Murder at the Azalea Festival (5 page)

"Well," I argued back, "instead of building more parking decks, we ought to be looking for ways to reduce traffic."

She cast me a cynical eye. "That'd be the day. Americans have a love affair with their cars. Just look at you and me; you love your Alero, I love this sweet thing." For emphasis she stepped down on the accelerator and the powerful car shot forward.

"Slow down! What I mean is, why can't we find ways to leave our cars at home? The beauty of living downtown is that we can walk everywhere, with the exception of a first-class grocery store. Wouldn't it be a smart move to persuade one of those fresh-produce-type folks to renovate a storefront on Market Street and install a fabulous grocery store?"

"A very smart move. Why don't you run for mayor?"

I snorted derisively. "I've got all the work I can handle, thank you very much. Anyway politics is a dirty business."

"Well, maybe I'll run. I'm a born leader and I don't mind getting my hands dirty if the outcome is a good one."

Coming from anyone else, this type of assertion would have been obnoxious. But with Melanie, the statement was so true, no one could take offense.

Ahead, the ambulance stopped at the ER entrance, the siren dying abruptly like an injured animal put out of its misery. Melanie pulled up short directly behind the ambulance. The back doors opened from inside and an EMT jumped down as the driver raced around from the cab. Together they lowered Mindy's stretcher to the ground and did something to it so that it sprang up on legs. Then they ran with it through the automatic doors.

Melanie started to open her car door when a rotund security guard trotted up to the Jag.

"Ma'am, you can't park here," he said between breaths. "You gotta pull round into the parking lot. Plenty spaces there."

"But, Captain," Melanie said, batting her eyelashes at him, "that was our sister in that ambulance. She's dreadfully ill. We've got to be with her."

Sister?

"Look, ma'am, you ain't gonna be able to go back where they're takin' your sister anyways. So, you just go on now and park this nice car over yonder. I'll meet you at the door and personally show you to the nurses' station." He smiled down at her. "Ain't you got yourself a sweet piece of machinery, ma'am?"

"Oh, all right," Melanie said sullenly and peeled off, wheels squealing, almost clipping the guard's pointing arm.

We skidded into a slot not more than thirty feet from the entrance, Melanie frowning all the while. "Give a man a uniform and he becomes a little dictator."

Inside the hospital, I thanked the guard for showing us to the nurses' station. We could have wandered around for hours trying to find it ourselves. You need a road map inside medical facilities these days.

Janet Chesterton was sitting on the edge of her chair as Nem paced the corridor. Janet jumped up when she saw us and Nem hurried over.

"What happened to her?" Janet cried. "They won't tell us anything."

"We don't know, Janet," Melanie said kindly. She put her arm around Janet's shaking shoulders. "But Ashley saw it all."

Janet turned to me, eyes beseeching. "What happened to my baby, Ashley?"

Nem hovered, looking like he wanted to join in all the hugging but was afraid it might ruin his reputation if someone saw him.

"I honestly don't know, Janet. One minute she was fine, the next she was shaking and gasping. Is she allergic to bees? There was a swarm of them around the flowers."

"Bees?" Janet said vaguely. She turned to Nem. "Bees? A bee did this to my little girl?"

"Mindy is not allergic to bees," Nem said emphatically. "No, it's got to be something else. What about toxic shock syndrome? I've been hearing a lot about that lately."

I shook my head. "Why don't you all sit down. You'll feel better. Would you like some coffee? I'll go get some for you."

Janet and Nem settled wearily in the hard molded-plastic chairs.

"Oh," I said, "I almost forgot. Here. It's Mindy's purse."

I handed the small pink satin purse to Janet. She opened it and looked inside. Snapped it closed. She had a vacant look about her, like she was someplace else.

Then she seemed to come to. Handing the purse back to me, she said, "Take care of this for me, Ashley, will you? Her house keys are inside. Would you drive out to Landfall and pack some of her personal things in an overnight bag and bring them here. She'll need nice things when she wakes up."

Janet seemed to think Mindy was going to wake up, like she was taking an unscheduled nap. I guess I would have seen it that way in her place.

"Sure, I'll be glad to. What shall I bring?"

"You're such a sweet girl, Ashley," Janet said vaguely. "Mindy always said that about you."

I knew this wasn't true. Mindy didn't say nice things about anybody.

Janet looked around for moment, like she had forgotten what she was saying. "Oh, yes. Bring. Hair brush, toothbrush and tooth paste, a pretty nightgown and robe. Slippers. Mindy will be mortified when she wakes up in one of those nasty hospital gowns. She's always so particular about her appearance."

"Excuse us a minute," Melanie said, dragging me off to one side, out of earshot. Glancing up at the industrial-size hospital clock, she said, "I've got to be downtown at five to do the ribbon-cutting at the art show. And you've got to go with me. Then I'll drop you at your house so you can get your car and get on with your mercy mission."

I walked back to Janet and Nem. "It'll take me about an hour. Would you call the gate at Landfall and instruct the guard to let me in. You know how security conscious they are out there. Now, don't worry. Mindy's going to be fine. The doctors here are wonderful."

"Thank you, Ashley," Janet said. Nem seemed struck mute, like the situation was too much for him, a crisis best left to women. "You always were such a sweet girl," Janet repeated.

Toting Mindy's purse, I scurried after Melanie out of the hospital and out to her car. "Now see what you've done," I said. Which, typically, is her line to me.

6

The Wilmington Art Association was holding its Annual Spring Art Show and Sale at St. Thomas Preservation Hall on Dock Street. Melanie smiled into the cameras, then snipped the ribbon. I don't believe she'd ever cut a ribbon before but she performed the ceremonial act as graciously as the Azalea Queen herself. The art show, with 150 artists presenting, was now officially open.

Cameron moved to Melanie's side, an ever present hand pressed lightly to her back or on her arm. The sign of ownership. I can touch her but you cannot, was the message this gesture was supposed to convey to other men.

I like Cameron. He is good for Melanie. He moved to Wilmington from Los Angeles where he'd been the executive vice president for programming at HBO. He wanted out, he told us, wanted his own production company, and he built it. Now, with a big success on his hands, he deserves the accolades he is getting.

Together, Melanie and I filled him in on Mindy's arrival at the hospital, how shaken Janet and Nem had been, and even Janet's request that I collect Mindy's things from her home.

I dangled the purse. "Mindy's. I've got her keys."

We speculated about what might have happened to her. "Well, whatever it is," he said, "we're shooting bright and early in the morning so if she can't make it, I've got to alert the writers to write her out, revise the scenes, give Tiffany a larger role."

Business came first, and show biz came first, last, and always.

"Well, Nem will know. Call him," Melanie advised. "Later."

"Just between us, I wouldn't be unhappy to write her out for good. She's a prima donna. And poison on the set."

Why did you give her the part? I wanted to ask. Then, in a flash I knew. Nem Chesterton had been an investor early on, when most people doubted that a show about a group of high school seniors could make it. Now, Cameron had his choice of investors, beating them away with a stick, no doubt.

Cameron confirmed this with, "I don't need Nem's money now. I'd sure like to be rid of Mindy though. Tiffany's the one I'd like to see in the major role. That little girl is dynamite."

I've noticed that men tend to blab freely when they are trying to impress a woman. And Cameron was clearly trying to impress Melanie. In fact, he was star-struck where she was concerned.

"Well, come on now, sweet cakes, no more talk of business," she cooed up at him. "Let's look at all these pretty pictures, and forget about those worrisome details for a while."

Melanie wandered to the displays of colorful original works of art.

"Now, look at this," she said. "Oh, I do love this one."

The picture was executed in oil on a large canvas, with splashes of brilliant color, a scene that might have been painted on Wrightsville Beach. The south end of the beach at sunset perhaps, the sky layered in reds and pinks, the sun setting in the west just outside the frame, shooting rods of flame over the sand dunes.

"Beautiful," Melanie sighed.

I looked at the two of them. In a world of their own, shoulders touching, body language saying, we're a couple. Cameron adored her, I saw that the first time I met him. And well he should. My sister might exasperate me, but she's very special. Stunningly beautiful, smart, hard-working, and at the top of her profession. And my cat loved her too. Animals never misjudge character the way we humans do.

I joined them in front of the oil painting. It was breathtaking. "That'd look great in your living room, Mel," I told her, "over the fireplace. You sometimes have a view like that from your sliding glass doors."

Her mouth turned petulant. "Oh, but look. It's sold."

A large sold sign hung from the frame.

"What a shame," Cameron said coyly.

Melanie gave him an appraising look. She leaned in and peered at the sold sign. Then she squealed and threw her arms around his neck. "You devil. You bought it. I can't believe you."

He kissed her cheeks and hugged her hard. "I knew you'd love it. Don't you have a birthday coming up soon?"

"No, not till August. You know I'm a Leo."

"Well, then, let's just say it's my gift to the most dazzling creature in the world for putting up with an old geezer like me."

She smacked his arm playfully. "Stop that. And thank you, darlin'." She kissed him on the mouth, not caring who saw or what they thought.

Will that ever happen to me? I wondered wistfully. Nick was back in town and hadn't even called.

7

I walked the few blocks to my house and got into my baby blue Alero. Then I drove out Oleander to Eastwood Road. At six o'clock, the early evening was pleasant and I powered down the windows, sensing the ocean's presence as I drove nearer to Landfall. The posh, walled community had been developed on the former estate of the wealthy Pembroke Joneses who'd once hosted lavish parties there and at their Newport mansion. They'd been two of Mrs. Astor's four hundred. When people talk about "keeping up with the Joneses," it's Pembroke and Sarah they're referring to.

I showed the gatehouse guard my driver's license and he informed me officiously that he had received instructions from Mr. Nehemiah Chesterton to admit me, just this once.

I wound around the circular roadways within the complex, past a rolling greensward of the Jack Nicklaus golf course, then the Frank H. Kenan Chapel. Everywhere, there was an abundance of flowering azaleas and dogwoods, and in the distance, breath-taking vistas of the Intracoastal Waterway.

Finally I reached Mindy's house which was a large residence in the transitional style so popular just now, faced with some sort of fake limestone and having a great many Palladian windows. Inside, there'd be a two-story foyer and great room and a sense of spaciousness.

I parked out front, went up the sidewalk and using the keys from the pink satin purse, let myself in the front door. Inside, I paused to get my bearings. The house had that spooky silence houses get when they're empty.

The interior was beautiful and, as I'd been informed by Melanie, had been professionally decorated. I have a BFA from Parsons in interior design myself and an MFA in historic preservation from SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Still, if some institution ever granted degrees in snooping, I'd have one, magna cum laude. Here I was alone in pouty Mindy's home, and with a legal right to be here. What an excellent opportunity to satisfy my insatiable curiosity!

On my left was the dining room with its sponged gold walls and ivory trim. The floor was hardwood and the Persian rug under the dining room table and chairs was rich with smoky browns, golds, reds and corals. I strolled in to stroke the satiny, waxed table top. Good furniture, Sheraton, the real thing. Okay, Wilkes, stop admiring the antiques!

The foyer's ceiling soared to the rooftop. A Palladian window set above the front door admitted thin, evening light. On my right was the great room. There too the walls rose to the roof. The upstairs hallway overhung the great room like a balcony. The decor was opulent with cascading, fringed taffeta draperies and deeply padded furniture. Yet inviting. A plush ivory carpet covered the floor.