Allie waited until they had their iced tea before picking Myrna’s brain. She’d hoped for a restaurant that served drinks, thinking that she might use liquor to loosen the woman’s tongue, but as it turned out, Myrna didn’t need liquor. Myrna liked to talk, and she did a lot of it. Before Allie finished her salad, she knew all about Myrna’s kids (worthless son, but her daughter was OK) and grandkids (seven) and received several tips for successfully raising African violets. Then, she brought the conversation back to the Sun, telling Allie she’d worked there since she graduated from high school. Allie remembered her saying she would be retiring in six months.
“So, you’re looking forward to retirement?”
“Boy, am I,” Myrna said, wiping gravy off her chin.
“It must be hard to leave a job you’ve been at for so long.”
Myrna made a rude sound. “Are you kidding? I would have packed it in a long time ago, but old tight ass wouldn’t give me retirement unless I worked my full thirty years to the day. He’s not one to give anything away.”
Allie did a quick calculation. Could the woman be only forty-eight years old? “Do you mean Mr. Cornelius?”
Myrna squinted at her. “Rupert. Mr. Cornelius was his father. And don’t you tell him I called him a tight ass, or I’ll say you’re a liar.”
Allie held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.” She sipped her tea. She’d ordered unsweetened, but the brown syrup in her glass was so heavy with sugar that she felt her face contort into a grimace. She fished out the puny lemon floating in the glass and squeezed it again. She took a sip and abandoned it as a lost cause, sipping the water beside her plate instead. Bad mistake. It tasted as bad as Cape Canaveral water. Myrna didn’t seem to notice her culinary dilemma. She went at her food like a stray dog attacking an eighteen-ounce sirloin.
Allie picked up the conversation again. “Still, don’t you think you’ll miss the place?”
Myrna made another sound, rolling her eyes.
“Things must be a lot different now than back when his father ran the paper.”
She thought she saw tears in Myrna’s eyes, but it might have been from the smoke spiraling up from the ashtray an inch from her plate. “Night and day,” she said, swallowing. “Mr. Cornelius, well, he was a gentleman. A true gentleman and a real hard worker. He started the newspaper out of his garage. Back then, we had to get the Orlando Sentinel to get any news, and none of it was local. Mr. Cornelius thought we should have something local. You know, Brevard County news.”
Allie nodded encouragement.
“He worked night and day to make the paper what it was. By the time I started working with the Sun, we were in our current building with a circulation of ten thousand. Pretty darned good, if you ask me.” She washed down another bite. “I never got to meet Mrs. Cornelius. She died back in the late sixties. When I got there, he’d married that snake, Eve.”
Allie chanced an interruption. “What made her a snake?”
“Everything. I know it’s not good to speak ill of the dead, but that woman—” She stabbed viciously at a piece of meatloaf. “She drove him crazy, calling him every five minutes, always pressuring him to come home. Maybe he loved her at one time, although what he could find to love is a mystery to me, but that was long over when I came on board. I’m convinced he only stayed with her so Rupert would have a mother. Oh, she was pretty, with her swishy little body and cute ways, but what a waste of skin and bone. When I saw her number pop up on the phone, I sent the call to voice mail. What good did it to him to have her home with Rupert if she called him about every little thing?”
Allie sat back and kept her mouth shut.
“Then, later on, the two of them—her and Rupert—were thick as thieves, if you get my drift. All cuddly together whenever they came around. Something unnatural was going on. You’d have to be blind not to see it.” She shook her head. “Not that Mr. Cornelius saw it, at least at first. All he cared about was that his boy had a mama.” She stared into her plate.
Allie couldn’t afford to let her stop now. “Wasn’t she a lot older than Rupert?”
Myrna looked up. “Eight measly years. That’s all. Things got a lot worse the last years Mr. Cornelius was alive. Then, one day he went home early, and that was the last I ever saw of him.”
“What do you mean?”
Myrna sent her plate slamming against the metal napkin holder. “I mean he killed himself. Whatever he saw that day—” Her voice choked off. A second later, she bolted toward the restroom.
Allie took a sip of her tea without thinking and made a face. She couldn’t get her head around what Myrna told her. Rupert and Eve Cornelius lovers? Only eight years difference in their ages? She didn’t have to wonder what Cornelius senior walked in on when he went home early that day. Rupert would have been—what? Thirty-two when that happened? She needed more information from Myrna. She saw her heading back across the room, her eyes red. When she sat down, Allie leaned toward her. Up close, she could see that Myrna’s nose was red and her mascara smeared across her eyelids. “I know how terrible it is to lose someone you care about. My Aunt Lou died a few months ago. I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
Myrna looked over at her. “Lou who?”
“Louise Smith. She worked at the Sheriff’s Office.”
Myrna sat back. “Lou was your aunt?”
“You knew her?”
“Everyone knew her. She was an institution around the Sheriff’s Office.” She shook her head. “God. Lou’s niece. I can’t believe it.”
Myrna started making moves as if she wanted to go, and Allie panicked. “How about dessert? I never feel like a meal’s complete without dessert and coffee.”
Myrna seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then she reached for the menu. “Maybe something light. I’m pretty full,” she added, patting her ample stomach.
Myrna ordered a banana split, and Allie ordered the same to be supportive. She only hoped she didn’t throw up before she dropped Myrna back at the paper. She searched for some way to bring the conversation back to Cornelius. “Rupert said he left the Sun because he couldn’t work with Eve. What was that about?”
The woman didn’t need any further prompting. “That was later, but he’s right. She was a bitch to work for. Not that he’s much better.”
“But I thought you said they were close.”
Myrna gave a snort that rivaled Sheryl at her best. “Not after Mr. Cornelius died. Up until then, Rupert followed her around like a shadow at noontime, but after Mr. Cornelius died, she got crazy. She went from one man to the next. Rupert got wind of it, and you never heard such a row. I wouldn’t be surprised if folks in Titusville didn’t hear it. Then, one day she up and fired him. Myrna studied Allie’s face. “You favor her, you know,” she added, “except that you’re a lot younger, of course. That’s why I thought you were a relative.”
“Not me. I’m no relation of theirs.”
“Be glad. That was one seriously screwed up family.”
Allie wanted to draw the conversation back to Cornelius and the infamous Eve. “She couldn’t have hated Rupert that much if she left him the newspaper.”
Myrna tossed her head, and her stringy hair immediately fell back into her eyes. “She didn’t leave him anything. It was spelled out in his daddy’s will. I don’t know how Eve managed it, but she got it set up so that she would run the paper, but everything would revert to Rupert when she retired or died. She couldn’t sell it, and a board oversaw her expenditures. I know she tried to break the will, but the lawyers said it would stand no matter what she did. I remember because she wasn’t fit to live with for months after she found out.”
“I’m surprised Mr. Cornelius didn’t change his will before―”
Myrna shot her a look. If he saw something so horrible it would make him take his own life on the spot, he wouldn’t have stopped for a conversation with his attorney. “Were you shocked when she died?”
She made a guttural sound in her throat.
“I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner, with her boozing and screwing around with anything in pants. She’d pick up some guy in a bar and vanish for three days. Then, she’d come back all smiles and carrying on about her new boyfriend. Next week, there’d be another one.”
“It doesn’t sound like she spent much time running the paper.”
Another sound. This one might have been filthy slut. “She didn’t give a rat’s ass about the paper. She only held on to it to spite Rupert and because the will specified it couldn’t be sold.”
Allie looked at her in amazement. “How in the world do you know all this?”
She could see Myrna’s rounded shoulders straighten. “I was Mr. Cornelius’ secretary for a long time before she took over the paper.”
“I don’t understand why you stayed if she was so hard to work for.”
“Where else would I go? The Sun was like home to me.” She pushed her dish away. “Besides, I wouldn’t let those two destroy what Mr. Cornelius worked so hard to build.” Her face softened, and for an instant, Allie could see a shadow of the woman she used to be. “He was someone you could be proud to work for. He trusted me with all his important matters. I had the combination to the safe and keys to his desk. He didn’t keep anything from me,” she added, looking away.
Allie gave her a minute with her memories, as she tried to think of what else to ask her. “I understand Rupert was on a fishing trip when the accident happened,” she ventured, hoping her fount of information hadn’t dried up.
Myrna nodded. “Him and Cord.”
“He’s friends with the sheriff?”
“Not friends exactly, but Cord knew his dad. He—Cord—used to come around from time to time to see how Rupert fared before he moved to Miami.”
Allie’s head spun with questions. “Did he quit coming around after Rupert left town?”
Myrna thought for a minute. “He did, now that you mention it. I don’t think he liked Eve very much.”
“Why do you say that?”
Myrna looked at her, her face wary for the first time. “Just a feeling. Why?”
Allie backtracked quickly. “No reason. I’m insatiably curious.” She picked up her cup and took a sip. “So he and the sheriff were fishing when it happened?”
Myrna studied her, obviously wondering about the question, but her love of gossip seemed to override her caution. “Yeah.” Then, she settled back in the booth and lit another cigarette. “At least that’s what I heard. Rupert wasn’t living here then, even though he came back to town a lot. I know it drove her crazy. She never knew when he would turn up. She threatened to get the locks changed at the house, but he said he’d see her in court if she tried. She threatened to sell, but he knew she couldn’t. The will forbade it. It’s one of those gorgeous houses on River Road.”
The diner door opened, admitting a stream of late lunchers, regulars, apparently. They grabbed menus and headed toward a large table in the center of the room. Myrna glanced at her watch and stubbed out her cigarette. “I’d better get back. Stuart’ll probably rat me out to the boss if I’m late.”
Allie doubted if Stuart would notice if the building came down around him, but she didn’t argue. Myrna gave her a lot more than she expected, and for the first time, she began to take Marc’s suspicions seriously. Cornelius might have the best alibi in the world, but now she knew he had a clear motive. Means and opportunities could be made.
Chapter 19
Allie needed to talk to Marc. She called his cell phone on the way home, but got his voice mail. She left a brief message. “Boy, do I have a lot to tell you.”
As she drove through her neighborhood, she saw Mrs. Feelie sprawled out on her lawn chair in the middle of the front yard. Her skin must have the texture of an old buffalo hide. Allie waved, but got no response, as usual. The woman probably thought the cops were hot on Allie’s tail and didn’t want to be judged guilty by association, but the cops had beaten her home.
Sheryl’s CRV was parked in front of the house. She saw Sheryl when she looked up and saw Sheryl waving from the rooftop deck. She wore denim shorts and a halter top with her hair piled into careless curls atop her head, a look women around the world paid a fortune for. Allie would bet it hadn’t taken Sheryl three minutes.
She went inside, giving Spook a brief pat before she changed into shorts and a tank top. Part of her wanted to tell Sheryl everything she’d found out, but Sheryl probably knew most of it already—maybe all of it—and if she did, she hadn’t shared the knowledge with Allie. If not, it would serve only to get Sheryl following her again, and Allie wanted to avoid that, if at all possible.
“What were you all dressed up for?” Sheryl called, as Allie’s head topped the stairs.
Allie laughed. Only in Florida were slacks and a blouse considered “dressed up.” She decided to color the truth. “Job interview,” she said, dropping into the chair beside her.
Sheryl raised her sunglasses. “What the hell do you need a job for? Have you spent all that money already?”
Allie propped her bare feet up on Sheryl’s chair. “No, I haven’t spent all that money. I’m bored. I need something to do.”
Sheryl dropped her glasses back in place. “You’re impossible. You have the perfect life. Nothing to do all day but lie in the sun and sleep and eat, and you’re bored.”
“That’s not a life. It’s a vacation.”
Sheryl snorted. “It sure sounds like a life to me. Your problem is you don’t know how to be rich. It’s an art.”
“It’s a bore,” Allie said pleasantly. “You couldn’t do it, either.”
“Try me.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while. Allie rested her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes. The sun felt warm and little images danced behind her eyelids. She reached over blindly and picked up the sunscreen, rubbing it on all the places she could reach without moving very much. She could hear the ebb and flow of waves breaking on the beach, and she felt a deep relaxation creep into her bones. Maybe Sheryl had a point. “What are you doing here, anyway? Don’t you have sun at your place?”
“Very funny. I came to ask you to go to a show with Joe and me.”
“A play? In Cocoa Beach?” Allie asked in surprise.
Sheryl snorted. “A movie in Merritt Island. You’ve been in the big city too long.”
“Joe asked us to a movie?”
“He doesn’t know yet, but I bet he’ll say yes, if you do. The other night when we brought you dinner was fun. I thought we should do it again.”
True, they’d had a good time until Joe saw the photo. The photo he might or might not have shown the sheriff. That caused a frown, but then she realized that her new suspicions about Rupert Cornelius effectively let Joe off the hook. She breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Sure. When?”
“Tomorrow night. We’re off. It doesn’t happen often.”
“What will we see?”
“Who knows? Who cares? Whatever’s playing.”
“I’ve wanted to see that,” Allie said, opening her eyes.
Sheryl grinned at her. “Hot damn. I’ll tell Joe you said he had to come.”
She got up, and Allie moved to do the same, but Sheryl pushed her back down. “You stay here and practice being idle and rich. I have to get ready for work.”
On a yawn, Allie decided to do as Sheryl suggested. She stretched out in the chair and closed her eyes, pushing any thoughts of murderers out of her mind. Eventually, the peace of the day lulled her. The waves were a symphony of sound. Pianissimo, a term she remembered from childhood piano lessons. Soft. The breeze blew across her skin, cooling where the sun had warmed, and she felt a deep sympathy for those people like Myrna who were cooped up in an office. Except that Myrna probably wasn’t in the office, but in the parking lot finishing her fourth pack of cigarettes for the day. Stuart, then. She could pity Stuart and all those poor schmucks at the AJC in Atlanta.
The phone rang, waking her out of a l
ight doze. She ran down the stairs and snatched up the receiver. “Hello.”
“Allison, how are you?”
Her mother. Allie almost dropped the phone. Her mother rarely initiated calls, and when she did, Allie usually wished she hadn’t.
“I’m fine. How are you and Dad?” she asked, her voice wary.
“We’re doing well. I wanted to call and alert you that your brother will be coming down there next week. He has some business in Cocoa Beach, and he thought he’d stay with you.”
Allie felt her hackles stir. They weren’t fully up yet, but the threat was there. She should have known. She knew their game plan. Len descends. Makes the house his. Next time, he brings the wife and child. The house is too small. He volunteers to sell it and— “I’m sorry, Mother. Will you tell Len this isn’t a good time?”
“You won’t refuse to let your brother stay at a house that, by right, should be half his in the first place, will you? Surely you aren’t that selfish.”
Allie wanted to tell her that, yes, she was that selfish. Yes, she would refuse her brother entry to a home that was morally, ethically, and legally hers, one that Len would be ashamed to be seen in, but she wasn’t ready for an all-out war. “Maybe another time,” she said evenly. “I have a friend staying with me right now, and there isn’t room for one more person. You and Len know how tiny the house is. I’m sure he will understand.”
She heard silence on the line. Then, “What friend?”
“Sheryl Levine,” she said, tossing out the first name that came to mind. “I know you’ve heard me talk about her.”
Another silence. “How long will she be staying with you?”
“I’m not sure. She’s looking for a house in the area. You know how hard it is to find property on the beach. I told her she could stay with me until she found a place.”
Allie could hear Vivian thinking, and it wasn’t a nice sound. “Well, I’ll tell your brother, but I think it’s a sad day when friends become more important than your own family.”
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