Madeline Mann (29 page)

Our next stop was lunch with Arcelia Perez, who turned out to be a fun conversationalist and a generally neat person. We shared a beer and some sort of chicken stew Perez recommended at a local pub. I told Perez that Jack and I were engaged and asked if she'd be one of my bridesmaids. “I feel so close to you after our near-death experience,” I joked. I was afraid she would turn me down, so I pretended it didn't matter.

As usual, Perez seemed to see through me. She looked amused but also touched. “I would love to, Madeline. I am really happy that you asked me. I've never been a bridesmaid before,” she said. “No sisters. Five brothers, but no sisters.”

We toasted each other, and Jack gave Arcelia a chaste kiss when we parted. “That's for saving my wife,” he told her.

Jack was already calling me his wife, even though I hadn't officially earned that title. I didn't mind, which surprised me more than anything Jack did.

Finally we toured Jamie's new inn, Thatch Cottage, then marched about the grounds. Cal and Noah, clad in little sweatshirts and jeans, ran in euphoric circles in the wide yard. Occasionally one would tackle the other; I was surprised how well little Cal could take Noah down. Cal was not even two feet tall, but he was feisty.

Jamie was still pale and looked thinner, but her face was proud as she led our tour of the quaint rooms and the spacious dining hall, and I knew that she would be happy. I hinted that we'd like to take her out for dinner later, but she groaned.

“Oh, Madeline, Wick took us out for lunch and we're just stuffed! Besides, Linus sends over catered meals on the weekends. Brings them himself when he's in town. They're really spoiling us.”

Within the hour, Linus showed up, again with food, and we all ate samples of Excellence fare while Linus hovered over Jamie and occasionally twirled her children, one on each arm, like helicopter blades. The boys screamed for him to stop; he would do so, and they would immediately reach up their hands to be twirled again.

Jamie finally told us that she had to “do the rooms” of her three paying guests, and she left, promising to return in half an hour.

After watching her go with a fond expression, Linus asked us how we liked the food. Jack and I truthfully told him that we loved it. I made a mental note to ask Linus to be my wedding caterer.

Linus seemed absentminded, though, drumming his fingers on the wooden picnic table where we sat, teeth chattering slightly. Jamie had offered us an interior table, but the view of the grounds was so lovely we'd opted for the chilly outdoors.

“I'll be honest with you,” he said. “I'm having a little trouble in my company right now. I suspect that someone is taking money under the table. But that's neither here nor there,” he concluded, in a sentence I hadn't heard in about twenty years, since my fourth-grade teacher, Miss Fossil, said it.

“You suspect, but you're not sure?” I asked.

“No. The accounts seem right, and yet they don't, if you get my drift.”

I didn't, but I picked up my purse from the patio of the lovely little Thatch Cottage and reached inside for a new business card, which I handed to Linus ever so casually.

“Let me know if you want me to look into it, Linus,” I said.

The amazing thing was that he took me seriously. He read it with a grave expression, verified my home and
Wire
phone numbers, and then tucked it thoughtfully into his pocket.

I felt Jack's smile and turned to bask in it. We clinked our glasses of cider together. Good vibes all around. Soon enough we'd have to go home to our realities: our jobs, our bills, my mother with her clipboard. Today, though, we could just enjoy an autumn day, watching children run in endless circles, breathing the leaf-scented air, warming our hands beneath our denim-clad legs.

I'll always remember that November as the end and the beginning. That crazy week in October was behind me, and best left there; a bright future was before me, including marriage and a career, and some children who would definitely
not
have funny Irish names.

Certainly my “Madman” phase was over. I was sure of it. Almost one hundred percent. Percentages are meaningless, anyway. It's intuition that counts.

Read on for an excerpt from the second
Madeline Mann Mystery by Julia Buckley

Lovely, Dark, and Deep

It was twilight,
the last day of May, when Joanna went back to the fountain. She was breathless, fearful in a way she hadn't been before her visit. She normally prayed at the Mary statue for serenity, for strength, but today she prayed for her family and her friends while her feverish hands tended to her task.

When she heard someone call her name, she jumped, turned, and saw the old nun, Francis, in the doorway, beckoning to her. She could hear the distant sound of a car turning into the long drive. Parishioners had been bringing flowers all day to adorn the fountain, the statue, and she tuned out the sound of the motor as she tried to hear what Francis was saying.

“Joanna,” called the old woman again over the wind.

Joanna, distracted by the task she'd just completed, looked behind her once at the peaceful pond, the fragrant floating lilies, the fish that darted like rapid golden arrows. She turned back and began walking, one, two, three steps, and then the car was there, faster than she expected, a blur in her peripheral vision: the impact and the pain and she was flying, flying, soaring above the pond and looking down at herself, the Joanna who fell to the ground, blood running from her head onto her pristine white habit, her hands together as if in one final supplication to the Holy Mother.

Her spirit floated, watching the old nun push her old pained legs into motion. Even while she died, Joanna felt compassion for the living woman's anguish, evident in her cry for help as she knelt by the body, felt the pulse, kissed the hand. Joanna's spirit cringed at the laughter of the one who drove away, unnoticed and unrepentant, escaping into the spring dusk, a murderer.

In
October I'd dyed my hair blonde on a whim. My mother hadn't been pleased, but I'd noted as the months passed that she seemed to be adapting to the new color, even mentioning it to her friends in a way suggesting that I wasn't, after all, shaming the Mann family with my capricious decision. Finally, in late January, I knew that my mother approved when she recommended that I go to her own salon, where, if I intended to perpetuate the color, at least, she said, I could have it done right.

So there I sat in a chair a week later, having my head pummeled by a hairy Hungarian man named Istvan, who worked at the salon part-time and who told me of his love for watching
Magnum, P.I.
reruns on cable. His heavily accented voice spoke loudly in my ear. “I go to Hawaii myself, someday, I tink,” he told me, his unruly eyebrows floating above me as he palmed my head like a basketball. Istvan was not particularly gentle, but I'm sure not one customer had the courage to tell Miss Angie.

“It must be beautiful,” I murmured.

“What?” Istvan boomed.

“Hawaii. It must be beautiful to visit. All those flowers and such,” I said conversationally.

“Oh, yahh. And Magnum is such good detective. Handsome man, too, hey?” He winked at me, as though I might have a chance with Tom Selleck. Then he squeezed out the moisture in my hair so hard I felt a sudden empathy for all victims of scalpings.

As instructed by my mother, who understood the etiquette of these things, I handed a dollar to Istvan the torturer before staggering over to Miss Angie's chair.

It's true that my mother is kind of a control freak, but I find I can put up with it most of the time. I can't really complain, because when I do, my fiancé, Jack, points out that I am perhaps even more controlling than my mother. It works for both of us, though, us Mann women. My mother is busy helping the new mayor put city hall in order (I had a part in deposing the old, corrupt mayor), and I find that my controlling instincts, my desire to put the universe in an order that I find pleasing—the desire, as I like to call it, to take vibe-restoring action—has been helpful in my role as an investigative reporter. In fact, it was since I'd gone blonde that things really started happening for me: I got engaged, I broke two corruption stories for the paper, and I got a raise from my boss, Bill Thorpe. I even got a call from the
Tribune
offering me a chance to interview for a writing position. For now, though, I was happy to remain at the
Webley Wire
, a paper for which Bill Thorpe and I were determined to earn more and more recognition, and not just in Webley, Illinois.

“Your mom told me what you'd like, hon,” Miss Angie said now, as I settled in. The chair was simulation leather and made embarrassing farty sounds, so I stopped wiggling. Miss Angie tossed her own platinum curls, quite a bold look for a fifty-year-old woman, but she carried it off. “Your mom said something a bit more golden, like the old Hollywood girls.”

I shook my head. “I was thinking more white-blonde, like an ice princess. Like a Nordic queen.”

Miss Angie looked nervous. She shuffled her house slippers on the floor. “Your mom has already paid me,” she said apologetically. That had been the deal. My mom offered to pay if I'd promise to stop dying my own hair. Now, however, I had to dance to her tune. My mother was determined to have a color she liked for the wedding pictures. I was getting married in June.

I sighed. “Do you have some kind of shade chart?” I asked.

“Oh, sure,” Miss Angie said, brightening at this potential way out of the problem. Perhaps there was a compromise in the little booklet with silver rings. She handed it to me and said, “Do you want to look for a while, hon? Because then I'll just run to the back and finish my Lean Cuisine. It'll take five minutes.”

I agreed maybe this would be a good idea. “Sure. And if I need to call my mom?” I asked.

“Right there on the counter, hon. You might want to look at Tropical Gold. Or maybe Blonde Ice,” she said, trying not to take sides.

I watched Angie walk away and disappear behind swinging doors. As my eyes traveled back, I noted a woman getting a haircut from Darlene, another of the stylists at Hair You Go salon. The woman was getting a short, no-nonsense cut, and her eyes seemed to be looking not at the mirror in front of her, but deep into her own thoughts. Her face was looking more and more familiar. Webley is such a small town that I'm always seeing people I think I should recognize. After a while I learned to just let it go. It would either come to me or it wouldn't.

I looked back at the blonde heads in the flipbook. The models pursed their lips at me disdainfully, as if the colors they were wearing were too glamorous for my lowly noggin.

Finally I selected one that seemed a good compromise. It was called Blonde Minx. I was smiling at the thought of telling Jack this name when Angie returned to me and gave the color her blessing. “I'll get things ready, hon,” she told me.

“Angie, who is that woman?” I asked.

“What woman?” Angie asked, wide-eyed.

“Darlene's. In the chair across,” I said, inclining my head toward the still-preoccupied occupant.

“That's Moira, hon. Sister Moira, I should say. From St. Roselle.”

My mouth opened, then closed again. Sister Moira MacShane. I hadn't recognized her out of her habit. She'd taught me English not once, but twice, when I was a freshman and a junior. She'd been one of my favorite teachers at St. Roselle High School.

“So … nuns get their hair done?” I asked.

Angie laughed. “Why, sure, now that they get to show their hair. She's got some kind of important meeting today, wants to look nice. Let me just get the colors together, hon, and I'll be right back,” she said, scuffing toward the back room.

Darlene was taking off the smock and saying, “Moira, dear, I think you're done, so you can pay Lisa on your way out.”

“Oh—thank you,” said my old teacher distractedly, standing and brushing clippings from her blue pantsuit. She got up and I did too, meeting up with her at the front counter, where a girl with purple hair stood waiting for Sister Moira's money.

“Sister Moira!” I said.

She recognized
me
right away, even though I was no longer a teen and had changed my hair color. “Why, Madeline! Would you believe I've been thinking about you lately? And now here you are, obviously a sign from God!”

I had never been called a sign from God; I was momentarily speechless.

“You look just lovely, dear, and I read about your engagement in the
Wire
—congratulations!”

“Thank you, Sister.”

“And how is Gerhard? And Fritz?” Her voice trembled slightly on the second name. My brother Fritz was a nightmare to teachers, even as a memory.

“Fritz is fine,” I told her now. “He works at Barnes and Noble, but his dream is to make it big with his band.” I purposely didn't mention the name of Fritz's group, the Grinning Bishops.

Sister Moira smiled. “Well, God bless him,” she said. “You Mann children were always so talented. Look how far your good writing has taken you, and Gerhard—I imagine he has a job in the math field?”

Gerhard had always won the high school math contests. “He works for a computer company. He hopes to open his own someday,” I said. I noted that she seemed a bit restless, as though she might have an appointment elsewhere, and yet she continued to ask me questions about my family. Finally I changed the subject.

“I didn't recognize you at first,” I admitted. “You look different—with hair.” I hadn't meant it to sound as rude as it did; luckily she laughed.

“Oh, yes, I'm getting vain in my old age. What do you think?” she asked, fluffing her short gray cut.

“I like it,” I said truthfully. What I had never realized was that Sister Moira was an attractive woman. She had lovely skin, and her blue eyes were framed by naturally dark lashes and only a few more lines than when I'd known her as a high school girl.

“Madeline,” she said thoughtfully as she paid her bill. “I really have been thinking of you. I read your pieces, you see, in the
Wire
. All the work you did about exposing the mayor's behavior and catching Logan Lanford's killer.”