Lye in Wait (31 page)

"The best way for his mother to keep him away from Cadyville
would have been to tell him how great it was."

Meghan laughed. "Right. She might as well have bought him a
plane ticket and a map for all her insistence that he stay away."

"When you were married, did he ever go visit his mother in
California? Or suggest that you all go?"

"Never. I only met her one time, when we drove down the coast
before we were married."
"

"She treats him like crap," I said. "Or she did the other night."

I noticed that. And he takes it. No wonder he wanted to live
someplace she wouldn't want to visit."

Debby wasn't home when I called, but she had an answering
machine, and I left a message about Walter's things. I went downstairs, put molds for the lotion bars in the dishwasher to sterilize,
and gathered the ingredients for the next day. I had just finished
rubbing arnica oil into my bruises again and putting on my pajamas, when she called me back.

"Yes, I want anything you have of Walter's. When can I come
over?"

"I'm making an early night of it," I said. "Can you come over in
the morning?"

"Um, not until about eleven. Is that okay?"

"Sure. Come around to the back door. I'll see you then."

Meghan had taken off for her infant massage class, so Erin and
I flopped on the sofa together to read. Erin seemed restless, which
at first I put down to too much excitement. But she didn't settle
down, and she had a peculiar look on her face. Finally, I put my
book down.

"What's up?"

"I feel kind of funny," she said.

"Sick funny?" I put my hand on her forehead. Felt a little hot.

"I don't know."

I went into the bathroom and hunted up a thermometer. She
had a temperature of one hundred point two. Not too bad, but she
was coming down with something. I gave her some Tylenol and
bundled her into bed. She was asleep by the time I went to bed at
nine.

I was still reading Margery Allingham when I heard the front
door open downstairs. Brodie didn't bark, so I knew it was Meghan,
and minutes later she stood in my doorway saying good night.

"Erin's got a fever," I said, and filled her in.

"Poor kid," she said. "The stress of the past week has probably
weakened her immune system. I'll keep her home tomorrow. Can
you watch her after two?"

"Sure. How'd the class go?"

"It went well. Eight couples showed up. Three heard about me
through word of mouth."

"The best advertising. Oh, hey, I forgot to tell you. Ann over at
Caladia Acres asked me to tell you that you `got the massage gig.'
And something about the board needing to approve the classes
you wanted to offer the staff?"

Meghan looked pleased. "Oh, good. I was hoping they'd let me
work on the residents."

"So, you're going to be around tomorrow morning?"

"Uh huh. I have two clients in the early afternoon, but I'm open
in the morning. Why?"

"Debby Silverman's coming over around eleven." And I related
what Ambrose had told me about Debby's manic-depression and
past violence.

Meghan looked unhappy. "That poor woman. No wonder her
brother's so anxious about her. But I'm surprised Ambrose told
you her diagnosis. He must really be worried about you."

"I think he was more worried about her criminal record. But
frankly, I'm more concerned about Grace."

"So am L"

I was out by ten. And awake again at midnight. After listening to
the quiet and staring at the ceiling in the dark for almost an hour, I
got up and padded downstairs. I thought I'd seen some melatonin
in the kitchen cupboard, and if I had to, I'd suffer through a cup
of valerian tea, even though the stuff tasted like sour dirt. I needed
to sleep.

No melatonin. Tea it was, then. As I waited for the kettle to boil,
I wandered the perimeter of the house in the dark, checking the
window locks like I had the night before. Pushing aside the living
room curtain, I stopped cold. The white car from the night before
sat across the street again. It hadn't been there all day, but there it
was, back again tonight.

It's someone new in the neighborhood, I told myself. They
work all day, so their car is only here at night. But as I watched,
I could clearly see the silhouette of a head and shoulders on the
driver's side.

In the kitchen I turned off the burner under the kettle, then
went back upstairs and put on my jeans and sweatshirt. I felt my
way down the basement stairs and let myself out the back door. I
went down the alley until I came to the sidewalk, and then around
the corner and quickly across the street, hoping whoever lurked in
the white car didn't look in the rearview mirror right then. I sidled
up the street behind the car, hugging hedges and dodging behind
bushes like some crazed character from Get Smart.

As I neared the car it occurred to me I might need a weapon.
Swearing under my breath, I scanned the shadows. A glint caught
my attention. Edging toward it, I saw someone had left a trowel
out next to a half-f basket of spring bulbs. Better than nothing.
Snagging it, I crept on.

Upon reaching the car, I approached from the blind spot and
then crab-walked along the curb until I crouched directly beside
the passenger door. Whatever happened, I wanted to make sure I
got a good enough look at whoever was inside to recognize them.
Slowly, I rose and looked in the window.

And locked eyes with Barr Ambrose. I let out a yelp, and Ambrose let out a yell. I stood up and turned, leaning against the car
and holding my palm to my chest. If it had been Richard I probably would have folded into an unconscious heap. What a trooper.

The window slid down. "What do you think you're doing?"
Ambrose asked. Feeling sheepish, I opened the door and slid into
the passenger seat.

"Well?" he said.

"I was trying to find out who was watching the house."

"You came out here not knowing?"

"Well ... yeah."

"Would've been better to call the PD, have someone check it
out, don't you think?"

I was glad he couldn't see my face turn red. "Just what are you
doing here?"

"Like you said: I'm watching the house"

"You were here last night, too?"

He nodded.

I thought about it. The short-handed police department. Ambrose had mentioned they couldn't spare anyone to keep an eye on
us. So he'd taken it on himself. No wonder he looked so tired.

"Is this your car?"

"Yeah"

"I thought you'd drive a jeep or something."

"Sorry." He sounded irritated.

"It's nice. You doing this," I said.

"It's my job."

"Not exactly," I said.

This time he shrugged. "Maybe not."

"You should go home. We'll be okay."

"I will. In a bit. What's that?"

"Garden trowel."

"What were you going to do, plant me?"

I smiled. "You should see me with a pair of pruners. I'd scare
you silly."

"Sophie Mae, you already scare me silly. Among other things."

Like what, I wanted to ask but didn't. We watched a car turn
into a driveway. A woman got out and went inside her house.

"Do you want to come inside, at least? Where it's warm?"

Oh, God, did that sound like an invitation? And then I realized
I rather hoped it did.

"That's okay," he said.

I shrugged off a twinge of disappointment. "Go home, Barr.
Really. We'll be fine."

"Well, now that I know you have your garden trowel, I'm sure
you will. I'll take off. Go to bed."

"You promise?"

"Uh huh."

I got out, shut the door, leaned in the window. "Thanks for taking such good care of us."

He grinned at me. "Not a problem, ma'am."

Inside, I made my nasty-tasting tea, climbed back into my pajamas, and then into bed. An hour later, still unable to sleep, I slipped
back downstairs. Pulling back the curtain, I saw Barr Ambrose still
sitting in his car, watching.

I SWEAR: EVERY TIME I think I've finally caught up, it turns out
I'm low on something. These days, lotion bars are all the rage. A
solid emollient molded into a pretty shape, a lotion bar looks a
lot like a bar of soap, but when you rub it between your hands the
cream melts into lotion. I make mine out of spicy beeswax, olive
oil, and non-deodorized cocoa butter, with some grapefruit seed
extract thrown in as an antibacterial agent. I like the non-deodorized cocoa butter because it smells so delicious.

The lotion bars started as one of those items I made for personal use because in spring and summer Meghan and I do a lot
of gardening, and our hands suffer for it. In the fall, we preserve
fruits and pickles and jams, which means constant hand washing.
The cocoa butter works better than anything else to heal the damage from all that scrubbing.

I was weighing chunks of dark, spicy beeswax on a kitchen scale
when I heard the rapping of knuckles against the windowpane. Wiping my hands on an old flour-sack dishtowel, I went to open
the door.

"Come on in," I said.

Debby entered, and Jacob followed, shuffling his feet and looking around.

"Looks like a big kitchen in here," he said.

I propped the door open. "Well, in a way I guess you could say
I'm a cook. Or at least part cook. It's just that my recipes aren't for
things people eat."

"Maybe not," Debby said, "but it smells yummy in here."

I inhaled the chocolate scent, smiling. "That's the cocoa butter melting right now." I picked up the beeswax and carried it to
the stove. "Give me a sec, and I'll get that stuff for you to look
through."

Once I'd stirred the beeswax into the olive oil and cocoa butter
already in the large saucepan and lowered the heat, I retrieved the
box of Walter's mementos from the storeroom where I'd stashed
it earlier in anticipation of their visit. I put it on the center island
and stood back.

"I'm sorry there isn't any more than that. But with the fire and
the police taking a couple of the pictures, that's all that's left. Oh,
and his mother took one picture, too. The one of Walter as a little
boy, with the beagle?"

Debby nodded, either remembering the picture or acknowledging Tootie's right to take it. "I've never met her."

The first time I'd met Debby she didn't have anything good to
say about Walter's mother, but now her words held no heat, only
a soft sadness. And until I told her, Tootie hadn't even known her
son was engaged.

"Why don't you go visit her?" I asked.

Debby shrugged.

"How long had you and Walter been, uh, an item?" An item?
Good Lord, Sophie Mae.

But Debby just said, "A little over a year," and went back to pulling items from the box and spreading them across the butcherblock counter.

Over a year, and he'd never taken her to meet his mother, even
after he'd asked Debby to marry him. His mother, who lived only
a mile away.

Debby sniffled and wiped the back of her hand across her
face. I glanced at Jacob in time to see something indefinable cross
his features as he watched his sister sort through her dead lover's
things.

"Her name's Tootie," I said. Debby raised her head. "Walter's
mother. Tootie. Short for Petunia. I think she'd like to meet you."

She looked down. "Oh, I don't know." Then back up at me.
"You think so?"

I nodded. Maybe Walter had been right not to subject his fiancee to his mother's judgment earlier, but somehow I didn't think
Tootie felt the same way now. Regret had altered her outlook more
effectively than anything else might have.

So was it better for bitterness to be replaced by sadness? I'd get
an argument from some, but I think so. Sadness is real, grief is
real, and ideally a stage you move through to get to the other side
where life goes on, while bitterness is a protective facade, static
and hard. My father turned brittle with bitterness after Bobby Lee
killed himself, and I struggled against doing the same thing when
my husband died. Debby seemed to be doing okay, inviting the sorrow from losing Walter to sit with her a while. Maybe a lifetime
of battling depressive episodes gave her a special understanding
of the process. Or maybe she was on really good drugs. But Tootie
had forgiven Walter only to turn around and judge herself. If only
she could release some of her self-recrimination.