Game Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 3)

by T'Gracie Reese

  Why, no life at all, obviously!

  And April van Osdale, as horrid a human being as she was, must have an especially large niche.

  But Nina wasn’t even worthy of being in it!

  The woman had dismissed her exactly as Lysander had dismissed Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

  “Get you gone, you dwarf; you minimus of hindring knot glass made, you bead, you acorn!”

  April van Snobbery, surrounded and adored by all those reporters, while Nina stood invisible in the back of the crowd.

  Nina should have screamed back at her:

  “Are you grown so high in their esteem because I am so dwarfish and so low? How low am I thou painted maypole?”

  That’s what you are, April van Osdale! You’re a painted maypole!

  Damn her!

  But, by and large, her rage subsided.

  So that the afternoon could be spent in her shack, taking a nap.

  And then, as dusk settled and the street lamps of Bay St. Lucy began emitting their soft blue glow and God’s fingernail of a new moon hovered over the hills to the west of town, the guests began arriving and the shower of Meg and Jennifer came into being.

  It was a perfect shower, just the way Nina had planned it.

  The gifts were beautiful.

  Meg and Jennifer were radiant.

  There were many laughs about Margot chasing ghosts, and thus almost missing the shower.

  Nina thought of her favorite banquet toast:

  “I shall dine late, but the room will be well lighted, and the guests few and select.”

  You have dined late, Meg and Jenny, she found herself thinking.

  A lot of years.

  But the lights were right in this room, and the guests were few and select.

  And the punch was viciously spiked.

  It must have been eight o’clock or so when, holding a glass of it up high, and spying Meg and Jennifer holding hands on the far side of the room, Nina shouted out her toast:

  “To those who are about to wed!”

  All eyes, smiling, stayed fixed on the couple for an instant.

  But only for an instant.

  Then they turned.

  Nina was aware of movement behind her, and she turned, too.

  Margot Gavin was standing up.

  CHAPTER 7: A CHRISTMAS IDYLL

  “You don't want your hands froze on Christmas, do you?”

  ––William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury

  Christmas Eve had, for some time following Frank’s passing, been a difficult time for Nina. The two of them had always exchanged gifts at precisely nine PM (There was no particular reason for that time, but ritual had somehow taken root, and could not be changed). Then they had watched a film version of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, the beautiful Dylan Thomas narrative.

  For years, they’d lived in the old house on Magnolia Avenue which had a fireplace. There were only a few nights of the year cold enough to warrant a fire, but Frank insisted on building one every Christmas Eve, and so it was always there, crackling and glowing, while they drank a glass of mulled wine and sang “All Through the Night” at the film’s closing.

  The first years without him were hard every night, but that one night—that one was particularly difficult.

  It was better now though.

  She had her own place and had grown in time to enjoy making it cozy and habitable.

  The mournful growling of the sea comforted rather than depressed her; and the small artificial tree in the corner of the shack’s main room; the photographs of loved ones hanging on the walls; the various decorations that had been sent to her over the years by relatives; the Christmas cards that had come during the previous week—all of these things made her feel snug and secure in the little Nina-Cave that she had hollowed out here on this remote stretch of Mississippi sand and water, and if the new moon sparkled clear and high in the sky, as it was doing tonight, why, so much the better.

  There was a bit more of a melancholy touch than usual this particular Christmas Eve, of course, because she was now faced with the prospect of losing Margot, her best friend.

  ‘Losing?’ That was putting it a bit harshly, was it not?

  Margot was not dying.

  But she was getting married.

  She was selling Elementals: Treasures from the Earth and Sea, the shop that had become almost a second home to Nina.

  And she was, almost certainly, moving away from Bay St. Lucy to join her new husband—a psychologist of all things—in running The Candles, the dilapidated plantation that Chicago money was to transform into a retreat for writers, actors, and painters.

  The shock of hearing all this news the night of Meg and Jenny’s shower still pained her.

  That was, of course, what Margot had meant about encountering a ghost.

  An old acquaintance.

  One she knew would be looking over the plantation along with her.

  A man she had always gotten along well with, but had never…

  …well, never thought about in precisely that way.

  “And I don’t think he had ever thought of me in that way. But we were glad to see each other. It was fun to stroll about on the grounds, and laugh about how dreadfully boring the other people were, and speculate about how much it would cost to fix up this or bring in a new one of that…”

  “…and then, somehow, we both realized it was changing.”

  “So strange. I could have sworn I was—well, past all of that.”

  “I suppose one never is.”

  No.

  Nina knew, of course, that she was past all of that. There would never be another Frank.

  But Margot had never had a Frank. Not that one irreplaceable person.

  Well, now perhaps, she would have.

  Good for her.

  A bit of sadness for Nina though and another hole in her life that would have to be filled in somehow.

  But she could do it. She had filled in one hole and could find ways to fill another.

  So she was not that sad as she sat in her main room, the reading light glowing above her left shoulder, a paperback book open on her lap, and the blue cell phone sitting motionless on the small table beside her.

  Nine o’clock.

  She took pleasure in knowing that the phone would ring soon, and it would ring several times in the following hour. Frank’s sister would call from Shreveport. It was always good to hear from her. Tom and Phyllis, a couple she and Frank had enjoyed many good times with, would call from Little Rock.

  And there were two or three others, old friends, even a few acquaintances from here in Bay St. Lucy.

  Alanna Delafosse would undoubtedly call.

  Always a pleasure to hear from Alanna, who seemed in a state of perpetual ecstasy, whether the occasion was Christmas Eve or some dreary Monday morning in late February.

  It was a game she enjoyed playing as she sat and watched the little phone.

  Nine fifteen now.

  Who would call first?

  What news would she be told?

  What cheery bit of business would further add to the quiet sanctity of the evening?

  A minute later the phone did ring.

  She flipped it open and said, excitedly:

  “This is Nina! Merry Christmas! Who is it?”

  “Moon Rivard down at the sheriff’s office. Some guy named Max Lirpa is here drunk. You need to post bail for him.”

  “I…”

  “He’s here with Tom Broussard. Broussard’s drunk too. Better get here quick before I kill one of them.”

  “All right.”

  Moon hung up.

  And there it was: Nina’s Christmas present!

  “No man can write who is not first a humanitarian”

  ––William Faulkner

  Bay St. Lucy’s jail was not a nice place. It could not have been labeled ‘convivial.’ It exuded no sense of intimacy and it lacked the warmth that Nina had felt while sitting comfortably in he
r arm chair.

  No, rather it was dank, rusted, murky, dirty, cheerless, cold, cramped, and stinking of urine. Its walls would have been completely covered by the vilest known graffiti, had it not been for the fact that the bile green paint upon which this graffiti had been scrawled was constantly peeling off and disintegrating in small pools of some kind of acid which continually collected on the concrete floor.

  She did not like it.

  She did not like having to visit it.

  Especially on Christmas Eve.

  And so she was in no better mood than Moon Rivard was when he let her into the sheriff’s office, offered her a cup of coffee (she did not accept), sat her down at a desk, gave her several papers to sign, and asked for a check for two hundred dollars.

  She wondered if there was that much in her account.

  Oh, well, what could they do to her if the check bounced?

  Put her in jail?

  My God, they could, couldn’t they?

  “What were they doing?”

  Moon scratched his iron gray hair and shook his iron gray head.

  “Fighting. Drunk as skunks and fighting. This Lirpa guy gave me your name, said you’d come down and get him out. Apparently he doesn’t know anybody else in town. How do you know him?”

  “He’s a teacher.”

  “A what?”

  “A teacher.”

  “The hell he is!”

  “I know, I know, it seems strange, but there it is.”

  “What does the damned fool teach?”

  “English.”

  “Is that what he’s speaking?”

  “It is when he’s sober; I don’t know what he’s speaking now. What about Tom, how is he getting out?”

  “I called Penelope down at the docks. She’s on her way over here now.”

  “Mad?”

  Moon rolled his eyes.

  “That woman knows words…”

  “I know. Maybe it would have been better to keep Tom in jail. He would have been safe, anyway.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Except I ain’t about to stay here all night with those two tomcats. I got a family to get home to. It’s Christmas Eve.”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “Yes, it is.”

  “Well. Let’s go down and get the English professor out of the can.”

  He led the way across the room, then opened a door which led down to the cells.

  The winding stairway was narrow, and pools of water glistened as her sneakers plopped and splashed upon them.

  Finally, the stairs opened into a small musky cave, illuminated only by light bulbs hanging bare and glowing dimly.

  There, on a bench in the first cell, sat Max Lirpa.

  There was a cut on his forehead.

  He wore no shirt.

  Tom Broussard lay on the bench beside him, passed out.

  Max leapt to his feet upon seeing Nina.

  He grasped the bars, then half turned and pointed to the motionless figure lying on the bench.

  “This man,” he shouted, “is a bleeding literary genius!”

  “Oh, my God,” said Nina, disgustedly.

  “I was in the supermarket, see? The damned supermarket, of all places!”

  “Max…”

  “And I find this novel called Delectably Disemboweled. Nice title, what? Well anyway, it struck me as being so. So I buy the damn thing and take it back to the flat, and two hours later I finish it. ‘You’ve got to talk to this writer!’ I tell myself. Then, on the back page, I read his bio. Turns out he lives right here in Bay St. Lucy! Can you believe that?”

  “No. No, I can never quite bring myself to believe that.”

  “So I ask around and find out where he lives. I go to see him. Great place he’s got! Just where a writer should live.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” she said, quietly.

  “You’re bleedin’ right it is! So anyway, we have a couple of beers together, then a couple more, then we think, why not go out and paint the damned town a little…”

  “And then you wind up here.”

  “Not immediately. There were a couple of places we were in first.”

  She turned to Moon, whose shirt was two buttons opened as always, and who seemed to be trying to pull out his massive tangle of chest hairs one by one.

  “Where did you find them?”

  “Boozers by the Bay.”

  “They were fighting?”

  “Some riggers.”

  “Any damage?”

  “Not really. Owner had the good sense to get them outside. There were a couple of broken doors, couple of broken mirrors, a glass or two shattered, something about a pool cue, a busted out window, and somehow a dog got its lip cut.”

  “A dog.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re still trying to piece it together.”

  “Those bloody off shore blokes!” Max screamed, balling up his fist and banging on the bars.

  “They think they’re so almighty tough! Not one of them, though, not one of them, is a match for a real literary man!”

  Upon hearing the words ‘literary man,’ Tom Broussard grunted, swore inaudibly, and turned over on his stomach, where he passed out again.

  “My God that man can write!” whispered Max Lirpa.

  It was at this time that Penelope Royal arrived, hurtling down the stairs with the mincing delicacy of a rhinoceros.

  She barged into the cell area, stared at Moon, then bellowed at him:

  “YOU ----!! IF YOU-------I’LL-------AND---

  “Yes, ma’am,” Moon replied.

  Then Penelope turned on Max:

  “-------------------------------------------------!!”

  She stopped to catch her breath.

  He’d taken a step back, then another step as the fusillade continued.

  Now he was standing pressed against the wall, staring at Penelope, his mouth open.

  As for her, she was now glaring at Moon.

  “Open the ------------------------ door!” she bellowed.

  Nina had never heard a door described in such a way.

  She stared at it; it seemed to shrink and cower.

  Moon took from his pocket a key made for The Tower of London.

  He turned it in the lock, yanked once, and pulled the door open.

  Penelope, ignoring Max, somehow got her arms around her husband, and with massive strength, got him upright.

  This action brought him into a semi-conscious state, so that he could look down at her as she was supporting him.

  “Honey?”

  She stroked his cheek with one of her massive palms and said, quietly:

  “Are you all right, Baby?”

  He nodded, a bit of brown drool seeping from his mouth as he did so.

  “I think so.”

  “Let’s go home, Darling. I’ll take you to the boat. You’ll be ok.”

  He nodded, dazedly:

  “All right.”

  Somehow the tangle of muscle and hair and vomit and flesh that was now both of them lurched and staggered its way up the stairwell.

  Penelope turned and said to Moon:

  “-----!”

  Then she said to Max:

  “-----!”

  Then she disappeared up the stairwell.

  Max Lirpa continued to stare at the now empty stairs for a time.

  Finally, he walked to the now open cell door, looked at Nina, and said:

  “What a magnificent woman.”

  Nina turned and left.

  CHAPTER 8: FIRST MEETING

  “And I reckon them that are good must suffer for it the same as them that are bad.”

  ––William Faulkner, Light in August

  On Monday, January fifth, school resumed in Bay St. Lucy.

  On Wednesday, January seventh, April van Osdale made her first appearance.

  Nina had been apprised of it and was waiting in the doorway when a large black van, dispatched from city hall, pulled to the front curb and stopped.

  April van Osdal
e, a briefcase clutched in her right hand, got out of the car and waved:

  “Ms. Bannister!”

  Nina waved back.

  The woman walking up to her had inverted her outfit, and was now wearing not a white angel food cake with strawberry trim but a strawberry cake with white angel food trim.

  Red red red…

  …and a little white white white.

  She extended a hand, which Nina took, thinking as she did so that the handshake was firmer than one would have expected from a pastry.

  “I’m so sorry we didn’t get to talk more at the press conference!”

  “I am, too.”

  “So many people, you know.”

  “There was a crowd. Have you gotten moved in at city hall?”

  “Yes. Everything’s been done. They’ve created a nice office for me. You’ll get to see it, I’m sure. We’ll be spending a lot of time together in the next months.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” said Nina.

  Gag a maggot.

  “And so—what does our schedule look like today?”

  “English faculty first, then, history, then math. That should give you a pretty full morning.”

  “Wonderful. And by the way, Nina—I can call you Nina, can’t I?”

  “Of course.”

  “By the way, I’ve been hearing some wonderful things about you. You’ve just come out of retirement?”

  “Yes. Paul Cox asked me to.”

  “So I hear. Well, Mr. Cox has some interesting ideas. I’m sure he’ll be a major help to the governor.”

  “I hope so.”

  “At any rate, everyone in town remembers you as a teacher. Wherever I go, it’s ‘Nina taught us this’ and ‘Nina taught us that.’ And then, you spent your last years as principal?”

  “Yes. The last four.”

  “You must be somewhat overwhelmed. So much has changed.”

  They were inside now, walking along the main corridor toward room 102, where Eunice Duncan and the five other English teachers were awaiting them.

  Except for Max Lirpa, who had called in sick this morning.

  Thank God.