by June Shaw
My stomach tightened at that thought. “I knew you’d want to know,” I said, hoping for something positive. Hearing silence, I moved on. “So can you tell me anything about what you’ve discovered?”
“In those murders? No.” Maybe he wanted to soften the blow. “But you’ll know in time.”
Whatever that meant, at least he wasn’t saying he wanted to lock me up. “Okay, thanks. I’ll let you go now.”
He let out a small laugh that I figured meant he was aware of what I was doing and then he hung up.
A full breath released from my nostrils. I trotted back inside, not wanting to think of whether what I’d just done was good or not. At least it was truthful. Second thoughts made me pause. No one had told me the child Rayne carried was Royce’s. I hurried to Mom’s group. Maybe they knew.
Eve was standing when I rushed near. It looked like she was being introduced to someone. Our mother was doing the introduction. It was to that new man.
Chapter 28
I hesitated before going forward but knew I had to. I tried to plaster a smile on my face but could only fake a tight one while I stepped to her as she stood in the center of her buddies. “Hey, Mom.” I gave her a kiss.
“Hello, sweetheart. I want you to meet my friend Alexander McCormick. He’s new here. Alexander, my daughter Sunny.”
My glaze flitted to Eve’s face that appeared apprehensive and then to him. His hair was salty gray and his white eyebrows shot through with a few traces of black. His eyes flitted toward my mother and came to rest on me. I accepted his handshake, which was firm. “Miriam told me she had two gorgeous daughters. I can see that she wasn’t exaggerating.”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t so bad. “From your accent and last name, I know you’re not from here.”
“You are very clever, too.” He gave me more flattery but not information. Didn’t the man realize I was checking him out? Where are you from? Were you married? Are you now? Do you have children, grandchildren, dogs, guppies, hangnails?
“Ladies, it’s time to eat.” The woman searching her bra must have given up on finding her phone. Her attention was aimed at the dining room.
“Yes, indeed.” One woman got her cane in position to use.
“What’s for lunch?” Eve asked.
Pearl lady glanced at a sheet of paper she pulled out of her large pocket. “Mm, we’re having chicken, okra, and sausage gumbo with potato salad and French bread. And milk and lettuce and tomato salad with a slice of avocado.”
“That does sound delicious. My sweet daughters, I hope to see you again soon.” Mom dismissed Eve and me with quick kisses. The man we just met gave us nods. Then he walked off beside our mother. His gait was as strong as hers.
One woman from the group who normally held quality discussions rose from the sofa. I touched her arm and leaned close, nudging my head toward Mom and that fellow. “They aren’t… you know, are they?”
She gave me a wide grin and pat on the back. “Don’t worry. They only sometimes hold hands.” As I was breathing a sigh of relief, she added with a wink, “That I know of.” And then she was off.
“Eve,” I said, stepping close to my twin but not knowing what to add. Her halfhearted smile and shrug told me she felt the same—uncertain of this new situation with our mother. Dad had been gone quite a while, but still—this was our mother.
Movement from others going to the dining area made us both watch them. One person I noticed too late was Adrienne Viatar eating with two silent others at her table.
Eve pointed a couple of tables over. “And there’s Cherry’s grandmother. Maybe Andrew Primeaux and Jessica are around.”
We took a quick spin of the area, watching for those coming near and those eating. Mom and her new friend stood with their trays, selecting food items. We didn’t see Andrew or Jessica.
“Come on, let’s go eat,” Eve said, and I agreed that their meal also made me hungry. I drove to Swamp Rat’s Diner where we ordered the exact same thing the people at the manor ate. The only thing missing was the avocado slice on our salads.
“Eve, I have an idea.” As thoughts rushed to mind, I considered even more of them, and she added other suggestions until everything blended together about what we could do with Cherry’s kitchen. Our meal arrived, and we ate.
Afterward, Eve got Cherry on speakerphone. Once she assured Cherry she was still feeling fine, she asked whether Cherry and her husband enjoyed Mexican food. “It’s our favorite,” Cherry enthused, and Eve and I gave each other high fives and huge smiles. “Here’s what we’d like to do,” Eve said. “That granite color, of course, will make you two and other people think of guacamole.”
“You’re right!”
“So what we planned to do was give your kitchen a Mexican theme but not totally since you’ll want it to blend in with the rest of your house and your beautiful sprawling lawn. We’ll use a bright lemon yellow on your stove’s long hood and the slim wall on both sides of it, but only on one wall to make it pop. We’ll use much lighter matching shades on the other walls.”
“Excellent,” Cherry said.
Eve mentioned a couple of other things and then told her, “Wait, here’s Sunny. She can fill you in with our other ideas.” She handed the phone to me.
“Hey, Cherry. To tie it all in, we suggest framed prints of Mexican dishes on the wall. A thick colorful ceramic bowl filled with fresh lemons and limes would go well on the island, and for the sides of the island, we’ve ordered faux leather padded tiles in pale ecru that will blend in well. They’re fire resistant and waterproof and look exquisite.”
“You two are brilliant!” the woman who was about to become our most pleased customer said. “I knew it.”
“My sister and I will get our tools and other gear, and we’ll come over this afternoon so we can get started if that’s all right.”
Our suggestions were perfect with Cherry, so she and her hubby should be satisfied. We could get our remodeling completed fast, and I would be able to do some of the things without aggravating my left shoulder too much.
Eve was changing into work clothes and going to grab a few things we might need from her place, while at home I did the same. I kept more tools than she did so I gathered them from the storage room behind my carport, lifting Dad’s tool belt with loving care and placing it with the other items I would bring. From there I drove to the lumberyard. In it, I stepped to the back of the building to learn whether the faux leather squares I’d ordered for the sides of Cherry’s island arrived. Thank goodness, they had. While a salesman gathered those boxes for me and also the glue I would need, a man who looked familiar walked past. I could only see the back of his head. “Hi, Jake.”
He glanced back. “Oh, hello. Good to see you again,” he said and continued out a wide rear door. He hadn’t mentioned my name since he probably couldn’t tell which twin I was. Few people could, even if we stood next to each other.
While a salesclerk rang up our charges, I pointed to the rear. “I thought only people who work here use that back entrance where they bring out lumber and other large items to their trucks.”
He nodded, moving the last boxes of nails closer to add them. “They do.”
“I just saw Jake Angelette going out there. He’s a financial advisor. He certainly doesn’t work here. Or maybe he works on your books?”
“He does some of our bookwork and once in a while does a couple of deliveries for us. You know times get slow for people like him who want to tell people what to do with all their extra income. I never have any extra cash. You?”
“Not me.”
“Yeah, times are tough. A little extra money comes in handy for anybody.” He pointed to a line. “Sign right there.”
He helped me load the boxes in my truck, and I drove to Eve’s. As usual ever since the people died on the opposite side of her place, I drove up in front of Jake’s house, not theirs. He was walking across his yard toward Eve’s, carrying his toolb
ox.
I parked in her drive and stepped across the grass toward him. Apprehension made the center of my back suddenly pull tight, the picture of the man on his wharf beyond Dave’s camp working with good tools running along the outskirts of my mind. He had no ties to both murdered victims.
Jake began pounding a post into the ground. He paused and watched me walk over.
“I was surprised to see you at the lumberyard,” I said, my gaze falling to his tools now scattered on the ground.
“Oh, that was you? I couldn’t tell if it was you or your sister.” He lifted his hammer and again beat the post.
“Your permit must have come through so you can get that fence built now,” I said, and he nodded. I skimmed his tools, didn’t see a certain one, and thought of the neighbors two doors over. Both dead. Hard object hit them. My mouth dried. Still I had to say it. “You know I loved to use my father’s ball peen hammer, but my mother never found it after he died. Do you think I could use yours? Just for old time’s sake.”
Redness flushed up his neck to the outer rim of his face. His eyes narrowed. He bent to his tools, touched handles of a couple of hammers, and lifted a large one. “Sorry, I seem to have misplaced the ball peen for now. I’ll probably find it in my garage. Why don’t you try this one instead? Just give the post a few hits.”
The tight set of his jaw make me pull my head back. A Christmas carol rode up my throat and spewed out. I turned to get away and felt a striking blow against my back. I fell on my stomach. He hadn’t struck solidly since I had been turning, but the next hit with his hammer would surely be on the head and do me in. I clawed at grass and scrambled to my knees, felt it strike my shoulder, knocking me over on my side. He bent over me, eyes furious, hammer raised high.
“You won’t get her!” Eve slammed something against his head that made him yowl and drop, his face close to mine. His eyes shut.
Excruciating pain ran through every place on my body he had hit. My eyes shut, too.
As I drifted off, I could hear Eve yelling, giving information about me being hurt by a man and her possibly killing him with her pneumatic nail gun.
Chapter 29
Awake later in the hospital, I ached everywhere, especially from my head to left shoulder and upper back. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I sometimes found a nurse or doctor or Detective Wilet and always discovered Eve at my side. Bits and pieces filled in empty spots floating around my mind.
Eve had been right inside her back door, gathering power tools from a closet when she’d heard me blast out a carol outside. She grabbed the nailer and rushed out there.
Jake might survive her attack since it wasn’t right into his skull, but he wouldn’t do well for a long time. I’d managed to tell Eve he worked part time at the lumberyard, and learning that made me recall the lumber stacked under the carport at Dave’s camp. Thoughts of the man owning the camp beyond Dave’s and using tools there brought my mind to consider who else I had seen using some that might possibly have ties to Eve’s neighbors. The answer was Jake—her neighbor on the opposite side.
“And I thought you two might get together, like he might be your soulmate,” I told Eve once when my mind sort of cleared.
“Oh, no. Jake might be good looking, but I’m only waiting for the one man who’s meant for me. Dave should be released from jail soon.”
Maybe it was good that the meds kicked in again and sent me back to dreamland before a response crossed my tongue.
Once, hearing my mother’s voice, I opened my eyes. Hers went from pulled together with concern to widening. “Ooo, you’re doing okay, sweetheart. The doctor says you’ll do fine. You’ll probably be out of here anytime now.”
“Good to hear. I’m okay, Mom.” To ease her mind, I smiled although felt it crooked.
She kissed my cheek. “You asked around at the manor about Rayne being pregnant. Yes, she is, and she’ll have Royce’s baby. He was looking forward to it.”
How sad that he would never get to see or hold his child.
Why Jake killed him and his mother I learned gradually, some from Eve but mainly from my now-friendly detective. Actually, neither of the victims knew Jake, but he had had an affair with a woman and in a fit of rage in his house, murdered her. He carried her out in a large garbage bag at night and dumped her in a swamp. The police were currently trying to locate what was left of her.
After that murder, he became more watchful and paranoid and noticed Mrs. Wilburn always peeking out the window that faced Eve’s house and his. Mrs. Wilburn sent him a signed note: I know what you did. If you don’t want others to know, I want $100,000.
How hard it was to discover she had done something like that, even though we hadn’t really known her well. Maybe she was greedy. Possibly, she wanted to pay off large debts for her son to protect him from his debtors.
Becoming more vigilant, Jake saw Eve leave her house one evening and then Royce left his. He called Mrs. Wilburn and told her he knew they had both left. She should come to his back door, where he would have her money. He didn’t respond when she got there and knocked on his door, but he’d left the door unlocked.
When she walked in, Jake was ready with a vinyl sheet on the floor and the ball peen hammer ready to beat in her head. He set her dead body in another garbage bag. He was making a delivery to the carport of a camp and knew the address but not who owned it and brought her there. Instead of tossing her into the bayou, he spied the tip of a small key on the floor, climbed on the lumber he had unloaded, and used that key to open the attic door. He pulled himself up and went down inside the camp, where he unlocked the back door. From there he brought in the black bag holding Mrs. Wilburn. Locking the door from inside, he returned through the attic and threw that key away. It must have fallen off Dave’s key ring with the other key we had seen in there from the day Dave tried to give me one.
Maybe Dave was distracted being around me then like I had been with him.
At his house, Jake tried to hurry and build a fence to keep what he did at home private. Then he needed to stop and wait for that permit. In the meantime, he’d noticed Royce was outside more often. He had seen Royce standing at that window behind his mother a couple of times, and after she died, he was out front, placing a sign, sporting a new car and revving a motorcycle in front of Eve’s. More afraid of being discovered, Jake determined Royce could have figured out what happened. He snuck into Royce’s backyard while Royce was peeking through a hole in the back fence. One hard smash with a hammer did the young man in right there on the ground where I found him. The hammers Jake used had been tossed into different bayous.
Soon after doctors released me from the hospital, I went to Eve’s house so she could keep me under her watchful eye. My neighbor Mrs. Hawthorne came to visit. With the rich chocolates she carried, she also brought the news that even if I never asked her cousin about doing repairs, he said he would fix my truck’s rear end and the squad car I’d backed into for nothing.
“Just a good meal after you’re feeling better,” she said, and I gratefully promised I’d fix him more than one.
“Cherry’s house needs to be fixed! It’s a mess,” I told Eve when we were alone and my thoughts shifted there.
She lifted a hand to stop my concerns. “A pipe burst behind their washer and did a bit of damage. They needed to postpone their big family hoo-ha.”
“Okay, then let’s go see what we can do there.”
She barely touched my bandaged left shoulder. Fiery pain shot through every muscle to my fingers. “Sit back down.”
I did, and she explained that because of all our troubles and with our terrific ideas on how to remodel their kitchen, they would be paying us triple what we would normally charge.
Eve having a reaction to a pill Cherry gave her probably added to their desire to do that.
“So you’re going to allow your body to heal a little longer, and I will do some of the remodeling there myself and be able to hire
help for a day or two.”
“All right, but I’m going to study online sites to get more ideas for tasteful redecorating for them. I’ll want to go there as soon as I can.” I thought about more and said, “And I’ll make them a big bowl of homemade guacamole.”
“Good ideas. Oh, and Cherry said she’s going to take lots of pictures after everything’s done and post them all over social media and tell all of their friends about our great ideas and terrific work.”
I smiled. Then went back to sleep.
Nicole, her husband, and baby Noah came to visit. “We needed to make sure Nanny Sunny was all right,” Nicole said. That’s what they planned to have the little one call me. I was Noah’s godmother. I got to hold him and take in his sweet face and comforting body that I gripped with my good arm. I loved that he sucked on my chin. A special glow took over my sister’s face while she was around her daughter and that child.
After their family left, Eve spent time in her art room. I sat and watched her. On a new canvas, she painted hearts, some tiny ones that I imagined belonged to the baby. The hearts she created grew larger and rose across the space. I wondered if she was considering Dave while she drew those.
* * * *
Once my body healed except for the continued pinch in my shoulder and ache in my shoulder blade, Eve and I went to help Dave fix up his camp. Calls and e-mails kept coming with people wanting Twin Sisters to do some clever remodeling like we had done in Cherry’s kitchen.
Dave looked wonderful, Eve and I both told him, and he’d laughed, saying he hadn’t spent years in prison. It had only been a few days, and the food was surprisingly good. At least it was okay. The jumpsuit also wasn’t too bad.
We were helping him float an attractive vinyl floor over the worn one in his camp and change locks on his attic and doors. Eve went outside to get a Phillips screwdriver from my truck.
“I thought a lot about you while I was in jail,” Dave told me, and I smiled. And then he added, “I am so glad to have you as a special friend.”