Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 02 - Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles

by Wendy Delaney

  While I watched Marietta saunter over to where the artist, Lance Greenwood, was holding court under a strip of newly installed track lighting, Gram sidled next to me. “I worry about her.”

  “I wouldn’t. Whatever is going on between them will probably blow over.” Or blow them apart.

  Gram frowned at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “The tension at dinner. The nervous glances Mom’s been stealing every time she thinks Mr. Ferris isn’t looking.”

  My grandmother’s gaze tightened. “You don’t know.”

  The concern etched into the network of fine lines around her eyes filled me with a sinking feeling that we weren’t talking about Barry Ferris anymore. “Know what?”

  “Your mother is having some … financial difficulties.”

  After two very expensive divorces, I knew she’d had a prenup with husband number three. Between the makeup line she had lent her famous face to and the infomercials, I’d assumed she was rebuilding her savings. Undoubtedly not to the level of when she co-starred in a Bond movie spoof thirty years earlier, especially when I could name only one film that she’d appeared in since hitting the big five-oh. Still, if my mother could learn to live on a budget …

  And if I could lose twenty pounds and wear my skinny jeans on my next date with Steve, I’d be a happy girl. But as my mother’s daughter, I wasn’t a big believer in minor miracles. “Define financial difficulty.”

  “Whatever savings she had is pretty much gone, to the point where she has to sell her house.”

  Marietta’s home in the Malibu hills was her one asset from her mid-twenties that she’d managed to hold onto through each failed marriage. If she could no longer afford to keep it, things were much worse than I had thought.

  The modest, red tile roofed hacienda shrouded in bougainvillea, where I’d spent the occasional summer as a girl, had to be worth millions. “It’ll sell and she’ll be fine, right?”

  “Sure,” Gram said, staring at her daughter like she wanted to believe it herself. “All the repairs are going to be expensive though. On top of everything else it’s really bad timing.”

  Huh? She was losing me. “Repairs to what?”

  Gram heaved a sigh. “She doesn’t tell you anything, does she?”

  We tended to get along better that way. “I guess not.”

  “Her master bath sprang a leak during her visit last month. The water damage was extensive, so she’s here for the next couple of weeks while a work crew’s in her house.”

  I watched Barry hand Marietta a glass of champagne. With the way her eyes sparked in response, I sincerely doubted that the notion of sharing her home with a few workmen was what had chased my mother eleven hundred miles north. “What did you mean, ‘on top of everything else?’”

  Blinking, Gram pressed her lips together like she had a secret she dared not tell.

  “You might as well spill it. I’ll find out eventually.” Mainly because Gram had the worst poker face in the world.

  “Well …” she glanced back at her daughter. “It appears that your mother borrowed against her house and lost almost everything on some bad investments. When you add in the cost of this last divorce ….” Gram slowly shook her head. “Honestly, honey, if it weren’t for the remaining equity in that house, your mother would probably have to declare bankruptcy because she’s broke.”

  “What? But she’s working—all those infomercials, all the appearances she makes—”

  “Are barely keeping her head above water.”

  Yeowch. “Does Mr. Ferris know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’s she going to do?”

  “Sell her house and soon.”

  Which meant she was going to have to make some quick decisions about another place to live, increasing the odds of her throwing herself into the willing arms of my former biology teacher.

  Criminy, she wasn’t about to give him the kiss off. She’d come to Port Merritt to find out if another wedding could be in her immediate future.

  Chapter Five

  As Gram and I joined the outer circle of onlookers surrounding Marietta and Lance Greenwood, I realized that I had spent most of my adult life underestimating my mother’s acting abilities.

  The glamour queen tossing back her head, laughing with Lance Greenwood, was playing tonight’s role to perfection. With the jewels adorning her fingers, the Rodeo Drive couture accentuating every curve, and her flawless makeup, my mother looked and sounded the part of Marietta Moreau, actress.

  Yes, tonight she was delivering quite the devil-may-care performance, because the former Mary Jo Digby had to be heartbroken about having to sell her home of the last twenty-eight years.

  She touched the artist’s sleeve. “Ah do declare, Mistah Greenwood, you have some snake charmer in you.”

  With a rakish twinkle in his chestnut brown eyes, the other star attraction of the evening lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “And I do believe it takes one to know one. So, Ms. Moreau, do we have a deal?”

  My mother’s mouth parted, her smile as brittle as spun sugar. “I …”

  Oh, Mom, you don’t want to do this. Walk away. Just walk away.

  “It’s a deal,” she said, shaking his hand with all the enthusiasm of a politician during election year.

  Shit.

  Gram leaned in. “Mary Jo, what are you doing?”

  “Exactly what’s expected of me,” she whispered, her teeth clenched.

  Slowly releasing a deep breath, she got back into Marietta Moreau character. “Mama, you’re looking at the proud owner of two Lance Greenwood originals.”

  “Two,” Gram said, her tone dripping with parental disapproval. Unlike my mother, her mother made no effort to hide her misgivings about this deal.

  Marietta winked at Lance. “I got a little discount for buying two.”

  Probably because no one else attending this wing-ding appeared to be in a buying mood.

  “May I escort you to the register so Kelsey can take care of the rest of the details?” he said, bending slightly at the waist like an officious maître d’.

  My mother took the arm he offered her. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  Kindness had nothing to do with this. He probably wanted her to fork over a credit card and seal this deal before she came to her senses and stopped acting like she had money to burn.

  Gram rolled her eyes as we followed Marietta to where Kelsey stood and beamed at Lance Greenwood like he was a rock star.

  While my mother pulled some plastic from her wallet, Lance stepped behind the counter and reached for a pen, brushing Kelsey’s fingers.

  Incidental contact? From the flicker of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, I didn’t think so.

  He wrote a number on a sales ticket. “Olympic Sunset and Port Townsend Twilight at a special price for this very special lady.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Barry Ferris, who was sipping on his wine as he browsed a crowded aisle filled with Native American art.

  Clearly, there was a lot my former teacher had yet to learn about my mother, and based on his apparent lack of concern about her decision to become a patroness of Lance Greenwood, the state of her finances needed to be somewhere at the top of the list.

  “Two of my favorites from his Pacific Northwest collection,” Kelsey said as she snapped up Marietta’s credit card. “Obviously yours, too.”

  While Marietta signed for her purchase, Lance’s gaze raked over the hint of Kelsey’s décolletage exposed by the V neckline of her beaded vintage dress.

  As for Kelsey, she practically glowed with delight, but it looked to me to have everything to do with making a big sale instead of the artist’s proximity.

  Once her gaze was fixed back on Marietta, Lance fingered the buttons of his tan herringbone blazer and smoothed his necktie.

  Lance Greenwood reminded me of the chess club guy in high school, a little nervous and fidgety right before he asked the hottest chick in the room o
ut on a date—which solved the mystery of why tonight’s art show was taking place here instead of one of the galleries in Port Townsend. It was to score some face time with Kelsey Donovan.

  “You’re welcome to pick up the paintings tomorrow, after the show,” Kelsey said when she handed Marietta her receipt.

  “Ah’m sure that can be arranged.” My mother turned to me, leaving no doubt who would be doing the arranging.

  Kelsey leaned toward me after Gram herded Marietta and Mr. Ferris toward the door. “Have you heard anything new about what happened to Russell?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  I shook my head. “The investigation is just starting.”

  “It’s so sad.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I just saw him last night and …”

  Lance wrapped his arm around Kelsey. “Shhhh, you’re only going to upset yourself if you dwell on that.”

  She blew out a breath, the waterworks spilling over her long lashes. “I’m sorry to be so … emotional. He was a friend, but this is your night and—”

  “And you have every right to be a little emotional.” His gaze softened. “Let me get you a drink. I’m sure you could use one.”

  Kelsey patted his hand. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

  I watched Lance cross the room to the wine bar. “He likes you.”

  Looking down at the counter between us, she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “He’s been very kind. Not at all the temperamental artist type. Really, he couldn’t have been more pleasant to do business with the last couple of weeks.”

  Which sounded to me like the hot chick wasn’t interested in mixing business with pleasure.

  “Speaking of business,” I said. “I know this is a terrible time to ask, but what time did Russell leave last night?”

  “Around eight. He would have stayed later to install the lighting, but he said he had somewhere he needed to be.”

  “He didn’t give you any other details?”

  “Despite what a lot of people thought about Russell, he could be very discreet.”

  “So he had a date with someone last night?”

  Worrying her lower lip, Kelsey blinked away fresh tears. “He wouldn’t have told me. Last year, he and I were …” Her breath hitched. “We had a relationship.”

  I didn’t doubt that she was telling me the truth, but it seemed like their relationship wasn’t completely in the past.

  “I didn’t realize that you two—”

  “Hardly anyone knows.”

  Knows, not knew—what I would have said if I’d been referring to a relationship that had ended last year.

  Kelsey reached for another tissue. “Like I said, he was very discreet.”

  She was certainly the woman to know that about the man, but Russell Falco gussied up for someone after he left her shop. Maybe the last person to see him alive.

  After hitting Chocolati, the gourmet chocolate shop, not only were my fat cells singing a halleluiah chorus from sharing a molten cappuccino with my mother, the synapses in my brain were crackling like a wildfire. Not from the caffeine, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about Russell Falco.

  Barry Ferris looked like he was going to explode if he didn’t get Marietta alone, and Gram needed to get off her feet, so they called it a night after we bought a pound of chocolate silk truffles for the road.

  Hey, there was a good reason the Digby women had curves.

  A half hour later, since this particular Digby was in need of information as well as a drink, I left my grandmother snoring in front of her television and drove a couple of blocks north of historic Old Town to Eddie’s Place, my favorite intel-gathering watering hole.

  Eddie Fiske inherited the red brick warehouse shortly after he married Roxanne, my best friend since grade school. They then spent the next three years transforming it into an eight-lane bowling alley and tavern with the best pizza in town.

  I scanned the gravel parking lot for Steve’s truck. Since it wasn’t anywhere in sight and hadn’t been parked in his driveway, I assumed he was working late.

  Pulling out my cell phone, I checked for messages. Nothing.

  Okay, that wasn’t the least bit surprising. We’d only had one official date that didn’t end as well as I had hoped. Never mind that we’d been sex buddies for the last two weeks. He didn’t need to check in and tell me his whereabouts, and I certainly didn’t need to tell him what I was doing at Eddie’s.

  Roxanne smiled at me from behind the bar. “Hey, I thought you were going to that art show tonight,” she said over the Guns N’ Roses classic blaring through the overhead speakers.

  I slid onto my usual barstool and waved at Eddie, who was filling a couple of frosted mugs with one of the local brews he had on tap. “How did you know about that?”

  “Steve was here for dinner and said that you had a date with your granny.” Leaning her elbows on the bar, she lowered her voice. “He also told us about Russell being found at Cedars Cove.”

  At least he didn’t mention the date that he and I’d had in the morning. Rox might be my best friend, but I wasn’t ready to tell her about Steve and me. Really, what could I say?

  It’s nothing serious. At least I didn’t think it was.

  I’m just using him for sex. Sort of. Which would be like lighting a match to a powder keg since I’d always sworn I wouldn’t cross the friendship line with Steve.

  And since I didn’t need it getting back to Steve via his best buddy, Eddie, that I was talking to Rox about us, mum was the word on this subject.

  I nodded. “Fred Wixey and his dog found him.”

  “So he fell off his boat or something?”

  “Don’t know, but Mr. Wixey said he was gussied up, so I think he had been on a date.”

  Roxanne tucked a chunk of chin-length caramel hair behind her ear as she straightened. “Hmmmm.” Knitting her brows, she poured me a glass of Chablis.

  Everything about her body language told me that she had some beans she needed to spill.

  “What?” I asked as she set the glass on a bar napkin. “You know something.”

  “No, I—”

  “I saw that look on your face. Don’t even try to deny it.”

  Her gaze tracked a middle-aged couple in matching blue bowling shirts leaving the bar. “I don’t know much.”

  Which was a heck of a lot more than what I knew. I pointed my thumb at the back table they’d just vacated so that we could talk away from Bruce Springsteen blasting our eardrums, and Rox followed me with a black plastic tub.

  “Did you see Russell last night?” I asked as she cleared the dishes from the table.

  She shook her head. “Earlier in the week. Monday, when I was driving home from work.”

  I took a sip of wine and waited. Like my grandfather said when he uncorked a bottle of Bordeaux to celebrate my high school graduation, “Some things you need to let breathe.”

  “It might not mean anything,” Rox said, wiping down the table with a dingy white towel.

  Considering the fact that Russell’s body had been discovered washed up on shore twelve hours earlier, I wasn’t about to dismiss anything she might have seen.

  Rox set the tub of dirty dishes on the seat between us and slipped into the chair across from me. “It had been a slow night so I left an hour early to get home before dark.”

  A little quirk of her lips told me that wasn’t the whole story. “Before dark, or before something else happened?”

  She sighed. “You know, having a friend who’s a human lie detector is really annoying sometimes.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault you weren’t telling the whole truth.”

  “Whatever. So if you must know, Ms. Smarty Pants, I wanted to get home to see the season premiere of my favorite show. Satisfied?”

  “Not yet. And … ?

  “And I was driving past the old barn on Morton Road when I came around the bend and spotted Russell’s pickup parked in front of Joyce Lackey’s house.”

&nbs
p; “Maybe he was doing some work there.”

  Pete and Joyce Lackey’s Cape Cod-style home on the south shore of Merritt Bay had been in a continual state of repair for as long as I could remember, so it didn’t seem out of the ordinary that Russell would have been there to lend a hand.

  Rox leveled her gaze at me. “At nine-fifteen, when Pete’s not home?”

  “How do you know he wasn’t home?”

  “I drive by that house every day. When he’s home, that big-assed truck of his is in the driveway.”

  The blue and white Pete’s Plumbing truck with the leaky faucet depicted on each side panel would certainly be tough to miss.

  Okay, now her Russell sighting at the Lackey house didn’t seem ordinary by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d been burned before by drawing some hasty and very incorrect conclusions. “There could be a reasonable explanation why he was there.”

  “Who was where?” Steve asked, pulling up a chair.

  I could lie and spin him a yarn about his best buddy, Eddie, being somewhere he shouldn’t have been, but I knew Steve would call bullshit on me the second it left my lips. Instead I opted for full disclosure. “It seems that Russell was at Joyce Lackey’s house a little late for business hours.”

  His gaze hardened. And without an ounce of surprise. Not the reaction I was expecting.

  He folded his arms. “You heard this from …”

  I sneaked a peek at Rox.

  “Me,” she said. “I saw his pickup there Monday night.”

  Steve drew in a breath and slowly released it. “I know I might be asking the impossible, but keep this to yourselves.”

  “We can be discreet,” I said, borrowing the adjective from Kelsey. Although if Joyce had been the latest object of Russell’s affection, I didn’t consider his decision to park his truck in front of her house a good demonstration of his discretion.

  “I won’t say a thing.” Which in Roxanne-speak meant that it would still be subject to discussion with Eddie and me.

  She pushed back her chair. “You really think they were having an affair?”

  Steve stared at her for several silent ticks. “You really think I’m going to answer that question?”

  “I liked you better earlier.” Rox picked up the plastic tub. “When you weren’t playing the role of the strong silent type and actually exchanged some ideas with me.”