Dead for the Money

by Peg Herring

  “Call Briggs and have him meet us,” she told Brodie. “We have to get Bud to hospital.”

  Bud made a weak objection, but Brodie ignored him, digging her phone out of her pocket and calling the house. She got Shelley, which was lucky. She would not have known what to say if Arlis answered.

  They arrived at the dock to find Briggs waiting beside Gramps’ SUV. He’d folded the seats down, and they made Bud lie in the back, his head still wrapped in the towel. He insisted he was fine, but none of his listeners let that change their minds.

  “Really, you guys, I don’t need a doctor.”

  “No,” Brodie quipped, surprising even herself. “You need a caftan to go with that turban.”

  Scarlet and Briggs drove off with Bud, promising to let the others know as soon as there was a diagnosis. Brodie followed Shelley into the house, head down.

  “Now look here,” Shelley said in a voice a little too loud to be normal. “This flip-flap got me all behind on my work. Do you think you could help me get supper going, honey? When Bud gets back, and all the others, they’ll be ready for something to eat.”

  Brodie knew Shelley was trying to get her mind off things, and she knew it would be good for her to have something to do. She was soon wrist deep in potato peelings. As the metallic ring of the peeler accompanied her movements, she tried to push away images of Bud lying bloody on the deck. Had it been her fault? What if Bud died too? She would be left with no one. Well, there was Arlis, but Brodie suspected that if Arlis had the power, she would bring Saint Leland home and send Brodie to a place like the one Jane Eyre had been sent to, where everyone was cruel and hurtful. Only the clothes would be different.

  “He’s gonna be all right.” Shelley had her phone at one ear. “Briggs says the doctors are stitching him up right now.”

  Brodie felt the tightness that had been growing in her chest relax somewhat. Bud would be around a while longer.

  It was some time before she noticed the voice again. Along with the rhythmic sound of the metal peeler rattling in its handle, she heard, “Happy.” It repeated every few seconds. “Happy.” “Happy.” Strangely, she didn’t mind it, at least not much. People who heard voices were crazy, but still, if the voice in your head said you were pretty and smart and okay and happy, maybe it was good to be nuts.

  Chapter Ten

  SEAMUS WAS FRUSTRATED. After lunch he’d jumped from Shelley to Briggs, whose pace was leisurely and whose thoughts were, to say the least, mundane. Briggs’ concerns centered on his garden and rabbits. He was for the former and against the latter. Among thoughts of rabbit remedies, Seamus gleaned a few details about the Dunbar’s background, but not much of importance.

  He had been two days on this case and had yet to get a chance to host with Bud. The cook and the handyman thought Bud was perfect, but Seamus wanted to hear what Bud himself was thinking. If he wasn’t guilty, he might have seen or heard something that would answer the questions of the case: was it murder, and if not Bud, then who?

  A guy who might have a concussion did not need Seamus’ presence weighing him down, however. When Briggs carted Bud off to the hospital, Seamus returned to Shelley.

  There was a period of quiet as they waited for word. Everyone in the house seemed to tiptoe, holding their breath until they learned Bud’s prognosis. Finally Briggs called, telling Shelley, “The doctor don’t think he’s hurt bad, but to be safe, they’re gonna keep him overnight.” He paused dramatically. “I’ll be home in a while, but the little lady is gonna stay.”

  “Yeah?”

  Briggs chuckled. “I hate to admit it, Old Woman, but I think you was right all along. She definitely likes him.”

  Shelley chuckled low in her throat. “See? It ain’t about sex, neither. She’s a good girl.”

  “You was a good girl, once upon a time.”

  “Hush and get back here. Somebody’s got to clean the blood off that boat.”

  DINNER WAS PAINFUL, although the pork roast smelled wonderful and the Yorkshire pudding that accompanied it was perfect. Arlis shared her opinions with her fellow diners, Brodie and Arnold, who had returned from his day off to find that he had missed the day’s excitement. Bud had suggested he take a week off after the funeral, but Brodie suspected Arnold did not want Bud to learn that he could survive without a personal assistant. Even though she did not like Arnold much, she appreciated his current attempts to derail Arlis’ monologue.

  “Boating is dangerous. I should have told him not to go. That lake is treacherous. Not as bad as Superior, of course, but bad enough. I hated it every time my brother went out.”

  “Great sauce on the pork, Shelley,” Arnold said. “What do I taste in there?”

  Shelley knew what was expected of her. “It’s thyme.” She pronounced the h.

  “What distracted him, Brodie? He should have seen that boomer coming. Were you acting up again?”

  “And a little bit of allspice,” Shelley said. “I think allspice just wakes things up.”

  “I suppose she was playing with the ropes or something and loosened one. Is that what happened, Brodie? It was an accident, dear, but you have to tell the truth.”

  “Whatever you did, it’s great.” Shelley left the room, and Arnold looked around helplessly, out of his depth without another adult to help divert Arlis.

  “I’m sure he’ll sell that awful thing now that he’s seen how dangerous it is. At least something good will come of this.”

  No one answered, and she tried another subject, helping herself to more corn and a second slice of gravy-covered pork. “Arnold, have you filed whatever is needed for the will?”

  “Um, everything is ready to go. Bud and I went over it with Collin before he left, and I’m to file in the morning.” He looked momentarily confused. “I mean, I was supposed to. I don’t know if I should wait now or not.”

  “I don’t see why we should wait. The sooner it’s done, the sooner things will be settled.” She gave what Brodie recognized as her “brave” smile. “It doesn’t mean a thing to me, of course. But others might be waiting for some sort of settlement, and it would be unkind to make them wait any longer than necessary.”

  Arnold wasn’t quite as wimpy as he appeared, and he said in a neutral tone, “I’ll run it by Bud when he comes home. There’ll be plenty of time to file the papers in the afternoon.”

  A sniff was all the response Arlis gave, but she managed to put a lot of personality into it. “Leland is supposed to get the lodge in Canada. I’d like to think he won’t have to wait long for his inheritance.”

  For once, Arnold seemed relieved to have the conversation turn to Leland, or at least away from his duties. “Is the place something he could fix up?”

  “I doubt it.” Arlis shuddered delicately. “It’s never been modernized, no electricity or running water. I’m hoping he can sell it and make enough money to get himself a place in Toronto or even Sarnia. Then I could go and see him when he isn’t away on some mission.”

  For a second Brodie almost felt sorry for Arlis. The woman had nothing: no power, no money, no independence, and her only child had been absent from her life for more than a decade. She had lost everything when Leland screwed up her finances.

  “Brodie, please don’t slouch,” Arlis said. “You look so much better when you sit up straight.”

  Obediently, she pulled herself back until her spine touched the chair back, in no mood to fight with Arlis. She wanted to escape, but that would cause yet another fuss. Arlis always insisted that she ask for permission to leave the table, which was apparently proper behavior for children back in the Victorian Age. She wanted to tell Arlis to kiss her—

  Sorry, Gramps.

  To shut Arlis up, Brodie had taken to catching the eye of either Gramps or Scarlet when she finished eating. Either would nod permission, relieving her of the irritation of asking while satisfying Arlis’ demand. Neither was there tonight. In fact, Gramps would never—

  “Brodie, can you help me in the kitch
en?” Shelley had seen her dilemma and solved it. Arlis couldn’t object to her helping Shelley, but Brodie did not have to suffer one of her not-so-great aunt’s long lectures on propriety.

  As she stood to go, the doorbell rang. Brodie turned, left the dining room, and crossed the open living area to see who was there. Through the sidelight she saw a striking woman with spiky hair, large brown eyes, and a perfectly oval face. Tall, she added emphasis to the fact with a pair of strappy little heels so high as to be ridiculous and a clingy, hot pink dress with a flirty ruffle that ran from one shoulder to the hemline.

  When Brodie opened the door, the woman waved, sending shoulder-length earrings spinning. “You must be Brodie. You are gorgeous.”

  From both habit and surprise, Brodie said nothing. The woman leaned into the doorway, smiling with big, white teeth. “Is Billy here?”

  “Billy?”

  She frowned briefly. “Bud.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Oh.” The visitor seemed to downshift a gear. “Can you tell me when he’ll be back?”

  Shelley had come up behind Brodie, and there was a noticeable chill in her voice when she asked, “What do you want?”

  The woman’s smile stayed in place, but it froze to equal Shelley’s coldness. “I’m here to see Billy. I heard that William died, and I figured he might need me.” She turned to Brodie and said by way of explanation, “I’m Callie, Billy’s mom.”

  SEAMUS WAS SURPRISED by the reaction of the usually unflappable Shelley. The nerve! was her first thought, followed by, Not coming in this house, Missy!

  Next he heard Arlis gasp behind him—or rather, behind Shelley. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see my son.”

  “Well, you can’t.”

  “Listen, Aunt Arlis—”

  “I am not your aunt. I was your husband’s aunt, despite his horrible taste in wives.”

  The woman’s lips pulled inward and her eyes narrowed. “When will Billy be back?”

  Arlis and Shelley glanced at each other and tacitly joined forces. “We don’t know,” Arlis replied.

  The woman fluffed her hair as she considered her options. A jasmine-y aroma wafted toward her opponents. Finally she said through tight lips, “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Neither woman answered, but Seamus heard Shelley’s thought: Don’t bother.

  BRODIE CLOSED HER BEDROOM DOOR, put her earbuds in, and buried her head in the pillow. When people started yelling, her stomach always tied itself in a big old knot. It wasn’t only the yelling. The appearance of Bud’s mother, a woman she’d always imagined as Cruella DeVille, shocked her. What kind of woman gave away her child, especially a perfect son like Bud?

  Her own mother had given her to Gramps, but that was different. Gramps told her, very gently, when she was six years old, that her mother had died. He explained that she’d been sick, which was why she hadn’t taken good care of Brodie. “Mothers are not usually like that,” he’d said. “If Jeannie hadn’t been sick, she would have loved you and taken care of you.”

  “Like you do?”

  “Yes.”

  Brodie looked up at him. “Then you must be my Gramps and my mom.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “That’s exactly what I am.”

  “YOU COULD HAVE KNOCKED ME OVER WITH A FEATHER,” Mildred told Seamus late that night as their hosts slept in their respective beds. “Apparently no one in the family had any idea the woman was even in the country, much less expected her to show up here.”

  “She’s a piece of work, all right,” Seamus responded.

  “She’s after money or I don’t know anything. She obviously read of the old man’s death and showed up to get what she could for herself. And did you see that dress? Teeny-bopper style!”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, Arlis certainly put her in her place! That woman is like a rhinoceros, large and slow-moving, but a formidable opponent when enraged.”

  Seamus agreed that the comparison was apt.

  “Brodie left,” Mildred said regretfully. “I wanted to hear the rest, but she apparently can’t abide confrontation. She practically ran to her room, which is all black and white, by the way. Very unhealthy, I think. Anyway, she buried her face in the pillows, so I didn’t hear any more.”

  “There wasn’t much more,” Seamus told her. “They sent her packing.”

  “Good for them!”

  “Oh, she’ll be back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “First, there’s too much money at stake for her to give up now. And second, because I jumped to Callenda Dunbar when Shelley stepped up to slam the door in her face.”

  Callie had stared for a moment at the door before stalking back to her rental car. “Bitch,” she said as she started the car and slammed it into gear. She had returned to Frankfort, driving much too fast for the narrow roads and seething all the way. Pulling into the parking lot of a run-down, twelve-unit motel, the only place that might have a room available in mid-July, she muttered to the steering wheel, “If Bud was home, I’d be sleeping in my old room. Instead, I get insults from Acid Arlis and a room at the Bates Motel.”

  Seamus felt Callie’s conscious effort to relax her stride as she entered the motel lobby. Calling on an apparent lifetime of practice, she hid her anger, swayed her hips slightly, and relaxed her mouth into a half-smile. He picked up her thought. You never know who might be watching.

  He had to admit, Callie was an attractive woman, appearing much younger than the mother of a full-grown man had to be. Sifting through her thoughts, Seamus gleaned snippets that revealed how it was done. Not only were her hair, skin, and muscles under the care of experts, but Callie concentrated on acting young, copying the speech patterns and vocabulary of thirty-somethings. She constantly monitored herself, dumping phrases she thought sounded like something only an old person would say.

  He quickly tired of Callie using every reflective surface available to check her lips, eyes, and hair. He was also repulsed by her habit of drawing attention to her breasts by touching them, apparently unconsciously, as she flirted the bespectacled desk clerk into stammering incompetence.

  What Seamus sensed in Bud’s mother was total self-absorption. Callie wanted everyone looking at her, men in lust, women in jealously. She had expensive tastes, and her attractiveness allowed her to indulge them. A beautiful woman can get away with a lot, and she had, for half a century.

  But a shift had occurred in Callie’s outlook, a realization that had probably begun gradually but was gaining ground. Age was catching up to her, and she could not stop it. Callie’s frequent mirror checks revealed crow’s feet and a softness under her chin. Her eyes pouched if she stayed up too late, and her upper arms had begun to jiggle underneath. It was harder and harder to present the illusion of youth. And she was tired of the constant effort it took to maintain the charade.

  Over the years, Callie had lived with, slept with, and sometimes married a succession of men wealthy enough to indulge her as long as she amused them. Her relationships usually ended when the men got wise to being used as ATM machines.

  Lately, it had become harder to attract the rich ones. Callie found herself pursued by younger men who clearly thought she was wealthy enough to support them. Running through her mind was the gnawing fear that these days she was regarded less as sex kitten, more as cougar. Wealthy men were still charming and flirtatious, but there were no long-term offers. Seamus guessed that was due to the desperation Callie radiated like plutonium.

  As she entered the closet-sized motel room she’d rented, Callie threw her weekender on the bed, fished her phone from her purse, and made a call. “You told me he would be there,” she said as soon as it was answered.

  “There was an accident on the boat this afternoon. He’s in the hospital.”

  Seamus felt Callie’s gasp and for an instant thought it was maternal concern. That was contradicted by the thought he picked up next: I need to pay something on that hote
l bill in London by Friday! Her question to the person on the other end was more subtle. “Is he all right?”

  “They think so. The boom swung and hit his head. There was a lot of blood and a nasty gash. The doctors kept him overnight, but more because he’s a millionaire with good insurance than because he’s in any danger, I think.”

  Callie was looking at herself in the mirror, and she brushed at her neck, wondering if plastic surgery could erase the lines that had begun to show across it.

  “All right. Give me a call as soon as he gets home, hear? And see if you can’t distract Arlis tomorrow morning so I can talk to Bud without her yammering in his ear.”

  “How should I do that?”

  “That’s your problem.”

  He sighed. “I guess I could offer to help with acknowledgments of funeral gifts and donations.”

  “There, see? I knew you could do it.”

  “It’ll cost you extra.”

  “Everything you do costs me extra, you little jerk.” Callie glanced at her face in the mirror and made a conscious effort to stop frowning. “Once I talk to Bud, you’ll get your money.”

  “You really think he’s going to let you walk back into his life?”

  “Yes, I do. What’s he got for family? Arlis? That kid you keep saying is nuts? Tell me I won’t look good compared to them. Better yet, do your job.” She closed the phone with a snap.

  Seamus was intrigued—and repulsed—by the nerve of Callie Dunbar. She was in a spot. She owed lots of people lots of money. The news of William Dunbar’s death could not have come at a better time for her. Although the elder Dunbar would have refused her request for more money out of hand, Callie thought her son would not. “Thirty thousand will do it,” she said aloud. “Once I talk to Buddy, everything will be all right.”

  In the wee hours of the morning, long after he’d told Millie that he was Callie’s guest, Seamus heard a sound like someone clearing her throat. Callie, fast asleep, stirred only slightly.