Leave it to Cleavage

by Wendy Wax

  She cried, and her distress sounded genuine. “I don’t believe it. But I’ll tell you something I bet you don’t know.”

  Blake wished there were only one thing he didn’t know, but he stayed silent and waited for the woman to speak.

  “Miranda Smith was at the lake the night of January eighth. I was supposed to meet him that afternoon and couldn’t get there. When I finally made it to the lake road later that night, she was coming down that mountain like a bat out of hell.”

  He waited, holding his breath.

  “When I got up to the house there was no sign of Tom or his car.” She sniffed again and her voice quivered. “He must have already been in the lake.”

  The line went dead as Ed Beagley raced into Blake’s office, out of breath. “It was Helen St. James,” he whispered, the surprise evident on his face. “The bookkeeper from Ballantyne. I saw her clear as day.”

  On the day of Tom’s funeral, Miranda sat in the family pew between her mother and grandmother and stared at the casket that held her husband’s incredibly well preserved mortal remains. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at the brass-bound box while memories, the ones she’d held at bay while she struggled to maintain her charade and salvage what she could of Ballantyne, assaulted her.

  The day they met, their first kiss. The holidays and vacations. Their increasingly frantic efforts to produce a child.

  She didn’t know how to reconcile the man she’d married and loved with all the things she’d discovered about him. Nor did she know when he’d begun to change. Or how he’d ended up in the lake.

  Floating in and out of the turmoil were her undefined feelings for Blake Summers and the crushing formality with which he’d handled her as the legal end of Tom’s death unfolded.

  Behind her, Helen St. James sobbed brokenheartedly, and Miranda had no doubt most of the mourners were busy trying to guess whether the corpse had on hundred percent cotton or beige cream satin under his burial suit.

  It was a funeral the residents of Truro were unlikely ever to forget.

  chapter 25

  M iranda?”

  “Hmmm?” Miranda blinked and looked up from the condolence card she was reading to stare up at her mother. She was so tired. Tired of pretending she was okay, tired of trying to get the details of Tom’s death out of her mind, tired of being the subject of everybody’s delighted speculation. She wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep and wake up in a couple of years when all of this was over.

  She stared unseeing at the kitchen with its endless Tupperwared offerings and paper plates covered with foil. A vase of tissue-paper flowers from Andie sat in the center of the table, and Carly had brought one of Lindsey’s crayon masterpieces for the front of her refrigerator. Everything she looked at made her want to cry. Or sleep.

  “Miranda, can you help me carry these things out to the car?” Her mother pointed to a group of casseroles she’d separated from the rest. “You won’t even be able to make a dent in all this food. I thought I’d take some to Gran.”

  “Sure.” Miranda balanced a disposable baking dish of macaroni and cheese in one arm and a tuna-noodle bake in the other and followed her mother outside onto the front porch.

  Her grandmother’s Cadillac sat in the drive, bathed in swaths of dark and moonlight.

  “Why do you have Gran’s car?”

  “Mine’s in the shop and she didn’t need hers. I thought I’d just leave these off for her and then walk on home from the cottage.”

  Her mother’s voice receded as Miranda stared at the car; something about the way it looked in the dark jiggled at her brain. She’d replayed the night of January eight in her mind countless times, trying to remember something that might make a difference. She’d passed two cars on the gravel road that night, one while she was going up and one while she was coming down, but she’d only looked to assure herself that neither was Tom’s white Mercedes; she hadn’t bothered to try to figure out who was in them. Until now.

  Flipping on the porch light, she trailed her mother down the drive. There was a slight chill in the air. Nothing like the bitter cold that night in January, but . . .

  Her mother popped the trunk on Gran’s dark blue Cadillac, and Miranda stopped as the image she’d been trying to call up became clearer. The first car had been a dark sedan about this size.

  No. She cocked her head and looked at the car from another angle. What would Gran have been doing up there that night? And if it had been Gran on that gravel road, surely Miranda would have recognized her. Or Gran would have said something.

  Her mother bent into the backseat and started rearranging things. “I think you’d better put those casseroles in the trunk, Miranda. Just make sure they’re flat and secured in some way.”

  Miranda opened the trunk and slid the casseroles toward the back, then looked for something to prop against them. She wedged them in place with a black umbrella and a pair of galoshes she found in the recess, then felt around for something softer to wrap around them.

  Her hand closed around something promising and she pulled it out to examine it for barrier-building potential.

  Glancing down, she saw the Izod logo, noted the size was too big to be Gran’s. And froze when she recognized Tom’s sweatshirt. In disbelief she rooted around until she came up with a pair of his pants.

  Miranda closed her eyes and tried to picture the car she’d whizzed by on her way up, but her head was swimming with thoughts she didn’t want to think.

  What would her grandmother have been doing up there that night? And more importantly, what was she doing with Tom’s clothes?

  Miranda’s heart dropped down around her knees as she tried to come up with an answer that didn’t require Gran being responsible for Tom ending up in the lake. With what she hoped wasn’t evidence crumpled to her chest, Miranda waved good-bye to her mother and hurried back into the house. She was going to have to have a little talk with the wrinkly wise woman.

  Miranda wasted several valuable days trying to come up with a tactful way to broach the subject with Gran. She definitely couldn’t do it by phone, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out an opener that would smooth the way into such a conversation. A “My, the weather’s getting lovely, you didn’t have anything to do with Tom’s death, did you?” simply wasn’t going to cut it.

  When she finally accepted the fact that she was simply going to have to get her grandmother alone and dive right in, having that private conversation proved much trickier than she had anticipated. Having it before Blake forced her to “cooperate with his investigation” proved trickier still.

  The night she knocked on her grandmother’s door primed for truth-seeking, Gus Summers opened it and invited her in for drinks. The next day she drove into town and tracked Gran to the post office, but she had barely finished parking her car when Blake came strolling down the sidewalk toward her. Panicked, Miranda ducked into the first doorway she came to—and learned how to count Weight Watchers points while she waited for him to move on.

  For days she skittered out of Blake’s way while unsuccessfully trying to get her grandmother alone. In her fear and frustration, she vowed she’d answer every one of Blake’s questions—just as soon as she was able to stop worrying about Gran having a hand in Tom’s death.

  On Friday evening, determined to put her fears to rest, she caught up with Gran in the bakery aisle of the Piggly Wiggly.

  “Hello, darling.” Gran smiled as Miranda pushed her cart up next to her grandmother’s. “I’m so glad to see you out.” She stopped in front of the bakery case, and Miranda stopped with her. “Oh, just smell those cinnamon buns. Why don’t we take some to the cottage and . . .”

  “Gran, I’m not here for baked goods. I need you to tell me exactly what you were doing at . . .”

  Gran picked up a wax bag, opened the case, and used the tongs to slip the buns in. Out of the corner of her eye, Miranda spotted Blake and Gus. She didn’t think they’d noticed her and Gran yet, but they
were only two aisles over and closing in fast.

  Taking the bakery bag out of Gran’s hands, Miranda set it down on the display table. “Let’s not fuss with any of this,” she said as she grabbed the handle of Gran’s cart and began to push toward the next aisle. “Let’s go to the Dogwood and get a slice of pie instead.”

  Miranda navigated both carts around the end cap and down the next aisle, intent on staying out of sight. “Or we could go to Hyram’s for coffee and a piece of cake.”

  “Darling, what are you . . .” Gran began but Miranda pushed faster, desperate to get away before the Summers men caught up with them. She moved as quickly as she could without actually dragging Gran’s feet off the floor.

  “Miranda, what on earth are you doing?”

  What she was doing was sprinting toward the front of the store so that they could abandon their carts and make their getaway.

  Gus’s voice carried over from the next aisle and Miranda slammed to a halt. Putting a finger to her lips to warn her grandmother, she peeked around the end and held her breath while Blake and Gus finished and split off to their left.

  “Gran,” she whispered as she crouched next to the Cap’n Crunch, “the Summerses are here, and Blake wants to question me. But first I need to know what you—”

  “You’re hiding from Blake?”

  “I’m not . . . hiding. I’m just”—she straightened and moved them forward again—“delaying the questioning until you assure me you had nothing to do with Tom’s—”

  “Me? Why, I thought . . .”

  Miranda tried to listen to Gran while looking over her shoulder and pushing forward at the same time. The crash of metal and the jolt of impact were apparently God’s way of telling her she wasn’t that great a multitasker.

  Blake Summers looked down at his dented grocery cart and at the cans that now covered the floor, then back up at Miranda. “I’m trying real hard not to make any obvious comments about women drivers.”

  Gus grinned. And so did Gran. Miranda was too stunned to speak.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever written a ticket in the grocery store before, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got speeding.” Blake’s tone was incredibly dry. “And probably reckless endangerment.”

  Miranda closed her eyes, tried counting to ten, opened them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We were in a hurry and I wanted to check out.”

  Blake’s gaze dropped to her and Gran’s empty carts.

  “But since we’re all okay, I’m, uh, going to have to go.” She was babbling but she didn’t care. She had to get out of there now. “I’ve got an, um, important, uh, weigh-in at, uh, Weight Watchers.” She swallowed. “Gran, would you ask Mr. Tyndale to send me a bill for the damage? I’ve really got to go.”

  With a parting nod to Blake and Gus, she leaned close to her grandmother and whispered in her ear, “I’m coming by first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll expect you to be home.” She looked her grandmother straight in the eye. “And I’ll expect you to be alone.”

  Early the next morning Miranda drove to the cottage and found Gran on her knees in the dirt. She was digging holes and had a flat of red-and-white geraniums next to her. Miranda knelt on the grass and began to remove the flowers from the flat, loosening the soil around the roots as her grandmother had taught her when she was a child, handing them over to be inserted in each small hole. “I found Tom’s clothes in your trunk, Gran.”

  Her grandmother placed a geranium in its newly dug hole and gently patted the topsoil around it. Miranda handed her another plant and waited. “We definitely need to talk.”

  Gran shook her head. “I forgot they were in there. Can you believe it? I’m starting to get old.” She stuck her hand out for another plant, but Miranda didn’t pass one over.

  “I don’t think you’re old enough to cop an insanity plea, if that’s where you’re going with this. And I hope to God you don’t need one.” She set the plant back in the flat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were up there that night?”

  Gran looked up, her gaze steady. “Maybe I should be asking you the same question. There are a lot of things we haven’t discussed.”

  They were so intent on each other that they didn’t hear the car drive up or the slam of a car door. Their first clue that they weren’t alone was the black boot tips that came to a stop at the edge of the flower bed.

  Still kneeling, their gazes traveled up the pant legs to the face of the man who towered above them. Miranda’s heart slid somewhere down near the pit of her stomach.

  “Ladies.” Blake Summers tipped his hat, then crouched down across from them. “Planting flowers, are we?”

  Miranda’s brain went into warp speed but all that came out was, “Yes, geraniums.” Gran did the smarter thing and remained silent.

  “Beautiful.” He was looking at Miranda. “But tricky. Not as obvious as they appear on the outside. Not always forthcoming.”

  Miranda swallowed and waited. Gran, too, kept her silence.

  “Well,” Blake said. “I have a few questions that need answering. And I’m thinking I’d like to ask them down at the station.”

  Gran stood, brushing off her knees as she straightened. “I’ll just go get my wallet and keys and meet you down—”

  “No, I want to talk to Miranda first. Alone. She can come with me. Why don’t you come by in about an hour?”

  “But I don’t . . .” Miranda stood, too, her mind racing.

  Gran looked Blake right in the eye, and she appeared a lot calmer than Miranda felt. “Should I be calling an attorney?”

  Blake actually seemed to think about that one, which did not bode well for the line of questioning. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  Miranda placed herself between Blake and Gran, trampling a couple of geraniums on the way. He looked tall and serious and coplike, not at all like the man who’d laid a velvet cape under her and made love to her on the stairs. “You can’t just show up here and ‘take me down to the station for questioning.’” She lowered her voice in an imitation of a TV cop.

  “Actually,” he said, folding his forearms across his chest, “I can.”

  Miranda shot Gran a look. “Why don’t I just come down with Gran? We can . . .” She was frantic to talk to her grandmother before she had to talk to Blake.

  “Nope.” He took her gently by the elbow and steered her toward the waiting jeep, and she offered a small prayer of thankfulness that he hadn’t felt the need to shove her in the back of the cruiser like a criminal.

  Miranda looked out the passenger window as they pulled away. Gran stood with her gardening tools clutched to her chest and a thoughtful expression on her face. Miranda sincerely hoped Gran wasn’t planning to reveal all without revealing it all to Miranda first.

  The new police station wasn’t exactly a hubbub of activity. In fact, on a Saturday morning it was downright quiet. Miranda’s heart thudded in her chest as she followed Blake through the empty reception area to an office at the back. His shoulders were broad, and right now they were completely rigid. She was too nervous to appreciate his back view. When he motioned her to the chair across from his desk, he didn’t crack a smile.

  She’d been hauled into the police station and the chief of police had seen her naked. The thoughts had nothing to do with each other, but were equally disturbing. A picture of her Gran being led away in chains was more disturbing still.

  “Are you allowed to plead the fifth in a chief of police’s office?”

  “No.”

  God, she wished she’d studied law instead of business. She was scared for Gran, and unsure of her ground. A deep knot of hurt and anger lodged itself in her chest. How could he look at her so dispassionately? “Are you accusing me of having something to do with Tom’s death?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Miranda. I’m looking for answers, and I need you to provide them. Today. We know how Tom died, but we don’t know why. And I’m not signing off on this case until I understand what happened that night.”<
br />
  She tried to push back the hurt; tried to figure out how in the world to proceed. Maybe he’d ask her things she wouldn’t have a problem answering. Maybe none of his questions would implicate her grandmother, and she could just come clean. So that he would stop looking at her like she was some speck of dust on the wall.

  “Did your husband ask you for a divorce?”

  Miranda blinked, surprised. This wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting, but at least she could answer honestly. “No.”

  “Did you know your husband liked to dress up in women’s underclothes?”

  “No.”

  He shot her a look.

  “Well, not until recently.”

  “And you found out, when?”

  She swallowed. “The night he left—when I accidentally found the pictures.”

  “Of?”

  “Of him dressed up in Ballantyne’s best-sellers.”

  “Did you know your husband was having an affair?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Did you or didn’t you?”

  “Well, when you find a picture of your husband in women’s lingerie with another woman’s hand on his butt, you kind of have to figure she’s not some innocent passerby. But I didn’t officially know he was having an affair, no.” And had hoped she’d never have to.

  “So you didn’t have reason to believe he was having an affair with Helen St. James?”

  Miranda winced. The man had been doing his homework. “Not exactly.”

  “So you sort of knew?” His tone was dry and not at all amused.

  “I kind of figured it out from her hostility and her, uh, manicure. But it was never actually discussed.” Because then I would have had to fire her.

  It was Blake’s turn to blink.

  “And you found the pictures on . . .”

  “January eighth, the night I found the note from Tom that said he was leaving. And, uh, a letter that made me think something might be wrong at Ballantyne.” She’d be as helpful as possible, as long as it didn’t implicate Gran.