“Actually, there is. The ladies across the street mentioned seeing a couple of men at Naomi’s door earlier that afternoon. Althea thought there might be some connection with a tree trimming service.”
“My dear, Althea thinks every stranger in the neighborhood is here to cut down another one of her trees.”
“I understand that the tree incident was very upsetting for her.”
“Upsetting doesn’t do justice to how she felt. I told Naomi that she should have rescheduled, but …” Leland lowered his voice. “I don’t like speakin’ ill of the dead, especially out in the open where everyone can see us. So perhaps you’d like to come in where we can have a more private discussion.”
Indeed I would.
* * *
Two minutes later, I was sitting in a cushy floral-patterned armchair when Leland handed me a tall glass of iced tea with a sprig of mint. “Are you sure I can’t offer you some pound cake? I made it yesterday. My mama’s recipe.” He fixed a loving gaze at the framed picture of Jerome on the table next to me. “A family favorite.”
“Sounds great.” It also sounded like this nice man was hungry for companionship after the death of his partner. “But I have to pass.” And save my calories for the welcome-home party that I was going to be late for if I didn’t move our conversation along.
I took a sip of very sweet tea and set my glass on the ceramic coaster next to Jerome. “You were telling me that you discussed the tree situation with Naomi.”
Leland eased into the padded pine rocking chair six feet away. “I told her that she should wait, but that headstrong woman refused to budge. Said that she had to enforce the community rules.” He slanted me a glance as he raised his glass to his mouth. “They’re very big on rules around here. Sticklers about schedules, too. Unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately? Do you mean the scheduling of that service?”
Swallowing, he slowly nodded as he rocked. “Cuttin’ those trees down changed everything around here. Made enemies out of what had been pretty friendly neighbors and gave Naomi the reputation of being a merciless enforcer.”
“That couldn’t have been fun,” I said, scribbling a note about Naomi, the neighborhood enforcer and killer of trees.
“No, and I’m quite certain that things were said in the heat of the moment that she didn’t mean.”
I stopped scribbling. “She who? Naomi?”
“Oh, no. Althea. Don’t let the fact that she sits docilely with Naomi’s cat on her lap fool you. Althea’s got quite the mouth on her. Just not the vocabulary she used to have. Anyway, I imagine that her only memories of that day are the ones preserved by the pain that’s still swirling around in that brain of hers.”
I wasn’t sure what he was telling me. “The pain of her plum trees being chopped down?” That seemed a little melodramatic.
He looked at me as if I were slower than molasses. “The pain of losing her husband—probably the one constant in her life, helping her keep her memories alive.” He took another peek at his late partner’s picture. “It was a devastatin’ loss that changed everything. Then she fell and lost her mobility right before Naomi chopped down her trees. The woman might as well have chopped Althea’s legs out from under her, ‘cause I’m pretty sure that’s how it felt.”
“You don’t think that—”
“Althea had anything to do with the drownin’? Nah. She didn’t want that cat that bad.” Leland shot me a good-humored grin, but the white-knuckled grip he had on the rocker’s armrests suggested that he had yet to settle the matter in his own mind.
“Did Naomi ever indicate she was concerned that the situation with Althea might escalate beyond words?”
Leland’s expression softened, smoothing some of the lines from the roadmap on his face. “Don’t think that was of much concern. Not at the pace the old gal moves. And, of course, Mavis was there to act as peacemaker.”
He had a point there. Plus, Mavis watched her sister like a hawk. But even hawks had to sleep sometime.
Hearing my phone ding with a message, I figured Donna was ready to leave, so I scanned my notes to see if I had any unanswered questions. That’s when I noticed I had circled white van.
I knew it was a long shot but … “Back to the tree service Naomi called to cut those plum trees, do you happen to remember what kind of vehicle they drove?”
Leland gave me an assessing once-over prior to taking a sip of tea. “I do believe that you’d only ask me that question if it had something to do with the vehicle someone saw in the area that day.”
Once again, this Southern gentleman was proving himself to be keenly observant. “That’s a definite possibility.”
“I knew it. And it was a blue pickup, an old one with a dent in the driver’s side door. No lettering so I can’t help you with the name of the company, but I’m sure Florence Spooner, who took over as grounds committee chair, can provide that to you.” He flashed me an impish grin. “How’d I do? Did the description match?”
Nope. “You did great. Thanks so much for the good info.” I took a long drink of tea and pushed out of the chair. “One last thing before I go. Did you see anyone coming or going at Naomi’s place that Sunday prior to you and Mavis letting yourselves in?”
The grin vanished. “Your friend with that cute little car arrived around noon, same as today. Went to Althea’s place first and then to Naomi’s. Can’t tell you when she left because my nephew came over with the kids to take me out to lunch.”
“You didn’t see anyone you didn’t recognize later in the day? Or a strange vehicle or two in the visitor parking area?”
“Can’t say that I did.” He stopped rocking. “But both Althea and Mavis said that they saw someone at Naomi’s door that day?”
I nodded.
“Hunh. I wonder who it could have been.”
Me too.
Chapter Fourteen
AFTER DASHING HOME to change into a black wrap dress that I accessorized with the citrine and onyx necklace my mother gave me last Christmas, I swished on some mascara and called it good enough if I wanted to make it to Gram’s by three.
Knowing a mother/daughter chat would commence as soon as I stepped through the door, I dreaded getting out of Gram’s SUV. Especially after I tilted the rearview mirror to apply some lip gloss and saw the orange citrine crystals around my neck aglow like little jack-o’-lanterns.
“Great.” I looked like I had overdressed for a Halloween party. But since I needed to tell Steve about the two men who had been witnessed at Naomi Easley’s condo, my costume was the least of my concerns today.
At least I had finally found an opportunity to wear the art deco necklace that Marietta’s stylist had reportedly described as the jewel of her holiday shopping junket. And I didn’t hate it. It was just more my mom’s style than mine, as was most everything she had insisted upon buying me. Although I did like the dining room table set she surprised me with last year. I hadn’t realized she’d had a practical streak in her. Maybe she was finally, at long last, getting to know me beyond the image some publicist had crafted of me for her bio.
The notion filled me with a glimmer of hope that I wasn’t walking into a situation that would make me want to pull out the hair I should have spent more time flat-ironing.
“And pumpkins will fly,” I said as a parting shot to my reflection, because there was a car I didn’t recognize parked on the street out front, right behind an ice-blue Subaru.
Unfortunately, I did recognize that one.
“What’s going on?” I asked Gram, who greeted me at the back door with a long-stemmed glass of Chardonnay.
She pressed the drink in my hand as if I was going to need it. “I’d like to state for the record that I had nothing to do with it.”
Swell. My afternoon was boding worse by the second.
“Is that mah baby girl I hear?” Marietta said, shuffling into the kitchen in a pair of gold rhinestone stilettos, followed by
Renee Ireland, who was aiming a camera at us as if it were Oscar night.
What the heck?
In need of a diversionary tactic, I looked at Gram, but the only help she offered was to take back the wineglass a second before impact. “I’ll hold this for you.”
While my mother crushed me against the double Ds barely restrained by the plunging lace bodice of her pink lemonade jumpsuit, I whispered in her ear, “Why is there a reporter here?”
“She wanted to do a little feature on us for the paper.”
“Us?” Who did she mean by us?
Marietta tightened her jasmine-infused embrace. “Sort of a human interest story that contrasts the mother I played in the movie with the mom I am in real life.”
That sounded like more spin from her publicist, and I saw no good reason for me to participate in Marietta’s latest fiction. “You played a meddling alcoholic your son hated so much that he killed you. That’s hardly a fair compar—”
“Doesn’t matter. The point being that it showcases my costarring role. Now, be a dear and smile for your mama,” Marietta whispered, posing cheek to cheek.
Like a jungle cat stalking its next meal, Renee worked in silence for several seconds. Then she lowered her camera, giving me the look I used to get from Chris whenever he brought up the subject of trying out for a food channel show.
Will you at least try to look supportive?
“Wonderful,” she said, her critical gaze suggesting that I was anything but. “Now, how about a couple of shots where you look relaxed and happy to see one another?”
Renee wanted me to look relaxed? I’d be happy to oblige … in another room with that drink while she and my mother finished their photo shoot.
“How’s this?” Marietta asked, hooking her arm through mine as she struck another pose.
Pasting a smile on her face, Renee aimed her camera at us. “Okay, look happy, happy.”
“I am happy, happy,” repeated the only one of the two of us having a good time. “I’m back home where I’m surrounded by mah loved ones. What more could I possibly want?”
Better buzz for her performance in Loving Lucian so that we could dispense with this command performance in front of the camera?
The little smirk teasing the corner of Renee’s mouth told me that she’d also had all the phony southern-fried charm that she could stomach for one afternoon.
“Okay, I think I have everything I need. In here, that is,” Renee added as if she were giving the actress next to me a directorial cue.
“Then, let’s get a few shots out front. As you suggested earlier, the greenery of mah mama’s lovely garden makes the perfect background. Besides, it’s a beautiful day. It’s a shame to waste it inside.”
Since when did my mother want to sink the heels of her slingbacks into Gram’s front lawn?
Easy answer. Never.
Something was up—something that explained the apprehension lurking behind my grandmother’s trifocals.
I’d like to state for the record that I had nothing to do with it.
Whatever it was, I was quite sure I wouldn’t be “happy, happy” when I found out about it.
“I don’t think you need me for that,” I said, exiting stage right to let the resident actress fly solo for the remaining moments of this act.
Just as I was about to reclaim my wineglass, Marietta grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the front door. “Sweetie, you couldn’t be more wrong.”
With Renee looking like the cat that ate the canary while she held open the door, I scanned the yard to see if she had arranged for some of Marietta’s fans to spring out from behind the bushes.
But there was nothing and no one that appeared to be out of place.
Except for that car out front I hadn’t recognized—the pearly white one that looked almost identical to Renee’s Subaru.
As we stepped off the wooden porch, Marietta held fast when I angled past one of the azalea bushes edging the walkway.
“Let’s avoid the grass, shall we?” she said, tugging me to her side.
I glanced back at Renee, who was following with a tote bag slung over her shoulder as if she planned to make a getaway after this last shot. Something I envied her for. “I thought you wanted some pictures in the garden.”
“I think there’s a good spot up near that tree,” she said.
In the shade of that thirty-foot dogwood? I was no pro in front of the camera like these two, but even I knew we would need good lighting if they really wanted to use any of these pictures in the newspaper.
When we reached the low hedge in front of that tree and Marietta flashed her chemically whitened teeth at me instead of Renee’s camera, I failed to see what she was waiting for. “Now what?”
My mother wiggled her index finger to indicate that I should take another look at that white car.
That’s when I saw the new-car sticker on the window and all the air left my body as if I’d been sucker-punched. “Please tell me you didn’t …”
“Surprise!” Marietta squealed, wrapping her arms around me while Renee clicked away, capturing the moment.
It was everything I could do to keep from screaming. “What is this?”
“Your grandmother mentioned that you needed a new car, so I thought why wait?” Marietta swept a graceful hand past the right taillight as if she were filming a car commercial instead of advertising how generous a mother she was. “Merry Christmas a couple of months early, mah darlin’!”
Renee sprang in front of me like a card-carrying member of the paparazzi. Click click.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said to fulfill my role as the dutiful daughter. But once the camera that I wanted to stomp into oblivion wasn’t around to influence our performances, she was going to hear exactly what I thought of the fiasco she had sucked me into.
Gram stepped between us like a referee trying to maintain order at a boxing match, and gave me a coaxing nod. “What a pretty car, don’t you think, Char?”
I glowered at her. Don’t try to make nice. You got me into this mess.
She gave me the look a split second before turning to my mother. “Yes, indeedy, and I love the color. But when did you have time to go car shopping? You just got back home.”
Marietta smiled at the reporter tucking away her camera. “After we made the arrangements for today’s interview, I just happened to mention that I wanted to surprise Chahmaine with a new car, and Renee was nice enough to help me out.”
I bet.
“The assistant manager at the dealership is my neighbor,” Renee explained to Gram. “Always gets me a great deal, so I made a suggestion to Marietta as to what I thought Charmaine might like and …” She aimed a victory smile at me. “Here we are.”
And here she was to tie a bow around the story she had helped create. Such a great deal, indeed.
Renee handed me a business card. “If you decide you’d like a different model or color, here’s her number. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Thanks.” But a different paint color wouldn’t begin to address the problem I had with this entire deal.
“I didn’t know she was going to do that,” Gram murmured while Marietta walked Renee to her car. “If I’d had an inkling that your mother was going to take it upon herself … Well, I never would’ve mentioned that your car was in the shop.”
“Not your fault.” Because this wretched debacle rested squarely on the slender shoulders of the publicity hound walking toward us.
Marietta beamed. “I thought that went exceedingly well.”
“You would. Let’s go back inside and I’ll tell you what I think,” I replied, my cheeks burning as I headed for the house.
“I don’t understand.” My mother’s heels tapped behind me like a frenetic metronome. “Don’t you like the car?”
Holding the door for her, I locked on her gaze. “You mean the prop?”
Ma
rietta narrowed her eyes as she passed. “Rather expensive to be just a prop, don’t you think?”
I slammed the door behind my grandmother. “Well, if that’s not the prop in that stage play you just put on, then I certainly am.”
“I resent every bit of your inference,” Marietta protested without a trace of her fake accent. “I would never treat you that way.”
“You just did.” Dropping into the brown recliner before Gram decided to claim her favorite chair, I pointed toward the kitchen. “Maybe you could start the coffee,” I suggested to my grandmother. “I’ll be along in a minute.” Or five.
She aimed a tentative smile at me. “I’ll find us another bottle of wine, too. Something tells me we may need it.”
The second Gram shuffled into the kitchen, Marietta folded her arms and fired off an angry glare from the sofa. “You have completely misinterpreted my intentions.”
“Really? You’re gonna sit there and lie about how you used me to make yourself look good in the local newspaper?”
Shifting on the sofa cushion, my mother broke eye contact. “You mustn’t think of publicity in those terms. I learned early on that to make it in this world, you have take advantage of every opportunity.”
“I am not an opportunity for you to take advantage of. I’m your daughter.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I wasn’t referring to you,” she said, her voice as soft as melted butter. “I meant your car situation.”
“Which you took advantage of to make yourself look good.”
“Did you not need a new car?” Her butter-soft tone hardened into a frozen brick. “One that won’t break down and leave you stranded in some godforsaken location? Or perhaps I misinterpreted your grandmother’s misgivings about that lemon that your ex stuck you with.”
“Leave any misgivings that someone might have about my ‘car situation’ out of this. This is about boundaries, and you just proved that you have no respect for mine.”
“Because I want to ensure your safety?” Marietta raised her hands in mock surrender. “Excuse me for trying to be a good mother.”
Crazy, Stupid, Dead Page 8