Sweet Revenge

by Diane Mott Davidson

  He looked awfully peeved,” Marla whispered under her breath. “Didn’t somebody famous say ‘greed is good’?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I was concentrating.”

  A loud “Ssh!” erupted from behind us. We turned to frown at the matron, but she had slid down the pew to make room for Tom, who now held his finger to his lips. Marla and I both burst into giggles, which in turn did make the matron glower.

  “Mom!” Arch whispered loudly from across the nave. “Grow up!”

  Sensing he was losing his audience, Father Pete launched into what he promised was a concluding thought about greed being the opposite of generosity. “Acting in self-interest is diametrically opposed to acting for others,” he said slowly, “and I hope you will all bear that uppermost in your minds…” He paused. The congregation waited in anxious silence. Another question? As the silence lengthened, everyone seemed to be wondering, Where is he going with this? Didn’t he just say “in conclusion”?

  Father Pete raised his thick, tentlike black eyebrows and boomed, “…when you remember to renew your pledges for next year! If you don’t, Santa Claus will be extremely ticked off!” As relieved laughter swept through the small congregation, Father Pete smiled. “I just wanted to impress upon all of you that it is better to give than to receive.”

  “Marla,” Tom announced, leaning forward and tapping her on the shoulder, “before the game this afternoon, you need to know that sometimes it’s better to kick than to receive.”

  All things considered, the coffee hour went well. I needed to talk to Tom about my visit with Neil Tharp, so I asked Marla if she could serve the treats. She obliged by twittering about with a tray, from which she handed folks plates of pie and cake slices. She announced merrily to anyone who would listen that she had baked them using old family recipes. Which wasn’t entirely a lie; she and I were family. Was lying one of the Seven Deadly Sins? I couldn’t remember.

  “Tharp said he hated Patricia Ingersoll?” Tom asked after I first informed him he wouldn’t have to cater a football party for Marla. “Well, that figures, doesn’t it? Neil had conflicts with Drew, right? And according to Patricia, Drew’s girlfriend, Drew didn’t trust Neil anymore. So it makes sense that they didn’t like each other. These people, I swear.” We were interrupted by his cell phone ringing. He whacked the wooden doors to take the call outside. I followed, not to be nosy, but because I truly did want to resume our conversation. Well, maybe I was a little nosy.

  The cold hit me like a slap. Tom, impervious, was holding his cell flat against his ear. His face was a sudden mask of seriousness. “Where?” he asked. A moment later, he closed the phone, shook his head, and strode off toward his Chrysler.

  “Tom!” I called after him. “What’s going on?”

  “Take the boys home!” was all he said. He gunned his car out of the parking lot and headed up Cottonwood Creek, toward town.

  I shivered and held my sides. “That was weird,” I said, although I was alone outside the church. Behind me, the wooden door creaked open.

  “What are you doing out here in the cold?” Marla demanded. “I’ve got a lady in here wanting to know how to make this pie. When I told her it was an old family recipe, she said, ‘Oh, yeah? How old is Goldy—’”

  “Wait,” I cried. My gaze had caught on a green station wagon going too fast down the canyon, away from the direction in which Tom had gone. I recognized the vehicle, but more importantly, I thought I recognized the driver. Still, this time I wanted to be completely sure. I whirled on Marla. “Lend me your car! Please! Quickly!”

  “What?” Marla stood immobilized. One hand held the big wooden door open, the other grasped the tray that now held only a solitary piece of coffee cake. “What are you talking about? What did you see?”

  “Sandee, Sandee, I saw Sandee,” I blubbered as I pushed past her and hightailed it into the kitchen, where I was pretty sure Marla and I had left our purses. I looked around wildly for my coat, but the Sunday-school kids had dumped all their snowpants and coats and boots in a pile…on top of the plastic milk-carton container where I’d tossed my coat. I looked around for our purses.

  Marla, meanwhile, must have handed the tray to an unsuspecting parishioner because she stayed right behind me. She snagged her Louis Vuitton purse just as I was about to pounce on it.

  “Do tell me,” Marla said as she rooted through the bag, “how am I supposed to get home?”

  “Can you go faster? And look, could you take Arch and his pals over to the Regal Ridge Ski Area in my van? I’ll give you my keys, ’cuz I need my purse with my driver’s license. Hurry!” I knew I was talking too fast, that I was moving too quickly. But I had to know if that had been Sandee, and if so, where she was going. The way I saw it, I now finally had a chance to find out what was going on, and why she was here.

  Marla handed me her key chain. “First my fur, now my car. You want my house? It’s only a few blocks away—”

  “And you’ll remember the boys?” I cried as I raced toward the kitchen exit.

  “Of course.” Marla shook her head. “Here, take this, you’ll need it.” She heaved her mink at me.

  It was only after I’d started the Lexus that I wondered if my generous friend would be able to find my coat in the chaotic pile in the kitchen, so she could keep herself warm in my slow-to-heat-itself van. But Marla was nothing if not resourceful. As the Lexus zoomed out of the parking lot, I fixed my mind firmly on catching up to Sandee Brisbane.

  I wasn’t used to driving a car that had anything like the pickup of Marla’s sporty LC. Whenever I touched the accelerator, the Lexus shot forward with a roar. More than worrying about catching up with Sandee, I became more nervous about the packed snow and ice that still lined the road. Once I went too fast around a curve that followed Cottonwood Creek, and the rear wheels spun out, stalling the Lexus in the lane that should have held oncoming traffic. Heart in throat, I thanked God that the two-lane highway was empty at that point. I started up again and accelerated more soberly. Pointing the car eastbound, I continued cautiously in the direction the green station wagon had taken.

  A mile down Cottonwood Creek, traffic came to a halt. I could guess the reason: starting at nine, the Troublesome Gulch Roadhouse served the most popular Sunday brunch in Furman County. Finding a spot in their too-small parking lot was always dicey.

  I pressed the button to bring down the window. I hadn’t had time to do anything with Marla’s mink except throw it over my knees and lap, and the cold air made my eyes sting. Still, I craned my neck out the window, and thought I saw, four cars up, Sandee’s green station wagon, also stopped.

  There was no oncoming traffic, but I couldn’t take a chance in the left lane. I took a deep breath, leaned on the horn, and accelerated onto the gritty, narrow shoulder. Bewildered faces took me in as I quickly passed their cars on the right, totally illegally of course. One, two, three, and then…there was Sandee. I had to stop so I could keep one hand on the horn while the other pressed the driver-side window button.

  “Sandee!” I called. “Pull over! I need to talk to you!”

  Perhaps it’s instinctive, the way we respond to our names. In any event, she turned her head to glance at me, but only for a moment. Her position in the station wagon was above me, since I was in the low-slung driver’s seat of Marla’s sports car. Still, I knew it was Sandee Brisbane. Her hair, now brunette and long, was pulled into a ponytail, and she wore no makeup at all. When she saw me, her mouth tightened into a frown.

  Sandee was not afraid to pull the station wagon into the left lane. But at that very moment, the screech of oncoming sirens split the cold air. I could even hear Sandee shriek a cussword as she maneuvered the wagon back into her lane. Meanwhile, behind us, the line of folks wanting parking places had closed up.

  “Dammit to hell,” I yelled, but it was no use. First one, then another police car squealed by, heading west up the canyon, toward Aspen Meadow. There was no way to flag one
of them down. I desperately scanned the interior of the Lexus. If Marla had a cell phone in there, it sure didn’t jump out at me.

  When there was a break in the police cars streaming past, Sandee again wrenched the station wagon into the left lane. Daring death, she accelerated. Cursing, I leaned on Marla’s horn, yanked the steering wheel to the left, and followed her. If a car hit Sandee head-on, I reasoned, I could duck onto the left shoulder and avoid an accident.

  But truth to tell, I wasn’t really doing much reasoning. Again the sound of sirens split the air. Sandee slowed, and I thought she was going to steer her car into the right, that is, the legal, lane. But she did not. Instead, she zoomed past a line of stores that included a gas station, a café, and a store boasting “Western Antiques.” Just after Don’s Detail Shop, she wrenched the station wagon to the left, onto a side road that I was not aware even existed. Unfortunately, when I tried to make the same left turn, I miscalculated the pitch, the angle, and the way I needed to steer. The result was that I slammed Marla’s brand-new Lexus into the outside wall of Don’s Detail Shop.

  The problem with an air bag deploying, I realized, is that it’s not done in slow motion. One moment you’re driving along, the next you’ve been punched in the chest with excruciating force. If I’d had anything in my stomach, I’m sure I would have puked.

  “What the hell are you trying to do to me?” Sandee Brisbane towered over me, her body shaking with rage.

  As I sat in Marla’s smoking, ruined Lexus, my body aching from the punch of the air bag, with glass all over the dashboard and the front seat, I thought of several smart-ass suggestions of what I’d like to do to Sandee Brisbane. The side window was broken, and I could have said something if I’d been able to. But I was having trouble getting my mouth to work. Also, my mind went to Bobby Calhoun’s stolen Sig Sauer. Did Sandee have that gun with her?

  “Stay out of my way, Goldy, do you understand?” The muscles in Sandee’s jaw bunched. When I didn’t reply, she grabbed my hair and yanked my head to the side, away from the headrest. The pain made my eyes sting with tears.

  “Stop!” I cried, my voice feeble.

  “Are you listening?” Her grip on my hair tightened. “Leave me alone!”

  I said, “Could you please let go of my hair? Please? Let go?”

  She pushed my head forward, still clutching my hair. I turned my face as far away from her as I could, for a reason.

  “Goldy!” she cried. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  “If you could just…slowly rotate my head toward you. I think I’ve got a torn muscle in my neck.”

  She did as I asked, so I got a good look, finally, at her car, an old, olive-green Volvo station wagon. I blinked, trying to get the numbers of the license plate, but they were covered with dust, probably by design. There was a blue parking sticker, though, on the rear bumper. Hmm. Again Sandee twisted my head to meet hers. I gasped with pain.

  “Sandee.” My voice sounded parched. “Did you kill Drew Wellington?”

  She guffawed. “That’s a laugh.”

  “But you know who he is. Or was.”

  Sandee raised one eyebrow and did not answer.

  “Sandee,” I tried again, “why are you here?”

  She leaned down into my face. Her smile was cruel, it seemed to me. Or knowing. “I’m protecting my assets.”

  “They’ll find you.” I wheezed, then coughed.

  “No, they won’t.” Then she said, her face still caught in that stiff smile, “They can’t find me if I’m not lost.”

  All I could think of was Father Pete’s words: “You’re a lost soul.” And then I stupidly repeated, “Did you kill Drew Wellington? Why are you here?”

  Suddenly Sandee held up a long knife in her left hand. “Don’t you try to find me.” She brought the knife—what was it, one of those kinds you use for hunting?—up to my face.

  “I have a child,” I pleaded as fear scurried across my skin.

  Sandee raised her eyebrows. “I have a child,” she mocked, her voice a high singsong. Then she tipped my head back until I shrieked for her to stop. With her left hand still holding the knife, she sliced clean through my hair. Then she held up the strands and sprinkled them over the ground. Before I could react, she turned on her heel and took off.

  I couldn’t help it; I sobbed. Things had happened too fast. I’d seen Sandee hauling butt down the canyon. Thinking I was doing the right thing, I’d borrowed Marla’s car and followed her. Now I’d wrecked the Lexus, and Sandee had issued a very personal threat—and damn near scalped me.

  I didn’t think things could get any worse until police vehicles again began streaming relentlessly up the canyon. When one signaled and pulled over, I wondered what the penalties were for wrecking a friend’s expensive sports car. Should I tell them about Sandee? I wasn’t sure.

  As it happened, the patrolmen who stopped said they couldn’t raise Tom, but yes, they would try to flag down Sergeants Boyd and Armstrong, who were on their way. On their way to what? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Less than five minutes later, I was so happy to see the two investigators get out of their black-and-white, I started crying again. When they rushed over, were they shaking their heads, or was it my imagination?

  “Mrs. Schulz, are you all right?”

  My words came out in gasps. “Never. Been. Better.”

  Boyd wrinkled his brow as he leaned over the window. “What happened?”

  “What the hell…do you think…happened? I wrecked…my car.”

  Armstrong’s chin dropped. “This is your car? I don’t think so.”

  “Whose car is this, Mrs. Schulz?” Boyd again.

  Armstrong suddenly sounded perplexed. “And what in the world did you do to your hair?”

  “Could you…please get me out?”

  It took them more time than I would have thought to free me from the Lexus. Meanwhile, they continued to pepper me with questions and comments.

  “Marla’s car, eh? Bet she won’t let you borrow one of her vehicles again soon.”

  “Following Sandee Brisbane? Again? When was the last time you saw an eye doctor?”

  Finally, finally, when I was out of Marla’s car, wrapped in her torn mink, they got serious. “All right, Mrs. Schulz, we’re going to call an ambulance.”

  “An ambulance? I’m fine! All that joking around, what was that about?”

  “That was to keep you from losing it. We have to get you looked at.” Boyd eyed the back of my head. “So are you going to tell us what happened to your hair?”

  “Sandee Brisbane cut it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why don’t you ask her? I don’t know. And can we get into your car? I’m freezing.” When they continued to look at me dubiously, I said, “I know my spine, okay? I’m a caterer and know all about back pain. I’m fine. My neck’s not broken, and because of the headrest I don’t have whiplash. I’m not bleeding and I don’t have any broken bones.”

  “Uh,” said Boyd. “And where’d you go to med school again?”

  I lifted my chin. “Med Wives 101, since you ask.”

  “What is that?” Armstrong asked. But I knew it was a rhetorical question, and to prove it, I stamped through the snow to their steaming patrol car and waited for them to open the door.

  “Uh, just for the record,” Boyd called to me, “could you show us your license and registration?”

  I pivoted, marched back to Marla’s car, and wrenched out my purse. Thanks to my daily yoga practice, I was able to stretch and reach through to snap open Marla’s glove compartment. A bunch of papers spewed out and I caught a handful. When I reemerged from the Lexus, I ignored my aching neck and chest, sifted through the papers, and handed them the registration. Then I located my driver’s license and handed that to them, too.

  Once I was in the back of Boyd and Armstrong’s patrol car, they asked me a few more questions. I answered them while they took notes. When they stopped talking, I pressed my lips together and w
ondered if I could take a turn asking questions.

  “What’s with all the police cars? Tom raced out of church after he got a cell call. Where’s everybody going?”

  Sergeants Boyd and Armstrong exchanged a look. Finally Boyd said, “Someone saw a body lying on a rock, right in the middle of Cottonwood Creek. Just below the waterfall. The body was submerged and not moving.”

  “Who was it?”

  Armstrong hooked his left arm over the seat. “You had a run-in with him? Map dealer? Bald guy name of Larry Craddock?”

  Boyd said, “He’s dead.”

  16

  Sergeant Boyd, was he murdered?”

  “Well, I don’t think he was going for a swim.”

  “Suicide?” I asked.

  Armstrong shook his head. “We’re not there yet, okay?”

  Oh Lord, I thought, Sandee killed Larry Craddock, too. But no one will believe me, I reflected just as quickly. “Guys?” I said. “Is Tom there?”

  “One of the first ones,” Armstrong replied.

  “Could you take me to the scene? Please? I want to see Tom.” I was also thinking, I may be able to see something you all might not catch, but Sandee had already laughed in my face half an hour ago, and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. I didn’t want to risk it again.

  “Hello?” I repeated. “Could you take me up to the waterfall?”

  They both laughed. “You’re so lucky that it’s still snowing,” Boyd said.

  “Why am I lucky?”

  “Because there’s an accident alert in effect. That means you don’t have to report crashing into Don’s Detail Shop until tomorrow. ’Less you want to go call Don now, wait until he shows up—”

  “Never mind.” Ahead, prowler lights pulsed through the snow-flakes. All traffic along Main Street had slowed. I thought of Sandee’s strong, dry hands pulling my hair, of the horrible scratching sound the knife had made as it sliced through my hair. “Can you just tell me how Larry Craddock died? Was he shot, did he drown, what?”

  “Nope.” Boyd again. “Nope, as in we can’t tell you, because we don’t know, okay?”