When the Sun Goes Down

by Gwynne Forster

  “I’ll be on a case until about Tuesday,” he told her as they walked into Gunther’s apartment not long after midnight, “but I’ll see you before you leave.”

  When she didn’t reply, only gazed at him, he gripped her shoulders, pulled her closer, rimmed her lips with his tongue, and plowed into her. When he released her, she staggered backward, shaken by his possessiveness. And she’d never seen his face bear a more serious expression.

  “That’s the way it is with me, baby. Think about it.”

  And she did, long after he said good night.

  Her cell phone rang as she got into bed, and although she suspected that Carson was her caller, she had an unexplainable reluctance to answer. “Hello.”

  “You knew I’d call. I couldn’t leave things like that. You’re more important to me than I think you realize.”

  It was what she wanted to hear, but she couldn’t absorb it. “Carson, I’m bothered that you thought my dress provocative. If I found a more conservative one, I’d probably have to make it, and I’m not planning to do that. I like that dress.”

  “So do I, but it was displaying what are for my eyes only.”

  She bristled and didn’t bother to hide it. “If you want the right to make that claim, be prepared to make some changes in your life.”

  His laugh could have been mistaken for a sneer. “I’m not fool enough to believe you’d let me tell you what to wear no matter what my status was in your life. And you’d be within your right. That is not the issue here.”

  She did not want to precipitate a cold draft in their relationship, so she said, “You can’t blame me for trying to protect my investment, and I have a lot of myself at stake in you. Anyway, you’re the one who instigated that exchange.”

  She imagined that both of his eyebrows shot up before he said, “I think you apologized, and I readily accept.”

  Her laughter had a ring of happiness. “If you take good care of ... er ... things, whether I cover up won’t matter.”

  “If I have your permission, I’ll take damned good care of them.”

  Trust Carson to cut right to the chase, but she refused the bait. “Kiss me good night. I’m sleepy.” He made the sound of a kiss, and she turned out the light and began wrestling with the sheets.

  Shirley checked in at the cruise line’s head office in Orlando three hours early. “I want to see Dr. Larsen,” she told the receptionist, and added, “I have an appointment,” before the woman could lie and say that Larsen was busy. Shirley had wondered at the receptionist’s protective attitude toward Larsen and felt more than a little pity for her. The woman had seen more than fifty years, and meeting Hugh Larsen’s office needs appeared to be her whole life.

  Larsen stood at his office door with a broad smile on his friendly face, and with his usual fatherly persona, he patted Shirley’s shoulder. “Come in, Miss Farrell”—he never said “Ms.”—“and have a seat. I suppose you want to see me about Frieda Davis’s application.”

  “Yes. Thank you for considering her.”

  “Ordinarily I wouldn’t, because she isn’t an RN, but her reference is outstanding. So I called a couple of doctors and the head nurse at the hospital at which she works, and I got fantastically good reports. One doctor said she was as good as any RN and that, in addition, she wasn’t full of attitude. I want to meet her and talk with her.”

  “That’s wonderful, sir. I can certainly arrange that.”

  “Good. I’ll send her a ticket and put her up overnight. I’m very curious about that woman. Tell her to expect my call.”

  “Thank you, sir. From what I observed of her when she was taking care of my brother, I’d say she deserves better than she’s been getting.”

  As soon as she boarded the Mercury and settled into her stateroom, Shirley called Gunther.

  “Hi. I think Frieda has a good chance at a job on one of the ships or in the head office. Tell her that Dr. Larsen, who’s head of the health service, is going to call her and ask her to go down to Orlando for an interview at the cruise line’s expense. Have you heard from Edgar?”

  “Not a word. But he’ll show up when he has another problem, or if he’s mad about something. When are you sailing?”

  “Tomorrow at five.”

  “Safe trip.”

  She answered the phone on its first ring, hoping that Carson was her caller, but instead, a clipped voice said, “Ms. Farrell, the captain wants to see you.”

  She threw up her hands. When was she going to get organized? “Thanks. I’ll be right there,” she said in her best professional manner. She put on her badge and left for the captain’s office.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” she said. “Ms. Richards said you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes. Please have a seat. Management has agreed to allow Around the World Travel magazine to do a lead story on our cruise line. Because you’ve done such a fine job as a public relations officer, the interviews will be on our ship and you’ll be the central figure in the story. So, during this cruise, a photographer and an interviewer will follow your activities. This is good advertising for the Mercury, so I hope you don’t mind. They’re anxious to get the story in the upcoming issue, so the next two days may be difficult ones for you.”

  “Thank you for the honor, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  With a reporter and a photographer recording her every move and word, she didn’t get a chance to call Carson until her bedtime, and then, he didn’t answer his phone. Where could he be at eleven o’clock at night that he couldn’t answer his phone?

  After chiding herself for that moment of weakness, she told herself that he was asleep. The next morning, she called him as soon as she awoke.

  “I thought you’d written me off,” he said after they greeted each other.

  Hmm. So he was fishing for reassurance of his importance to her. “You didn’t think any such thing. I thought you took care of business night before last.”

  “I did, too,” he said, “but the human mind can be fickle.”

  The human mind, maybe, but not the human body, at least not hers. She told him about the magazine article. “I can’t sneeze without wondering how I’ll look on camera. I’ll be glad when they finish getting the documentation. Do you know how repairs are moving on Father’s house?”

  “The chimney and windows are done, and they’re working on the roof. You can’t imagine how relieved I’ll be when I finally get that will in my hands. More is riding on that than I thought when I agreed to find it.”

  “Does that mean I won’t see as much of you?” She wanted to bite her tongue for that lapse, but like a plucked flower, it was done, and she had to live with it.

  “That question does not merit an answer, Shirley, and you know it. I’m always happy to finish a job, and I’ll be especially happy when this one is behind me.”

  She was not going to make the mistake of asking him why finding that will was more important to him than completing most of his assignments. She trusted him, but she might not want to know his reasons. Maybe she’d better be more cautious. Her deep sigh told a tale, even to her. After the loving he gave her the night before she left Ellicott City, it was too late for caution. Much too late.

  Carson sat in Donald Riggs’s office, enjoying some of the Belgian chocolates that Riggs always had in his top desk drawer. “When will I be able to get back in the house?” he asked Riggs. “I had to stop just as I thought I was on to something. I had Leon Farrell all wrong at first. Not even his children understood the man. Gradually I realized that he didn’t seek understanding and would not have welcomed it. You can’t imagine how glad I am that I didn’t grow up in that man’s house.”

  “I expect you’re right. Leon cared deeply about Catherine, and when she died, he lost interest in people, including his children. It doesn’t surprise me that you pegged him wrong; he spent his last ten years locked up in a shell of himself, guarding his property and his money and loving nobody, not even himself. I hope you can find that will, if onl
y to free Gunther and Shirley from Edgar’s venom. That man’s fixation on his father’s will has caused him to deteriorate more with each passing day. Believe me, if I had the keys to heaven, I don’t think Leon Farrell would get in.”

  Riggs’s secretary brought in a carafe of coffee, two mugs, cream, and sugar. “I gave up on porcelain cups, man,” Riggs said, “so a mug will have to do. Help yourself.”

  They sipped coffee for a minute quietly, and Carson wondered if he’d have to remind Riggs of his reason for being in the man’s office. But Riggs hadn’t forgotten. “As soon as the inspector goes over the repairmen’s work, you can go in there. But the roofers say they need a couple more days, three if it rains. That means you should be able to get in at the latest by the middle of next week.”

  “Thanks. I want to finish with Edgar Farrell. I don’t like the man, and my tolerance for him is almost nil.”

  Riggs stretched out his legs, leaned back, and laughed. “Thanks for the company. That makes two of us, but his brother and sister are fine people. This will is creating a chasm between them and Edgar. Neither of them has asked me about that will once. But Edgar’s been on me about it since the day after Leon was buried. Edgar’s a deadbeat. The other two are used to making their own way, and Leon did not help them as he should have. He didn’t always give them money for their school needs, and they came to me.”

  Carson tried not to appear too eager and had to work at keeping a casual tone in his voice. “How did Edgar turn out so badly?”

  “Catherine, his mother, spoiled him rotten. When he was about seventeen, she realized what she’d done, but it was too late to correct him. By the way, did you see that story on Shirley in Around the World Travel magazine? I’ve known Shirley since she was ten or so. She has developed into a lovely woman. Smart, too.”

  “Yeah. She is that.” From the twinkle in Riggs’s eyes, Carson knew he’d given himself away. Not that he cared. If he was lucky, a lot more people would know how he felt about Shirley Farrell.

  Riggs handed him a copy of the magazine. “You may keep it. My wife and I decided against a winter vacation, so I don’t need it.”

  Back in his own office, Carson read the story of Shirley’s work as a public relations specialist for the cruise line and gazed reverently at the pictures of her at work. He didn’t think he’d ever been so proud. It called for some serious congratulatory efforts on his part. She hadn’t sent him a copy of the magazine, so he had time to make plans.

  The evening of the day she returned from the cruise, they held hands in a little ice-cream store not far from Gunther’s apartment. Without thinking about it, Carson leaned forward and brushed her lips with a quick kiss. “How would you like to see The Lion King or The Phantom of the Opera?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “You mean they’re playing in Baltimore? Great! Let’s see The Lion King.”

  “They’re playing in New York, and I’ll get tickets for Saturday and hotel rooms for Friday and Saturday. How’s that? I expect Saturday will be my last free day for a while. Repairs on the house will be finished this week, and come Monday, I’ll be back on the job of finding that will.”

  Shirley showed no hesitation. “I’d love to go, but if I go off with you for the weekend, my brother will ask you about your intentions.”

  His grin would probably annoy her, but he didn’t try to control it, and it bloomed into a laugh. “I’ll damned well tell him, too,” he managed to say amid the laughter. “Uh ... you mean Gunther, right?”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Who do you think? After your set-to with Edgar Thanksgiving Day, I doubt he’ll mention my name to you again.” They checked into the Park Lane Hotel at noon that Friday.

  It perplexed Gunther that his calls to Frieda went unanswered. He wanted to warn her so that she’d prepare herself to make a good impression on the chief doctor for that cruise line. He went down to the kitchen and asked Mirna for Frieda’s cell phone number.

  She wrote it on a piece of paper torn from the edge of a brown paper bag and eyed him in her best motherly fashion. “Mr. G, you told me you didn’t have no interest in Frieda.” She looked toward the ceiling and rolled her eyes. “I tell you ... Lord, men don’t know when they well off.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Mirna, for the last time, I have no interest in Frieda as a woman, and I’m sure that I never will. But if I did, why would you be so set against it? I’m curious. What’s wrong with her?”

  “She a good person, Mr. G, till you slip up and do something to her that she don’t like. Then she the most vindictive person the Lord ever made. Everybody makes mistakes, but if you make one with Frieda, don’t expect forgiveness no time soon.”

  “I thought you said she was a churchgoing Christian. That doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Truth is truth, sir. I guess she must have to pray a lot.” She handed him the phone number. “If you need a friend, though, you can count on Frieda.”

  “I gathered as much. Thanks for the phone number.”

  He went back to his room thinking of his conversation with Mirna and the one he’d had with Frieda about her life. If she was vindictive, she had probably earned the right; no one deserved the life she’d had, and he imagined that few people would have come through it as she had. In spite of it all, she had maintained her self-respect and integrity. He dialed her cell phone number.

  “Hello. This is Frieda.”

  “Ms. Davis, this is Gunther Farrell. How are you?”

  “I’m good, Mr. Farrell. How you doing?”

  “My health seems to have been completely restored. I’m calling because Shirley set up an appointment for you with the head of the medical service of the Paradise Cruise Line, the line that she works for, and he wants to interview you. His office is in Orlando, but he’ll pay for your transportation there and back and a night’s stay at a hotel. His name is Larsen, Dr. Hugh Larsen. Expect a call from him soon.” When she didn’t respond, he said, “Are you still there?”

  “Uh ... you just knocked the breath out of me.”

  “I wrote a recommendation for you, and I suppose he checked with your supervisors at the hospital, so let’s hope for the best.”

  “Hope? You kidding? I’m gon’ be on my knees praying.” After a minute’s silence, she said, “But, Mr. Farrell, you know I’m not an RN.”

  “Of course I know it. Larsen knows it, too. Just put your best foot forward. And let me know what happens.”

  “I will, sir. I sure will, and I thank you and Miss Shirley from the bottom of my heart.”

  Less than an hour after he hung up, he received a call from Frieda. “Mr. Farrell, I’m going to Orlando. He called me. He don’t usually work on Saturdays, but since I have that day off, he’s gon’ be at the office—I mean the clinic—just to see me. Mr. Farrell, I think I’m out of my head ... or something. I’m gon’ take Friday afternoon off and fly to Orlando. I can’t believe this. Well, I just thought I’d let you know.”

  “I’ll be rooting for you,” he said, and he meant it.

  He’d met all kinds of people, beginning with the days when, as a nine-year-old, he delivered newspapers to “upstanding” citizens who were slothful about paying him, and he didn’t take to people readily. But he had a feeling of compatibility with Frieda that seemed unusual. He shrugged. Why not? She’d been his nurse, and a caring nurse such as Frieda was like a mother. Was it any wonder that he felt so comfortable with her?

  He had a feeling of unease about Edgar, but his mind told him that he would see Edgar when Edgar needed him and not before. He got a copy of the Baltimore Afro-American and searched the entertainment section until he saw a notice that Edgar was appearing at the Charcoal Club. Satisfied that his brother could at least eat, he put his mind on his own affairs.

  His latest electronic game was selling well, but he needed an advertising gimmick that was at least as strong as the ones used to push Bravado, his best-selling game, over the top. Medford maintained that they couldn’t have equa
l success with each game, but he planned to shoot for the moon every time. On his way home from work that afternoon, he came within a foot of hitting a man on stilts. He drove another few feet, parked, and walked back to the man.

  “Are you all right, buddy? That was a harebrained thing you did. Next time, wait for the light.”

  “You’re right, and I’m glad you weren’t text messaging or I’d probably have been killed.”

  “That’s not good enough. What could you have been thinking about?”

  “Man, I’m a widower with two children and no job for the past three months. I’m down to my last dollar, and that’s all I ever think about.”

  Gunther thought for a minute. “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I’m a typesetter, but I’ve been picking up odd jobs entertaining kids on these stilts. The problem is that nobody’s giving kid parties. Kids love guys on stilts.”

  Ideas seemed to crisscross in Gunther’s mind, and he eliminated them as fast as they came to him. “I’ve got it!” he said aloud. “Ever done any camera work, videos, anything like that?”

  The man’s eagerness was painful to watch. “I’ve acted. I mean, I was in the theater group the whole four years I was in college.”

  He gave the man his card. “I’m headed to my office. If you can take off those stilts, you can come along with me.”

  The man sat on the hood of Gunther’s silver Mercedes and took off the stilts. Together, they stored them in the backseat with their ends sticking out of the window.

  “Let’s hope I don’t pass a cop who hasn’t issued his quota of tickets today,” Gunther said. Medford would probably tell him that he was crazy, but having a man on stilts promote that electronic game was not a bad idea. It would be different, and it would get children’s attention.