by Jada Ryker
“No.” Dreamus’ face was hard as a rock. “You are civilians, and you will leave this to us. Stay out of this investigation. I don’t want any of you getting yourselves killed. From what I’ve been able to determine so far, Mrs. Craft was the type of woman who lived her life on the outside. That fact should help us figure out who killed her.”
Clara’s face twisted, deepening her wrinkles. “Outside? Of what?”
Annoyed with himself for saying more than he intended, Dreamus shrugged irritably.
Tara gave him a smile as sunny as her outfit. “Please, Dreamus, tell us what you mean.”
“From what I’ve been able to find out thus far in the murder investigation, her entire life was based on her interactions with others. She spent most of her time and a great deal of money on her personal appearance. She wanted her work on her hair, nails, makeup, and clothes to result in an exquisite final product. Her world revolved around the compliments and attention of others. When I said she lived her life on the outside, I meant that the admiration of others was her entire world.”
He turned to Althea. “For contrast, take Mrs. Flaxton. She seems to be a very introspective person. According to the other residents, Mrs. Flaxton spends much of her time in her room, pounding away at her typewriter. It’s only at mealtimes and in the evenings that she—” Dreamus’ clear blue eyes shifted to Clay— “reaches outside of herself to interact with a man who very carefully reveals only a part of his complex personality with the world.”
Dreamus’ gaze fell on Marisa, and he cocked his head. “Ms. Adair is a mix of outside and inside. She used to live completely on the outside. I think at that point she was not very comfortable with the company she kept inside her own head. But she found the courage to reach to her inside. Unfortunately, I think she still has a few adversaries to face before she can balance her life between the inside and the outside.”
Alex touched Marisa’s arm. “That is scarily on target.”
“Alex Caldwell. He would have made an excellent fantasy hero. As a hero, he could run to and fro, rescuing damsels in distress. It would have been in keeping with his personality if he had decided to rescue Sarah from her life as a stripper and from her relationship with an abusive, manipulative bully. Instead, he’s turned his attention to slaying metaphorical dragons, which may belong in the realm of the past, rather than those of flesh and blood.” His gaze went back to Marisa.
Clara clapped her hands like a delighted child. “Oh! Do me, do me!”
One side of Dreamus’ mouth rose while his eyes remained serious. “Miss Clara. I think your life on the outside is focused on nurturing your family. You’re a wonderful mother and grandmother. You were a lunch lady for many years, and the schoolchildren adored you.” His lips firmed into a straight line. “I think on the inside, Miss Clara, you are a strong warrior. You will use the weapons at your disposal to protect those you love. You go to great lengths to be the protector. At the same time, you’re smart enough not to get caught.”
Clara’s mouth fell open.
Dreamus rolled his eyes. “Why is everyone so surprised when I draw conclusions that happen to be on target? I am a detective, for heaven’s sake!”
“Here they come,” Marisa warned.
People were streaming out the back door of the assisted living center, and down the path toward the pond. The sound of their laughter and happy chatter floated toward the intent group.
Marisa looked at Alex. She wasn’t a damsel, he wasn’t a hero, and she’d slay her own damn dragons. To defuse the tension Dreamus had created, she challenged him. “So, your car license plate is SPANK ME, huh? Does that mean I’m the dominant one and you’re the submissive one in this friendship?”
“Sounds like you just confessed to dominantly ramming your car into my innocent, submissive one!” Laughing like a hyena, he moved over to Clara to engulf her in a hug.
Tara’s eyes were narrowed on Marisa’s face.
“What?”
“You and Alex seem to be thick as thieves. Hanging around together. Colliding in driveways.”
Marisa shrugged. “We’re just friends.”
“Alex is definitely a better...friend...for you than Parvis.” Her porcelain doll features hardened in determination.
“I don’t want to hear that name again.”
“What happened? I wanted you to be cured of Parvo-virus, but without any harmful side effects.” She listened closely as Marisa filled her in on the events. Nearly a head shorter than her friend, Tara slid a concerned arm around Marisa’s waist.
“You know, Marisa, I don’t think Mrs. Flaxton likes me.”
“Tara! What makes you say that?”
“Dislike may be too strong. I don’t think she approves of me.”
“Not approve of what, for heaven’s sake?”
“For one thing, I don’t think she approves of how I dress. She doesn’t like my revealing clothing.”
Marisa shook her head, sending her braid flying. “Tara, Mrs. Flaxton is the least judgmental person I know!”
“When it comes to you, Marisa, that’s true. Not so for me.” Tara’s hands flew to her face. “Oh, I almost forgot! You remember that white Toyota Camry that followed us to the club the night of the online group gathering? As I drove up here, I noticed it parked at the side of the road.”
Marisa sucked in a surprised breath. “Dreamus ran the plate. Now what did he say the woman’s name was?”
“Anna Pikestaff, but neither of us recognized her name.”
Marisa glanced up beyond the building toward the drive. The trees blocked her view, even if she’d possessed that kind of distance vision. “I think it’s time for me to confront her.”
Marisa started to stride away, but Tara caught her arm. “No way are you confronting her by yourself! I’m going, too! And I think we should take Dreamus. He’s a lawman, and he’s probably armed.” Tara looked around the milling crowd for the police lieutenant.
“No,” Marisa stated. “If it’s something out of the past coming back to bite my ass, chances are it’s embarrassing. And if I’m going to be humiliated, I don’t want Dreamus to see it.”
“I’m coming with you, Marisa. As the official pain in your ass, I have a right to see your past bite you in the ass.”
Both women jumped.
“Alex! Where did you come from? I thought for sure Miss Clara would keep you clasped to her formidable bosom for as long as she possibly could. What happened, did you run out of air in there and lose consciousness?” In spite of her nervousness over the upcoming confrontation, Marisa laughed.
“A true gentleman never kisses and tells. Come on, you two, let’s go. Hey, Marisa, do I have lipstick on my face?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Look at the fresh splats of bird poop on the car.”
“Ewwww, Alex! That’s just gross!” Tara hissed.
Marisa shook Tara’s arm. “Shhhhh! I think Alex is trying to say that the poop bombs indicate that car’s been sitting there for some time.”
Of one accord, the three of them peeked around the huge tree. The white car sat placidly on the shoulder of the tree-lined lane. With the sun shining on the windows, it was impossible to see inside.
“There’s no sign of movement in that car.” Tara grabbed Marisa. “What if she’s in that car, dead! Murdered! In the process of following you, she may have stumbled across the murderer. Since she knew who he was, of course he had to eliminate her!” Tara shook Marisa.
“We have to check it out. Come on.” Alex stepped out from the tree.
The three approached the car. Marisa wondered if it would roar to life, and jump at them like an angry beast.
Alex bent down at the driver’s side window and peered in. He shaded his eyes with his hand. “She’s sprawled out across the seat!”
He grabbed the driver’s door and yanked it open.
Her head lolled on the headrest. Her full figure, clothed in a print blouse and blue jeans, reclined in the seat. Her arms were tucked at
her sides, as if she’d been cold. Her round, heavy face was peaceful, and her mouth was open, revealing even, white teeth. The dark, curly hair was cut short and had a tousled appearance, as if she’d been running agitated hands through it.
She snored.
It was not a ladylike, delicate snore. It was the full-bodied, growly, snorty snore of a five-hundred-pound trucker.
The three onlookers collapsed against each other in relief.
“I really thought she was dead, didn’t you, Marisa?” When her friend didn’t answer, Tara turned to her. “Marisa?”
“I didn’t make the connection! Anna!”
The sound of her name must have penetrated her slumber. Groggy brown eyes opened. Then widened. The woman screamed, high and thin and long and loud.
In reaction, Tara screamed.
The woman started her car, and revved the engine. It sounded as if the tachometer was on the far side of red. She took off, spraying dirt and gravel from the shoulder, with her car door hanging open. The car lurched along the road, and disappeared from sight.
“Marisa! You knew that woman!” Tara brushed dirt off her legs, where the tires had sprayed her.
“Of all the people in the world who could have been stalking me, why does it have to be Anna?”
Tara and Alex were staring at her, waiting for her to tell them.
She wondered if she could find the right words. Maybe, she conceded, there weren’t any right words. Just honest ones. Marisa said, “Let’s head back to the center, and I’ll tell you about it as we walk.”
The sun was warm on her face. Above her, the blue sky was clear. The trees at the edges of the road were tall and leafy, and hinted at the coolness of the wooded grounds.
Marisa recognized a sassafras tree, and pulled off a leaf. She crushed it in her hand, and inhaled the scent. It always reminded her of root beer. “Right before I entered rehab, I had a boyfriend. Well,” she corrected herself, “a boyfriend of sorts. I was fully immersed in leading my double life. I was drinking. When I wasn’t drinking, I was hung over. I was spending all my free time at the strip club. What decent guy would want to get involved with that kind of lifestyle?”
Marisa met their eyes. The sympathy in them made her own prickle with threatened tears. “And now with hindsight, I also realize I didn’t like or respect myself very much. How could I have expected that from a partner, when I didn’t even feel it?”
As Marisa walked, she scuffed her shoe at loose gravel on the hard pavement. “The man I was seeing was married. I knew he was married before I started seeing him. He lived with his wife and two little girls in a small town, about an hour away.
“With a second job every Friday night and every Saturday night, he was pretty much available to see me every weekend, without his wife finding out. He simply told her he was staying in the city after his day job ended. He and I had our dates and then he simply had to be at work at midnight. I would normally stay at the club, and have a great time there from midnight to closing time at four a.m. We didn’t answer to each other. It was a totally hedonistic lifestyle.”
Tara and Alex walked silently beside her.
Marisa laughed shakily. “Even though the relationship was never meant to be serious or emotional, we somehow developed deeper feelings for each other. He actually divorced his wife, and we started seeing each other openly.”
Marisa swiped at a tree branch growing too close to the road. “Because of the way our relationship started, I never believed in a happily ever after with him. On one level, I did want the fairy tale ending. He was intelligent, had a quirky sense of humor, and we had fun.
“At the beginning of our relationship, he told me he’d never been faithful to any woman. He had started his infidelity to his wife in their first year of marriage; when I met him, they’d been married for ten years. He also had a close female friend. When he said the relationship with her was purely platonic, I accepted his word. I feel strongly that a relationship shouldn’t be a prison, and each person should keep and maintain his or her own friendships.
“I was in therapy, which began while my boyfriend was still married. My visits to the therapist were ostensibly for my sexual orientation confusion. However, Macon, my therapist, was a very smart and observant man. He realized I had a serious drinking problem. With his help, I checked into rehab.
“I wasn’t sure if my boyfriend could make the transition with me from an addicted lifestyle to a non-addicted lifestyle. After all, it was a complete and total change. I went from drinking and going to the club every free moment to...not. I had to change everything. No more exciting nights at the club. No more alcohol or painkillers to dull the edge of reality. With sobriety, I felt my life had changed. It had gone from exciting color to dull and boring gray.
“As my sobriety lengthened from days to weeks, I realized I felt an unexpected sense of insecurity where my boyfriend and his platonic friend were concerned. For example, he and I had planned to take a vacation together, and take his children on some fun day trips. I was excited about the opportunity to spend time with them as a family. Just days before the scheduled vacation, however, he told me to not take my scheduled time off, to save it, and we’d take the time a little later in the summer.
“Of course, I agreed. On one of the days, I called him on his cell phone. He and his children were at the zoo. Imagine my surprise when I heard a familiar voice in the background talking to his children. It was his platonic friend!”
Tara slid her arm around Marisa’s waist.
“I wanted honesty and communication in our relationship. I shared with him that I felt a sense of insecurity in relation to his friend. My boyfriend was ten years younger than myself; his platonic friend was a few years younger than he. He pooh poohed my insecurities. I shared my feelings with Tara.” Marisa looked down at her friend.
Tara’s smooth, pale face was puckered. “I knew about your relationship with him, that he was married at first...”
“And Tara’s advice was to recognize it wasn’t working and simply cut my losses. For some reason, I didn’t want to let go. Maybe the whole stay in the relationship or end it is comparable to trying to decide whether or not to keep an old car. The old vehicle has its problems, some days it won’t start, it has some dings, and it needs repair work. You have to balance the cost of the repairs with the cost of getting a new car.”
Tara said, “I think it was more than that, though. On some level, I think you felt, I don’t know, responsible for him. After all, he’d left his wife and divorced her. I think you felt not only the love for him, but also a sense of obligation toward him. And I think he took advantage of your guilt.”
Marisa felt a burning in her belly. She recognized it as shame. “I’m not very proud of this next part. I left work early one day, and made the hour’s drive to his house. I didn’t call; I decided to tell him I just wanted to ‘surprise’ him. In actuality, I was suspicious and wanted to see if he was with his ubiquitous friend. They worked together, and he had taken off work that afternoon. I knew that she always got off work at lunchtime on that day of the week.”
Marisa closed her eyes against the remembered pain of that afternoon. “When I pulled into his driveway, I was surprised to see her car. I went up to the front door. Using my key, I walked into the quiet house. I looked in the living room. They weren’t there. I went into the kitchen. They weren’t there. I felt a sense of dread and inevitability. The walk down the hall to his bedroom was the longest walk of my life.” A tear slipped down Marisa’s cheek.
Tara’s hand was warm on hers. “You don’t have to tell us what you found.”
“I walked up to the bed, and I slapped him in the face as hard as I could. I, who’d had an abusive childhood and who can’t stand violence of any sort, struck him! I was so enraged, I could have killed him. Instead, I turned and walked out. I nearly wrecked my car getting away from them.
“I was still in the clutches of that rage. I was boiling with it, shaking with it. I ca
lled her husband, and told him what I’d found. And do you know what he said? He said, ‘It’s no big deal, Marisa, she does what she wants and I do what I want. I guess you were just the last to know.’ It so humiliating.”
Marisa found herself enveloped in a group hug. The arms felt good around her. She felt Tara squeeze her. Alex patted her gingerly, as if he expected to get blasted any second. She could smell Tara’s light, flowery perfume, and the manly scent of Alex.
Marisa gently disentangled herself. She swiped at her eyes.
“Don’t even start, Alex. I am not crying. These are ‘how could I have been so damned stupid’ tears.”
Alex cocked his head. “Are they ‘I’m still in love with him’ tears?”
“The betrayal itself still hurts, but not because I love him. It hurts because I felt he was wrong. In actuality, though, I expected him to behave in a way that was contrary to his nature.”
Alex said, “I take it the woman in the car was his ex-wife.”
“Yes, Anna, Pikestaff must be her maiden name.”
As a breeze swept through, Tara hugged her bare arms. “And now she’s stalking Marisa.”
Alex made a strangled sound. “What if the sniper at the gym was Anna? What if she’s trying to kill Marisa?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
At the duck pond, Clay peered around the crowd of senior citizens. He spied Althea’s tall, regal figure and her black hair, the silver strands catching the sunlight. He hurried over to her. “It looks as if most of the residents are out here, as well as the staff. Marisa, Tara, and that young man scampered off somewhere. Now would be a perfect time to search Mrs. Craft’s room!”
Althea glanced around to see if anyone heard him. “You’re right!”
In the lobby, Clay looked around. He went to the information desk, slid open a drawer, and took out the master key card.
Althea was standing at the lobby door as the look out.
At Mrs. Craft’s door, they both surveyed the black and yellow police tape. Clay carefully peeled it away. He looked up at Althea.