiree you two cooked up.”

  For a little bird, Gram had done a heckuva lot of chirping over the last couple of hours. “I thought that was supposed to be a—”

  “A surprise, I know. But once she told me how early I needed to be there, I knew that something was up.”

  Gram also insisted upon a celebration every time Marietta scored a role in a movie or TV show, so the surprise factor of this party was doomed from the start. “Five o’clock isn’t that early.” Surely, she could manage to be up and in full makeup regalia by then.

  Marietta rolled her eyes. “Actually, she told me four o’clock. Probably to make sure I was there on time.”

  That sounded like Gram, but the sly smile hanging from my mother’s blood-red lips told me that there was more to this story.

  “I assume that you’ll be there even earlier to help with the preparations for the festivities,” she said.

  I hadn’t planned to, especially since I wanted to spend the bulk of the day chatting with Naomi Easley’s neighbors. “It’s a barbecue so there’s not a lot of prep work to do, but I should be there by four. That will give me plenty of time to—”

  “Could you make it closer to three?” Marietta’s cheeks flushed with more excitement than this family gathering warranted. “I have something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  The last time she said that to me, I ended up moving into her husband’s house. Since I was already in the rental house of her choosing, and I was dating the guy who had passed her “mom” test when she asked him about his intentions, I could only guess that she had some news that she wanted to share. “Something that you can’t tell me now?”

  “Contrary to what you may believe, I do listen.”

  Only when she had to, but okay.

  “So now is not the time because you need to get back to …” She flicked a bangled wrist toward the door. “Whatever it is that you do at this establishment.”

  I bit back a sigh. “I’m just helping out.”

  “Because, sugar, if it’s more than that and you need the money—”

  “I don’t.” I did, but I wasn’t about to admit it so that she could reprise her recent role as Port Merritt’s biggest spender. “It’s just while my friend Roxanne is on maternity leave.”

  Marietta pressed her warm palm to my cheek. “I’m sure it is,” she stated in a mocking sing-song tone.

  Enough.

  I needed to end this before I said something I’d regret, and held the bathroom door open to get her feet moving. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Is there anything special that you want on the menu?”

  My mother gave my cheek one last caress before she sashayed into the lobby. “My darling, I do believe that the plan for tomorrow is perfect just the way it is.”

  Watching her sidle up to Barry, I had no reason to doubt the truth behind her words. But I had a niggling feeling that we weren’t talking about the same thing.

  Chapter Twelve

  “YOU’RE RIGHT ON time,” Mavis Burnside said, giving me a quizzical look while holding her door open wide for the black plastic shampoo bowl in Donna’s hands.

  “And I brought reinforcements.” Donna headed straight for Mavis’s older sister, who was sitting in the center of a three-cushion sofa with a ginger tabby cat on her lap. “Hello, Althea. Nice to see you today. You remember Charmaine, don’t you? Eleanor’s granddaughter?”

  Donna had clued me in that she was going to introduce me to Althea Burnside Flanders immediately upon our arrival at the condo she had been sharing with her sister since losing her husband last winter.

  Fine by me. In case anyone happened to mention my visit to a certain detective who might return with some follow-up questions, I wanted both Burnside sisters to think of me as Donna’s pal. As opposed to the county employee who had no business standing in the middle of their living room.

  The wrinkled brow under the gray fringe of bangs indicated that Althea didn’t recognize me any more than her cat did, but she nodded just the same. “Oh, yes. Long t-time, no see.”

  I wasn’t so sure that Althea believed the words that had been some struggle for her to get out. However, she was quite right. It had been over eight months since I’d seen the former piano teacher.

  “Nice to see you two again. Donna’s letting me tag along today.” I held up the coil of spray hose I’d carried into the condo as if it could splash a little legitimacy on my guest appearance. “She also seems determined to put me to work, but I promise that I won’t get anywhere near a pair of scissors. I just get the pleasure of watching her do her thing, if that’s okay with you.”

  Althea cocked her head, confusion clouding her watery blue eyes. “I don’t think I understand. Are you going into the b-business, honey? Is that why you’re here?”

  The part of this nice old lady’s brain that controlled her speech may have been damaged, but her ability to recognize a flimsy excuse when she heard it seemed unimpaired.

  I laughed her off and pointed at my ponytail. “No, I can barely style my own hair. I just happened to be in the area,” I said, mentally kicking myself for veering off the script I had gone over with Donna on our way over here.

  Donna’s eyes widened as if I had just lobbed a grenade into the tool bag slung over her shoulder. “And I invited her to join our girls’ beauty day because …” She signaled with a little nod that I’d better fill in the blanks before that grenade exploded in both our faces.

  “I do nails!” I said, blurting out the first thing that came to me.

  Doing a double-take, Donna choked back a snicker. “She does nails—but apparently only on Sundays, so I thought you ladies might enjoy getting manicures.”

  Althea lifted the hand that had been stroking the tabby’s fur and inspected her nails. “I haven’t had mine done in … forever. Probably not since all the … trouble.”

  Trouble? I turned to Mavis.

  “With her dementia getting worse, that’s what she’s been calling everything bad that’s happened since Harold died,” she whispered in my ear.

  Without missing a beat, Mavis picked up the cat from her sister’s lap and set it on an embroidered throw pillow. “Then it’s high time we treat ourselves, don’t you think, dear?”

  “That depends on … how much it costs,” Althea said, shooting me a none-too-subtle wink.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the woman who obviously still knew how to negotiate to her advantage. “All it will cost is a little conversation. I haven’t seen you in such a long time, we can fill one another in on all the latest news.”

  Mavis grinned. “I’m pretty sure Charmaine means the latest gossip.”

  Althea extended her arm to be helped up from the sofa. “I’m in.”

  While Mavis guided her sister to the chair in front of the shampoo bowl that Donna had set up in the kitchen, I hurried ahead with the hose.

  “You do nails?” Donna leveled her gaze at me. “That’s seriously the best you could do?”

  “It’s all I could think of. You have your little manicure kit with you, right?” I asked, hoping that this mobile salon side-business of hers was a full-service one.

  “Of course.” She pointed the spray nozzle at the tote bag slung over one of the chairs in the adjacent nook. “I also have a few bottles of polish in there.”

  “You’re the best.” Because all I had in my tote was an emery board.

  “Speaking of the best,” Donna said as she aimed a happy smile at Althea slowly limping toward her with the assistance of a cane. “Look at you go. That physical therapy is really paying off.”

  Althea grunted, her brows knit with determination while maintaining a white-knuckled grip on that cane. “Some payoff.”

  Following like a mom shadowing a baby learning to walk, Mavis helped her sister lower herself into the chair. “Don’
t dismiss your progress. You’re able to make it clear around the block now. We couldn’t say that the last time you were here,” she said to Donna.

  Donna draped a black cape over Althea. “That’s awesome. So what shall we do today? How about some pink streaks to celebrate the new you?”

  Althea grunted again. “That’s for girls … your age.”

  “Age is just a state of mind, honey,” Donna said while she turned on the water.

  Apparently satisfied that her sister was comfortable, Mavis took a seat at the table where I had set up my manicure station. “My knees might disagree with that statement, but I’d like to believe.”

  “So would I.” I took her right hand and inspected five fingers that looked like they hadn’t seen a professional manicurist in months. Given the caregiver role this retired nurse had taken on, it came as no surprise.

  She leaned in while I reached for the clippers. “You’re what? All of thirty-three or thirty-four?”

  “Thirty-five.” With a biological clock ticking a little louder every day.

  “You’re a baby.”

  No, I wasn’t, as that ticking clock kept reminding me. Because if I wanted to have a baby, I needed to do something about it.

  Not that I was in any better position for that to happen than when I was married to Chris.

  “Are you okay, Charmaine?” Mavis asked, pulling a curtain over the image my brain had conjured of Chris as a new dad.

  I looked up from the thumbnail I was trimming. “Sorry, I was just thinking about …” Anything that would divert her attention elsewhere. “Actually, what brought me to your neighborhood today: the condo for sale across the street.”

  Mavis nodded as if a light bulb had gone on over her head. “Oh, the open house.”

  There was an open house today? Perfect!

  “I thought I’d check it out for the lady who lives next door to me. She’s been talking about downsizing for a while.” Which was true, but in the context of moving to Colorado to be near her grandchildren, not across town. “So she might be interested.”

  “You might want to mention that someone died there.” Mavis’s fingers tensed. “You know about that, right?”

  Did I ever.

  “I heard about it from my grandmother.” And a few other people.

  “The way news travels around here I imagine most everyone’s heard. I figure that’s the main reason it hasn’t sold.”

  “What?” Althea called out from fifteen feet away while Donna snipped at the nape of her neck.

  Mavis glanced back over her shoulder. “We’re just talking about Naomi’s place across the street.”

  “No buyers for it yet, huh?” Donna asked.

  “Not yet.” Mavis shrugged. “At least not that I’ve heard about.”

  “What about that … guy?” Althea chipped in.

  Mavis turned to face her sister. “What guy?”

  Althea had a look of victory on her face, clearly pleased that she had remembered something that her sister hadn’t. “The … tooth …” She shook her head while her lips worked to pry open the file where the word she was searching for used to be stored. “That tooth guy.”

  “Do you mean that dentist?” Mavis asked.

  What dentist?

  Althea nodded, making her head a moving target for Donna. “We saw Dr. … what’s his name … on our walk.”

  Mavis turned back to let me finish shaping her nails. “She’s confused. She thought she recognized her dentist, but that was weeks ago.”

  “Oh wait. I-I remember now,” Althea stated as if she had to prove to herself and everyone in the kitchen that her damaged brain didn’t make her any less reliable as a witness. “He was making a house call. With that tree guy. Probably the jerk that c-cut down my plum trees.”

  Mavis shook her head and murmured, “Not again with the trees.”

  “A dentist and a tree guy?” Donna looked in my direction as if she needed a translator.

  She wasn’t the only one, although I had noticed some skinny tree stumps in the narrow stretch of lawn that bordered their neighbor’s driveway.

  “Someone cut down her trees?” I whispered while Althea struggled to explain the mystery of the missing trees to Donna.

  Mavis blew out a weary breath. “It’s something that I guess had to be done because they weren’t the ornamental kind like Harold thought. Anyway, when the neighbors complained to Naomi about the fruit making a mess on their driveway—”

  “Naomi? Why complain to her?”

  “She was in charge of the grounds committee for the complex. I know she felt horrible about it, because the service she called came out to whack the trees a week after Harold’s funeral. Althea was here, mending from a broken leg, crying, yelling at Naomi for killing her trees every time she came over to visit.” Shoulders slumped, Mavis stared at the fingernail I was buffing. “Eventually, her dementia will steal away her memory of what she’s been calling ‘the trouble.’ In the meantime, almost every man she sees in the neighborhood is suspected of being a ‘tree guy.’ ”

  “You have to w-watch for ‘em,” Althea stated emphatically as if she had overheard us. “Riding around in their vans, trying to … drum up b-business.”

  Mavis schooled her features with patience. “I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about, honey.”

  “I know what I saw,” Althea protested. “A white van.”

  Donna bent down in front of Althea to trim her bangs. “Maybe it was that dentist’s van with all his equipment. That’s a possibility because he’d need to pack a lot of stuff for house calls, right?”

  Althea shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I don’t know what she thinks she saw,” Mavis muttered. “But I’m quite certain it wasn’t a mobile dental clinic.”

  I pushed the three bottles of nail polish to the center of the table for her to choose a color. “So no van, huh?”

  She pointed at the clear gloss. “Not that I noticed. Of course, at the time, my main focus was on keeping her upright.”

  While I brushed on a glossy layer of aromatic polish to Mavis’s thumbnail, I tried to think of a way to return to the subject of Naomi Easley’s drowning. “But you saw these two guys at the condo across the street?”

  She nodded.

  “Think they were interested in buying it?”

  “I doubt it. It wasn’t for sale yet.”

  I dipped the applicator into the bottle. “When was this?”

  “The day that Naomi died.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “AND I’M SURE your neighbor would find this spacious bathroom to her liking,” Bonnie from Durand and Terry Realty said, giving me a tour through Naomi Easley’s condo. “You’ll note the grab bar for security getting in and out of the soaking tub.”

  Not that it helped Naomi any that last night.

  Bonnie cleared her throat as if the petite sixty-something had read my mind and pointed the toes of her nutmeg leather flats in the opposite direction. “Moving on, across the hall we have the spare bedroom and the lovely garden view.”

  “Very nice,” I could say with all honesty as I imagined Naomi’s final days here. The interior was a little worse for wear, but new carpeting and some updated fixtures, along with a warmer color to replace the eggshell white on the walls, could make this duplex very inviting.

  If you didn’t think about the last person to soak in that bathtub.

  After showing me the master bedroom at the end of the hall, I followed Bonnie back to the kitchen where she handed me a flyer from a short stack next to a coffee mug full of pens.

  “This also has my number if she’d like to schedule an appointment.” Her mauve-tinted lips stretched into a bright smile worthy of a toothpaste commercial. “The condos here typically go fast, so if she’s really interested, she shouldn’t wait too long, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. But since this condo was lis
ted because of an atypical circumstance, I also knew that it wouldn’t be the one selling like hotcakes.

  “So those two gentlemen who looked at the place a while back didn’t make an offer?” I asked after helping myself to an ergonomic grip pen.

  Bonnie seemed to downshift into neutral. “I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to discuss other offers.”

  More accurately, there were no other offers, and she couldn’t help me identify Althea’s “guys.”

  “No problem.” I had figured it was a long shot, but at least this open house provided me the occasion to check out the scene of the alleged crime. And come away with a pretty nice pen.

  I was thinking about all the identical pens Naomi had collected when I noticed Leland Armistead waving some long-stemmed blooms at me from behind the hydrangea bordering his driveway.

  “I thought that was you getting outta that car a couple hours back.” He pointed at Donna’s Mini Cooper with his pruning shears. “Canvassing the neighborhood, are you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said as I approached. So please don’t tell Steve that if you happen to see him. “I was just chatting with the ladies across the street.”

  Zeroing in on the real estate flyer in my clutches, he nodded with approval. “And takin’ the opportunity to get another look at the scene, I see.”

  This little old dude was too observant for my comfort level.

  Which meant that he was exactly the man I needed to help me fill in a few blanks. “Actually, I went in to chat with Bonnie, the real—”

  “The agent who’s havin’ a heckuva time finding a buyer for the place? Oh, I know. She’s bemoaned to me plenty that all she’s gettin’ are curiosity-seekers.”

  And just had one more.

  “That’s probably to be expected,” I said, tucking the flyer away in my tote and grabbing my notebook. “We’d all like to understand what happened that night.”

  “Indeed we would.” Leland’s eyes gleamed with anticipation as I poised my new pen over a fresh page. “Rest assured, I made every effort to be an open book when your nice detective interviewed me, but if there’s some additional information that I can provide …”