I said, “Uh-oh.”
There was a trail of brown spots, spaced about a foot or two apart. They came all the way up the hallway and around the bed, then went right back down the hall and out the front door. Each spot was perfectly round and slightly bigger than a silver dollar, like the size of, say, the business end of a pogo stick.
Mona said, “Yep. Brand-new carpet. And he knows he ain’t supposed to play on that damn thing inside the house. Right?”
Ricky’s face was still buried in the blankets, but I heard a muffled, “Yes, ma’am.”
“And what happens when you break Gramma’s rules?”
He raised his head up, glancing at his grandmother with narrowed eyes. “No TV for a whole day.”
“That’s right. For a whole day. Now go outside and play, we got adult stuff to talk about.”
He sat up. “I can go outside?”
Mona folded her arms over her chest and sighed. “Yeah, but you gotta come back in when we’re done talkin’.”
He jumped off the bed and ran to the door.
“Ricky!”
He stopped on a dime and turned around.
“You know the rules. Stay in the yard. And leave that pogo stick where it is.”
His face went from utter delight to pure disgust in the blink of an eye. He glanced accusingly at his grandmother, and then stomped down the hallway, slamming the screen door as he went out.
I said, “Aw, poor thing. You know, they make a really good spray-cleaner for carpets. I use it for pet stains. I’m sure it would get these spots right up.”
Mona said, “Well, I hope for that boy’s sake you’re right.” Then she looked around the room and nodded, like she was wrapping up a business meeting. “Okay, then, I’ll leave you to it. Gran, Dixie has something she wants to talk to you about.”
I turned to the old woman and said, “Yeah, Mrs.…”
I stopped. Mona had slipped past me quicker than I would’ve thought possible. I said, “Hold on,” but she was already closing the bedroom door behind her.
I turned to Mrs. Duffy, whose expression hadn’t changed, and said, “Wait right here.”
I ran down the hall and found Mona throwing her big purple purse over her shoulder as she headed out the front door.
“Mona! No, ma’am. You need to come right back in here…”
She turned around and leveled a look at me with determined eyes. “Dixie, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Trust me, everything’s gonna be just fine.”
She shook her head and lowered her voice. “No, I mean, I can’t. I got that appointment with your doctor friend. If I don’t leave now I’ll be late.”
My jaw dropped wide open. “Are you kidding me? It’s today?”
She nodded.
I sighed. “Okay, great. Except what the heck am I supposed to say? You need to be here when I tell her.”
Her lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes suddenly took on that lost-kitten look she’d given me at the diner. It probably wouldn’t have worked this time, except now there was a little lost-puppy mixed in as well.
She said, “Dixie … please?”
26
I watched through the screen door as Mona got in her car, and after she drove away I folded my arms over my chest and looked around me. There I was, standing in the middle of a veritable stranger’s mobile home, in what looked like one of those pop-up Christmas stores that magically appear overnight just after Halloween, and I thought to myself, How the hell did this happen?
When I agreed to help Mona, I had pictured myself standing quietly in the corner with a beatific smile on my face while she broke the news about Levi, and then, while they hugged and held hands and dabbed their eyes with the tissues I’d given them, I’d be in the kitchen preparing a nice tray with two cups of chamomile tea and maybe some ginger snaps. I didn’t think for one second I’d end up doing all the talking myself.
Part of me was a little relieved, though. I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I still had my afternoon rounds to get to, not to mention my appointment with Mr. Paxton at the gallery downtown, and I knew Mona would only have made things more complicated.
When I came back into the bedroom, Mrs. Duffy had rearranged her pillows and was sitting up a little straighter now. She’d taken off her mittens, but her eyes were closed and her hands were folded one on top of the other, as if they were trying to keep each other warm. As I lowered myself down on the edge of the bed, I wondered if hypothermia was a side effect of all the medications she was taking.
I had assumed Mrs. Duffy’s room would’ve been packed to the ceiling with more glass ornaments and Santas and snow globes, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was quite spare. Apart from the bed and the side table, there was only one other piece of furniture—a white four-drawer dresser opposite the bed, with nothing on it but a round, hand-embroidered doily and a couple of near-empty perfume bottles.
To the right of the bed was a louvered door, probably a closet, and next to that was the only thing hanging on the wall in the entire room—an antique black-and-white photograph set in a gilded oval frame. It was a portrait of an elderly woman in a high-necked blouse and pointed stock collar. She had deep-set black eyes behind tiny wire-rimmed spectacles, with white hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her expression was somber and grim, but also a tad anxious, which, as I turned to Mrs. Duffy, was exactly the way I was feeling that very moment.
Without even opening her eyes, Mrs. Duffy said, “What is it you want, child?”
I realized until now I hadn’t yet heard her speak. I should probably have expected it, but there was a deep sadness in her voice that crushed me. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to live in constant pain the way she had her entire life, and now to have to deal with all this on top of it.
I said, “So, Mona asked me to talk to you about something.”
Her eyebrows raised slightly. “It’s about the boy, ain’t it?”
I blinked. “You mean Levi?”
“I wasn’t sure, but I guessed as much.”
I nodded. “Mrs. Duffy, I’m sure you know this already, but Mona loves you with all her heart…”
“Ain’t no need to sugarcoat it.”
“Huh?”
She turned to me and opened her eyes. They were the palest gray, almost like dust on a pane of glass. “I know why you’re here, Detective. I may be old, but I ain’t dumb. Just tell me straight. Do they think she killed him?”
I said, “No, Mrs. Duffy, it’s nothing like that.”
For a moment she just stared, perfectly still, and then when she finally looked away I could see tears seeping into the wrinkles around her eyes.
“And I’m not a detective, I’m just a … a friend, sort of. Mona asked me to talk to you because she was scared to do it herself.”
She dabbed the edge of her sleeve at the corners of her eyes. “I know she’s scared. I can see it. And what with her past and all, I just thought…”
I said, “No, I promise you it’s nothing as bad as that.”
“Then what is it?”
“Mrs. Duffy, Mona told me about your … situation, and your illness. And she knows you’re worried about her, about what will happen to her when you can’t take care of her anymore. She didn’t want you to think she’d be all alone, so she lied to you … about Levi.”
She turned to me. “That they ain’t engaged? Is that what you come here to tell me?”
“You knew…?”
She nodded. “I known it right away. It ain’t the first time she lied, and I’m sure it ain’t the last, either. And besides, what would a boy like that want with a girl like Mona?”
I sat back. I couldn’t deny I’d had similar thoughts myself, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. It sounded horribly cold coming from Mona’s own grandmother.
She shrugged her bony shoulders and looked down at her frail hands. “Sounds mean, don’t it? But you know I’m right. That poor child fell in love with Levi the mome
nt he moved in. A handsome boy like that, who could blame her? From the minute she told me they was gettin’ married, I went along with it, because I knew Mona thought it would give me some peace. And she told me Levi’s daddy was rich and they was gonna live in a mansion and all.” She shook her head and sighed. “That boy was just using her. Believe me, her life ain’t been easy. I wish it was true just as bad as she does.”
I shook my head. “She told me all about the sacrifices you’ve made, how you took her in after her parents ran off.”
“That’s what she told you, huh?”
I decided to ignore the tone in her voice. I couldn’t exactly blame her for being so fatalistic about Mona’s lot in life—especially considering the lousy hand she’d been dealt herself—but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more. Instead, I nodded matter-of-factly and tried to figure out a way to politely say my good-byes. I’d fulfilled my promise to Mona, and now I just wanted to get on with my day.
Mrs. Duffy was quiet for a moment. She was staring at the portrait of the old woman on the wall. Finally she turned to me, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know who you are. You say you ain’t a cop, but if you really is Mona’s friend, you oughta know. Her folks didn’t run off. They was taken.”
“Taken?”
She nodded. “See that bedside table? I keep a gun in that drawer there. Saturday Night Special. Loaded. That’s for the day they come back.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Now I was one hundred percent certain I didn’t want to know more, but I was beginning to think it was too late.
“Her folks is both down at Florida State Prison in Bradford. They was supposed to get locked up for life, but I ain’t takin’ any chances. They’re bad.”
I felt my heart begin to quicken. I said, “What do you mean, bad?”
“It was Christmas morning. Fifteen years ago now. My daughter, Mona’s mother … she never liked me much. And that boyfriend of hers, he hated me. It was goin’ on three years they wouldn’t let me see Mona—my own granddaughter. That ain’t right. This is America. I got a right to see my own grandchild. So I got the neighbor boy to drive me over there. They only lived twenty minutes away, down Tamiami Trail the other side of Nokomis. I had a little Mickey Mouse toy all wrapped up nice with a bow and all. I just wanted to see her with my own eyes, but they said no. They said Mona was at a birthday party … a birthday party, mind you, on Christmas. They wouldn’t let me in.”
The sun had dipped lower in the sky. It was streaming through the lace curtains in the window and sending little shimmering flecks of gold all over the room. I could almost see them moving in slow motion across the dark blue bedspread.
“I made the boy drive me around the block. I got out and called from the pay phone at the Shop Mart. Then we went back and watched.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “It was a lot of cops that come, and it took a while, but they finally found Mona.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to know, but I knew I had to ask. I said, “Where was she?”
She closed her eyes and her mouth fell slightly open, almost as if she could see it all in front of her now.
“She was down in the crawl space under the kitchen … in a cage.”
* * *
While I’d been inside Mona’s trailer, three towering clouds had appeared in the distance over the Gulf, a trio of lumbering giants as wide and tall as a range of mountains, pitch-black against the brilliant blue sky. Where they floated just above the horizon were vertical bands of undulating color—violet, silver, cerise, charcoal—and even though the sun was still sending long yellow streaks of light across the sky, the air smelled of rain.
It felt like a dream.
What Mrs. Duffy had told me … I couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of world Mona had grown up in. My own childhood, at least on paper, was a tragedy. My father died in the line of duty fighting a fire when I was nine years old, my alcoholic mother abandoned Michael and me barely two years later, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen her since. As I started up the Bronco and headed for Tamiami Trail, I realized that, surprisingly, Mona and I had a lot in common. No wonder I’d felt such a strange and sudden sympathy for her.
Except … in reality, my childhood had been very different. For one, I always had Michael by my side watching over me, and our grandparents gave us everything we could ever have wanted and more. Never, not for one second, did I ever doubt I was loved.
My afternoon rounds were a blur. I know I stopped by the Piker sisters’ place, and considering the fact they have nine cats, you’d think I would have at least remembered something from that visit but I didn’t. At Joyce Metzger’s, I’m sure I took her miniature dachshund, Henry the VIII, for his regular walk around Glebe Park, but I couldn’t remember a single thing about it.
All I could think about was the moment I’d first met Mona, outside Levi’s trailer, how utterly nasty and angry she’d been. It was as if she moved through the world like a shark, always on the attack, always out for blood … and now I understood why. When I told her I was sorry she was so tortured, I had no idea the depth of the troubled waters I was wading into. She was indeed tortured, and from a very early age, and now her self-mutilation took on a whole new meaning: it was all she had ever known.
Now, as silly and potentially dangerous as it was, no matter what Ethan or Detective McKenzie or anybody else might have thought, I was happy I had helped her, even with something as simple as talking to her grandmother. She needed to know that the world isn’t a shark tank and that she didn’t need to be on the attack all the time.
At some point—it may have been when I was checking on the cats at the Silverthorn mansion—Ethan had called, and later I reminded myself I needed to listen to my voice mail. Then, after I crossed the bridge at Stickney Point and headed up Tamiami Trail, he called again, but he didn’t leave a message that time.
I felt bad for not picking up, but I told myself I just had too much on my mind. Plus, I was driving. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to give him my full attention. And I had to get a move on or I’d be late for my meeting at the Paxton Gallery. And …
I couldn’t come up with any more excuses.
To be honest, I just didn’t want to talk to him.
Not yet.
I knew it was silly, but I was having trouble. I couldn’t get over what he’d said … about our kids. I’m normally an expert on avoiding things I don’t feel like dealing with, but I knew this time it wouldn’t be so easy, and the fact that he felt the need to apologize was all the proof I needed. Before, it had been a nonissue—or at the very least an unspoken one—but now it was hanging out there in the open between us, like an unresolved note at the end of a song.
Ethan’s a straight shooter. I know that from firsthand experience. He says what he means, he doesn’t play games, and he certainly doesn’t shy away from the truth, so when he said having children wasn’t on his agenda, I believed him. But the problem is, I had an agenda once, too, and I can now say without a doubt in my mind that my so-called “agenda” didn’t exactly line up with reality, or, for that matter, with what was really in my heart.
Life isn’t that simple. Lived at its fullest, life is full of blind turns and unexpected twists and unlimited possibilities. That’s what makes it fun. We should all live our lives not knowing exactly what’s around the corner.
But not me. I’m done with surprises. I see my life laid out before me, and it’s just one straight, narrow road right to the horizon line.
I don’t know if I can do that to Ethan.
He deserves better.
27
You’d think a town as small as Sarasota wouldn’t exactly be a hotbed of culture, but it’s impossible to overestimate the seductive power of our perfect azure skies and crystalline white sand, not to mention our winter temperatures that hover in the mid-seventies. Artists of every shape, size, and color flock here from all over the world. Writers, dancers, painters, singers, musicians … and
then there’s the clowns.
Ever since John Ringling set up his winter quarters here in the late twenties, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus has been as much a symbol of local life as the dolphins that frolic in the waves off Siesta Key Beach. Famous clowns like Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs lived and died here, and descendants of the famous Flying Wallendas still call it home (and some are still flying). It’s not unusual to roll up to a stoplight and find a clown in full makeup at the wheel of the car next to you.
Plus, all that circus money went right into the local economy, which means we can afford to keep all those artists hanging around. Our museum is top-notch, our world-class orchestra is in its sixty-fifth season, and our Opera House just got a twenty-million-dollar makeover. It usually makes me feel classy just knowing it’s there, but as I walked along the Opera House on Pineapple Avenue with Mrs. Keller’s package tucked securely under my arm, the only thing I was feeling was … well, I think numb is a good word for it.
The Opera House is a beautiful old hacienda-style building, with rough stucco walls painted the palest shade of pink, topped with a red barrel-tile roof and guarded by three stately palm trees along the curb in front of it. As I walked by the front entrance, I tried to catch a glimpse inside. Supposedly, the big chandelier from Gone with the Wind hangs in the middle of the lobby, but since a ticket to the opera is a little outside my budget, I’ve never actually been inside to confirm it.
Just next door, dwarfed by comparison, is a beautiful old row house that’s been divided into three shops, two stories high and covered in a neatly trimmed blanket of climbing hydrangeas. With its three arched doorways and thick-paneled wooden doors, it looks like something a family of hobbits might live in, or perhaps an illustration from the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
On the left side is a quaint little bistro. It sells the most delicious panini sandwiches—so delicious that I sometimes dream about them—and as I navigated through the iron café tables on the sidewalk, the smell of fresh-baked bread and grilled cheese tried to lure me in. The middle shop is a boutique real estate office, with photos of fancy homes in the window that normally I stop and drool over, but I knew I’d be late if I didn’t concentrate on the task at hand.
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