Slay Belles (8 page)

He held out the fluorescent dildo to me.

Instead of reaching for it, I plunged my free hand into the Williams-Sonoma shopping bag and came up with Libby’s rolling pin. I swung hard and knocked the dildo out of Calvin’s grasp. Like a home run headed for the bleachers, it sailed over the camera and hit the kitchen wall. The momentum of my swing combined with my left hand being trapped by the handcuff sent me falling back on the bed.

“Hey!” Calvin yelped.

“Oh, yeah,” said Dick on the telephone.

While Calvin went to retrieve the dildo, I struggled to sit up. I dropped the rolling pin and rummaged in another shopping bag. One-handed I came up with boxed perfume. Frantically, I tore open the box and fumbled with the bottle. By the time Calvin came back to me, I was ready. He bent to put the dildo on the bed, and I squirted him in the eyes.

He screamed and fell onto the bed with me, clutching his face.

“Oooh, yeah, baby!” Dick yelled.

Cindie Rae dashed into the room with one false eyelash hanging drunkenly from her eye. “What’s going on? Calvin! Calvin! What are you doing?”

She leaped on the bed and rolled her brother over. “Let me see, Cal, honey. Are you hurt?”

“Hurt him some more!” bellowed Dick.

Cindie Rae straddled him and began doing chest compressions on her brother. Calvin choked on the perfume and wept streaming tears. The fluorescent dildo rolled into my lap. I reacted as if it were a Molotov cocktail and threw it into the air.

Which was when the police burst through the door. The first cop snagged the dildo out of the air like a football.

Libby and Santa burst in right behind him.

“Oh, my God.” Libby surveyed the scene with me front and center. “You get to have all the fun!

Chapter 9

Later that evening, Michael arrived at Blackbird Farm bearing steaks and wine. He opened the bottle first, and we sipped a very nice Beaujolais in the kitchen while I told him everything. Reluctantly, I even told him about the tussle on Cindie Rae’s bed.

He listened with a suspiciously straight face while preparing a potato gratin, complete with cheese shaved from a chunk he’d been saving in the fridge.

“You think maybe Calvin made a tape?” he asked when I finished the tale. “Because I’d pay a lot of money to see it.”

“There is no tape,” I said firmly. “I had Libby and Santa double-check.”

Michael cocked his head toward the living room, from where Libby’s giggle and Santa’s lower-timbred laugh floated back to us. “What’s his real name, anyway?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it matters.”

“He’s not the lasting type?”

“Stranger things have happened,” I said. “I just hope he doesn’t break her heart before Christmas. She’s already on the edge.”

Michael sipped some of his wine. “And the police arrested Cindie Rae and her brother?”

“Yes. But it looks like Alan was the mastermind all along. He planted the suggestion of getting rid of Popo with Cindie Rae and let her plot the murder with Calvin. It was his way of getting rid of both Popo and Cindie Rae. He figured she’d be too inept to get away with the crime. To help the investigation along, he told her to get me involved.”

“So the cops got the right man this time?” Michael shook his head in disbelief. “I guess it’s time to break out the snowshoes in hell.”

“Michael,” I warned.

He slid the gratin in the oven and put a sauté pan on the stove to heat. He doused the pan with a splash of olive oil, adjusted the flame with care, then came over to the table, where I sat on one chair in the dress he’d bought for me from Darwin, the dress Popo chose and set aside with my name pinned to the low neckline. She’d been right—I looked fabulous in it. To tone down the glamour, I had my sock feet propped up on the opposite chair.

Michael picked up my feet and sat on the chair, warming my toes with his hands. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you. I love the dress. But it’s too expensive. You have to take it back.”

He shook his head. “It’s a Christmas gift, and it’s worth every penny. Popo really knew what she was doing. It makes me think about what you’ll look like when I take it off.”

“What will I get for you? I’m completely broke.”

“You’ll think of something.”

We heard Libby laugh again; then a loaded silence told us Santa was well on his way to giving Libby some Christmas cheer.

Michael smiled. “You can’t stop love.”

I smiled, too. “You sure about that?”

“I am,” he said with conviction. “Nora—”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I should have waited instead of chasing off on my own. But I saw Calvin coming out of the store and knew it was my chance. I had to follow him.”

He nodded. “I know what you’ll do for the people you care about. But when somebody loves you the way I do, you have a responsibility. You have to take care of yourself now. For me.”

I put my glass down and reached for his hand. I squeezed. “I will. I promise I’ll be more careful.”

He accepted that by kissing my fingertips. “Are you sorry your friend is going to jail?”

“Not if he really planned Popo’s death. I think he actually wanted Haymaker’s to fail. If he no longer had the store, he would be free to go to the theater as much as he liked. Cindie Rae said he even hoped to buy a theater for himself.”

“Maybe he’ll still get his chance. He can afford good lawyers. That makes a big difference.”

I allowed that observation to hang in the air for a moment.

Michael caught my eye and gave a wry smile. “I’m doing what I can, you know.”

“Are you, Michael?”

He focused on gently kneading the arches of my feet. “I look at my life and know I’ve wasted a lot of time. I want to come home to you every night with a clear conscience. But I can’t clean up a lifetime overnight.”

Quietly, I said,
“I heard about Pinky Pinkerton’s granddaughter, Kerry. It was on the news. She hurt her hand.”

Michael looked up, but his face betrayed nothing. “She did?”

“On her way to the airport. A car-service driver slammed her hand in a door. She’s hurt badly. The surgery is complicated and may take over a year to heal. She won’t play golf for a long time. And the car-service driver has disappeared. Nobody’s even heard of the company before.”

“No kidding,” he said.

“The good news is that she got a job offer. A sports network starting up in California wants her to do golf commentary. So she’s moving to the West Coast.”

“Lucky for her grandmother, huh?”

“Michael,” I said, “we both want to start our lives over. More than anything, I want us to end up together every night, too. But there are things I can’t accept. I have some experience with men who live by their own rules, who are self-destructive, and it’s . . . it’s too painful to go through again.”

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you,” he said. “I’m going straight. I promise.”

“All right,” I said. “I trust you.”

“That,” he said, “is the best Christmas gift I’ve ever received.”

He kissed me as if to seal the bargain.

The long wait is over!

Nora Blackbird and her wacky sisters return in

NO WAY TO KILL A LADY
,

a brand-new full-length Blackbird Sisters Mystery

Available starting August 2012 in hardcover and e-book.

An excerpt follows. . . .

When a long-lost relative bequeathed us a fortune, I found myself locked in an epic battle with the most fearsome adversaries any woman can face.

My sisters.

“It’s not as if I’m going to buy breast implants with my share of the money,” my sister Libby said over brunch at a sun-splashed table at the Rusty Sabre in early November. “I’m blessed in that department already, of course. But I need investment capital, Nora. I have a
plan
.”

Our Great Aunt Madeleine Blackbird had died at the age of seventy-five or eighty-two, depending upon whose story you believed, and not at her Bucks County mansion in the mahogany cannonball bed given to the family by Ben Franklin for reasons best swept under the rug of history. No, she died during an Indonesian volcanic eruption that blew her luxury teepee off the side of a mountain—according to the obituary page of
The Philadelphia Intelligencer
.

Libby said, “And I promise I won’t run off to some exotic island with a cabana boy. Although nobody would blame me if I did. My children are driving me bonkers, and the best cure for motherly frustration is an exciting new relationship, right?”

My biggest fear for my sister Libby was that she was going to end up featured as the lead character in a tabloid sex scandal. I was pretty sure it was an item on her bucket list.

My sister Emma
had
been the lead character in a scandal, but the NFL hushed it up to save one of their players from looking very silly. Nowadays, though, she was looking less like a sex bomb than usual. She sat across from me at the table in grubby riding breeches, muddy boots, and a large sweatshirt that strained over her pregnant belly, not caring if the other, more civilized restaurant patrons cast disapproving glances at her disheveled appearance. Her short auburn hair stuck out at all angles, as if she’d just rolled out of bed.

Deadpan, Emma said, “You’d probably kill a cabana boy, Lib.”

“Well, yes, endurance is key.” Libby had taken her compact out of her handbag and was checking her plump décolletage in the mirror. She wore a low-cut red paisley frock that gave her the look of a Playmate on her way to a royal wedding. “I need somebody strong, but sensitive, too. I have very complex needs. All my followers say so.”

The sisterly bond may be the most trying one that a woman can have with another human being. There’s love, of course—the kind that ties you together for eternity and certainly while washing mountains of dishes after Christmas dinner. But if there’s a sister alive who has never suppressed the urge to bash a sibling over the head with a Barbie doll or the Rusty Sabre’s fresh fruit plate—well, she’s not related to me.

Emma looked up from her ricotta-stuffed French toast with sliced peaches and whipped cream. “Your followers? What, are you running a cult now?”

“My followers on PitterPat, that new social media thingie.” Libby put her compact away and dug into the clutter of her enormous handbag to come up with her new cell phone. “My followers are all wonderfully supportive now, in my time of need.”

I refolded the obituary page and put the newspaper on the tablecloth. “Your time of need?”

“Yes, of course. I’m devastated about Aunt Madeleine. She was an inspiration in my formative years.”

“Only because she had a lot of affairs,” Emma said. “Remember that Norwegian man who always had candy in his pockets?”

“Lemon drops, covered with lint,” I recalled.

“Yeah, him. Gave me the creeps.”

“He was Russian, not Norwegian,” Libby said. “But he knew wonderful nuances of Scandinavian massage. Always rub in the direction of the heart. Did you know that? Preferably after a hot sauna. It’s wonderfully sensual.” When we stared at her, she blinked at us. “What? I was mature for my age! Aunt Madeleine’s lovers always intrigued me. Which is why I’m devastated now. I identified with her.”

“If anyone should be devastated by Aunt Madeleine’s demise, it’s Nora,” said Emma.

“Me? I barely knew Aunt Madeleine,” I said. The last thing I wanted that morning was to be dragged into another disjointed argument with my sisters. Those always ended with somebody getting offended and me getting stuck with the check.

“But Aunt Madeleine loved you.”

“She had a funny way of showing it. Despite her Madcap Maddy reputation, she scared the bejesus out of me.” The frustrations of the morning boiled over, and I said, “Really, Em, if you’re going to eat like a lumberjack, the least you could do is share the coffee.”

“Who lit your fuse this morning, Crankypants?”

If I had a fatal flaw, it was probably that I was too polite—too unwilling to rock the lifeboat of social harmony even as the waves of disaster crashed over my head. I longed to push Emma’s face down in her peaches. But I refrained.

“She’s missing That Man of Hers,” Libby guessed. “Not to mention Lexie Paine. Have you heard from dear Lexie, Nora? Has she settled into the pokey, now that she’s sentenced?” Abruptly, Libby jumped, and she dropped her cell phone. “Ow! Emma, stop kicking!”

Emma gave her a meaningful stare. “We’re not going to talk about Nora’s situation, remember? We’re just going to be supportive this morning.”

I’d spent the last week embroiled in the hearing of my dearest friend. Lexie Paine had pled guilty to a horribly publicized charge of voluntary manslaughter. Despite a parade of character witnesses—including me—the judge had sentenced Lexie to four years in prison for pushing a man out a window. If he hadn’t been threatening someone at the time, she’d have been accused of first degree murder, so there was something to be thankful for. I was still reeling for her. And for our lost friendship.

I looked down at the ring on my left hand. The diamond my sisters called the Rock of Gibraltar reminded me that although I was also physically separated from Michael at the moment, at least I knew he still loved me. And he wasn’t going to spend the next several years in prison as Lexie was.

Libby glared back at Emma. “I wasn’t going to bring up anything upsetting. And you’re not helping the least bit. We could die of starvation while you stuff yourself. Why aren’t you as big as a house? I used to swell up like a hippo as soon as I conceived. Aren’t you seven months along now?”

“Seven or eight, depending on which doctor I see at the clinic.” Emma splashed coffee into my cup. “I don’t get it either. I eat like a horse, but never seem to gain any weight—except for Zygote here.” She patted her distended belly that stretched her faded sweatshirt to its limit.

I tried to suppress the twinge of jealousy that sprouted in the back of my mind at the mere mention of Emma’s impending arrival. For ages, I’d been hoping for a family of my own. It was hard enough that Libby already had five children—despite their homicidal tendencies, they were a lovable lot—but Emma’s accidental pregnancy made me feel even more like a failure in the motherhood department. Two miscarriages had shaken my firm belief that I’d soon have a brood of my own. But I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind to fester with all the other unpleasantness of late. There was no sense wallowing in the swamp of my own maternal shortcomings.

Libby said to Emma, “At least now you’d be able to keep that child in potato chips, if you decide to keep it. Don’t you think it’s terribly exciting we’re the ones to inherit Quintain? I’ve hardly been able to sleep since we heard the news!”

Our great aunt Madeleine Blackbird had been a great beauty who—like most of the Blackbird women—was widowed more than once. She had been luckier than most of us and inherited two fortunes along the way. Her great wealth enabled her to indulge in her pleasures and travel to exotic locales. Madcap Maddy sent lavish gifts and brought home colorful friends from St. Petersburg and various cities that had all but disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. She even rode camels along the dunes of the Sahara before finding her bliss on a faraway mountain. But after word came around the globe that an Indonesian mountain blew its top and took our aunt with it, we were even more stunned when her lawyers announced she had bequeathed her Pennsylvania estate . . . to us.

Specifically, her will read, “To Eleanor Blackbird and her sisters.”

Nothing could have astonished us more.

Mind you, we were no strangers to luxury, my sisters and me. The Blackbird family had come to Philadelphia with William Penn and substantial wealth in their travel trunks. Once in the new world, our ancestors parlayed their small fortune into a large one with smart investments in railroads and safety pins. My sisters and I had grown up going to boarding schools and spending our holidays in places like Paris and Bermuda. Along the way, I learned many gracious skills, including a ladylike calligraphy and the art of arranging a seating chart for a successful dinner party. After a spectacular family downfall, though, those skills enabled me to function in no other paying job but the one I had luckily landed—that of a newspaper society columnist. Libby had been a painter before she started marrying. Emma spent her youth riding horses—the kind that leaped Olympic-sized hurdles and flew first class to international competitions—and she continued to work in horsey circles as an adult. I attended parties.

Good thing we’d found our respective callings, because our parents were good only for throwing lavish galas with orchestras and cases of expensive champagne they couldn’t pay for. Our mother loved jewelry and was known for impulsively taking off her necklaces and clasping them around the throats of surprised friends—long before she’d paid the credit card bill from the jeweler. Our father adored luxury cars, but tended to borrow them from friends and then promptly drive them into ditches. Their share of the family money therefore evaporated in no time, but Mama and Daddy continued to live the high life on “loans” from unsuspecting acquaintances who might as well have thrown their money into the ocean.

Eventually, though, our partying parents were forced to pack up their evening clothes and run off with our trust funds. Now they happily spun around the dance floors of South American resorts built especially for former wheeler-dealers on the run from financial prosecution.

My sisters and I had said reluctant good-byes to our comfortable years in the rarified social world where we grew up. We’d all married, lost husbands, and survived. These days, we struggled a bit to stay ahead of foreclosure, but we were afloat. I actually enjoyed working for the newspaper that paid me a salary just big enough to keep the wolves from my door.

These days, I didn’t mind the change in our circumstances. Not too much, anyway.

But inheriting Quintain might change everything again.