by Betty Webb
Colleen smiled, perhaps remembering her childhood in a Dublin slum. “Living room, en suite bedroom/bathroom/office with built-in shelves for my hobby, a galley kitchen, and plenty of storage space—what else could a woman want?”
“More room,” said Caro, who always thought big. “Maybe Joe could expand it? You’ve got almost three-quarters of an acre here. Cut down a couple of those trees, clear the brush, and you’d have…”
“Much more room than I need.”
“What hobby are you talking about?”
Not actually answering, Colleen said, “We girls have to keep busy, don’t we? As for the greenery, the live oaks were here before we were, so they’re staying. Joe’s grandfather planted the fruit trees and even what you’re calling the ‘brush,’ which is actually a combination of lady fern and wild grape. Their scent is lovely, especially in the morning when everything is dewy. When I finally move in, I’ll leave my windows open most of the time.”
“But it looks so…so wild.” Caro pronounced the word like it was a nasty one.
“Another reason I like it. All kinds of wildlife back here. I have to admit, though, that one night it was rather sad. A coyote came down the hill and caught a rabbit in the yard. Ever hear a rabbit scream?”
“No, and I never want to.”
“And there’ve been cats…”
Caro held up her hand. “Stop! Don’t tell me!”
“Well, the cats always escape up the trees you’d have me cut down.”
That shut Caro up, and Colleen then gave us a tour of her organic kitchen garden, which was sectioned off by heavy plantings of bright yellow marigolds.
“The flowers give off a scent that discourages pests,” she explained, “and keeps the lettuce less toxic. Oops. I didn’t get a chance to put those things away before I answered the door.”
Colleen bent over and picked up a pair of gardening shears and returned them to a whitewashed shed. Before she closed the door, I peeked in. Smiled. Along with the usual gardening tools, I saw a plastic garbage bin hand-labeled KOALA POO.
Wanchu would be so proud.
The rest of Caro’s visit was pleasant enough, and when she scooped up Feroz to return home, everyone kissed her good-bye.
I slept away the rest of the afternoon, waking only when Joe came home.
“What, no more murders?” I asked, shuffling into the living room, where the smell of something wonderful in the kitchen mingled with the musky man-smell of tired sheriff.
He gave me a careful hug. “Not today. The only action happening in the more-or-less peaceful hamlet of San Sebastian was a shoplifting case at the new Walmart. It’s still being picketed, by the way. As is the new Starbucks. How’s the shoulder?”
“Trying to convince me it doesn’t hurt. And quid pro quo, how’s the Booth-and-Amberlyn case coming along?”
“Slowly.”
“Did your techs find the bullet?” I motioned to my bandaged shoulder.
“They’re very capable.”
“Was it fired from the same gun that shot Booth and Amberlyn?”
“Why do you think I’m so worried about you?”
“Maybe if I…”
“Don’t, Teddy!”
“But…”
“Dinner’s ready,” Colleen announced, exiting the kitchen and waving a spatula toward the already-set dining room table. Her interruption was too timely to be coincidental.
I was beginning to appreciate my future mother-in-law more and more every day.
The next morning KGNN-TV aired a rerun of one of my least favorite segments, the screech-fest when the honey badger got loose in the studio. I wasn’t pleased, but Colleen and the children found the mayhem highly amusing.
“You lead such an exciting life, Teddy,” Colleen said, after switching the TV to Sesame Street.
“Sometimes too exciting,” I muttered under my breath as she went into the kitchen to bake brownies or something. Cooking, cleaning, child-rearing…all commendable activities, but where was the fun?
I rotated my sore shoulder as far as it would go, which wasn’t very far. Before turning in last night I had called Zorah at home to tell her I would be back at the zoo Wednesday, but not to expect any heavy lifting on my part. Understanding my situation, Zorah said she would enlist Janet Hewitt to help me out, which suited me fine. The trainee’s relationship with Stuart Booth remained a puzzle, and having her by my side would give me a chance to question her. Come to think of it, I also needed to talk to river otter keeper Frank Owens. Since he and Ariel were supposedly together when I’d been shot, why hadn’t he come to my aid along with her?
I was sitting in the living room writing down a list of questions that needed answering when the doorbell rang.
Colleen, who was typing away in the kitchen’s office nook, yelled at me to get it. “I’ve got to get this last measurement down right!”
When I opened the door, I saw the deliveryman from Boutique de Fleur holding an outrageously expensive bouquet of orchids from Harper Betancourt-Booth. The bouquet included a note.
Teddy,
I was out of town when I heard about your mishap. Please accept these flowers in lieu of my presence at your bedside. If you’re recovered enough to join us in the main house for tea today, we’d love to have you. 4 p.m.? And don’t worry, I’ll understand if you can’t make it.
Your dearest friend,
Harper
Mishap?
Dearest friend?
One of us was delusional, and it wasn’t me. However, the invitation played right into my hands. I texted her my RSVP, then headed out to pick up Bonz.
My three-legged terrier appeared pitifully happy to see me, and his joy only increased when I carried him to the truck. Dogs love car rides, and despite his bandaged ribs, he hung his head out the passenger’s side window and slobbered all the way to Joe’s.
The children were delighted to see him. They couldn’t stop telling him what a brave doggie he was, and obeyed every time he made himself available for an ear-scratch. My only concern for his welfare remained the construction area in the yard. Loose boards, nails, packages of insulation…Accidents happen to nosy dogs, so after a discussion, we agreed to keep him in the house, and allow him outside only when leashed. This decision caused a brief argument about which human would be on the other end of the leash. Even little Bridie wanted to take him for walkies. Her older brother quickly overruled her, and he in turn was overruled by Colleen.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Tonio, because I do, but dogs can be devious when they spot a squirrel, so Bonz’s only chaperones will be Teddy, me, or your father.”
After much grumbling, the two returned their attentions to a grateful Bonz.
At three, I changed into my all-purpose black dress and drove to Old Town to take tea with my “dearest friend” Harper Betancourt-Booth, stopping along the way to visit Miss Priss at Caro’s house. The one-eyed Persian had probably missed me, but cats being cats, I couldn’t be certain. At one point she ceased terrifying my mother’s Chihuahua long enough to brush against my leg and look deeply into my eyes for a half-second, but that was it.
“Would you say her behavior is normal for a cat?” Caro asked, rescuing her dog from the corner Priss had backed him into. “She won’t leave Feroz alone. He’s been a nervous wreck ever since I brought her here.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘normal’ for cats.”
“Maybe you should take her with you to Joe’s.” Before I could answer, she said, “Oh, not a good idea. Bonz is still recuperating, isn’t he? Miss Priss would make mincemeat out of the poor thing.” She leaned over and kissed Feroz on the top of his trembling head. “Is my sweetums scared of Big Bad Kitty? Is hims? Mama not let Big Bad Kitty hurt her little sweetums, will she?”
With Miss Priss officially reminded of who she belonged to—me, more or less—I brushed some cat hair off my black dress and drove the rest of the way uphill to the Betancourt estate.
Imagine my
surprise when I turned out to be the only guest.
“Oh, you poor thing!” Harper cried, throwing her arms around me.
“Easy on the shoulder, Harper. And by the way, where’s everyone else? Your invitation said ‘we’ and ‘us.’”
She smiled her perfect smile. “Dear Teddy, always so suspicious. It must be because of your engagement to a cop.” As if to punctuate her social superiority, she sniffed, then seemed disappointed to discover I smelled of Colleen’s Lilac Beauty Bath Soap, not Monkey House Offal.
As if on cue, a maid entered, rolling a cart piled high with tea, watercress sandwiches, and a selection of scones and cream cakes. We were in the Orangery, a plant-filled, mostly glass-surrounded room that afforded a one-eighty-degree view of the Pacific. Although a few fluffy clouds dotted the sky, the air remained crisp enough for me to see all the way to Pacific Pride, the Betancourts’ oil platform. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought it rather ruined the view.
“One lump or two?” Harper asked. Solid silver tongs hovered over a silver sugar bowl.
She had chosen a red Chippendale settee to sit on. I took the green one.
“No sugar, please.”
“Because you’re already sweet enough?”
“Right.” Spode china cup dutifully handed over, I took a sip. I couldn’t quite place the tea. Flowery, yet with a bite.
Puzzlement must have shown on my face, because Harper said, “It’s Tienchi flower tea. My life coach tells me it’s good for allergies and insomnia.”
“Having trouble sleeping?” I tried to look sympathetic. The woman had, after all, just lost her husband.
“On the contrary, I’m sleeping like a baby these days.”
“Babies sometimes cry at night.” I took a bite of scone. Cranberries in there somewhere. And maybe apricots. I eyed the serving cart again.
“Just between us girls, Teddy, I’m glad Stuart’s gone. Whoever took him off my hands saved me a bundle in attorney fees. And I like living in the main house again, too. That cottage Daddy stuck us in was simply too small.”
A slosh of Tienchi filled my saucer. “Attorney fees? You, ah, you...”
Ignoring my stammers, she continued, “I was going to divorce him anyway. And before you ask, only partially because of that grotesque Sugar Baby business.”
Shock rendered me speechless. No matter. Harper was on a roll.
“When I found out about that Amber creature—it was about eight months ago, I think—I was already tired of him, because you know what they say, that some men are good for the short term, others for the long run. Well, Stuart was a sprinter. And as it turned out, he’d Hemingwayed his so-called past. Those tales he told about backpacking the two-thousand-mile-long Appalachian Trail while fighting off bears and wolves? The time at Pismo Beach when he punched out a shark to rescue a lifeguard? The stories were interesting the first few times I heard them but they paled with the retelling.
“By the time I heard them for the umpteenth time, I hired a private detective. Turns out there never were any bears or wolves or sharks. He’d only completed the first thirty-seven miles of the trail before being lifted off by helicopter after breaking an ankle. As for the sharks, zippo on that. The truth was that Stuart swam out too far, got a cramp, and the lifeguard dragged him to shore.”
Having long doubted Stuart Booth’s tales of derring-do, I merely said, “Sounds like you’d lost trust in him long before the Sugar Baby thing.”
“I can put up with a liar and a cheater, but never with a bore. Besides, the detective gave me a nice discount.”
“Ah, well.”
“You had your own troubles, too, didn’t you? With Michael?”
Harper knew how much I hated to talk about my ex-husband, but I answered her anyway. “Michael wasn’t boring. Just unfaithful.”
“All men are.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Trust me, Teddy. I know these things.”
Instead of commenting further, I looked around at the Orangery, at the lush potted plants, the thick glass separating them from the manicured lawn. Everywhere Nature had been lopped and snipped to a fare-the-well. Brought under control.
Like she was hoping to do with me, maybe?
Harper was gazing at the offshore oil platform. She had a satisfied smile on her face, and why not? The ugly thing wasn’t just pumping oil, it was pumping money. Betancourt money.
I couldn’t help myself. “How’s the cleanup going in the Gulf after that blowout last month?” The Prime Pacific Eagle, as the Gulf platform had been named, spewed thousands of gallons of oil on beaches across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.
Harper shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“Lots of dead wildlife, I hear.”
“That’s their problem, not mine. Or yours. That platform out there? Pacific Pride? It hasn’t had so much as even one leak, let alone a blowout.”
“Yet.”
“Don’t be an alarmist.”
“Harper, you know perfectly well that what happened to the Gulf shoreline could happen here. But even if it doesn’t, just the day-to-day operation of every single Prime Pacific platform dumps tons of waste materials into the ocean. Brine wastes, toxic metals like lead chromium and mercury, oh, and let’s not forget carcinogens like benzene. And now your father wants to build another platform just a few miles down the coast. Good-bye wildlife, good-bye dolphins, good-bye pelicans, good-bye otters. How can you not care?”
The satisfied smile disappeared. “If you want to keep getting gas for your nasty old truck, those are the risks. But they’re minimal. Don’t you realize the legal and environmental hoops Daddy has to jump through to get a platform up? The studies he has to present to the EPA? You and your tree-hugging friends should thank him for all the pains he’s been taking. Now, I suggest you stop insulting my father. Especially since your own felon of a father is nothing to be proud of. How about another cranberry-apricot scone?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’d love one, thanks.”
She took one, too.
Maybe the Betancourts’ cook included Valium in the cranberry-apricot scones, because as we munched, our tempers cooled, and Harper discussed more neutral subjects, such as movie stars (Harper had once dated Leonardo DiCaprio) and rock stars (she’d also dated Mick Jagger).
After giggling about what Mick had once supposedly done with her, she suddenly asked, “Is that cat hair on your dress?”
I looked down. “Can’t imagine where it came from.”
“Probably a cat.” Finished with her I-Slept-With-A-Star tales, she returned to discussing her marriage, confiding that even before her husband took up with Amberlyn, he had visited other beds. The first affair began less than a month after their marriage. A student. Blond, of course. With big boobs.
“Stuart thought I didn’t know, but I did. I’m not stupid. Daddy had a talk with him, said if the screwing around continued, he’d stop Stuart’s allowance. That made Stuart straighten up, so he went out and got himself a mistress.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald was right. The rich are different than us.
“You know, Harper, maybe you shouldn’t be telling me all this.”
She laughed. “Because then you might suspect me of murdering my husband? But Teddy, that’s why I’ve invited you here today, because I know you already do! So for the sake of our long, close friendship, I’m going to save you time and assure you that no, I didn’t kill Stuart, and I can prove it.” She pulled some papers out of the Coach handbag at her feet and shoved them at me. Photocopies of airplane tickets and hotel receipts. “See, Miss Suspicious? I wasn’t even in the country when Stuart died.”
“Why bother proving it to me? Why not just…?”
“Because you and your boyfriend work together. He sends you out to act oh-so-bumbling-and-innocent, while you entice people to tell you their secrets. Then you…”
“Fiancé. And you’re one hundred percent wrong. Joe hates it when I get involved in homi
cide cases.”
“As if I believe that.”
I looked down at the photocopies in my lap. “So how was Banff?”
“Canadian.”
“Canada usually is.”
“You can see I have an iron-clad alibi.”
My cranberry-apricot scone now happy history, I helped myself to another, leaving only one. Munching delicately, I said, “With your money, you could have hired some rent-a-thug to do the deed.”
Harper snapped, “Well, I didn’t!”
“Hmm. The more you talk about Stuart, the less I understand why you married him in the first place. Please don’t try to convince me it was because of his tall tales of derring-do.”
She pressed her lips into a prim line. “The marriage was Daddy’s idea.”
“C’mon, Harper. As you pointed out, we’ve been ‘dearest friends’ for a long time—since we were children, as a matter of fact—and if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you have never at any time in your life, listened to anything your father said. Except when it would get your allowance raised.”
I took advantage of the subsequent silence by grabbing the remaining scone. After I had wrapped it in a napkin and slipped it into my handbag, Harper finally answered.
“Remember when you got married and moved to San Francisco?”
Who could forget? Even living in one of the world’s most beautiful cities hadn’t been able to numb the pain I had felt when Michael left me for another woman. “What’s San Francisco got to do with anything?”
“You weren’t here, that’s what. While you were up there, I was, uh, I was having some bad times.” Her face flushed so deeply that it almost matched the red settee she was sitting on.
“Bad times meaning…?”
After clearing her throat, she said, “The usual. Booze. Drugs. I was living on my own, had started running around with a crowd that…Well, the less said about them, the better. My boyfriend at the time? He was actually my dealer. Daddy was so furious when I got my third DUI that rather than bailing me out, he let me go to jail for the full ninety days. The experience, it…it was grotesque. The women they threw me in with knew who I was because my arrest had made the local papers. Two of them beat me so badly that I lost a tooth.” Still flushing, she tapped a canine. “Implant.”