Loose Lips (10 page)

I picked him up between two fingers and
carried him to the en suite where I flushed him down the toilet.
Odds were low he worked for my mother, but I had learned that I
couldn’t be too careful.

After brushing off my hands, I stomped back
into the bedroom, sat on the bed and stared at Phyllis.

She, looking comfortable and relaxed in an
over–stuffed armchair, stared back. “I understand you went to the
WIL
meeting. I’m glad to hear that you’re getting active
in the community. It will pay off.”

She said this as if she was my elderly aunt
making polite conversation, not a friend holed up and hiding out
because she was a suspect in a murder.

I folded my arms over my chest. “That is not
why I went to
WIL
.”

She sighed and shook her head. “I was afraid
of that. Really, Lucy, when are you going to take your business
seriously and start networking? How do you expect to grow?”

She, the woman on the lam, was lecturing me.
My mouth fell open. I blurted out, “What are you doing here? You
realize the police think you killed Missy, don’t you? Why are you
hiding? If you hadn’t hid, they wouldn’t have given you any more
attention than anyone else at
WIL
.”

I had more in me, but the disapproving shake
of Phyllis’ head got me off track.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I
am not in hiding. I simply decided to take a little
me
time. I wasn’t on the schedule, was I? I didn’t miss any work.
There’s no law against stepping away for a few days.”

She tched. Then tched again.

I almost lost it. “Stepping away? From
what?” The Texas native had one of the cushiest lives I could
imagine. At least I assumed she did. She was always well dressed,
her hair and nails professionally done, she drove a nice car, and
she had enough free cash to pull my business out of a tough
situation I’d faced a year or so ago, securing her spot as my
quasi–partner.

“Life,” she said, with enough angst to shame
any teenage drama queen.

“So, this...” I motioned to the flocked
wallpaper–covered walls and polished wood floors. “...has nothing
to do with
WIL
or Missy’s murder?”

“Missy’s murder? You mean that poor deluded
girl at the Caffeine Cartel? She’s dead?”

“Of course, she’s dead. How could you
not...” I looked around the room. No TV. No computer. No newspaper
on the floor, but she’d heard that I’d been at the
WIL
meeting. I wasn’t buying any of this.

Trying to appear believing, I looked back at
Phyllis. “You didn’t know? How couldn’t you know? Surely other
people here have been talking about it.”

She sighed. “I told you. This was
me
time. They only serve breakfast, which I had them leave
at the door. And the rest of my food I’ve had delivered.” She
brushed some hair off her forehead. “There were no notes slipped in
with my lunch salad.
Girl dead
.”

She made it sound as if I were the crazy one
here. I still wasn’t sure I bought it... the part about her not
knowing that Missy had been murdered, not the me not being the
crazy one. I
knew
I wasn’t the crazy one... in this
pairing at least.

“So, how’d you know I went to
WIL
?”

“Eve. She’s so sweet. She’s been watching my
house too. Watering my plants. That kind of thing.”

“And she didn’t tell you about Missy?”

“Why would she?”

Because
WIL
had been stalking her?
Because
WIL
had been stalked in return by Ken Klein?

I didn’t say either. It was obvious that
Phyllis had her story and she was sticking with it.

“So,” she said, rearranging herself in her
chair like the true Southern lady that she was, or convinced people
she was. “How did you find me?”

I started to play her game, telling her I
hadn’t been looking for her at all, that I’d just stumbled across
her, but even though that was true, it also wasn’t. “My mother,” I
admitted.

Her eyes widened, then, “Oh. Damn.”

Pretty much my sentiments exactly.

“How’d she know?”

I shrugged. I was sure FriendTime was
involved somehow, but aside from that I had no idea, and honestly,
I didn’t even really want to know. I was afraid knowing the extent
of my mother’s spy network would just paralyze me with guilt every
time I ate an extra box of fries or burped in public.

“So, does anyone else know?”

I could see her brain calculating. Wondering
if her gig was up or if she could bully me into covering for
her.

I liked the idea of letting her sweat. I
licked my lips.

She exhaled loudly. “Oh good. I’m really not
ready to go back. Especially if what you say is true. The police
suspecting me? Can you imagine? Well, of course you can. They’ve
suspected you before, haven’t they?” She shook her head. “And of
course my dear Stanley. You know how he was persecuted.”

Since I’d been one of the people who’d
suspected her son in the death of a rodeo queen last July, I didn’t
feel a response to that was warranted or wise.

“But since no one knows...” She glanced
around. “I had planned on only staying another day or two, but I
could stand staying longer. Let me get you a list.” She popped up,
grabbed a notepad from a nearby table and began scribbling. A few
seconds later, she ripped off the top sheet and held it out to
me.

A life of my mother’s obedience training
made me take it.

Phyllis, it seemed, needed more clothes,
some peach tea, Pretty in Pearl nail polish, a new pair of slippers
and...
since she had obviously missed out on so much
news
... a small television.

“I’ll have to check to see if they provide
cable,” she muttered to herself, jotting down more notes.

I stood there, as I often did while talking
to Phyllis, dumbfounded.

“But what about Klein?”

“Who?”

“The detective. He’s looking for you. He’s
been asking me where you are.”

“And you haven’t known. So you’re good. Just
avoid answering him again.”

“But he’ll expect me to tell him now that I
know.”

She stood up, prim. “Expectations often lead
to disappointments.”

With that bit of wisdom, I was shoved out
the door with my list and a garbage bag filled with Phyllis’s dirty
laundry.

I wandered back down the stairs feeling
dazed. I made it down the front steps and to my car before the fog
lifted and some semblance of reality returned. I opened the rear
side door to shove the laundry inside and then turned to look back
at the bed and breakfast.

Phyllis was hiding inside. My mother knew
Phyllis was hiding out and had sent me to find her. Which must mean
that my mother also knew that the police were looking for Phyllis.
Why my mother thought I should get involved in that official
interest/search, I didn’t know.

Could my mother think Phyllis had killed
Missy? Could her network of information have led her to this
idea?

I couldn’t see my proper partner doing in
the Caffeine Cartel owner, at least not over anything as trivial as
pulling a Mardi Gras bead trick for customers.

Phyllis could be a bit of a prude, but
honestly, I wasn’t sure how prudish she truly was and how much of
her outrage was put on to play to the crowd.

Or maybe my mother just thought I should
know where Phyllis was because I had been put in the hot seat a bit
by Klein over her disappearance. Maybe my mother felt I should rat
her out.

I stared down at my list. Should I? Stupid
question. It was a total
WWPD
(What would Peter do?)
situation. And calculating what Peter would do in this instance did
not take the brain matter of the dead fly that I’d flushed down the
toilet.

But that was Peter, and I was not him.

Which left a bigger question:
WW
L
D
?

I meant to go home after that, or the shop,
somewhere that I could sit in peace and consider my choices, but as
I was rearranging Phyllis’s laundry so none of it fell out as I
drove, movement at the side of the B&B caught my eye and
reminded me that I had yet to take a peek into the Deere
windows.

I casually rummaged inside my Jeep and
waited for whoever was coming down the path, which ran between the
B&B and the Deere mansion, to pass.

Rachel, my new friend from the Caffeine
Cartel, came bouncing into view. Dressed in a skirt that was
definitely schoolgirl chic and with her hair in dog ears, she
looked a good ten years younger than what I guessed was her actual
age. When she saw me, she checked her steps, making the cloth bag
she was holding from one hand swing slowly back and forth until she
and it came to a full stop. Her pink lips formed into an O before
slowly spreading into a smile.

“Lucy! What are you doing here?” She looked
around, taking in the bed and breakfast before scanning the rest of
the street. “Are you alone?”

Standing, I glanced around too. Her question
had startled me for a second, but I was indeed alone. No mother or
Phyllis or Detective Klein hunkered down behind my Jeep.

Relieved on all counts, I shut the door to
my Jeep, hiding Phyllis’s laundry, and motioned toward the bed and
breakfast. “I was checking out the B&B. My parents are coming
to town in a few months and I thought it might be a good place for
them to stay.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” She shifted her weight
from one hip to the other in a manner that made me wonder if she
hadn’t had one too many cups of her coffee this morning.

“What about you?” I asked. It was polite to
ask. I was also nosy.

“Oh, me.” She laughed. In her outfit, it
presented as more of a giggle.

“I had a delivery.”

My mind for some reason immediately went to
babies.

She waved her hand. “Well, not a delivery.
Yet
. I was at the B&B too. I’m thinking of
expanding.”

The Caffeine Cartel? This certainly wasn’t
good news for Joe, unless this new expansion would necessitate a
move that took the kiosk and its Cuties well out of Cuppa Joe’s
market range.

“Home delivery. Well, commercial anyway.”
She tilted her head side to side as she talked, sending her dog
ears bouncing.

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure if that was good for Joe
or not.

“It’s an untapped market,” she finished and
then smiled, as if proud of herself for some reason.

And maybe she was. Maybe this commercial
sales thing would send the Caffeine Cartel’s profits skyrocketing
even more than they had before.

Feeling suddenly glum at my own less than
skyrocketing sales, I made a few more polite noises, agreed to stop
by the next day with Betty’s initial designs, and got into my Jeep,
or pretended to. Actually, I just opened the door and place my foot
inside. Then, when she’d bopped out of view, I got back out and
hurried as quickly as I could down the same sidewalk that she’d
come from.

The concrete path, which ran right between
the two houses, was lined with the same tall shrubs that I’d
struggled to see past when standing on the bed and breakfast’s
porch.

On ground level, they were an even more
difficult barrier. I kept moving until I spied an opening in the
foliage on my left. Another path, this one dirt, led toward the bed
and breakfast’s back entrance, where I guessed the kitchen must be
located and from where Rachel must have come. On the right, the
shrubs were still dense.

I crept along, hoping to find some break in
the branches that I could squeeze through. I had just decided to
take a stab at a space that would have been challenging for
Nostradamus, Rhonda’s plus–sized cat, when I heard the telltale
sound of hinges creaking. I waited, frozen, but no one popped out
of either yard to confront me.

After my heart stilled a bit, my courage
blazed. The sound told me I was close, and sure enough, I was. Five
feet further and I found an opening on the right: two concrete
posts with a decorative black iron gate swinging open between
them.

Open, thus inviting.

I walked through, head high and
confident.

o0o

The Deere mansion was huge and brick and
red. There was a wrap–around porch held up by limestone pillars,
three chimneys that I could count and two turrets.

I could see why the Deere descendants were
fighting over it.

I’d have done a bit of scrapping myself if
I’d thought I had some claim to the place.

The home was gorgeous, but it was also sad.
The shrubs looked unkempt and the flower baskets that hung from the
porch were empty. Some were broken.

I picked up the remnants of one and set it
on the cut limestone steps.

Then, feeling as if I’d done some good deed,
earning me something, I walked lightly up the steps, cupped my
hands over my eyes, and peered inside a front window.

Sheers covered the inside of the glass,
making it impossible to see anything past them.

Muttering, I stayed on the porch and circled
the house. At the back, the sheers changed from full window length
to half, the bottom half.

At my shorter–than–average stature, this
created a bit of a challenge, but not one that I, with a little
creativity, couldn’t overcome.

I grabbed the end of an iron bench that sat
a few feet away and dragged it into position under the window. The
rusty iron feet made a grating sound over the painted wood, causing
me to cringe and circle again, checking for any damage I might have
caused in the historic home.

Sure enough, there were two long gouges in
the paint.

Sure I was going to puke, I squatted down
and ran my fingers over them. Just in the paint. Not the wood. I
could fix this, or Peter could... or I could. There was really no
reason to pull Peter into this at all.