By then I really wanted Sandy to stay. But Mike and DeeAnn, and Sandy too, had a right to know that the possibility of danger existed, so they could judge for themselves if they wanted her to be with me. Or, for that matter, if they even wanted me in the house.
“Are you still there, Aunt Ivy?” DeeAnn asked, and I realized the silence had stretched to an awkward length.
“I’m here.” Finally I said, “There’s a … detail I need to talk to both you and Mike about.”
DeeAnn must have heard the worry in my voice, because she immediately said, “Mike can get on the other phone.”
So Mike did that, and I explained everything about Drake Braxton’s threat and, even though the police hadn’t come up with any definite proof, the strong probability that he or his clan had something to do with my house fire.
“You mean you’re on some kind of hit list with these people?” Mike asked, sounding astonished. An understandable attitude, I suppose. How many little old ladies with possum-gray hair wind up on a homicidal hit list?
“Even though the Braxtons do have this hostile attitude, I honestly don’t think they’ll come down to Woodston after me. I’m hoping they’ll figure running me out of town is sufficient.”
Finally Mike said, “Let us think about this and do some checking, and we’ll call you back, okay?”
I spent the night berating myself. I never should have involved them in this. I should have simply packed myself off to a cheap rental in the middle of nowhere and hidden out for a few months. Why hadn’t I thought of that in the first place? In the morning I got out Harley’s old road atlas and started studying places out West with names such as Remote, Lizard Valley, and NoWhere.
When the phone rang I was prepared to hear Mike say, in a diplomatic way, of course, that they’d decided to take Sandy with them and rent the house out. I figured that by now, any renters, even people with eight dogs, a collection of junk cars, and a taste for barbecuing possum in the fireplace, would look preferable to one LOL on some killer/arsonist’s hit list.
But what Mike said was, “Okay, we’ve talked to an acquaintance in the county sheriff’s department, Sgt. Yates, and he got in touch with some contacts up there in Missouri. He says that Drake Braxton has big legal problems with his construction and land development business. There’s a criminal negligence charge hanging over him, and the definite possibility of prison time. So he’s probably too deep in his own problems to worry about hunting you down and getting revenge for helping convict his brother.”
“Which doesn’t mean he won’t make time for a little roadkill action on the side. And there’s the rest of the Braxton clan to worry about too.”
“That’s possible, of course. But we’ve also contacted a security company, and they’re coming this afternoon to install a good alarm system. If you’re careful not to leave a trail behind for the Braxtons to follow—”
“I won’t! I intend to make it look as if I’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“Good. So we think the danger is minimal.”
“What does Sandy think? Is she scared?”
“Sandy loves the idea.” Mike sounded mildly exasperated with his adventurous daughter. “She’s already thinking about all these Home Alone–type schemes in case the bad guys show up. I don’t think we could drag her away now.”
“I’ll take good care of her. I promise.”
“I think she figures she’ll take good care of you. Not that we’d consider doing this at all if we thought there was really any danger.”
I put in a forwarding address at the post office and arranged to have the phone, electricity, and water disconnected. I decided I wouldn’t arrange for yard upkeep. I’d just let the place look abandoned, like the other empty houses on Madison Street. The city officials might get up in arms about this eventually, but hopefully I’d be home before that.
I followed the advice I’d given DeeAnn about using moving time to get rid of excess baggage. Out went polyester pants that refused to wear out and apparently intended to march into eternity with me. Shoes so pointy-toed they’d fit into keyholes. A dark suit with shoulder pads large and square enough to deter a halfback tackle.
On the last morning, I left a noncommittal note on the Margollins’ back door and sent an equally vague note to Dix and Haley. I didn’t want them to have the responsibility of actually knowing where I was in case the Braxtons pressured them.
I took a final tour through the house. I got teary in the kitchen where I’d baked Harley’s favorite pot roast and apple cobbler so many times, and real tears flowed in the bedroom Harley and I had shared for so many years.
The house already looked sad and forlorn when I scooted into the T-bird and started the engine. A window blind drooped like a tired eyelid, and the windows needed washing.
Good. I wanted the Braxtons to think I was gone forever.
Although this was, I assured myself as I backed out the driveway, only a temporary move. I just wished it didn’t feel so much like a permanent good-bye.
3
I ate dinner on the road and arrived at the big house outside Woodston about 7:30 that evening. The yard light was on, shining on an unfamiliar red car in the driveway. Rain and darkness hid Little Tom Lake, but I could hear the wind driving rough waves against the small dock down below the walking trail that separated the house from the narrow beach. Branches on the big old black walnut tree creaked overhead. Rain bounced off the flagstones of the walkway, but a pleasantly woodsy scent rose from the damp bark mulch around the shrubs. Sandy, unmindful of wind and rain, dashed down the front steps to meet me.
“Aunt Ivy, thank you, thank you for letting me stay!” Sandy is small and compact, but gymnastics makes her limber as a coil of spring steel, and she wrapped me in one of her surprisingly powerful hugs. “Mom and Dad are over at church, finishing things up. I think they’re glad to be rid of me and can’t wait to get away!” Her pert nose wrinkled, but the sparkle in her blue eyes belied any concern about abandonment. “I’ll carry your stuff in—”
“The suitcase on the front seat is all I need tonight. We can haul everything else in tomorrow.”
She ran out to the car for the suitcase. Another girl was standing under the coach light on the covered front porch. She looked a little older than Sandy and considerably more sophisticated. Tall, slim and willowy, dark-haired, very pretty even though wearing enough eye shadow to turn her eyes into smoky caverns.
This had to be Skye of the “outrageous outfits,” I decided. Her slithery, psychedelic-print skirt swirled around her ankles, but it hung so low on her hips that the bones jutted out like coat hangers. Enough bare skin separated the skirt and a skimpy knit top to invite pneumonia in this weather. She smiled, but her manner was reserved.
“Hi. I’m Sandy’s friend, Skye Ridenour.” She held out her hand, a formality I didn’t expect, and we shook. I tried not to look at her belly button, but, since it had a gold hoop attached to it, I found it difficult not to.
“I’m always pleased to meet Sandy’s friends. I don’t think we’ve met before.”
“I’ve only been in Woodston since last fall. I came here to live with my father then.”
Sandy came up the walkway with my old Montgomery Ward suitcase banging against her knees. “We’ve been making brownies for you, with pecans and chocolate-mint frosting!”
Skye looked at the watch on her left wrist. I’m not on time-keeping terms with expensive watches, but I’d guess she could buy an armful of my Timex for what that one cost. “I’d better get home.”
“Don’t run off because of me—”
“Oh no, it isn’t that. The Dumpling told me I had to be home by 7:30 to sit with Baby so she could go to the health club. I’ll get my jacket.”
Since it was already 7:35, it appeared that Skye wasn’t overly concerned about the deadline. I wondered who or what the Dumpling with a baby was, but I didn’t want Sandy’s friends to think I was a nosy LOL, so I didn’t ask.
Inside, Skye picked up a jacket in camouflage colors lying on the sofa. It, in contrast to the clingy top, was as bulky as a sleeping bag, with enough pockets to arouse a kangaroo to envy. She waved as she went out, fingernails flashing sparkly glitters.
“She’s walking home in the dark?” I asked, concerned.
“That’s her car out there.”
“Her own car?”
“She’s sixteen,” Sandy said, as if that explained everything.
Which I found a little scary.
Sandy carried the suitcase across the living room, where a fire crackled in the fireplace, and up the stairs to the corner room I always occupied. The big old house has four bedrooms and a bath upstairs, plus the master bedroom downstairs.
A four-poster bed covered with a multistar design quilt centered the far wall of my room. Around it was a comfortable hodgepodge, everything from a rolltop desk (maple, imitation antique) to a beanbag chair, a cane-bottomed rocker, and a genuine antique trunk as a nightstand. Underfoot were three old-fashioned braided rag rugs, courtesy of Mike’s grandmother. An appliquéd quilt, this an aunt’s handiwork, hung on one wall, a watercolor of an empty cross on a distant hill on another. I’d always felt at home in this room.
By the time I unpacked a few things and went downstairs, Mike and DeeAnn had returned. We ate brownies, delightfully tasty in spite of the odd pecan and mint combination, and had a lovely visit. They showed me how the new alarm system worked. I suspected it might deter my entry more often than that of any prowling Braxtons, but computer expert Sandy blithely assured me it was no problem. I decided I’d just let her manage it. Mike said he was leaving his impressive collection of mystery novels behind, which meant I wouldn’t run out of reading material for a long time. A sad note was news of the death of an elderly neighbor, Lois Watkins, a sweet and chatty woman whom I usually stopped in to visit when I was here.
We discussed possible dangers from the Braxtons, but Mike and DeeAnn were confident everything would be okay, or, as they’d already pointed out, they wouldn’t be leaving Sandy here.
The ’bird was still full of my stuff, so we used DeeAnn’s Buick to take Mike and DeeAnn to the airport in Fayetteville the next morning. Both Sandy and DeeAnn were teary when they said good-bye, but Sandy was upbeat and chatty on the way home.
“Well, here we are, Aunt Ivy. Just you and me!” she said cheerfully when she unlocked the house. She poked buttons on the new control panel when we stepped inside so the alarm system wouldn’t consider us intruders and alert the police.
I, however, was suddenly uneasily aware of how close the thick woods grew around the house—plenty of cover for creeping Braxtons. Of how big the house was—plenty of space for hiding Braxtons. Of how noticeable my white T-bird, sitting out there in the driveway, was—a vehicle with which the Braxtons were undoubtedly quite familiar.
Okay, get off it, I told myself grumpily. The Braxtons had no clue where I was hiding out, and my biggest problem here would probably be deciding how to fill my time.
Not a problem those first few days.
That afternoon we lugged my stuff upstairs and unpacked. Sandy gave me a quick introduction to her computer and Internet system, although I begged off on chatting with cyberspace Romeos with yachts. Later, a half dozen teenage friends came over to play ping-pong in the basement and eat popcorn. Mike and DeeAnn called to report a safe arrival in Hawaii.
By next morning, when Sandy phoned to see if Skye wanted to go to church with us, the weather had metamorphosed into glorious spring. Skye was still in bed and didn’t go, but I’d been to Mike and DeeAnn’s church before, knew a few people, and felt comfortable and welcome. Afterward, DeeAnn’s friends urged me to join a Thursday morning women’s Bible study, which I gladly agreed to do. But I put off an invitation to join a quilting group. An earlier venture into quilting had made me think I’d as soon try working a crossword puzzle in Russian.
That afternoon Sandy and I dragged the aluminum skiff, which had been stored behind the garage for the winter, down to the water. A couple of young guys hiking on the public pathway, and taking interested notice of Sandy in her cutoffs, helped when we got stuck. I suspected young male help would appear if Sandy were stranded on an Antarctic ice floe.
The trail bustled with activity, hikers and joggers and dog walkers all out to enjoy the spring day, everyone talkative and friendly. The trail begins at the city park and follows all along the west edge of the lake, far past where the houses end.
We took turns rowing. Little Tom isn’t a wide lake, but it’s long, so we covered only the south half of it. I seldom venture into shorts, but Sandy had urged me into them today, and the sun felt good on my bare legs. Glittery rays reflected off the water into our sunglasses, and the faint breeze brought scents of damp earth awakening and squeals of children on the trail. From our vantage point out on the water, the shoreline was a misty green haze of bushes in fresh new leaves.
The far side of the lake, which had been wild woods when DeeAnn and Mike first moved here, was now divided into what Sandy said was called “Vintage Estates.” A building requirement for the area was that all the houses must be “period” style. Exactly what period was apparently up for grabs, as they ranged from Victorian to Craftsman—and even one in antebellum plantation style. It looked as if Scarlett O’Hara might stroll out of it at any moment. All were huge. Sandy said most of the residents were new, not local people. On this side of the lake, Sandy said, unlike over on the less-exclusive side, people owned right down to the water’s edge and there was no trail for public use.
The lawns weren’t lush yet, but they sloped gracefully from big houses to the water, with elaborate boathouses and private docks sticking out into the lake like manicured fingers. The boathouse at the plantation-style place matched the house, right down to white columns. Two peacocks graced one lawn. A guy sitting shirtless in a gingerbread-trim gazebo gave us a friendly wave. I decided if he wasn’t concerned about exposing his hairy belly to the world, I shouldn’t worry about my legs in shorts.
By the time Sandy gave my tired shoulders a rubdown that evening and supplied bubble-gum-scented bubble bath for a long soak in the tub, I wondered how I could have hesitated for a moment about having her here with me.
She went to school on Monday, of course, but I had plenty to keep me busy. I washed DeeAnn’s Buick and put it away in the double garage, alongside the SUV. The company was furnishing them with a car in Hawaii. Then it was such a great day that I washed the T-bird too and prudently parked it where it wasn’t quite so visible. Just in case.
But I really wasn’t feeling any ominous vibes from hostile Braxtons, and at about 3:00 I went for a walk. The trail wasn’t busy this weekday, and I met only one hiker. A jogger, actually, a lean woman with a blonde ponytail swinging out the back of a baseball cap. She jogged by me both coming and going, and I was impressed with her stamina. Although I couldn’t say that she looked as if she was enjoying herself much.
I saw her again the following day. This time I said hello. She gave me a distant nod and kept jogging. On the next day I tried again, adding, “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Not even a nod today.
I was surprised and a bit vexed. Arkansas people, and especially Woodston folks, are usually so friendly. Unless she actually hadn’t seen me, of course. I am, by charitable description, petite and slender, an inconspicuous older woman. Less charitably, I am short and scrawny, an invisible little old lady (ILOL in this age of abbreviations). That invisibility, though disconcerting when I first discovered it, can be quite useful.
I didn’t see how this woman could have totally missed me on the trail, however. If I’d stuck out a foot she’d have fallen flat on her face.
On Thursday morning, before Bible study, I had another odd encounter. Sandy and I had left the skiff tied at the dock, and I decided to go down and check on it. Brush concealed the short dock from the house, so I was at the beach end of the warped boards before I realized a man was down on one knee at t
he other end. I didn’t really intend to sneak up on him, but something about his odd, almost furtive, position made me curious, and I stopped before my foot touched the dock.
Now I could see that he was holding binoculars to his eyes. I squinted, trying to see what he was studying so intently.
Birds? I’d spotted a cardinal the day before, and an owl had hooted out back of the house last night. Yet there was something oddly stealthy about the way he suddenly lowered the binoculars, took a quick glance around, and then raised them again.
When he looked around, his gaze skimmed right over me. Maybe it was because my green sweats blended into the haze of green bushes. No need for alarm, I told myself, just because he seemed to be acting a bit peculiar. But I realized I was uneasily fingering the emergency whistle that always hangs on a cord around my neck. It was a gift from my departed friend Thea, who gave it to me after an older woman was mugged in a parking lot back home.
But my uneasiness was surely foolish. This was broad daylight, and the man was simply … what?
When in doubt, I advised myself, ask.
“Anything interesting out there?” I called out.
The guy jumped to his feet as if I’d jabbed him with a barbecue fork, and for a moment I thought he was going to tumble off the dock. But he managed to right himself, and he turned and looked at me as if he thought I’d deliberately snuck up on him. He was good looking, in a sharp-faced way, but his deep tan struck me as out of place for this time of year in Woodston.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. It isn’t a private dock,” I added, because he’d wedged the binoculars against his chest as if trying to hide them. His wrinkled slouch hat was pulled down low, three fishing lures snagged above the droopy brim. His khaki pants ended high on his ankles, exposing heavy work boots. Blue suspenders crisscrossed his red plaid shirt and held the top of the pants well above his waist.
“It’s okay to use the dock. Everyone in the houses along here does. That’s my niece’s boat,” I said, pointing to the skiff. “The other one belongs to the neighbors.”
In Plain Sight Page 2