Twanged (17 page)

P
earl, I can’t believe I finished the damn thing.” Ernie was sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee. He’d just eaten breakfast, even though it was past noon. After Chappy Tinka had skedaddled out of his house yesterday, Ernie had worked nonstop, staying up until four o’clock in the morning putting the final scratches on the fiddle.

“It turned out so nice, Ernie,” Pearl said as she cleaned out the refrigerator in preparation for their trip. She opened a jar of mayonnaise and sniffed. Deciding with a wrinkle of her nose that it wouldn’t be any good by the time they got back, she chucked the jar in the garbage by her side. It landed with a thud.

“Nice, schmice. It’ll have to do.”

“Whatever you say, I’m proud of you.”
Clunk
went an old hunk of cheese.

“Are you throwing everything out?” Ernie asked.

“Only what might stink or decide to grow mold before we get back.”

Ernie stood up. Now that his task was completed, he felt satisfied but itchy. He’d been working on that fiddle day and night for a week. Instead of feeling worn-out, he was restless. Like he wanted to get away. Get out and see something new. Do things. He’d been cooped up for only a week, but dealing with Chappy Tinka made it feel like an eternity. “Are we all packed?” he asked Pearl.

“I’ve been packing and unpacking for days. There are a few more things to stick in the suitcases . . . and maybe a few others to take out.”

Ernie stared out the window at the greenhouse. “Pearl, let’s get out of here. Let’s leave today,” he blurted.

Pearl looked up from the produce drawer, where she had discovered a lime, now rotten, that she’d been searching for last week when her neighbor Bea had stopped by for a cocktail. Her mouth dropped open. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“But. . .”

“No buts,” he said, walking over to his wife. Tenderly he patted the soft skin on Pearl’s face.

Pearl smiled. “Massaging my wrinkles?”

“I love your wrinkles. And I’ve been ignoring you all week. Why don’t we throw our bags in the car and go into New York City?”

Pearl’s eyes widened. “New York City?”

“Yeah, New York City. We’ll get a room at the Plaza, buh buh buh, go out to dinner, buh buh buh, live it up for a couple of days, maybe go to a show, then we head to Pennsylvania.”

“Are you feeling all right, Ernie?” Pearl asked suspiciously. Suddenly she got very frightened and her voice rose as she spoke. “Did the doctor tell you something was wrong at your checkup, and you’ve been keeping it from me? Did that cough you had turn out to be—”

“Oy! Pearl!” Ernie interrupted. “No! Can’t I just do something nice?”

“It’s a little unusual, that’s all.”

“Thank you very much.”

Pearl laughed. “I’d love to go. But Ernie, New York City is so expensive! We made a budget for the trip.”

“Forget the budget,” Ernie said. “This is special. Tinka is paying me double, remember? We’ve got to live a little.” He leaned down and gave her a kiss. “Why should I work like a dog if I can’t enjoy the money?”

“Oh, Ernie! This is so exciting!” Pearl puckered up and kissed him back. “We haven’t done anything this spur-of-the-moment since 1965!”

“What did we do in 1965?”

“We drove in to the World’s Fair in Queens with no advance planning.”

“Oh yeah.”

Pearl looked around as if deciding what to do next. “I’ll call Bea next door and tell her we’re leaving today. . . .” All of a sudden a thought struck her. “Ernie, what about the fiddle? Isn’t Tinka coming later this week to pick it up?”

“We’ll surprise him and drop it off at his house on our way out.”

“You know where he lives?”

“His address was on the check.”

“He’s getting it early and special-delivered!” Pearl said with glee. “Boy, will he be surprised!”

29

I
can’t believe I missed the excitement,” Kit moaned as Brigid and Regan filled her in on all the details. They were sitting on the beach together in low lawn chairs, Brigid and Regan in their wet bathing suits. After everything that had happened, Brigid had wanted to go for a swim in the ocean.

“I want to let the water wash over me, Regan,” she’d said. “I need to clear my head.”

Pammy and the guys were up in the guest house making sandwiches for lunch.

Kit had been out with Angela, doing food shopping. When she got back and knocked on the guesthouse door, Pammy had told her what happened and pointed to Brigid and Regan out in the water.

Kit had coming running down and made them get out of the water and talk to her. “It figures that I’m in the grocery store when something like that happens. If I’d been here . . .”

“Kit!” Regan said. “We’re just lucky the whole thing wasn’t more serious.”

“I suppose,” Kit grumbled, her toes playing with the sand. “I can’t believe it about the doll, too.”

The three of them—one blond insurance saleswoman, one brunette private investigator, and one redheaded country singer—sat in silence for a few moments, staring out at the water, looking for all the world like any three friends in the Hamptons simply enjoying a sunny day at the beach. But in all likelihood very few conversations among the groups of women clustered in little groups up and down the miles and miles of shoreline vaguely resembled what these three were talking about.

“Brigid,” Regan said, breaking the silence, “about the fiddle . . . I want to make sure nothing happens to it. What do you say I bring it over to my parents’ house and leave it there for the next few days?”

For a moment, Brigid looked startled.

“Only if you want,” Regan said, looking up at the guest house. “But there’s no alarm system here for us to turn on when we go out. And we’re all in and out to the beach, so the doors aren’t always locked. Someone could easily slip into our place.”

Brigid peered up at their living quarters. It looked peaceful and pretty and Currier and Ives-ish with its white exterior and black shutters, shining in the sunlight, sitting above the beach against the backdrop of a brilliant blue sky. A postcard-perfect image that only a couple of hours ago had been the scene of a foiled crime.

“What about asking Chappy to hold on to it?” Kit asked. “In all those rooms of his house, there must be a safe or someplace to hide it.”

Regan shook her head. “There are so many people coming and going in that place. I’d rather get it away from here. You can be sure the word is going to spread around town about what happened. It might give somebody else ideas.”

“Okay, Regan,” Brigid said finally. “I guess it’ll be a relief not to have to worry about it for a few days. Whoever said that possessions possess certainly had it right.”

Regan nodded. “I think it will give us a little peace of mind. I’ll go get it from my parents’ place on Thursday or Friday before the concert. When you leave the Hamptons, maybe some of this hype will have died down.”

“I hope you’re right,” Brigid said. “But you realize, don’t you, that on the other side of this ocean, someone tried to steal what they thought was the same fiddle from Malachy?”

“Yes,” Regan said.

“And they walked right into his house when he was sleeping and took it off his lap?”

“I know.”

“You’d better bring it over to your parents’ this minute!”

Kit stood up. “How about dinner at my place tonight? Angela and I bought the makings of pasta.”

“I love pasta,” Brigid said. “That sounds great!”

“You’re cooking?” Regan asked Kit in mock disbelief.

“Well, Angela is in charge,” Kit admitted. “I’m not a natural cook, but I can follow directions.”

“Who’s going to be there?” Regan asked.

“Angela and Garrett definitely. We’ll see who else is around. Some of the others had to return to the City to work and are coming back out on Thursday for the weekend. Do you think the guys and Pammy would like to come?”

Brigid stood up. “We can ask them.”

“Brigid,” Regan said, “I want to run over to the college about the doll and then go bring the fiddle to my mother. But I want to make sure I’m not leaving you alone.”

“Regan, I’ll be fine,” Brigid replied with conviction. “The others are here. I’d like to do some reading. I suppose I should call my mother. . . . I don’t want her hearing about this from anybody else. She’s in Ireland, but bad news always travels fast.”

Regan thought again of Brigid’s mother, Eileen. “Can you believe that’s my kid?” she’d asked the group around her laughingly after Brigid had sung her hit song at the crowded party. Her face had been glowing with pride.

“I’m sure it will be easier for her to hear it from you,” Regan said. “It’s less upsetting. Just start the conversation with ‘Mom, everything is fine but. . .’”

“But someone sent me a beheaded doll that looks like me. And another nut called me at a radio station. Other than that, things are just fine.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” Regan decided.

“Go! The guys are up at the house. Everybody’s on their toes.”

“Lock yourself in your room!” Regan said. “I’m not kidding!”

“Okay, okay!”

“Okay.” Regan nodded. “Kit, can I borrow your car again?”

“Angela took it. She said something about going to visit a friend.”

Regan frowned.

“Regan,” Brigid said, “take the station wagon. Chappy left it for all of us to use.”

“Are you sure?”

“Take it.”

“Okay. Kit, can I pick up anything for tonight?”

“There’s a fruit and vegetable stand right around the corner. We were going to stop but it was really busy. If you can pick up some strawberries . . .”

Regan’s eyes twinkled. “Kit, don’t tell me you’re going to make your famous strawberry shortcake.”

“I just might,” Kit said as she folded up her chair.

“Brigid, I’ve got to tell you,” Regan commented with a smile, “tonight you’re in for a real treat.”

30

I
can’t believe she wanted a security guard around here,” Bettina said for the twenty-fifth time since she and Chappy had walked back over to their house.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” Chappy said as they ate lunch together in the dining room. “As mother would say, it’s so uncivilized.”

Constance had served them a meal consisting of leftover chicken from the party on Saturday night, sliced and served on toast points. Chappy was drinking soda. Bettina was sipping a special herbal tea that Peace Man had suggested to soothe the spirits.

“Peace Man would see it as the presence of negative forces in our lives,” Bettina declared.

“I think Regan Reilly was just erring on the side of caution,” Chappy said as he sipped his soda, the bubbles tickling his nose.

The dining room door swung open. Clad in a pair of overalls with a bandanna tied around her neck, Constance appeared, with the same bored expression she’d worn since her first day of work at the Chappy Compound, when the castle had finally been ready for habitation.

“Ned Alingham, the feng shui specialist, is on the phone, Mr. Tinka,” she said.

“Very well, very well!” Chappy cried in that resigned voice busy people use when they’re being bothered. “Give me the cordless.”

“Very well,” Constance echoed, turning her back on them and whisking herself through the door as it swung back inward toward the kitchen. She returned a moment later and handed the phone to her employer.

“Chappy Tinka,” Chappy declared as he held the phone up to his ear. “Huh . . . You heard about it already? . . . Where? . . . Oh my goodness . . . You want to what? I’m eating my lunch right now. I can’t think about it at the moment. Goodbye!” Irritably, Chappy pressed the
OFF
button on the phone.

“He gets on my nerves,” Bettina confided as she bit into a celery stalk. “What did he want?”

“He heard about the attempted robbery.”

“Where?”

“That country music radio station. They must have a bug down at police headquarters.”

“Oh my goodness.” Bettina leaned down and fed Tootsie a piece of chicken. “So why did he call?”

“He said he’d never been over there in the guest house, and maybe the furniture arrangement was unlucky. He wanted to take a look.”

Bettina groaned and signed.

Chappy looked at her. “But I thought you believed in feng shui.”

“I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him.”

The doorbell rang. “This place is a madhouse!” Chappy cried. “Will I ever get a minute’s peace?”

Bettina shrugged.

Chappy threw down his napkin and yelled, “I’ll get it!”

He sauntered through the living room with a purposeful stride and stopped at the front door, where he checked his reflection in the hall mirror before opening it. He was surprised to discover Regan Reilly standing there.

“Regan, hello hello,” he said. “Yes, hello.”

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” she replied.

“Not at all! Come in. Come in.”

“Just for a moment,” Regan said as she stepped inside.

“Bettina,” Chappy called. “Look who’s here! Regan Reilly!” he announced, as though naming an old friend they hadn’t seen for years.

“Yeah, hi,” Bettina called.

Chappy led Regan into the dining room.

“I just want to make this quick,” Regan said. Boy, is this a long table, she thought. Bettina at one end and Chappy at the other. It must be tough to pass the salt. “As you know by now, I’m a private detective.”

“Yes . . . yes,” Chappy mumbled. “I heard it mentioned when you were talking to the police.”

Bettina nodded and lifted her dog onto her lap. “Uh-huh.”

Suddenly the door from the kitchen swung open again, and this time Duke appeared. “Chappy,” he said, and then he stopped in his tracks. “Hi, Regan.”

“Hi, Duke.”

“What do you want?” Chappy demanded.

Duke pulled some money and a receipt out of his pocket. “Chappy, I just wanted to give you the receipt for the car wash.” He turned to Regan as he laid a green coupon down next to Chappy’s plate. “If you save four coupons, you get the fifth wash for free.”

“THANK YOU!”
Chappy growled.

“You’re welcome,” Duke declared with a big smile. “A couple weeks ago Chappy got mad at me because I lost the receipt,” he said to Regan.