Electric Blue (5 page)

Jazz seemed a little bemused by his family’s suspicions. “I just wanted another opinion.”

“She’s not a doctor,” Garrett pointed out. His attention appeared to be on Satin, whose gaze was fixed on the middle-distance. The smile on her lips looked permanently carved.

Cammie said flatly, “You work with Dwayne Durbin.”

“Yes.”

“We don’t need a private investigator,” Roderick said to Jazz. “What’s got into you?”

“Nana won’t see a doctor. We’re all trying to figure out how to help. Nana relates better to women; we all know that. Let’s just see what happens.” A defensive note crept into his tone.

James Purcell IV entered the room, moving like a wraith. He didn’t say anything, but hovered near the curtains, his attention outdoors to the darkening sky.

I wanted to back out. I wanted to leave. But there was the promise of payment and I’d said I would meet with Orchid.

And I couldn’t bear the thought of returning to Dwayne, saying, “You were right. I should have listened to you. They’re all crazy!”

“Come on,” Jazz said to me as he turned to the door. His cheeks were flushed. Maybe he’d expected them to greet me with open arms.

“You can give us a report when you return,” Garrett called as Jazz hurried me into the hallway. His tone was supercilious and edged with something mean. He was the oldest sibling and he wore his need to control like a cloak. Though he possessed the Purcell good looks, he pushed all my buttons. I was glad to get away from the lot of them.

Jazz walked ahead of me up the stairs. Logan had slipped from the room a few moments before us and was nowhere in sight. I followed behind Jazz, counting the steps. It was one of those stairways that turns at a landing, then turns again another half flight up. The rail was dark walnut, ornately carved but scarred and nicked by time. I could imagine what it had looked like once upon a time. The whole place was imposing, rich, deep. But now it smelled of neglect and the passage of time. I could feel them all waiting for Orchid to die. To collect the inheritance.

I shivered involuntarily.

“Are you cold?” Jazz asked. “Here…” He clasped my hand and held onto it all the way up the stairs in a way that made me feel slightly light-headed.
Phew
. I’m normally less affected by the male sex, especially overly attractive men, but I was aware of Jazz in a way that defied description.

Maybe I was still suffering the leftover malaise and loneliness of a love affair gone sour. It hadn’t been that long since I’d suffered my loss. In any case, I was inordinately aware of Jazz’s hand holding mine, the heat and good feelings their joining sent through me. Maybe I was ready to date again. Or, was it just the opposite? Was I still so raw and unhappy that I was reeling out of control emotionally?

Jazz stopped at the top of the stairs and turned toward the north wing. At the end of a hallway covered in nearly threadbare cabbage roses carpet stood a pair of massive, dark walnut doors that looked as if they might not shut properly, and probably stuck if they did. I had a mental picture of someone old and bent over with witchy long nails and rheumy eyes waiting behind them.

I put a hand on Jazz’s forearm. “I gotta be honest. I’m here because you asked me, and because I’m trying to be a private investigator—working toward it—but really, this isn’t a job for me. They’re right.” I inclined my head toward the open stairway. “You need a doctor. An estate lawyer. A professional.”

“I want you,” he insisted.

I tend to melt at that kind of cheerleading. Who wouldn’t? But I was determined to get a few things straight. “I’m not the person for this job.”

“Who is, then? She won’t talk to professionals. She won’t talk to anyone but Logan and me. She distrusts the whole family.”

“I just think this might be a mistake.”

“Jane, I need help. Please.”

I gazed at him. I am such a sucker sometimes. This was a fool’s errand but I was already in too deep. Drawing a breath, I acquiesced with a shrug, following Jazz down the hall to meet “Nana.”

I
was prepared for anything, given the buildup I’d received. A woman anywhere between Medusa and Mother Teresa. Okay, maybe that was stretching it a bit, but I figured she could be a grim, hard-bitten monster with a whip hand, or a dotty old lamb in search of love and assurance.

In actuality Orchid Candlestone Purcell was, well, a disappointment. She was so middle-of-the-road that after my initial meeting, I was hard pressed to remember much about her appearance beyond the basics: hair, eye color, body size. Her behavior was more memorable, but that was only because she reminded me of my grandmother.

Her hair was iron gray turning to white. It still had a fullness to it; no cottony fluff. It was clear she went to a hairdresser steeped in the art of spray till it hurts. The concoction moved with her head in a way that reminded me of a jockey’s cap. It stuck out in the front a little, too, as if it had a bill. Give her some silks and she’d be away to the races.

Her eyes were Jazz’s electric blue. A little bit starey. Her skin was soft, powdery and wrinkled, like bread dough. Her mouth seemed to be in a perpetual half-smile. The Mona Lisa had nothing on Orchid.

She was sitting in a chair and I had the impression of a body folded in upon itself like an accordion. She was wearing some kind of blue suit with a short jacket and a gray, blue and black scarf artfully tossed around her neck and over a shoulder—the kind of thing that would drive me to distraction. Her feet were clad in black leather slip-ons that looked sturdier and far more sensible than the outfit.

Jazz stood aside to let me enter first, and I walked in and moved to the center of the room, feeling ill-at-ease, wondering once again what my role was.

Logan sat on a stool, deep into Game Boy. He’d turned the sound down low but I could hear little whistles and blurps and tinny voices. He didn’t bother to look up at our arrival.

“Nana, how are you?” Jazz asked, heading toward her with enthusiasm, reaching for her hands.

She seemed to expect this because she held them out. “I’m fine. Help me up.”

He pulled her to her feet, sliding a supportive arm around her back as she struggled with the effort. I saw that the accordion effect had been correct. Once she straightened out she was far leaner than I’d expected. The suit seemed to fit her better, too. The hem of the skirt hit her just below the knees.

“Who’s this?” she asked, peering at me. One hand dug in the folds of her skirt and she pulled out a pair of blue-framed glasses. She put them on and turned her blue eyes into owlish orbs which looked me up and down.

“Jane Kelly,” Jazz said. “She’s the private investigator I told you about.”

“Private investigator?” She sounded mildly alarmed.

“I’m actually more like an apprentice,” I murmured.

“I wanted her to meet you, Nana. You know. Like we talked about? You said you would prefer a woman?”

She frowned, trying to recollect. “Is this about the money?” She gave me a studied examination then. “They all want my money. It was my husband’s but now it’s mine.”

I couldn’t really think of a comment for that one.

“A private eye,” she repeated, sounding skeptical.

“Have a chair,” Jazz said to me. He touched my elbow and gestured to a small sofa. A white crocheted antimacassar lay across its back, which was pretty strange since the sofa was that bright sky blue so popular in the 1950s—satellite blue—and its frame and design were contemporary to the extreme. It was the Victorian age meets mid-twentieth-century space age.

And the damned thing was hard as cement.

I shot another glance over at Logan, envying the fact he was in his own world. The tinny music kind of pissed me off. Its little beeps and whistles started sounding a lot like someone singsonging
nanny, nanny, nanny
…

In the strained silence that followed, Jazz threw a glance toward Logan, before saying to me. “Maybe we should leave you two alone,” he said.

“Um…no…” I smiled at him through clenched teeth.

“You afraid to be alone with me?” Orchid questioned.

I turned my attention to her. She was smirking. I could see it. “Mrs. Purcell, you’d be better advised—”

“Call me Nana.”

“—to meet with an estate lawyer.”

She folded her hands in front of her, then, with Jazz’s help, settled herself back on her divan. “What’s your name?”

“Jane Kelly.”

“I’d rather talk to you.”

“Well, okay…” She regarded me expectantly, waiting, so I added, “Nana,” though it sounded false on my tongue.

It must have satisfied her, though, because she sent me a big smile—this one full of enjoyment. “Go on, then.” She flapped a hand at Jazz.

“We’ll see you downstairs,” Jazz said. “Come on, Logan.”

“Not yet. I’m almost to the end guy.”

“Put it on pause and let’s go.”

“Uh-uh. I wanna stay here.”

Jazz looked a little nonplussed. He rubbed a spot just above his temple and closed his eyes, as if he were in pain. “Don’t argue…please?”

“Fine!” Logan switched off the device and threw it onto the chair next to me. It bounced on the cushion once and slid to the floor, hitting the hardwood with a crack.

Jazz looked pained. If Logan felt chagrined he hid it behind a sneer as he stomped from the room. Jazz followed him, closing the door softly behind them. I could hear Logan’s angry clomping on the stairway until he reached the first floor and it faded away.

I was left with Nana.

She said, “I shouldn’t feel this way, but Logan’s my favorite.”

Her face shone with love.

Maybe she
was
crazy.

An hour and a half later I was back at my cottage and desperately in need of a drink. I didn’t care whether it had alcohol in it or not. Water would be fine. I just wanted to pour something down my throat and close my eyes.

I called Dwayne and listened to his drawl on the answering machine. He might be home, he might not. He feels no compulsion to answer his phone while I can never hear a ringing phone without dashing to pick it up. Many times I’ve had to hold myself back. Sometimes you just know it’s a telemarketer.

“Dwayne, come get me,” I said after the beep. “By boat or car, I don’t care. I need to talk to you about the Purcells.”

I was in the process of hanging up when he clicked on. “I got my boat docked in front of the house.”

“Well, bring it on over.”

His compliance was a grunt.

Dwayne’s cabana does have a boathouse and a lift, the latter being rusted and scary, kind of like huge metal teeth floating just below the water’s surface, so it’s not really usable. Consequently, he docks his boat at one of the easements around the lake. It’s not too far from his place, so it doesn’t delay him much, but having it currently parked right out in front shaved off at least twenty minutes.

When he thrummed the thing into my boat slip—one of the benefits of renting from that skinflint Ogilvy—Binks tore down the steps before I could hoist my bag onto my shoulder. She danced and paced on the shore outside, waiting for a leg up, so to speak.

“Well, get in,” Dwayne told her. The whining started full force. Dwayne pointed to the back of the boat, which was wide and flat, upholstered in tuck and roll. Finally Binks jumped aboard, unable to get a better offer, and scratched at Dwayne’s leg. He settled the dog in his lap.

They were happily greeting each other when I stepped into the boat, rocking it gently with my weight. Dwayne loves my dog. He pretends that he just likes her, but he’s a worse sucker than I am. He just won’t cop to it. I sometimes don’t know how to feel about it. I’m both pleased and anxious. Like I’m worried they’ll like each other better than either one of them will like me? This is so pathetic I can scarcely let my mind touch on it.

“So, ya went out there, huh?” Dwayne said, reversing and guiding the boat toward the entrance from West Bay to the main lake. A narrow bridge defines West Bay on the east end. Though it’s high enough to allow boaters to stand as you pass beneath it, I always have the sensation of ducking my head and pulling my arms in.

“Yep.” I was seated in the passenger chair. Binks kept one eye on me, glancing at the floor of the boat and up again. She was measuring the distance, wondering if she should be on my lap instead. I ignored her, a bit miffed at the joy with which she received Dwayne. If she wanted to be on my lap, great, but I wasn’t going to beg for her attention.

“They’re crazy.”

I was tired of this pronouncement. Okay, they had their strange points, but I know a lot of people I would give wide berth to, if I could. Doesn’t mean they’re totally nuts.

But I wanted to talk everything over with Dwayne, roll around the whole interview with “Nana,” which had been well, strange. So, magnanimously, I decided not to pick a fight with him.

“Orchid Purcell asked me to call her Nana, so I did. With difficulty.”

“I just never have gotten that,” Dwayne said as he pushed on the accelerator and sent the boat flying across the main lake. The water was dark green and slightly choppy from a stiff breeze. The sun shone weakly, sinking through a screen of clouds. I hunched down and Binks tucked herself under the dash by Dwayne’s feet. No fool she; Binkster knew she was going to get bounced around. “I’ve got a granny, and a daddy, and a stepmama, and a sister. I don’t need to add other people to the list, and call ’em grandma, or anything else. They’re strangers. Not blood.”

“A stepmama isn’t blood, either,” I pointed out, intrigued. This was more information than I’d ever gotten about Dwayne’s family. I had met his sister, who was a piece of work. Her daughter, Dwayne’s niece, wasn’t much better. Luckily they lived in Seattle. Far enough away from Lake Chinook to keep them there most of the time.

“My stepmama tried that when I was little. Wanted me to call her Mama. Make like she was gonna be my new mom.” Dwayne shot me a knowing sideways look. “Didn’t work out that way.”

“How’d you talk her out of it?”

“She showed up when I was about four. I ignored her till I was six. She’s just one of those kinda women.”

“What kind?”

“The kind that pinches you on the back of the arm in public while she’s smiling and acting like she cares about you. I refused to call her Mama, but my sister just jumped right in. I never called her nothin’ till I was fifteen. Then I called her some things I probably shouldn’t have.”

“Such as?”

He shrugged. “Nothin’ good. She’s still with my daddy.”

“Where are you from again?”

“South. East. Not from here.”

This is a source of curiosity to me. Dwayne acts like he’s from somewhere in the south most of the time; his speech would lead you to believe as much. But he can turn it off so fast I sometimes wonder what’s real and what isn’t.

“What happened to your real mother?”

“Vamoosed.”

I could tell he was shutting down on me. I didn’t want the conversation to end, so I decided to sweeten the pot by throwing in my own dirty laundry. “My dad married his secretary. I have a passel of half brothers and sisters. I lost count at three. And I don’t know their names.”

“And you don’t wanna.”

“Damn straight.”

“So why did you agree to call this woman ‘Nana’?”

“I’m on a case. I’m playing a part.”

“Bullshit. You just didn’t have the
cojones
to tell her no.”

“She’s old and a bit confused.”

“Crazy,” Dwayne stressed.

“You’re pissing me off.”

“Like that’s something new.”

We lapsed into silence. Dwayne acts like he knows me so well, and yes…okay…he does…but there’s something so annoying about it that sometimes I just want to launch myself at him in full fight mode.

I pondered these simmering feelings as we pulled up to his place. Across Lakewood Bay I could see the lights of Foster’s On The Lake twinkling in strands around the trees. It was just starting to get dark. I didn’t want to be mad at Dwayne, but I wanted…something.

He tied up the boat and sat back down. We swayed in the soft lavender evening light, neither of us climbing out to his dock. With a deep, uncomfortable awakening I realized I wanted to be kissed. By Dwayne?
No
. Proximity doesn’t make things work. So he was right here. So what? I’m not an idiot…usually. Dwayne was off limits.

I had a raging internal argument with myself on the issue. Recognizing my feelings is not helpful. It makes me feel vulnerable and I just hate that. With an effort I pulled my eyes away from his chest. He was wearing some beat-up blue shirt that looked as if it had been laundered way too many times. The top button had given up the ghost and I could see the smooth, tan muscles of his chest. His jeans were even worse; typical Dwayne. He wore leather sandals that were a little out of character: Dwayne’s strictly a sneakers or boot man. But he had nice feet.

For some reason it was all a seductive combination.

“Are we going to Foster’s?” I asked.