by Edie Claire
Leigh wished she could be as sure of that. But in her experience with criminal psychology, people who appeared to have all their marbles could and did do some pretty horrifying things.
“It’s the son I don’t get,” Mason mused, scratching his bristly chin as he leaned back in his chair. “The man clearly has no idea how to run a clean fraud operation.”
Leigh couldn’t help but smirk at the note of smug superiority in his voice. “Oh?”
Mason’s eyes flickered over to hers. She tried to stop smirking, but she wasn’t quick enough. He frowned. “You want my opinion or not?”
She stifled herself. “Yes. Please. Sorry.”
He grumbled. “If the son arranged with a third party to give Lucille a fatal overdose of something, with the idea being that he would blame it on the assistant later, why the hell would he barge into your mother’s house and accuse the assistant of incompetence just minutes after he found out about Lucille’s death?”
Leigh thought about it. “To get everyone thinking in that direction, so he could ensure there was a proper autopsy with a toxicology report and everything?”
“Well of course that’s what he’d want to happen, seeing as how he’s guilty,” Mason answered. “But if he was innocent, would anything about that make sense?”
Leigh saw his point. “If he was innocent, he would have assumed she died of natural causes.”
“Of course,” Mason continued. “But the story he’s trying to sell the police is that even though he’s innocent, his very first thought at hearing the news was ‘oh, my God, the assistant killed her.’ Well, that raises a pretty awkward question for him, doesn’t it? Namely, why he and his mother would employ such an incompetent in the first place.”
Mason scoffed. “What he should have done is sit tight for a day or two at least. Then he could have used any old excuse for why he’s suddenly suspicious of the assistant. That she’s acting weird. That he’s noticed some of Lucille’s pills were missing. You see?”
Leigh released a long, shuddering breath. “So you think Bobby is definitely acting guilty, but you don’t think any of the Floribundas would agree to work with him? I don’t get it, then. What is going on? Who’s trying to scare Allison?”
Mason’s weathered forehead creased. “It’s possible Lydie doesn’t know the Floribundas as well as she thinks she does. She doesn’t know the newest one at all — she told me that. Either way, it’s this Bobby I’d be worried about.”
“But he couldn’t have taken Allison’s notebook,” Leigh insisted. She was starting to feel shaky again. “He wasn’t there. He had to be working with someone inside the house!”
Mason put a hand over hers. “I know it seems obvious that the two things are connected. But we really don’t know that. Burning a child’s notebook and throwing it out a car window is a coward’s act. Someone that Allie took notes about could have gotten paranoid after the police got involved, even if they had nothing to do with Lucille’s death. We still don’t even know for sure that Lucille’s death wasn’t from natural causes.”
Leigh sniffed. She couldn’t afford to be so hopeful. “You just said Bobby acted guilty!”
“Oh, he is,” Mason said confidently. “Guilty of trying to plan an insurance fraud. But that doesn’t mean he succeeded.”
Leigh stared. “You mean… Lucille could have died before they got a plan worked out?”
Mason shrugged. “Why not?”
“But then what would Bobby do?” Leigh speculated. “How would he handle it?”
Mason shrugged again. “How do you think?”
Chapter 20
Even sitting inside Lydie’s kitchen, Leigh could hear screams and shrieks coming from her parents’ house next door. She and Mason got to their feet and rushed outside.
Virginia was power-walking across the Koslows’ front yard toward her car, her bony arms flying in all directions. “Evacuate! Evacuate!” she screamed.
Delores came next, moving almost as quickly, while behind her Jennie Ruth lagged a bit. Jennie Ruth was clearly doing her best to keep up, but her oversized body had evidently not been so taxed in a while. “Oh, do hurry!” Delores chirped while Jennie Ruth wheezed and panted.
“You are all being ridiculous!” Olympia scolded from the porch, her hands planted on her hips and her face angry. Frances stood beside Olympia, looking equally perturbed.
Leigh stopped running and tried to slow her frantically pounding heart. “It’s all right,” she said to Mason, grabbing at his sleeve to stop him, too. “It’s just the really crazy ones.”
Mason swore. “Are you sure?” He surveyed the scene, still on edge, but no doubt as skeptical as Leigh when it came to taking the hysteria of a Floribunda at face value.
He was not, however, breathing nearly as heavily as Leigh, which was irritating. The man was almost seventy! She had to start exercising. “Mom?” she called up to the porch. “Is everything all right?”
Frances looked down, saw Leigh and Mason standing together in the yard, and visibly stiffened. “Everything’s perfectly under control,” she replied curtly.
Mason laid a hand on Leigh’s arm. “I’ll take off,” he said. “You let us know if there’s anything we can do, though, all right?” He turned and walked back toward Lydie’s house without waiting for an answer.
The hysterical Floribunda contingent had reached their cars and were now peeling away. God help any other motorists in the area. “What on earth are they flipping out about?” Leigh demanded. She didn’t mean to sound so cross, but her mother’s attitude toward Mason was wearing on her. Lydie was right. Something had to give. Soon.
“They’re afraid of the Flying Maples,” Olympia answered, sounding exasperated.
“The new chapter is trying to murder us all, haven’t you heard?” yelled the sarcastic voice of Anna Marie from inside the house. No doubt her majesty was still holding court on the couch.
“A woman named Carol Ann called,” Frances explained. “She asked if it would be all right if she came by to pick up the bin.”
Leigh tried not to roll her eyes. “Well, that explains everything.”
“Virginia may call the police,” Frances stated.
Olympia waved a dismissive hand. “They’ll ignore her. Let’s just get the bin ready to go, shall we?” She looked at Leigh. “Would you mind?”
Leigh helped Olympia carry the plastic container out through the door and down the porch steps. It was fairly heavy, but it had sturdy handles, and Olympia more than carried her weight. “You’re strong,” Leigh commented, not without a hint of jealousy.
“Rowing machine,” Olympia replied proudly. Leigh tended to believe her until she added, “I was the first woman ever to land a spot on the men’s crew at Princeton.”
They had just set the bin down on the grass when a silver SUV pulled up and double-parked with its lights blinking. The driver, a merry-looking woman of around seventy with bleach blond hair, popped out immediately, as did the passenger, a woman of around the same age with gray hair in a short, spiky cut. They popped open the back of the vehicle and then smiled rather self-consciously as they came forward.
“Hello,” the blond greeted. “I’m Carol Ann. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. But I understand your house looked beautiful and that everyone who came through thought it was marvelous. I hope the decorations made things easier for you.”
The Floribundas on the porch seemed stunned for a moment. Even Anna Marie, who had risen for the occasion, seemed speechless when confronted with such utter and complete normalcy.
“They were a wonderful help,” Frances said finally. “We couldn’t possibly have decorated the house properly without them. Thank you so much.”
The Flying Maples smiled. “Oh, you’re welcome. It was nothing,” Carol Ann returned. “We’d already done the work, after all, and they were simply sitting there. I’m glad they were of use. But we do have to start returning them.”
“Yes,” the other woman chimed in
. “Believe it or not, the owners of some of these gems still decorate with them every Christmas!”
“How precious,” Olympia offered, finding her voice. “Thank you again. What do we… owe you?”
The Flying Maples laughed and picked up the bin. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Forget about it. You would have done the same for us, I’m sure.”
Silence ensued.
“You need any help?” Leigh asked as the women moved toward the open back of their SUV.
“No, no, we’ve got it!” Carol Ann called back pleasantly. “Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas,” the Floribundas returned.
The Flying Maples loaded the bin inside, got back in their SUV, and drove away.
“Well,” Anna Marie said snidely. “They were scary as hell, weren’t they?”
Olympia and Frances exchanged a concerned glance, and Leigh tried to read their eyes. Had they really believed that the anthrax prank call had come from the Flying Maples? If so, they had to doubt themselves now. Despite the cloak-and-dagger nature of the bin’s original drop-off, Carol Ann and friend had seemed innocent as the driven snow.
Leigh heard multiple car doors slamming.
“Yellowbellies!” Anna Marie called out as Virginia, Jennie Ruth, and Delores began to straggle back down the sidewalks. Evidently, they’d only been circling the block until the danger passed.
“You can never be too careful!” Virginia defended, making a show of watching down the road in the direction the SUV had departed. “We don’t know why they were really here.”
“Hello!” called an unexpected voice from the across the street. The women all looked up to see a middle-aged man with a large potbelly waving at them with an anxious smile on his face.
Bobby Busby. Leigh tensed. What the—
“I, uh…” he said in a friendly, but anxious voice. “I was driving by and saw that you ladies had something going on, so I thought I’d go ahead and stop in.”
The Floribundas all stared at him in silence. If he wasn’t anxious before, any normal person facing the sight of six stressed-out Floribundas now would be.
“I thought I’d see if you wanted me to dispose of any of the greenery I brought over,” he offered, removing a grimy cap from his head and combing a hand through his thinning gray hair. “I mean, if you’re throwing it out anyway, well, I can certainly make use of it at the store.”
“You can have it,” Frances said quickly.
Leigh wasn’t surprised at the reply. Frances had never wanted to use real greenery in the first place. If the man was willing to come in and remove the boughs before they started gathering dust and dropping “those horrid needles,” Frances would be all for it, any illegal shenanigans on his part be damned.
Leigh steeled herself. God knew she’d had enough of the Floribundas for one day, but if suspect number one was going back into her parents’ house, then so was she.
Ten strangely quiet minutes later, Bobby was stuffing the last of his donations into a yard-size trash bag in the living room while every other pair of eyes watched him closely. More interesting was that Bobby had also been studying the Floribundas. As he had wandered about the house removing wreaths and untwining garlands, he had not-so-covertly fixated on each of their faces in turn. But he had said nothing to anyone.
“I think this is the last of it,” Frances announced, handing him the sprig of mistletoe she had only just discovered hanging on the ceiling over the toilet in the half bath.
“You don’t want to keep any of that?” Bobby asked. “It lasts a good long time if you dry it.”
“I think not,” Frances replied, her voice clipped.
Bobby shrugged, dropped the mistletoe in his bag, and tied it off.
“It’s poison!” Jennie Ruth boomed.
Bobby’s head jerked up to look at her. His eyes were wide for a moment, but just as quickly, he released a breath and relaxed. “Oh, no. You’re thinking of the European kind. This is American mistletoe — Phoradendron. Worst you’d get from eating it is a belly ache.”
“Are you sure?” Delores asked suspiciously. She stared hard at Bobby.
Bobby stared back at her. Nobody said anything else.
Leigh began to get seriously creeped out. What was wrong with this picture? “I’m sorry about your mother, Bobby,” she heard herself say. She wasn’t sure why she’d said it. It just seemed like the kind of thing that should be said, as opposed to all these nerve-wracking pregnant looks.
“Thanks,” he said mechanically. He looked at each of the assembled faces again. “I guess you might be wanting to know… they got the ‘preliminary’ autopsy done. It says my mom died of cardiac arrest, which basically just means her heart stopped. But they still don’t know why.” He shouldered the bag and took a step towards the door, even as his gaze continued to move from face to face. “I asked for a full toxicology screening. They said they’re going to do it. But it’s going to take a couple weeks, probably.”
“What about her funeral?” Delores practically shouted. Then, seeming to realize her volume was out of character, she moderated her tone back to cloying. “Dear Lucille did so have her heart set on that horse and carriage tripping along in the rain. I do hope that financial considerations won’t force you to renege on making her fondest wish come true?”
Bobby studied the older woman with a frown on his face. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
And with that pronouncement, he walked out the front door. As he moved through it, a low-hanging string of lights snagged on his cap and pulled it from his head. The cap landed on the floor near Olympia’s feet, and Bobby didn’t immediately reach for it, no doubt expecting she would do the normal, expected thing and hand it back to him, especially since his hands were full.
But Olympia was a Floribunda. So instead she cringed, let out an audible “ugh!” of disgust, and jumped back a foot. Leigh looked from the dirty cap on the floor to Olympia’s expression of disgust, and felt a flash of insight as to why her mother and the Floribunda president got along as well as they did. Olympia was a germophobe.
Leigh stooped down and picked up the cap herself. It was indeed disgusting. The original navy blue color was simultaneously dirty, faded by the sun, and striped with the salty white bands of old sweat stains. She handed it back to Bobby and he replaced it on his head with a grateful nod. Beside her, Leigh could sense Olympia wincing with revulsion. As soon as Bobby was out the door, Olympia produced a miniature bottle of hand sanitizer, gave herself a squirt, and held it out to Leigh. “Here!” she ordered. “Quickly!”
Oh, yeah, Leigh confirmed. Definitely a germophobe. But she held out her hands and accepted the offering. The truth was, her fingers did feel greasy.
Olympia repocketed the sanitizer, watched through the front window as Bobby drove off, then turned around and threw her hands into the air. “And what was that all about?” she demanded.
The Floribundas went deadly quiet again.
If Leigh had any doubt that Olympia was the only member of the chapter who was not aware of Lucille and Bobby’s insurance fraud plans, she put the idea out of her mind. The Floribundas were, to a one, intentionally hiding something from their newly minted president. And Leigh was not the only person who could see that.
“Well?” Olympia repeated impatiently. As Leigh watched, the look in her eyes changed gradually from mild annoyance to shocked hurt.
“What exactly is it you’re asking, Olympia?” Frances said finally, breaking the tension.
“Nothing,” Olympia answered shortly, frowning at them all. “Clearly, nothing. I have to go.” She crossed to the coat rack and picked up her things.
“But… do you have a ride?” Frances asked.
“I’ll call,” Olympia snapped back. She opened the door for herself and stepped out.
“Some people tend toward the touchy side,” Delores said lightly. “I understand they don’t mean to be rude. But still, one does wonder…”
Leigh tried hard to b
lock out the rest of Delores’s sniping. “Why does she need a ride?” she whispered to her mother. Frances was standing close to the window, and as Leigh stepped to her side she could see Olympia heading down the street at a brisk walk.
“She doesn’t drive,” Frances whispered back. “She’s passed out before. Something to do with keeping her medications balanced. I do hope she isn’t too upset, but Maura asked that we not speak of Lucille’s plans to anyone who didn’t already know about them. And I’m sure that Olympia didn’t know, because everyone insists they didn’t mention it, even Virginia!” She sighed. “They still don’t trust Olympia, and they don’t want to ruin things for Bobby.”
Leigh thought a moment. “Maybe Lucille trusted her.”
Frances shook her head. “Lucille always thought there was something funny about Olympia. That she was hiding something. Lucille told me flat out that she didn’t trust her.”
“When was this?”
“A week ago!”
Leigh looked through the window again. Olympia was making a cell phone call as she walked. Her gawky, tall form turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Leigh bid another farewell to her mother and headed back outside herself. She still had nowhere in particular to go, but she was unable to take one more nanosecond of the Floribundas. Perhaps in the time she had left to kill she would drive to the clinic and watch her father work. There was nothing like watching the expression of a few anal glands to reground one’s psyche.
Leigh had only just crossed the street when a car rolled up beside her and slowed down. She looked over with a start, at first believing the car to have no driver. Then she realized that the balding head barely sticking up above the wheel was that of Melvin Pepper.
“Hello, Ms. Harmon,” the doctor said politely. “I’m sorry if I alarmed you. I was just looking for my wife.”
Leigh tried to calm her breathing. She was jumpy as a cat. “Olympia just turned the corner, walking that way,” she explained, pointing.
Melvin seemed confused. “Just now? She was at your mother’s house, then?”
Now Leigh was confused. “Didn’t she call you for a ride?” Come to think of it, Melvin had arrived way too fast for that, unless he’d been sitting down the street waiting.