Murder Sends a Postcard (A Haunted Souvenir) (16 page)

I DIDN’T GET BACK TO SORTING THE POSTCARD MESS
until late in the afternoon. Bluebeard was still pouting in the corner, and I told myself I really didn’t care. Whatever he was trying to tell me, he didn’t need to trash the shop and make extra work for me in the process.

I didn’t want the stacks spread across the counter, so I sat in the tall chair at the register and flipped through the jumble in the box, pulling out one design at a time. It was slow-going, but at least I was able to work in between customers without cluttering up the counter.

The bell rang over the front door and I looked up from my sorting. Buddy McKenna, a zippered leather portfolio tucked under his arm, walked in. He hesitated as though he was intruding, then made a slow circuit of the store.

He took his time, examining each T-shirt and souvenir, and he went back to the postcard spinner several times. When he finally approached the counter, he was carrying a handful of trinkets and a couple colorful T-shirts.

“I haven’t got this packing thing down quite yet,” he said with a nod to the T-shirts. Just like his sister.

“The department manager called a little bit ago,” he continued as I rang up his purchases. “He verified that he wouldn’t be able to get anyone down here until the middle of next week. Asked me to stay on and continue Bridget’s work.”

“That sounds like a compliment,” I said.

“Backhanded, I’m afraid. Like I said, they still plan to send a senior auditor next week. But yeah, still something of a compliment, I guess.”

He paid for his purchases, and lingered at the counter. He laid his portfolio down and put his hand on top of it. “I wondered if you might have some time this afternoon. To go over the notes we talked about. I found some things I’d like you to look at.”

I glanced up at the clock. Nearly closing time. The postcards could wait. I was intensely curious about what Bridget might have uncovered, and I thought it would be interesting to hear her impressions of Keyhole Bay and its inhabitants. The prospect of seeing my hometown through the eyes of an outsider enticed me. Especially an outsider who didn’t expect anyone in town to read what she thought.

“I close in a few minutes. How about I meet you next door at Lighthouse?”

Buddy accepted my suggestion, and we agreed to meet for coffee as soon as I could get closed up. He was about to say something else when we were interrupted by a wail from the back room. He gave me a startled look and turned in the direction of the noise.

“Rose Ann,” I said. I told him about setting up the nursery and having the baby in the shop when her grandma wasn’t available. “Anita’d rather have the baby with her, of course. But she can’t keep her every day, so we found a way for Rose Ann to come to work with her mom.

“I know it won’t last forever, but it works for now.”

“It’s a great idea. I wish the bank had something similar; it would make life easier for my wife and me.

“How about you, Glory?” he asked. “Any kids?”

I shook my head. “Not me,” I answered. “Just a business that takes all my time, and a badly behaved parrot.”

From his perch on the other side of the shop, Bluebeard squawked a mild curse, then settled into a litany of muttered complaints.

“Language, Bluebeard.”

The muttering became quieter, but I knew what he was saying, even if Buddy couldn’t understand it.

“He’s having a bad day,” I said. “He’s sort of like a cranky baby sometimes. Probably just needs a nap.”

Buddy laughed politely at my lame joke, and said he’d wait for me at Lighthouse. I promised to meet him as soon as I could.

A few minutes later I flipped the sign on the door from “Open” to “Closed” and went next door. As soon as Chloe spotted me, she started a vanilla latte. “Hot or iced?” she asked when I reached the counter.

“Hot, I think.”

A minute later she handed me a cup in a paper sleeve. I reached in my pocket but she refused my payment. “Your friend already took care of it.”

Buddy had a table against the wall, where he had unloaded the contents of his portfolio, and he sat studying the pages spread in front of him.

I took the seat across from him and sipped my drink. “Thank you,” I said.

“My pleasure. But the bank’s paying for this one. It’s part of the job.”

“Either way, I’m grateful.” The caffeine and sugar were giving me a pleasant buzz after a long day in the shop. And it was only July. There were several weeks of summer yet to go.

“So what have you got for me?” I asked Buddy. “How can I help?”

“Well, I went back to the lists from last night, and looked at all of Bridget’s notes. I found a couple files on her laptop, too. Some of it is confidential, but there are some things that I’d like you to confirm if you can.”

He looked at the top page and ran his finger along the list. “Jennifer Marshall, for example. You mentioned her when you were talking to her husband. Does she really have the resources to hang on to their house?”

I thought for a minute before I answered. Memaw would be horrified to hear me gossip about my neighbors with a Yankee. On the other hand, I really didn’t know anything I could tell him that wasn’t common knowledge. Besides, I had promised to help him, and it was for a good cause. We both wanted Bridget’s killer found.

“Good question,” I said. “I’m really not sure. When Andy said the bank was going to take it—”

“Thanks, by the way,” Buddy interrupted, “for not giving me away to Marshall. I don’t know if he’s violent, but I really didn’t want to find out.”

“Got in a few fights when he was a kid, from what I’m told. Nothing serious.” I shrugged. “Anyway, that’s all ancient history. He’s mostly the kind of guy who blows up and gets over it pretty quick. Like he did last night.”

“Still, I appreciate that you didn’t tell him who I was.”

“You’re welcome.” I went back to his original question. “Jen’s folks have money, and I believe she had an inheritance from her grandparents, but I don’t know how much. You’re more likely to be able to find that out for yourself, in the bank records.

“People around here don’t talk about money a whole lot. It’s just not something you share with everyone. Like—” I stopped myself before I said what I was thinking, searching instead for an overly polite euphemism. “Like, you know, your private life.”

Buddy blinked in confusion a couple times, then a faint blush crept up his pale face. He got my meaning.

“And I don’t know if she still has it,” I continued. “Her grandmother passed away right after their second daughter was born, and that’s been probably ten years.”

I stopped and took another sip of coffee, letting the sweetness fill my mouth and slide down my throat.

“She and Andy may have spent it. On the business, or the girls, or a vacation. Or on that house.”

“You said you were just out there. What’s it like?”

I explained how I’d come to be in Jen Marshall’s house, however briefly. “It was lovely, in a new-money kind of way. Jen came from money, but Andy didn’t. You saw him.”

“I saw a man who’d lost everything,” Buddy said. “He looked like he’d started drinking on New Year’s Eve and hadn’t stopped. But with the pressure he’s been under, well”—he shrugged—“I try not to judge too harshly.”

“Memaw used to say, ‘Don’t marry a boy from a dirt road,’ and Andrew Marshall could have been exactly the kind of boy she was talking about. No education, no prospects, and a taste for hard liquor. Except Andrew was stubborn and he worked hard. He’s one of those up-by-his-bootstraps success stories.”

“And he married into money,” Buddy added.

“Yeah. He was the local boy who made good and swept Daddy’s Little Princess off her feet. I remember their wedding, even though I was just a kid. It took the entire front page of the ‘Society’ section in the
News and Times
. They called it the wedding of the year.”

“Sounds like a proper Horatio Alger story,” Buddy said.

“It was. Andy purely wore himself out, the number of hours he’d work. He was used to living poor, and he managed to put a lot by to start his own construction company.

“I think Bayvue was supposed to be his big score, the one that finally set him up for life.”

“I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say he was overextended,” Buddy said. “He’d leveraged everything he had to buy the land and start construction. And he sank every penny into what’s out there right now. Which isn’t that much.”

It didn’t surprise me. “I’d heard rumors for years about how Andy Marshall kept plowing money back into Marshall Development. Each time he pulled out a win, he’d turn around and pour it all into the next project, culminating in Bayvue Estates.”

“That ties in with what Bridget found,” Buddy said. He made an X next to Marshall’s name on his list. “I don’t think he defrauded the bank exactly,” he explained. “Poor judgment, yes. But I don’t think there was anything criminal in his handling of the loans.”

We talked about the Andersons. Bridget had pegged them accurately as clueless and entitled. I told him about Felicia’s visit to Carousel Antiques right after Bridget’s death.

“My friend Felipe said she acted as though she was immune to what was going on. Like she’d get her way, like she always does. If Bridget described her as entitled, that’s pretty accurate. And Billy is the same way.”

I thought about the difference between the two couples. “Jen and Andy took their money seriously,” I said. “Jen always supported local charities, and Andy supported Jen. They would open their house for every good cause that came along.

“Billy and Felicia had a party for their employees once a year, at Christmas. They served a lavish buffet, and handed out holiday bonus checks. But the checks came from the bank, not the Andersons.”

Buddy made a note under Billy Anderson’s name, and slid his finger along the list. “Pearl Anderson. It’s still Anderson on all our records. She is single, right?”

I nodded. “I don’t know much about her. She’s a couple years younger than me, but she didn’t go to school here. Her parents sent her away to some exclusive boarding school, and she was only home for short periods. She travels a lot, like a lady of leisure out of a nineteenth-century novel, but she shows up for every meeting of the board and—according to people who work at the bank—votes the way her brother and father tell her to.”

“Bridget seemed to think she might be, um, challenged in some way. Had you heard anything like that?”

I considered the question. “The family does seem to keep her out of the public eye. Just never thought about why. That would explain a whole lot.”

Buddy put a question mark next to Pearl’s name.

“Sorry I wasn’t more help on that one.”

He drained his coffee cup and set it aside. “I can’t expect you to do
all
my work for me,” he said lightly. “Especially when I’m only paying you in coffee.”

A shadow fell across the table and I looked up to find that Jake had come in while we were talking. Buddy jumped to his feet, greeting Jake warmly.

“Good to see you, and thanks for your help last night.”

“Thanks for letting me tag along,” Jake replied.

“Please, sit down. Join us.” Buddy pulled another chair over and placed it next to me. “Can I get you something?”

Jake shook his head. “I was just heading home and I spotted Glory sitting here. Thought I’d come across and say hello before I left.”

I patted the chair and Jake sat down, though he didn’t relax. He looked tired and he was probably anxious to get home after I’d dragged him out last night.

We talked for another few minutes, but I realized Chloe was hovering nearby, clearly ready to close up herself.

“We better get going,” I said. “I’d be glad to talk some more, Buddy. Why don’t you give me a call if you need more information?”

I scribbled my cell number on my business card and handed it to him. “Holler if you need me.”

Buddy thanked me and excused himself, saying he had a lot more work to do tonight. Jake and I followed him out, and said good night as he walked away toward the city parking lot.

“I better get going, too,” Jake said. “I’d love to take you to dinner, if it wasn’t a Saturday night.” He laughed. “See? I’ll turn into a local yet.”

I smiled up at him. “And I’d love to go. But not on a Saturday night. Besides, I am beat and tomorrow’s going to be another long day. I think I’ll go upstairs, have a bowl of cereal, and collapse.”

“Cereal? For dinner?”

“That’s the joy of being a grown-up,” I said, rising up on my tiptoes to give him a quick kiss. “If I want cereal for dinner, nobody can tell me not to.”

JAKE PAUSED AT THE CROSSWALK, WAITING FOR TRAFFIC
to clear. “How about tomorrow night? I’ll cook.”

“Deal.” Never turn down a meal when someone else volunteers to cook.

I let myself in the shop, prepared to spend the next hour getting ready for the Sunday summer rush. But Julie had already straightened and restocked. The shelves were dusted and the floors swept.

All I had to do was take myself upstairs and relax.

Which I did.

Late Sunday afternoon Jake called me. “I’m having car trouble,” he said. “I called Sly, and he offered to come by the house in about an hour. But I didn’t want to upset our dinner plans.”

“Tell him to come ahead. I know what a pain it is to be without a car.” Jake knew, too. I’d had to borrow his car a couple times when my old car had been out of commission.

“It might be a good thing to cook enough to share,” I said. “It’d be the polite thing to offer him dinner.”

“You sure this is okay?” he asked again.

“It’s fine. I’ll see you in an hour.”

When I pulled up in front of Jake’s, there was a vintage Thunderbird already parked at the curb. The chrome gleamed in the late afternoon sunshine, and the turquoise paint was buffed until it gleamed. No need to wonder whose car it was.

I started up the walk, but Jake called to me from the carport. I walked around the corner of the house and spotted Jake and Sly up to their elbows in the engine of Jake’s car.

“Sly thinks it’s probably just a spark plug,” Jake said. “I’ll take it over later this week.”

“Hey, Miss Glory,” Sly said, smiling broadly. “Mr. Jake says he’s fixing to feed us.” He wiped his hands on a shop towel and tossed it in his toolbox.

I started to answer, but the ringing of my cell phone interrupted me. I pulled out the phone and checked the number before I answered. No sense having another argument with Peter when I could let it go to voice mail.

“Karen,” I said. “I was beginning to wonder where she is. Excuse me for a minute.”

I hit the “Answer” key and said hello.

“Where have you been?” I asked her. “I haven’t talked to you in forever!”

“It’s been three days,” she said. “Don’t exaggerate. And a holiday weekend besides. Figured you’d be too exhausted to do anything but sleep.”

She had me there.

“Anyway, I thought I’d check in, see what you were up to.”

Jake moved close to me and signaled for my attention. I muted the phone. “Yes?”

“There’s plenty of food,” he said. “Tell her to join us.”

“Sure?”

“Why not?” He grinned at me. “Let’s make it a party!”

I went back to Karen. “Hey, I’m at Jake’s, and Sly’s here. We were just getting ready to eat. Why don’t you join us?”

It was my turn to wait while she turned to someone else. I heard a soft conversation in the background, then she came back to the phone. “Riley’s here, too. Does the invitation include both of us?”

I looked at Jake, who was standing close enough to hear what she said. He nodded and I relayed the expanded invitation.

“All right,” she said. “Give me the address.”

Sly and Jake went to wash up, and Jake said he needed to check on dinner. I waited in the carport, watching for Karen and Riley.

I did wonder where Karen had been. I hadn’t talked to her since our dinner on the Fourth, and as I thought about it, I realized I hadn’t heard her on the radio all weekend. She hadn’t said anything about being gone, but it seemed like the logical explanation.

In just a couple minutes, Riley’s pickup rolled up across the street from Sly’s T-Bird and the two of them climbed out. I greeted them with hugs and took them into the kitchen through the side door.

Inside, the tang of tomato and the musky fragrance of oregano mingled with onion and garlic into a heady promise of Italian delights.

Jake stood at the counter, stirring a dark red sauce in the Crock-Pot. “Spaghetti,” he said unnecessarily. The smell had already given it away.

“Smells divine,” Karen said. She spoke for us all.

Dinner turned into the usual group effort. I made garlic bread, Sly put together a salad, and Jake boiled the pasta.

Karen and Riley volunteered to set the table, but Jake suggested we eat on the screened patio. He showed them the way, and the two of them disappeared with a stack of plates and silverware.

They came back several times for things like glasses and napkins. Both of them. As though they couldn’t stay apart for long enough to walk from one room to another. And each time they seemed deep in a private conversation. They hardly noticed that the rest of us were there.

Jake drained the pasta and tossed it with a small scoop of the sauce to keep it from sticking. I sliced garlic bread and piled it on a platter, and Sly tossed the salad with a dressing of olive oil, wine vinegar, and assorted herbs.

Riley carried the crock of sauce, and the food procession made its way down the hall and out to the porch.

Even without the usual Thursday group, the conversation followed our normal pattern: We spent the first half of the meal quizzing Jake about his sauce and sharing our own personal takes on the art of spaghetti. Everyone had their own recipe, and we all had our own take on what was essential.

When we had exhausted that topic, Jake asked me about my meeting with Buddy McKenna. “What did he want to know?”

“The kind of thing we talked about on Friday night,” I said. “Did I agree with what Bridget said in her notes. Did I have something to add that wasn’t there. He was very careful not to tell me anything he didn’t think I already knew, but he did confirm that Andy Marshall had sunk everything into Bayvue, and then gone into debt so deep he couldn’t get out.”

I told Jake what Buddy had said about Andy’s behavior, and about not judging too harshly.

“Wait a minute,” Karen said. “Let’s back up a little, shall we? When did you see Andy Marshall? And for that matter, when did you spend all this time with Mr. McKenna?”

Jake and I took turns filling the three of them in on the adventures of the weekend. Riley looked especially upset as we described Andy’s appearance and behavior.

“He was a few years ahead of us, wasn’t he?” I said. “How did you know him?”

“I didn’t know him very well, but my older brother did. Well enough to get in a couple fights with him,” Riley said. “They played football together, and didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things. Andy was rough around the edges, and he was a fierce competitor. Hated to lose. Just purely hated it. Once in a while they disagreed about tactics; what was okay and what wasn’t.”

“I remember one time,” Karen said. “Tom had a knot on his head for a week. Was that from Andy?”

“Sure was. Andy didn’t think Tom had hit an opposing lineman hard enough, and he showed Tom exactly what he thought he should have done. Tom said his ears rang for days.”

“Sounds like a dangerous guy,” Jake said, his brow furrowing in concern. He turned to me. “You sure Buddy’s safe out there with that guy stumbling around?”

“Andy’s broken,” Sly cut in. “He’s done lost everything he worked for, and it broke something inside him. Seen it happen before. Makes a man weak, or it makes him mean.” He turned to look at me. “Which do you think he is, Glory?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t say, Sly. But I don’t think I saw mean in that man out there.

“I sure hope I’m right,” I added softly.

“So anyway, after our talk on Friday night, Buddy stopped by the store on Saturday and wanted to ask me some questions. I met him at Lighthouse and had a cup of coffee, Jake dropped by and joined us for a few minutes, and that was the end of it.

“Which, by the way, you would have heard about if you’d been around this weekend.” I glared at Karen and Riley. “Now give. Just where were the two of you the last three days? ’Cause I am convinced you weren’t in town.”

Karen reached for Riley’s hand and held it so tightly her knuckles turned white. “We went away for the weekend.”

Clearly there was more to the story. “And?” I prodded.

She looked around the table. “You all have to swear you will not repeat a word of this. Not a word.

“Swear.”

We nodded but that wasn’t enough for her. “Say it!”

Sly, Jake, and I each promised, but she had me really worried. I had asked Linda what to do about Karen and Riley and she’d told me to just be supportive, but now I wondered exactly what I was supporting.

“We went to a couples retreat.”

“A retreat? You mean like a church camp or something?”

Karen shook her head. “No. It was just something our counselor recommended. A few days away, concentrating on the two of us.”

“Your counselor? Since when do you have a counselor? And why do you need a counselor anyway? You’re divorced!”

“Because,” Riley explained, “if we’re going to get married again, we want to do it right this time.”

My gaze shot to Karen’s left hand. Bare. So it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe.

I thought I’d lost my mind. “You’re getting married again, and you’re seeing a counselor to help you do it right,
and
you went to a retreat—and you haven’t mentioned a word about this to me? Did I hear all that right?”

“It’s only been the last couple weeks,” Karen said. “And you’ve been so worried about Riley and me getting back together that I didn’t want to say anything until we were sure.”

“So it isn’t really
if
you get married again, it’s
when
.”

Karen nodded.

Jake got up from his chair and walked around the table. He shook Riley’s hand, a huge grin on his face. “Congratulations, man! That’s great news.”

Riley grinned back. “Yeah, I think it is.”

Jake reached down to hug Karen. “You’ll be great,” he said. “Just great.”

By that time I was out of my seat and around the table. I threw my arms around Riley, unsure whether to laugh or cry. “Do it right this time. Or there will be hell to pay.”

Karen stood up and I wrapped my arms around her. “If this is what you want, then I’m happy for you,” I said, and I meant it. I never doubted for a minute that they loved each other. They just needed to learn how to live together. And maybe they had matured enough to make it work.

“Have you told your families yet?” I asked when we had settled in lounge chairs with refilled glasses a few minutes later. “Does Bobby know?”

“Nobody knows,” Riley said. “They didn’t even know we were spending the weekend together. Like Karen said, we didn’t want to say anything until we were sure.”

“And if you’ll notice,” Karen added, “you were the first person we called when we got back.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I should have thought of that before I shot my mouth off.”

“That wasn’t exactly how we planned to tell you,” Karen said. “I had a little speech all prepared, but then we got to talking about everything that happened and it just came out.”

“Well, I, for one, am honored to have been part of this,” Sly announced. “I think anyone getting married is reason enough for celebration.” He raised his sweet tea in a toast. “Here’s to many years of happiness.”

“How about you, Sly?” Riley asked. “You never married?”

“Nope.” He shook his head, his expression far away. “I came close once. Really loved that little gal, but my mama pitched such a fit I couldn’t do it.

“I went to Mr. Louis about it,” he went on, his voice soft and low, as full of longing as if it had been yesterday instead of decades ago.

“He told me he’d help me if I was determined to do it, but we both knew it wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t brave enough to go against my mama’s wishes and break the law, so I joined the Army and went away for a while.”

“Break the law?” Jake said. “How?”

“I know,” I said. “Your girl, she was white, wasn’t she, Sly? That’s why you couldn’t marry her.”

“That’s right, Miss Glory. It was a different world back then.”

“It was before either of us was born,” I told Jake. “But I heard about it. It took a long time for things to change, but eventually they did.”

I looked over at Sly. “It was just too late for some.”

Sly nodded. “Your uncle Louis, he understood. Offered to drive us up to Chicago or New York, one of them places, if we really wanted to go. Coulda got hisself in trouble for it, but he was willing. He was a real good man, Miss Glory.”

“Do you mind my asking about this?”

Sly shook his head. “Ancient history, Miss Glory. Can’t hurt me now.”

“Why you? I mean, sure, he was a good man. And he didn’t seem to have much patience for a lot of what went on back then. But why did he help you and not someone else?”

“Mr. Louis was a friend of my mama’s,” he said. “She worked cleaning houses with her little sister. They worked for Mr. Louis’s daddy when Mr. Louis was a young man, and he took a shine to my aunt Sissy. You can bet his mama put an end to that right quick. Sissy got shipped over to cousins in Slidell, and Louis ran off and joined the Army.

“Sorta like me.”

“I had no idea,” I said, my head spinning.

“Course, all that happened before I was born,” Sly said. “So I only know what my mama and daddy told me later on. They used to carry news about Sissy to Mr. Louis, right up to the day he died. I think helpin’ me was his way of sayin’ thanks.”