by Ann Mullen
Benny wiped the kiss away and said, “Ant Jess, I’m too big for that stuff now.”
“I see,” I said and then looked at Carrie. “How about you, sweetie? Are you too big, also?”
“Not me, Ant Jess!” She jumped up and hugged me. “I’ll never be too big for that.”
I looked at Claire and said, “I thought you were going to sell the house and move here.”
“I took the house off the market,” Claire said, nonchalantly. “I’ve been thinking about remodeling the house and keeping it. I went ahead and registered the kids for school. Carrie’s in kindergarten and Benny’s in the first grade. It’s the first year for both of them.”
“And we’re happy,” Benny added. “I’m gonna like school.”
I smiled at Claire and whispered, “What about the wine cellar?”
“I had a crew go in and clean up and paint.”
“That’s not what I mean. What about the… you know?”
Claire looked over at Benny and Carrie, who had turned their attention back to the wide screen TV. “Having a dead body turn up in the wine cellar was disturbing, but I’m over that now. This house is my children’s home, and we’re going to stay.”
“Good for you,” Jonathan said. “Kids need structure.”
All of us looked at Jonathan and chuckled.
“How would you know that?” I asked.
“I just do. One day I might actually find a woman I can settle down with and I want to be prepared. I’ve been watching people around me for some time now, so I know a few things about kids.”
“I’m more interested in how you feel,” Mom said. “Being shot must be terrible. Did it hurt really, really bad?”
“Actually, it wasn’t that bad. It was only a .22 caliber. I knew a teenager who thought he got stuck by a thorn in his side under his arm after scaling a fence and then falling into a rose bush. He and some of his buddies had gotten into a fight with a bunch of guys, and one of those guys pulled a gun and started shooting. The poor kid had no idea he’d been shot. He went home and put a band-aid on his wound. Later that day after the wound turned red and looked nasty, he told his parents. They took him to the hospital. The hospital took x-rays and discovered he had a .22 lodged in his side.”
“You’re so full of it,” I said. “I don’t believe…”
“It’s true,” Billy said. “I knew the kid, too. He wasn’t the shiniest fruit in the bowl.”
Mom left the room, explaining that she was going to get coffee and came back with a tray carrying a pot of coffee, cups and condiments. She set the tray on the serving table close to the sofa and started pouring coffee. After everyone was served, Mom sat down at the end of the sectional sofa, put her cup down on the coffee table and said, “We need to discuss how we’re going to proceed with this case.”
I was furious.
“I’m afraid that you’ve been fired, Mother,” I said. “The doctor said you need to take it easy and that’s what you’re going to do!”
“Now hold on, Jesse,” Billy said. “I think that should be up to your mother.”
“I agree,” Claire added. “Jesse, I know you’re freaked out because Dad died of a heart attack and you’re worried that Mom will, too, but I think it should be left up to her.”
I looked around the room and could tell from the look on everyone’s face that I was out-voted. As much as I disliked it, Mom made her own choices and I had nothing to say about it. I relented.
“Okay, if that’s the way it’s going to be then I’m going to be beside you every step of the way, Minnie. I’ll have my eyes on you, girl.”
The room erupted in an uproar. Mom ranted, Claire shook her head, and Billy said it was out of the question. Sarah, Jonathan, and the chief even jumped in.
“Jesse, you just had a baby,” Sarah said. “You need to heal.”
“It’s too dangerous for someone in your condition,” Jonathan added. “You need your rest.”
“Back in my day, a squaw’s… I mean, a woman’s place was with her children. It was the man’s job to take care of everything else,” the chief said. He looked at me. “Times have changed. The woman runs the family now.” He looked at Sarah, smiled, and then looked back at me. “I say you must do what you must do. If you want to go after that woman, then you should do it.”
“That’s crazy,” Claire said.
“Stop right there,” I commanded. “I feel fine. My body is bouncing back, and I’m ready to work.”
“What about Ethan?” Claire asked.
“That’s what that breast pump is for,” I said. “And the times I’ll be out of the house, I’m sure there’ll be someone to pitch in to help with the kids. You and the kids will be leaving, so that’ll leave Ethan, Maisy, the dogs and the cat. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. It’s not as if I’m never going to be home. I’m just going to do a little work.”
“I offered my help as a babysitter,” Sarah said. “The offer’s still good.”
“Then we’re covered. I won’t be gone all day long. I can do research on the computer and go with Mom to her meetings.” I looked at Mom. “If you’re going to go visit Crazy Daisy, then I’m coming, too!”
Calling her Crazy Daisy struck a cord with everyone. Laughter filled the room.
“Who’s Crazy Daisy, Mama?” Benny asked his mother.
“She’s a sick lady who needs to be in the hospital, honey.”
“Or dead,” I mumbled under my breath.
Every adult in the room stared at me in disbelief. I guess my attitude shocked them, because they were speechless.
I let my words linger and after a long chill in the air, I cleared my throat and said, “The first thing we need to do is have Mom call Daisy. Crazy Daisy called right after Mom was taken to the hospital. That was what… three days ago?” I looked at Mom. “Are you up to it?”
“You can bet your sweet petunia, my dear!”
Billy walked over to Mom and said, “Are you sure that you’re ready for this?”
“I’m fine! The doctor said so. Actually, I feel better than I did when I was twenty.”
I looked over at her and rolled my eyes.
She, in turn, stared me down.
“Okay, then give her a call,” Billy said, ignoring our behavior. “Feel her out, let her do the talking, and then suggest you bring your daughter over to meet her. Tell her Jesse needs to get out of the house for a little while and that you want the two of them to meet. We’ll go from there.”
“Okay,” Mom said. She walked out of the room and then came back with her cell phone.
“Mom, you can use our phone.”
“No, the number will show up on Caller ID.”
We waited anxiously, but before Mom could call Daisy, her cell phone rang.
Mom opened the phone and said hello.
“Oh, hello, Daisy,” Mom said. “I was just getting ready to call you. I got a message that you called. You’re not going to believe this, but I had a mild heart attack and was in the hospital for a couple of days. I just got out, and believe it or not, I was just getting ready to give you a call when the phone rang. How’re you doing?”
Mom held the phone for several minutes before speaking again.
“I’m doing fine. The doctor told me to…What?” She looked at us and shook her head. “No, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. Alice is… was a wonderful person. I really liked her.”
Mom started sniffling as if she was crying—some of it was for Crazy Daisy’s benefit, and I think some of it was for real.
“I guess I missed the funeral. Oh, I see… Well, I’m glad to hear that. I’ll be attending. Where’s the funeral home? All right… Yes, I’m free… Sure, I’d love to go to dinner afterward. Where would you like to go? Okay… I’ll ask her. I’m sure my daughter would love to join us; she mentioned a few times that she’s dying to meet you. I talk about you all the time.” There was a pause, and then Mom said, “Jesse’s here with me and I just got a nod from her that she’d love to come. Okay, I’ll
pick you up tomorrow around one-thirty for the funeral. Oh… Okay. That’s fine with me. After the funeral, you can drop me off at my house and then we’ll meet you later… Sure... The Madison Inn Restaurant for dinner sounds good.”
Mom closed her cell phone and took a couple deep breaths.
All of us remained silent, waiting to hear all about the conversation. I looked her up and down, checking for signs of stress. I was afraid this was going to be too much for her. I got up from the sofa and walked over to where she was standing.
“Are you all right?” I asked, touching her hand. “I think you should sit down.”
“No, I’m fine. Actually, my anger isn’t as out of control as I expected it to be. I’m mad at her, but I’m more interested in putting that woman in jail than I am of letting her get my hackles up. I can handle this. Everything came to a head when I heard about Alice, but you know me, Missy; I’m normally a calm person, and I have patience. I know God will give me the strength to accomplish my mission. I have faith in Him.”
“I have faith in you,” I said. “If your faith in Him keeps you going, that’s good enough for me. So what about this dinner? Why are we going all the way to Madison to eat?”
“Daisy wants to try out this new restaurant. Besides, I live off South River Road in Stanardsville, and Daisy lives on Middle River Road. Madison is right next door almost.”
“I thought you lived here, Grandma,” Benny said as he looked up from the TV.
“I might as well,” Mom said. “I’m here more than I am at my house.”
“What about Alice’s funeral?” I asked. “You’re not really going to it with Crazy Daisy, are you? I hope you’re driving.” I looked over at Billy. “We’ll have a tail on her, won’t we, Billy?”
“We’ll be on your mom like a fly on a buffalo carcass,” he said, looking over at Mom.
“I think that’s a fly on…”
“We know what he means,” Mom said, glaring at me. “I’m riding to the funeral with Daisy and her husband, Gabe. I’ll be safe. She won’t do anything with him around.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Claire said, joining the conversation. “If Daisy did kill those three people, what’s to stop her from killing again?”
“Once they have a taste for blood…” Jonathan suggested. “People like that don’t stop until they get caught.”
“I don’t want you to be Crazy Daisy’s next victim,” I said to Mom.
“Stop calling her that, Jesse,” Mom demanded. “If you keep referring to her as Crazy Daisy, you’re going to slip up and say it to her face. How would you explain that, Missy?”
We all laughed.
“Listen to Jesse,” the chief said. He got up from the sofa and walked to the middle of the room. He turned to face us. “This woman has killed three people in a matter of a few months. From what I have heard of Daisy Clark, I think the first kill was an accident. The others weren’t. Like Jonathan said—she has the taste of blood and she likes it. He says she was the one who shot him. I believe my son. She is dangerous. She must be stopped.”
“We could give her a taste of her own medicine. I hear arsenic isn’t that hard to get,” Claire said, jokingly. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about Mom.”
“A stray arrow from a hunter would be easier,” I suggested.
“We’d have to wait until bow season to get away with that,” Jonathan added, sharing his knowledge of the sport. “At the rate she’s going and by the time bow season rolls around, she could’ve killed a whole village.”
“A late night home invasion would work,” Billy announced. “No, that could get too messy.”
“We could just terrorize her… make her go crazy,” I said, agreeing. “Since she already knows Jonathan, we’d have to get Daniel to stalk her. He could use one of the old battered trade-ins he gets on his car lot to bump into her—literally. Or, he could follow her in a different car all the time. She’d see the same face, only in a different car. She’d think she was losing her mind. It would drive her insane.”
“I could kill wild foul and leave it on her doorstep,” Chief Sam chimed in. “Or better yet, I could gut a deer and leave the intestines hanging from the porch handrail.”
“Now that’s just plain gross,” Sarah said. “I’m glad the kids can’t hear you. She glanced over at the play pen where Maisy was playing and then to Ethan’s bassinet in the corner. “Thank goodness Ethan and Maisy are too young to understand what you’re saying and Benny and Carrie are too engrossed in the TV to pay attention to us.”
The chief looked at Sarah in a confused manner. “I don’t understand,” he said. “It’s okay for everyone to come up with a means to make this woman go crazy, but when I offer my ideas, you don’t like them. I just don’t get you squaws.”
“We’re not squaws, Sam!”
The conversation was getting silly. None of us would do any of the acts we suggested… I don’t think. Although, I must admit that if my mother had died the other day, I would’ve blamed Daisy Clark and I would never rest until I got revenge. That much I knew for sure. Now I could see how a person could be driven to murder. Kill one of my own, and I’d kill you. God, what an awful realization it is to discover that you’re capable of killing for revenge. I made myself put those terrible thoughts out of my head.
A pound on the front door echoed down the hallway to the family room.
All of us jumped as if we’d done something wrong. I guess plotting to kill someone, even in jest, could make a person feel uneasy. I just hoped that whoever was at the door, hadn’t heard our conversation.
If it was Sheriff Wake Hudson, he might get the wrong idea, and if it was Cole, he’d probably turn us in for conspiracy to commit murder. Then I berated myself for thinking such awful thoughts of Cole. He was a decent man who had gotten on my bad side… and Billy’s… and Mom’s… and Claire’s. I guess he didn’t have many friends in this house anymore.
Billy got up and said, “I’ll go answer it. Continue with your plotting.”
The rest of us nervously laughed as we sat quietly on the sofa. Guilt floated through the air like a heavy cloud. No one spoke.
We heard someone talking to Billy, their voices getting louder as they came down the hall. Billy entered the room with Cole following him.
Speak of the devil—and he shall appear. I heard that somewhere.
“Cole’s here,” Billy said as he walked over and sat back down. He motioned for Cole to have a seat.
Cole stood by the recliner at the other end of the sofa, but didn’t sit. He looked around the room as if he was surveying to see who was present. The minute he said hello to everyone, Claire got up and left the room. She mumbled a respectable greeting before her exit.
Benny, who had been quietly watching TV with his sister, the dogs and Spice Cat, got up from his little plastic blow-up chair, grabbed Carrie by the hand and said, “Let’s go, Carrie. We don’t want to be around Cole.”
His sister looked at him strangely, but obeyed his command.
Stunned, Cole said to the kids, “Are you guys mad at me?”
“We know what you did to our mom. We heard Grandma and Ant Jess talking about it. You slapped our mom, and she doesn’t like you anymore. We don’t like you either.”
Cole was so embarrassed, I almost felt sorry for him. However, he managed to recover.
“That was a long time ago,” he said. “I apologized for my bad behavior. Sometimes people make mistakes, Benny, and when they do, you need to give them a second chance. I hope you’ll do that for me.”
“You’re a policeman,” Benny shot back. “You’re not supposed to make mistakes. You’re supposed to obey the law.” He held onto Carrie’s hand and walked out of the room.
Cole turned and looked at the rest of us.
Not a comment was made. What was there to say? What happened between Cole and Claire was months ago, but still fresh in the memories of a young child—and the rest of us.
Finally, Billy asked,
“You said you have some news about Alice Aikens. What is it?”
“I thought you’d like to know we have an eyewitness to Alice Aiken’s car accident,” he said as he looked over at Mom. “I know she was your friend. I’m very sorry.”
“It was no accident,” Mom snapped. She got up from the sofa and walked over to the coffee pot to refill her cup. She hesitated for a moment.
“If the sheriff had been doing his job, this wouldn’t have happened. He should’ve paid more attention to Alice when she went to him with her suspicions. She knew what was going on, but y’all wouldn’t listen. Maybe Daisy’s mushrooms didn’t kill Pat Johnson, but that was her intention. Daisy planned it out, but her plot was foiled by raw hamburger, or so they say. The point is that she intended to do harm.”
“We can’t be certain of that,” Cole said. “It’s hearsay.”
“She most certainly did run Alice off the road, and now Alice is dead. I don’t understand any of this. All I know is that Daisy Clark got away with murder. How many more people are going to die before you get it through your head that Daisy Clark is a killer? What about Harriett Shifflett? Do you still think her husband poisoned her? From what I hear, Harriett and Joe were pillars of the community. They loved each other dearly. Oh, never mind; don’t answer that.” Mom turned and walked out of the room.
I jumped up to follow her, but instead, I hesitated, looked at Cole and then said, “I hope you’re satisfied. Why did you come here? Billy already told you that he was talking on the phone with Alice when she was killed. What more do you need? What about this new eyewitness? Who is it?”
“I…”
Ethan let out a tiny wail and distracted me. I looked back at Cole, and for a minute, our eyes locked. There was a time when I had really cared about this man and his feelings. Maybe it was time for me to let go of my anger toward him. I had everything I wanted. I didn’t need the extra baggage.
“I need to tend to my son,” I said, recovering from an awkward moment—a moment that changed my attitude. I decided it was time to forgive and forget. I walked over to Ethan and picked up his tiny body. After adjusting his blanket and putting his pacifier in his mouth, I took him over to Cole.