On the Run (17 page)

I looked at Abilene, who didn’t say anything. “Sounds good to us,” I said for both of us.

Abilene tried things on in the bathroom. The jeans rode a bit high on her slim ankles, but they were wearable, and everything else, except for the shoes, fit fine. She kept on one of the more faded pairs of jeans and a red T-shirt, and we carried the other items upstairs.

I told her to pick whichever bedroom she wanted. She chose the smaller one with patchwork quilts on the two single beds. I was pleased with the other room, identical except for the flowered spreads on the beds and enough extra space to accommodate a beautiful rosewood desk and a love seat.

I offered to fix dinner, to which Frank gladly agreed. It was dark by the time we finally sat down to mystery-meat meatloaf at one end of the still-cluttered dining room table. A minute later the headlights of a car flashed across the windows.

18

“Are you expecting anyone?” Frank asked.

“Not us,” I said, although a scary possibility occurred to me. Would the Braxtons dare drive boldly into this isolated spot and start pumping out bullets? No one within miles to see or hear . . .

I jumped up. “I’ll get the door.” I was certainly not eager to clash head-on with Braxtons, but neither could I let Frank go out to meet them in total ignorance of the danger.

I heard steps on the deck and cautiously called through the door, “Who’s there?”

I jumped to the side in case the response was a blaze of gunfire but instead heard a female voice demand, “Who’re you?”

“I’m . . . working here.”

“Where’s Frank?”

“He’s here.”

By that time Frank was beside me. He yanked the door open, apparently recognizing the voice. “Mikki! What a . . . nice surprise.” He sounded more startled than welcoming, however. “What are you doing here? I mean, I’m
glad
you’re here, but the kids—”

“I decided to take the kids back to Natalie early and just come on up here to be with you.” She cupped Frank’s chin in a big squeeze and made a kissy moue with her mouth.

Frank’s head jerked back, and his eyes did a widening-in-alarm thing. “What did Natalie . . . uh . . . say?”

Mikki’s smile held satisfaction. “She wasn’t rolling out the mint juleps in welcome, that’s for sure. I think she and that high-powered boyfriend had somethin’ planned.” Her voice wasn’t full-blown Southern, but it held a hint of drawl. She gave me a wink over Frank’s shoulder. “If you know what I mean.”

“Well, uh, let me introduce everyone. Ivy Malone, my wife, Mikki. Mikki, Ivy is one of our new caretakers here.”

Mikki looked me over. So soon after his parents’ deaths seemed an unlikely time for a wife to be suspicious of her husband’s activities, but I got the impression she was relieved to find I was a gray-haired LOL rather than some local femme fatale cavorting with her husband. For a caretaker, however, she apparently had stiffer standards, and her cool inspection told me I was coming up short. Too few muscles, too many years.

But fair’s fair, and I did a critical appraisal of my own. Shoulder-length blond hair, stylishly tousled and expertly colored to a tawny rather than brassy look. Flattering makeup, though a little heavy on the eyeliner. Long, perfectly manicured nails, delicately peach-pink. Impressive diamond on her left hand. Unexpectedly shrewd blue eyes in a baby-doll face.

Frank had said she wouldn’t be interested in Jessie’s clothes, and now I could see why. Partly because Jessie’s wash-and-wear wardrobe was designed for chopping wood and raising emus, and Mikki’s elegant, raw-silk white pantsuit said “expensive boutique, dry-clean only.” But perhaps even more because there was no seamstress in the world who could alter Jessie’s slim clothes to Mikki’s spectacular Dolly Parton proportions.

“Honey, do you really think you can live way out here in the middle of nowhere? I mean, it might be okay when we’re younger, but as we get older . . .” She squeezed my arm as if she were sympathetically aligning her much-younger age with my declining years, but we both knew she was only emphasizing that I was way too far over the hill for the job. “And those awful birds or whatever they are.” She shuddered delicately.

Whatever their problems, and I detected some edgy undercurrents here, Frank and Mikki were in agreement about the emus.

Frank didn’t give me time to defend my caretaking abilities. “And in here—” He led the way to the dining room, apparently not troubled by crossing the bare spot where the bloody sofa had once stood. “This is our co-caretaker, Abilene Tyler.”

Mikki paused before following him across the bare spot. Aware something was missing, I supposed, but not certain what. I detoured the space. I still had too clear a vision of dead bodies occupying it.

Mikki now turned those shrewd eyes on Abilene. Abilene still had discolored bruises and the strange haircut, but she was unmistakably very attractive anyway. Frank didn’t strike me as an irresistible hunk who’d attract women like Brad Pitt in a convertible, but Mikki’s brows edged together, and I got the quick impression she regarded any attractive woman as a potential rival.

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” I invited quickly. “There’s plenty of food.”

She gave me an airy wave. “Oh no, honey, I’ve eaten.”

She didn’t actually pick up a piece of silverware to examine it, but I could see her looking it over. I wondered if she was disappointed to see that it was only inexpensive stainless steel, not sterling silver.

Frank started to slide into his chair at the table. “I’ll bring your suitcases in as soon as we’ve finished dinner.”

“Oh, honeybun, I’d really like to have them now, if you don’t mind.” She smiled sweetly.

I thought the request to interrupt his dinner rude, and I suspected Frank
did
mind. But he merely frowned and headed for the door.

“Perhaps just a cup of coffee?” I suggested. I motioned toward the coffeemaker on the counter, can of cut-rate coffee beside it.

Mikki wrinkled her nose. “Not right now, thank you, hon.” She turned and surveyed the huge living room and gave another of what I now suspected were trademark shudders. “Jock and Jessie were absolute
dears
, but they sometimes had such
odd
taste. And I never could understand why they didn’t get rid of that glassy-eyed deer head and those
dreadful
horn chandeliers.”

Okay, I had to agree with that, though I didn’t say so. With Frank outside, I expected a rapid third degree in questions, but after that one comment, Mikki ignored us. She made a quick tour of the living room, stopping to inspect the piano and an antique sewing machine I hadn’t noticed before, then leaning over to study a Navajo rug. Perhaps it was unkind of me, but I had the impression she was efficiently setting a dollar value on everything. Then she disappeared down the hall to the master bedroom, apparently assuming that was her rightful place in the house.

Frank came in lugging two suitcases, plus a cosmetics case tucked under his arm. I could hear conversation in the bedroom, though only an occasional actual word came through. All of which, spoken in sweet/sharp tones—
Natalie
,
assets
,
lawyer
—were Mikki’s.

“Perhaps Abilene and I should wait until later to move into the house?” I suggested when Frank finally returned to the table. By then we were almost through eating, and the gravy had congealed on his mashed potatoes.

“That would probably be best. I don’t think we’ll be staying long. I may have to run into Horton and rent a trailer. Mikki wants to take a few things home with us.”

“Some of the canned and frozen food?”

“Well, no, not really. Jessie has a nice collection of Navajo squash blossom necklaces and other turquoise jewelry—” He broke off and laughed a little too heartily. “Though that wouldn’t take a trailer to haul, would it? But some of the Navajo rugs are old and quite valuable. Things Jock and Jessie picked up when they were filming on the reservation years ago. A few pieces of the antique furniture are quite good also. Plus there’s the Oscar and the piano, of course. It’s an old-fashioned player type, possibly quite valuable.”

I hadn’t realized before that it was a player piano.

“We’ll be taking things just for safekeeping, of course. Everything will have to be inventoried and declared as part of the estate,” he added hastily, as if he thought I might suspect them of trying to conceal assets.

An ulterior motive to taking things home with them, other than Mikki’s general acquisitiveness, hadn’t occurred to me before, but . . . hmmmm.

It also struck me that Mikki seemed rather familiar with the house and its contents considering that Frank had said she’d been here only once.

Abilene and I loaded the dishwasher, retrieved some of the clothes she’d chosen from Jessie’s closet, and retreated to the motor home. Lights burned long into the night in the house.

Abilene had fresh clothes to put on next morning, but she still needed shoes and undergarments, so we put things away in the motor home and drove into Dulcy, then on to Horton. I was perfectly willing to pay for whatever she needed, but she insisted on extracting the dollars from the narrow fold of bills in the leather pouch that still hung at her throat. Her selections were plain and practical: white panties, simple bra, cotton pajamas, sturdy socks, and jogging-type shoes, not an expensive brand name.

Horton was considerably larger than Dulcy, but it was still a small town. I enjoyed the novelty of shopping with someone even though we both had to watch our dollars. I did splurge on a new Patricia Rushford Christian mystery. I used my prepaid phone card to call the mail-forwarding place in Little Rock that I was using as an address, gave them my password, and asked them to forward my mail to General Delivery in Dulcy. We finished the shopping tour with cones at an ice cream shoppe, Abilene’s raspberry sherbet, mine black walnut.

We made one last stop at the supermarket for milk and eggs, plus some fresh vegetables and fruit. Abilene stopped at the rack of greeting cards.

“Did you want to send someone a card?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I should.”

“Would it be to someone back in the area where Boone lives?”

“Oh no. It’s just that Lily has a birthday next week. I don’t want her to think I’ve forgotten her, but I don’t want to intrude on her new life . . .”

“They’re where with their mother?”

“In Kentucky. I have the address.” She touched the cord at her throat again.

“Then I don’t think it would hurt to send her a nice card.”

“Should I tell the kids where I am?”

I considered the question. Given the hostile state of affairs between the children’s real mother and Boone, it was unlikely they’d be in touch. But it never hurt to be extra careful.

“Maybe later on, okay?”

Abilene picked out a cute card shaped like a kitten, and we stopped in Dulcy to buy a stamp and mail the card. Before sealing the envelope she carefully took two one-dollar bills from the ever-thinning fold and tucked them inside. I shouldn’t have been watching, I suppose, but I was, and I saw her sign the card, “With big barrels of love from your other Mom.” She swiped a knuckle across her eyes.

Frank’s SUV was gone when I pulled the motor home into our parking place, but the sliding glass door on the back side of the house was open so I assumed Mikki hadn’t gone with him. Her big Lincoln had been pulled into the carport beside the Hummer. Abilene and I had a quick sandwich, and I went over to the house and knocked.

Mikki came to the door wearing blue shorts and white T-shirt, the Dolly Parton proportions on full display. She had a cup of coffee in one hand—apparently she’d decided it was cut-rate brand or nothing—and cigarette in the other. The morning appeared to have taken a toll on her hair and makeup. Dust smeared her blush, and a strand of spider web dangled from her disheveled ponytail.

“I was wondering if I could help sort or pack or something?” I said.

She waved the cigarette. “Frank went into town to rent a trailer, and I’m taking a break. I guess we won’t be able to take the Hummer this trip. I can’t believe Jessie didn’t leave things more organized.” Not quite a pout, but she sounded put-upon.

“Like their wills?” I ventured.

“Well, I suppose it would be asking too much, but they
could
have pinned them to that note and saved us a lot of trouble.” She gave me an appraising glance, hip cocked against the door frame. “You’re the one who found the bodies, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It must have been pretty awful?” An uplift at the end made it a question, as if she was looking for lurid details.

I didn’t offer them. All I said was a noncommittal, “Not pleasant,” and asked a question of my own. “Were you surprised by what Frank’s folks did?”

“Surprised? Oh no. Absolutely not!” Blond tendrils bounced as she shook her head.

The vehemence of her answer mildly surprised me. I hadn’t thought she’d known them that well.

“I mean, they just didn’t
think
like the rest of us. All this awful
hoarding
. Have you seen how much toilet tissue is in the basement? And hiding things and playing war games and being so suspicious of everyone. And then to complicate everything for Frank by not even leaving
wills
. I just can’t believe they’d be so . . . thoughtless.”