Read to Death (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

“When Frank called Owen and told him that I better bring a criminal lawyer with me to the state attorney, I thought that meant the questioning would be longer, and a whole lot meaner. But it wasn't. It wasn't like that at all.”

I waited.

“The lawyer, Mr. Dodson, read a bunch of questions to me. The same questions that I'd already answered over and over again at the sheriff's office. He read a question. I gave an answer. When he reached the end of the list, he said I was free to go.”

“And that was it?”

“Yep, that was it. The only thing different was that Georgette spoke into the recorder at the beginning and said that for the record I was there of my own free will and could leave at any time, and she made Mr. Dodson say that was true.”

“Owen couldn't do that?”

“I'm sure he could. In the car coming home Georgette said that the process was standard and this may only be the first step. Owen said that Frank might have expected the state attorney to push harder or something. Maybe Frank Anthony was just being cautious on my behalf when he suggested that I get a criminal lawyer.”

That didn't sound like Lieutenant
Law & Order
to me, but as long as Bridgy had been treated well and didn't come home crying, I was content.

The patio door slid open, and Emelia sat on the edge of Bridgy's chaise lounge. “Your father sends kisses and more money if you need it. Legal fees and all that.”

I crept out to give them some quality mother-and-daughter time. I could hear my mother singing softly in my bedroom. It sounded like a Beatles tune. “All You Need Is Love” or “Here Comes the Sun,” something from the era right before the group became full-fledged hippies.

I knocked on the door. Sage was dressed in either pajamas that looked like shorts and a tank top or shorts and a tank top that looked like pajamas.

“Come in, my goldenrod.” She pointed to a bed pillow on the floor. “I'm just about to meditate. Join me. Please.” And she dropped another pillow. “Would you like me to chant aloud?”

I gave her a quick hug. “No, thank you. I have really gotten used to mental visual meditation. I find it peaceful. I see the horizon over the Gulf.”

We sat on our pillows, each finding a comfortable position. Sage squeezed my hand and whispered, “Listen to the voice within yourself.” The same thing she had been saying to me since my first meditation when I was a very little girl.

I closed my eyes and was nearly focused on the horizon when the voice within me spoke. It said, O
scar has a boat somewhere on Pine Island. Could it contain a clue to Oscar's murder?

*   *   *

The next morning as soon as the breakfast rush was over, I found Skully hammering away in the outbuilding he'd been repairing on Pastor John's church property. When there was a break in the pounding, I called out from the doorway. He pulled off the hospital mask that covered his mouth and ushered me outside.

“Too much dust in the air. I been doing a bit of sawing.”

Seeing how busy he was, I asked if he could find time to introduce my mother to some of Florida's edible plants.

“Sure thing, Little Miss, I'm happy to help. Driving Miguel crazy, is she?” Perceptive as always, Skully understood the problem. “Happens I have a friend, Hector Clifford, lives down island and has a nice little herb garden filled with all sorts of treats. Your mom might like to visit. I could bring Bridgy's mom, too.”

I thought it best to explain that the moms wouldn't be great at riding in Skully's canoe, so it would probably be best if I picked up Skully and drove all three to Mr. Clifford's house.

“Smart. When I'm done here this afternoon, I'll check in with Hector to see if tomorrow works. What's a good time?”

“Between ten and eleven I should be able to get away to drive you there.”

“Sassy, Sassy Cabot. Wait right there.” The voice sent
shivers down my spine. Jocelyn Kendall was marching across the yard.

“Better she's looking for you than for me, Little Miss.” Skully gave me a wink and a nod. Then he headed back inside the building, and the hammering recommenced. Whether slamming the hammer was necessary or it was Skully's method of warding off Jocelyn, I had no idea. I only knew I was trapped like a rat.

Jocelyn massaged her temples. “First the sawing, now the hammering. I tell you, it gives me a headache. John says it would be more of a headache if the building fell down. I suppose he's right. Still, it is only an old storage shed. Who would miss it? Of course, as John keeps reminding me, it is parish property.”

As she blathered on, I moved closer and closer to the Heap-a-Jeep. But we were apparently attached at the hip by some invisible string, and she stayed by my side.

I reached for the driver's door as unobtrusively as I could, but it didn't get by Jocelyn. She switched topics instantly. “We did not finish our conversation about the language in that book.” She stopped and looked at me expectantly.

“You mean the f-bomb in
Julie and Julia
?”

“I do indeed. And if you think back, we also had to tolerate a mature woman having a ‘relationship' with a younger man.”

Now she was talking about the Anna Quindlen book.

“I have to insist that you carefully screen the reading material for the clubs. You have an obligation—”

“Screen?” I'd had about enough of her nonsense. Rather than pull every overbleached straw-textured hair from her head in huge fistfuls, I decided to put her in her place,
maybe not on everything, maybe not forever, but definitely here and now on reading choices for the book clubs. “You mean censor, am I right? You want me to read a book
before
a club chooses it, and then you want me to
decide
if the book is wholesome enough for us to read.”

She should have caught on when I said the word “censor,” but she didn't. “Exactly. If you do your job effectively, it will save no amount of trouble.”

“I won't even consider it.” I pulled the jeep door open and counted to ten, waiting for her to tell me that she would have to quit the book clubs. Instead, she stood on the lawn with her mouth open. I closed my door and drove away.

When I got back to the café, things were quiet. Judge Harcroft was still at Dashiell Hammett, the
Fort Myers Beach News
spread out in front of him. Two other tables were occupied, but no one seemed to need attention. Bridgy was cleaning the unoccupied tables. When she saw me, she went to the kitchen and signaled me to follow.

“Ryan called. He and Lieutenant Anthony are coming in later to interview you and Miguel.”

“What about?”

“Oscar, silly. What else? Oh, I hear something in the dining room.” Bridgy went through the kitchen door, and I heard her ask Judge Harcroft if he enjoyed his breakfast. He answered with his usual, “I must
Dash
.”

I told Miguel that Skully had a friend with a garden that should enchant Sage, and he was willing to take the moms there tomorrow. “It's on the south end of the island. I offered to drive; I couldn't imagine the moms paddling along in Skully's canoe.”

Miguel and I were laughing at that vision when Bridgy
stuck her head through the kitchen door and said that we had new customers. The early lunch rush had begun.

Angeline Drefke and Sonja Ferraro came in, opted for the Robert Frost table and unloaded their totes and packages on an empty chair. When I brought their menus, I smiled in the direction of the packages. “Getting some last-minute shopping done, are we?”

Sonja said, “We're both going home soon. Can't go home without goodies.”

“I want to take home your delicious buttermilk pie. I wish you'd open a mail-order business so I could eat it all year long.” Angeline rubbed her stomach and laughed. “Maybe better I don't.”

“Don't let Ophie hear you give me credit for the buttermilk pie. She shared her special recipe with Miguel, but even Bridgy doesn't know how to make it, and Ophie is her aunt.”

“Speaking of Bridgy . . .” Sonja looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “How is she? I mean, even we had to go in to the sheriff's office this morning for a second interview. She must be on her fourth or fifth by now. Poor girl. As if she could harm a flea.”

Angeline agreed. “Bridgy is too sweet to kill anyone. And Fort Myers Beach is too charming a place for a murder. I don't get it. If Oscar had been killed in Atlantic City, well, that I could understand. Remember I told you my first husband was a gambler? There was a rough crowd in Atlantic City back in the day. That was Oscar's day as well—you never know what comes back to haunt you.”

Before they started reading their menus and asking about the day's specials, I asked how well they knew Tammy Rushing.

Angeline shrugged. “Barely. We saw her at book club, of course. And we were in the same sewing group at the community center.”

“Don't forget Mexican Train Dominoes. We joined a group, and Tammy and Margo were part of the rotation. You know, we had different opponents every week. Our group was red, teams one through six. They were a blue team. Or was it green?” Sonja was uncertain.

“Margo Wellington?”

“Oh yes. Margo and Tammy were besties. They did everything together. It was like, well, if I couldn't get to a game or a class or a meeting, Angeline would still go, wouldn't you?”

Angeline nodded.

“And if she couldn't make it, I'd go without her. But those two never went anywhere alone. You saw both of them or neither of them. When did you ever see one of them at a book club meeting without the other?” Sonja challenged me.

I realized she was right. I never had seen Margo without Tammy or vice versa.

I took their orders and brought them glasses of sweet tea.

Bridgy and I were both in the kitchen when I made the mistake of repeating the conversation I had with Sonja and Angeline. When I mentioned the sewing club, she got excited. “Sewing club. Sewing scissors. That's it. Tammy Rushing killed Oscar. Stabbed him with her sewing scissors and then fled.”

“Really, Bridgy? We need hard evidence. You can't jump to conclusions like that.”

At the work counter, Miguel laughed. “Sassy, aren't you like the pot who calls the kettle black?” And he went back to chopping carrots, satisfied that he had ended our argument.

We had a long, teary good-bye with Angeline and Sonja.
They even insisted that Miguel come out of the kitchen for hugs. I had to beg, but he did succumb.

They were out the door less than three minutes when Sonja came back, slightly out of breath. She handed me a plastic bag, and by the heft of it, it held a hardcover book.

“Give this to Margo when you see her. She lent me her copy of
The Florida Life of Thomas Edison,
but with all the chaos and confusion I forgot to return it. Got to go. Angeline's waiting at the curb.” She gave me a last quick hug.

I put the package under the counter and promptly forgot about it when Deputy Ryan Mantoni and Lieutenant Frank Anthony, both ramrod straight in their dark green uniforms, walked through the door.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I tried to pretend that I wasn't worried. “I understand you want to talk to me and to Miguel. Would you like a cup of coffee first? Or perhaps a piece of pie?”

When Frank shook his head and said they didn't have time, Ryan looked disappointed. I know he never met a piece of pie that didn't make him happy.

Frank looked at the kitchen door. “We won't interrupt your workday for long, but we need to go over your statement and Miguel's. Is he in the kitchen?”

Knowing how Miguel hated to have anyone in his kitchen, I hesitated. “He is, but could you use the bench outside to talk to us? The kitchen gets busy . . .”

Frank looked around at the dining room, which was more than half empty. I could see the decision milling around in his brain.

“Sure. See if Miguel has time for us now.”

As if Miguel had a choice.

I went into the kitchen and told Miguel he was up at bat. He gave me strict instructions not to touch the pot of broth simmering on the back of the stove. He spread paper towels over the cutting board covered with bell peppers, some already chopped, some waiting for the knife. “Don't touch. I'll finish afterward.” And he went off to speak with the deputies.

I puttered around the dining room, keeping one eye out the window. Miguel, Frank and Ryan were standing in a kind of football huddle formation, heads leaning toward one another as if they didn't want to be overheard by passersby.

I was refilling sweet tea glasses for the couple sitting at Robert Louis Stevenson when Miguel came back inside. He was whistling some catchy tune I didn't quite recognize. When I looked at him, he bobbed his head toward the door and the deputies waiting outside. I served the sweet tea and went out to meet my fate.

Frank was standing directly opposite the bench where customers sat if they had to wait for a table. This time of day it was empty. He waved toward the bench. “Have a seat.”

“Why? You let Miguel stand.” Even as I said it, I knew I sounded like a pouty six-year-old. Ryan looked up to heaven, but Frank took it in stride. “Stand if you like.” And he folded his arms in a way that showed off his well-shaped biceps.

I wasn't about to let his muscles distract me. “How can I help you, Lieutenant? I have a business to run.” Now I
sounded like a cranky old lady. Could I never get my tone right when I talked to this man?

Ever polite, he told me we were merely reviewing my previous statements about the day Oscar was killed. I did beautifully with all the lead-up questions. Where had we gone? What time did we get back? Did everyone enter the café at the same time? I was patting myself on the back when he got to the tough questions.

“So when you heard Bridgy call for help, you ran out to find her, is that correct?”

“It was Ophie who heard Bridgy calling for help. Ophie called me, and I ran out to find Bridgy.”

“And when you found her?”

I closed my eyes, unwilling to recall the scene. Haltingly, I told him about finding Bridgy with Oscar's body, and how upset she was.

“And what did she say?”

“That she was sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes. Sorry. Like she was sorry he was dead, sorry she couldn't save him. Sorry.”

He glanced at the narrow black leather-bound notebook in his hand. “In your last statement you quoted Bridgy as saying, ‘He's dead. I'm so sorry.' Is that still your recollection?”

Really? He's going to push me about Bridgy? I'd had enough. I turned to the front door. “Probably. Are we done?”

“No, we are not done. ‘Probably' isn't an answer. Do you recall Bridgy saying, ‘He's dead. I'm so sorry'?”

I sighed. “Yes. But she meant . . .”

“She told us what she meant. Thank you. That will be
all.” And he closed his notebook with a slap of pages hitting against each other.

He may as well have shouted, “Dismissed.”

But I was not a woman to be set aside so easily. “I have a question. Have you found Tammy Rushing or Lolly the Sailor?”

His eyes shot darts at mine, but I held steady.

“You know better. I can't discuss an ongoing case. Besides . . .”

I waited.

“I'm surprised
you
haven't found them already.”

Ryan, standing just over Frank's left shoulder, was frantically pulling his hand across the space in front of his neck signaling me to stop. No such luck.

“Well, what clues do you have? What did you find in Oscar's house or his locker at work?” I demanded as if I was
his
boss, afraid to be chewed out by
my
boss because we didn't gather enough information.

The lieutenant gave me a cold, hard stare, did an about-face and walked off to his green and white department car.

I was surprised that Ryan glared at me, too. “Anybody ever tell you about getting more flies with honey . . . ?” And he followed behind Frank, marching in lockstep without so much as a good-bye.

A voice off to my left asked, “What did you say to annoy those handsome young men? I was on the other side of the parking lot, and I could see the steam rising. And not the good kind of steam, the kind a well-mannered lady could instill without being too obvious.”

“I just asked a question, and Frank got all huffy, which bothered Ryan no end.”

“Can't y'all show one little bitty bit of sweetness to that handsome lieutenant?”

Ophie always put her duty as teacher of womanly wiles ahead of all else, but she switched right back to rebuking me. “I swear I'll be in my grave long before I see you married.”

Ugh. Sometimes it was easier to talk to Lieutenant Starch-In-His-Drawers than Ophie.

Bridgy blanched when she saw Ophie walk into the café with me. That's when I remembered the moms were coming to meet us so we could take them to an art show over on Matlacha. If the moms showed up in the next few minutes, we might well have another O-phel-ia/ E-mel-ia storm in the making.

Oblivious to Bridgy's reaction, Ophie headed to the kitchen. “I have some company coming over to play Bunco tonight, and I was wondering if you had a spare pie around somewhere. Dessert and tea should do them.”

Bridgy's face turned to alarm. “Bunco? Isn't that like a swindling scheme? Something that could land you in jail?” Bridgy gave an involuntary shudder at the thought.

“Y'all are just being silly. Bunco is a table game. Sure, we use dice, but it's legal as sunshine. Best played with twelve people. I learned it down at the community center and thought I'd have a Bunco party. Now about that pie.”

Definitely relieved that the invitation to join us at Matlacha wouldn't have to be issued, Bridgy followed Ophie into the kitchen.

I began the daily cleanup then decided to dust the bookshelves before I washed the tables and cleaned the floor. I loved the smell of brand-new books, spines never cracked. Shelf by shelf, I ran the dust cloth along the tops of the books and down the spines. Then I switched to a
different cloth to do the dividers and shelves. I was only partway done when the front door opened and the moms came in laughing about some story Emelia was telling.

The kitchen door opened, and out came Ophie, pie in hand.

Still laughing, Sage said, “Ophie, Emelia was just telling me about the time you two skipped school and went to Coney Island to watch some teams practice for a major bicycle race on the boardwalk because you had a crush on a dreamy cyclist from the neighborhood.”

Ophie broke out into a grin. “Emy had a hole in her pocket and lost our money and our subway tokens. We had to borrow a dime from a nice old lady and call home. Dad came to get us. He said Mom was too mad to drive. I don't remember the punishment, but I do remember we tiptoed around Mom for a good long while.”

As if she was talking to anyone but Ophie, Emelia chortled. “We got one of Mom's jumbo punishment packages.”

Ophie set the box holding her pie down on the counter and put her hand on her sister's shoulder. “Oh yes, she gave us the old the double H. Extra homework. Extra housework.”

“And when she heard you begging me to trade hosing out the trash cans for scrubbing the work sink in the basement because you didn't want to ruin your nails, she gave you work sink duty for the next month.”

Ophie was wiping happy tears from her eyes. “I guess she knew who the real troublemaker was.”

Emelia shook her head. “No matter where you led, I always followed.”

We were all still laughing when Emelia said, “Until you left.”

The room fell silent.

Ophie looked like she'd been slapped. “We both left. You went to Albertus Magnus. I went to Belmont Abbey. It was college.”

“The difference, Ophelia, is I came home again.”

“So did I.” Ophie placed her hands on her hips and thrust her chin defiantly in the air.

“Barely. Graduated in June, married in October and off to Macon, Georgia, without so much as a fare-thee-well.”

“Emy, Shane McLennon and I were engaged for nearly two years. You helped me plan the wedding. You were my maid of honor. What is this about?”

“Don't ‘Emy' me. You know what this is about. We did everything together. Our entire lives. That's why Dad thought it would be a good idea for us to go to different colleges. ‘Time for the Brice babes to shore up their independence,' he used to say. Not sure he expected you to be so independent that you'd never come home again.”

Ophie's face turned pasty. Suddenly, she had jowls I'd never noticed. “All these years? That's what's been stuck in your craw all these years? And here I thought after we had those college years apart, you realized that you didn't like me very much. The only time you ever came to visit was when Shane died. Even then . . .”

“Even then you wouldn't come home.” Now Emelia had assumed the family hands-on-hips pose. I feared the worst.

Just then the kitchen door swung open and Miguel set a large tray covered with bowls of ice cream—some chocolate, some vanilla—along with a plate of Robert Frost Apple and Blueberry Tartlets on the counter. “
Señoras
, when the
chicas
”
—
he pointed to Bridgy and me—“have
a tiff, a big bowl of ice cream generally makes them more, ah, reasonable. Perhaps if you nibble a bit, you will become more reasonable as well.”

He smiled all around, said “
Mañana
” and headed for home. Of course he rang the ship's bell outside the front door, startling Emelia and Sage. It was just the distraction we needed to get everyone into seats at the Emily Dickinson table. Bridgy and I placed bowls of ice cream and the platter of pastries on the table and passed around spoons. No one touched them.

Bridgy and I sat and began eating our ice cream, telling each other how delicious it was. Sage caught on, picked up a spoon and asked that a little vanilla be added to her chocolate. That gave me the opening I needed.

“Emelia? Ophie? Would you like to mix flavors in your bowls?” I noticed they both had vanilla, so I grabbed an extra dish of chocolate and stood between their seats, ready to serve.

Ophie gave in first. “Emy doesn't really like vanilla. Why don't you give her all the chocolate.”

Emelia nodded at her sister. “Why thank you for remembering.” And she held out her bowl for me to make the switch.

Bridgy and I exchanged looks. While it was hardly an official peace accord, we both could see the sisters softening. I wasn't brave, but Bridgy took a chance.

“Ophie, we're going to the art show on Matlacha. Would you like to come?”

Emelia stiffened, and I feared we had gone too far too fast.